Historians commonly recognize the importance of the Silk Road on Eurasian trade and the impact of the Atlantic triangular trade in shaping our modern world. Yet there was another, often forgotten trade system. Rivaling the Atlantic trade and Silk Road in scope and influence: the Indian Ocean Trade was a thriving trade system that stretched from East Africa to China, connecting the furthest edges of the Eastern Hemisphere. Keep on reading to learn more about the route, the time period, and the economic freedom as a result of Indian Ocean Trade.
Indian Ocean Trade Definition
Sometimes referred to as the "Maritime Silk Road," the Indian Ocean Trade can be best defined as a global trade system (an interconnected network of many trade routes) based primarily in the Indian Ocean. The Indian Ocean Trade peaked at various levels throughout history. Historians believe that Indian Ocean Trade began gaining new momentum around the 7th century, reaching a boom from 1000 to 1200 C.E. It was the period 1200-1450 that the Indian Ocean Trade reached its Medieval Era height.
The Indian Ocean trade was a world of Islamic merchants ferrying porcelain from China to the Swahili Coast, ivory to India, cotton to Indonesia, spices to Arabia, and so on. Regional cultures, politics, religions, and entire histories were exchanged through the Indian Ocean Trade.
Fig. 1- Early 20th-century map of the Indian Ocean.
Indian Ocean Trade Time Period
Although the Indian Ocean Trade peaked in the late Medieval Era (1200-1450 CE), its earliest roots can be found in the maritime trade and travel system of the Austronesian peoples in the second millennium B.C. The timeline below offers a brief overview of trade within the Indian Ocean:
Roughly 2000 BC: Austronesian peoples expand from Taiwan, settling throughout Indonesia and the Indian Ocean.
400 BE to 300 CE: The Classical Empires (Roman Empire, Mauryan Empire, Achaemenid Empire, the Han Dynasty) engage in trade within the Indian Ocean.
800 to 1200 CE: The Indian Ocean trade is reinvigorated by Islamic Merchants from Arabia, the Srivijaya Empire in Indonesia, and the Song Dynasty in China.
1200 to 1450 CE: The Indian Ocean trade approaches its zenith, as largely unregulated trade between the Middle East, Africa, China, Southeast Asia, and India reaches new heights. (This late-Medieval period is the focus of this article.)
1450 to 1750 CE: The European Maritime Empires launched naval expeditions into the Indian Ocean, soon dominating the trade networks of the region.
The Austronesian People
They were Austronesian-language people who migrated by sailboats throughout the Indian Ocean and the Pacific oceans, settling in regions such as Madagascar, Polynesia, and Southeast Asia. Their innovations in sailing allowed for extensive sea travel, facilitating future trade between India and Greece, and later the Roman Empire, many centuries before the Europeans claimed to have discovered sea routes to India.
Indian Ocean Trade Economic Freedom
A key characteristic of the 1200-1450 Indian Ocean Trade was its relative lack of regulation. Islamic merchants and traders sailed throughout the Indian Ocean, riding the consistent Summer monsoon winds Northeast and the Winter monsoon winds Southwest. Taxation was not uncommon, but without rampant piracy in the Indian Ocean, traders did not need policing imperial navies to regulate their every move. Rather, merchants were often organized and protected under various merchant guilds.
Merchant guild:
A medieval organization centered on commerce.
Profits influenced traders at every turn. Traders gained significant power over traditional nobility in the Indian Ocean through the swinging economics of supply and demand. (Much of the system would change after the Portuguese discovered a sea route to the Indian Ocean in the late 15th century).
Indian Ocean Trade Map
On the subcontinent of India itself, the Konkan, Malabar, Coromandel, and Utkal Coasts had significant trading ports for traveling merchants to visit. The rising Swahili Coast of East Africa was Africa's contribution to the Indian Ocean Trade. The lands of Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand) and the eastern coast of China also played a role. Islam, the most influential religion of the Indian Ocean Trade, spread from Arabia to China.
The map below is an early European map representing the Indian Ocean. How does it differ from the contemporary map above?
Fig. 2- Early 16th-century European map of the Indian Ocean.
