Indian Ocean Commerce

Trade has played an imperative role in civilizations by sustaining the civilization’s economy and power even since 650 to 1750. Throughout the Indian Ocean, commerce changed significantly in this time period with the emergence of foreign presence that once only consisted of regions in South Asia. Additionally, the Indian Ocean region also changed because of the shift in the way piracy was viewed. However, commerce in the Indian Ocean region continued to connect the rest of South Asia because it was a prominent trade network. A change in commerce in the Indian Ocean region was the increasing foreign presence. Early on, the Indian Ocean trade network was only an interaction among the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates in the Arabian peninsula,
Around the 10th century to the 12th century, the rulers of the Fatimid Caliphate provided a fleet of ships to protect the Karimi merchants from local prates between ‘Aydhāb and Sawākin. Early on in the Indian Ocean trade, pirates were viewed as threats by the dominating trading powers in that region, especially in the Dahlak Islands. However, gradually, piracy became more accepted because it could be utilized as a weapon by the powerful trading empires against its rivals. By the late 13th century, the view towards piracy gradually changed along the coast of western India when the local pirates and kingdom of Tana cooperated together in order to take heavy tolls on merchant ships. Soon after the Portuguese forced their way into the trade network by seizing port cities like Calicut in which they also relied on the privateering, which gave captains of vessels the permission to raid enemy ports and capture enemy ships. This was because privateering was a much cheaper alternative than supplying navies to defend the empire’s interests in commerce. Furthermore, competition among the European powers increased by the late 1500s and 1600s when the Dutch, French, and English were attempting to be part of the trade network like the Portuguese and Spanish. As a result, privateering only grew more popular and acceptable in order to defend the powers’ own interest against their rivals. In a way, it became
For instance, spices were frequently traded throughout the region in the past because it was considered a luxury to the elite classes throughout Asia and Europe. Therefore, the region became known as the “Spice Islands”, which was frequently fought among the European states for control over that territory. This reveals how the high demand for spices led to the Europeans’ attempts to gain control of the territory in order to create a monopoly of cloves for profit incentives. Additionally, the region consisted of islands and strips of narrow coasts along the vast Indian Ocean that made it easier for merchants to travel, hence increasing the incentives for trade because it could be easily transported from one Asian market to another. In other words, the large open body of water connected the various cities, empires, and states in South Asia due to frequent merchants’ interactions. Furthermore, the Arabs’ control over the production of cloves, cinnamon, and cardamom, maintained the trading connections in South Asia because of the demand of those goods in various regions. It was the demand of certain, valuable goods that continued to appeal to the merchants of the trade routes in the Indian Ocean