Spice Route

The Indian Ocean sea lanes that moved pepper, cloves and nutmeg from Asia to Europe and launched the Age of Exploration.

Overview

Pepper from the Malabar coast, cinnamon from Sri Lanka and cloves, nutmeg and mace from the Maluku islands reached the Mediterranean through Arab and Indian shippers and the Red Sea and Levant land bridges, with Venice collecting the final markup. Portuguese entry after Vasco da Gama reached India in 1498 triggered a century of naval conflict and shifted the trade's center of gravity. The Dutch and English followed. The monopolies broke when cultivation spread: cloves to Zanzibar and elsewhere, pepper across Southeast Asia. What had been scarcity rents became commodities, and the obsession that opened the oceans quietly deflated.