Perhaps Indonesia was the most fascinating of the territories involved in the Indian Ocean Trade. The Strait of Malacca (pictured below) acted as an important sea route between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. The narrow channel was enforced by multiple city-states, each seeking tribute for passing through their waters. Competition led to victories and defeats, with the Srivijaya Empire (7th to 13th century C.E.) rising as an Indonesian empire based almost solely on controlling trade.
Fig. 3- Map of Southeast Asia, denoting the Strait of Malacca.
However, as was the nature of trade along the Strait of Malacca and the Indian Ocean Trade system, survival was based on commerce rather than war or sheer manufacturing power. When the Srivijaya Empire exacted too heavy taxes, other Indonesian kingdoms with more lenient rates became more popular with traders and thusly more powerful. Srivijaya fell for the same reasons that it rose in the first place. The Indian Ocean Trade system was built on commerce and the economic principle of adjusting supply to demand.
Indian Ocean Trade Route
As previously mentioned, it was the consistently predictable Indian Ocean monsoon winds that made travel and commerce so effective in the Indian Ocean throughout all of history. Technological innovations in the magnetic compass and lateen sails further supported the post-1000 C.E. boom in the Indian Ocean trade.
Fig. 4- Art depicting a Chinese Junk Ship flying an Islamic flag.
Trade routes extended from the Mali Empire in Africa to Beijing in China, covering every extent of coastline. However, the Indian Ocean Trade did not stop at sea, as many coastal cities traded with inland cities, kingdoms, and city-states. Unlike wagons on the Silk Road, the sheer size of boats allowed for the transportation of cheap mass goods, not just luxury goods. Seemingly, anyone within 100 miles of the Indian Ocean and Pacific coastline could reasonably expect a timely shipment of the finest silk from China or a bushel of cotton from India, much like how we anxiously await a package ordered on the Internet today.
Indian Ocean Trade Goods
The Indian Ocean Trade supported the transfer of cotton, wood, ivory, animal hides, gold, silver, black pepper, and other spices, books, weapons, and enslaved people. Indian Ocean markets boomed, as most supplies could find demand somewhere between the Pacific Ocean and the Cape of Good Hope, and most demand could find supplies. Indeed, the Indian Ocean slave trade was active long before the Atlantic slave trade began. Unfortunately, the Indian Ocean slave trade would continue long after the fall of the Atlantic slave trade. With an estimated 1,000 enslaved Africans reportedly purchased and transferred throughout the Indian Ocean from the period 800 C.E. to 1450 C.E., the world history of slavery only becomes darker.
Indian Ocean Trade Route Cultural Transfusion
Indian Ocean Trade was the most effective system connecting Asia's distant fringes. Islam from the Middle East flowed Eastward, landing in India, Indonesia, and even China. One of the most remarkable maritime travelers, a 14th-15th century C.E. Chinese admiral named Zheng He, led seven massive Ming Dynasty expeditions into the Indian Ocean. He was a Muslim. Buddhist monks and Hindu Brahmins found purchase in Southeast Asia, where the native populations rejected China's expansionism.
Religions were spreading throughout Asia, merging in distant and alien lands. Sailors married natives of other countries. Political alliances merged distant factions under the same religious banner. Through the Indian Ocean Trade, it became pretty evident in the Eastern Hemisphere that it was not the power of nobles and kings who controlled the world's future but brave sailors and enterprising merchants.
Indian Ocean Trade - Key takeaways
- The Indian Ocean Trade was a system of trade in the Indian Ocean and Pacific territories that flourished from 1200 to 1450 C.E. (though it existed well before and after that time period).
- Islamic merchants dominated the relatively peaceful Indian Ocean Trade. Islam spread from the Middle East across Asia and into China.
- The nature of commerce and competitive trade allowed for the rise of the Srivijaya Empire on the Strait of Malacca in Indonesia, an empire based almost purely on controlling trade (the basis would also be its undoing).
- The Indian Ocean Trade facilitated an unprecedented transfer of culture, religion, influence, and goods between East Africa and East China and all the lands and seas in between.
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