The Effects of Indian Ocean Commerce

unity

AP Theme

Cultural Developments and Interactions

Learning Objective 1

 Explain the effects of the growth of networks of exchange after 1200.

Historical Development 1

Expanded Indian Ocean trade led to new interactions between distant cultures.

Historical Development 2

In key places along trade routes, merchants set up diasporic communities and introduced their own cultural traditions into the indigenous cultures.

Indian Ocean commerce led to new interactions between groups of people, civilizations, and cultures that were geographically far apart.

Communities of merchants lived outside their homelands (diaspora communities) across the Indian Ocean. These communities spread their cultures into the areas in which they moved. Often these outside cultures became a part of the native culture. In some situations, such as Islam in East Africa and portions of Southeast Asia, it became the dominant culture over time.

Wealthy and influential trading cities arose around the Indian Ocean. These cities were relay points from which goods were sold and passed between merchants. Diaspora merchant communities most often lived in these significant trading cities.

Contents

Trade Across the Indian Ocean Led to New Interactions Between Distant Civilizations

As the Indian Ocean trade network grew, societies thousands of miles apart began interacting directly. These interactions led to the increased spread of cultures into new areas. As these cultures interacted, they combined to create new blended cultures.

Islam spread into East Africa, India, and Southeast Asia

Hinduism and Buddhism spread into Southeast Asia

Goods like silks and spices used by societies in one region transferred to new regions

Significant cultural interactions and transfers in the Indian Ocean region

The voyages of Chinese admiral Zheng He

In 1405, China undertook a series of naval expeditions that brought the Chinese government, not just Chinese merchants, into direct contact with faraway peoples. The Chinese eunuch (a man with his sex organs removed), Zheng He, led the voyages. 

The goals of the expeditions: Zheng’s goal was to extend China’s power and prestige to new areas and control foreign trade across the South China Sea. He also sought to enroll distant peoples into China’s tribute system.

The voyages: Zheng went on seven expeditions between 1405 and 1433. His first voyage consisted of over 300 vessels and 27,000 crew members. Zheng’s travels took him to ports in Southeast Asia, Indonesia, India, Arabia, and East Africa. Several foreign rulers returned with Zheng He to China, where they would perform submission rituals to the Chinese emperor, who would give them gifts and grant them trading rights with China. The expeditions also returned with exotic foreign products, including animals like zebras and giraffes.

The end of Zheng’s expeditions: After the first Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) emperor died, Zheng’s voyages ended. The new Chinese emperor viewed them as wasteful. The new emperor believed that China’s resources were best used to protect China’s northern border from nomadic tribes like their previous Mongol conquerors, who they had just driven out of China a few decades earlier. Old Confucian ideas devalued merchant activity and believed that China had everything it needed and gained little from the outside world were also present in this decision.

The loss of China’s fleet was a disastrous decision: Zheng’s fleet was left to rot in its port, destroying the world’s greatest navy. The long-term impacts of this decision were immense. Europeans arrived in the Indian Ocean region in the 16th century and recognized the profit potential of trade moving through the area. With no significant naval power exerting control over commerce, the Europeans moved in and used weapons to begin taking control of the region’s trade by force. Over the next 400 years, Europeans slowly took over the region’s economic and political systems. China could have fought against European expansion in Asia if it had maintained its naval fleet.

Foreign Merchant Communities Living Outside Their Homeland Spread Their Cultures

Main idea

Communities of merchants lived outside their homelands (diaspora communities) across the Indian Ocean. These communities spread their cultures into the areas in which they moved. Often these outside cultures became a part of the native culture. In some situations, such as Islam in East Africa and portions of Southeast Asia, it became the dominant culture over time.

As merchants moved throughout the Indian Ocean network, they established diaspora communities (communities of immigrants living away from their homeland). Merchants introduced their cultural traditions through these diaspora communities into local indigenous cultures. Native customs and outside traditions usually existed together peacefully. Local communities, over time, adopted some practices and beliefs from the merchant diaspora.

Arab and Persian Muslim merchants

Arabs and Persians lived in East Africa, the West Indian Coast, and Southwest Asia. They brought Islam and Islamic culture to the areas they settled areas. Over time their Islamic culture became the dominant culture in the African Swahili city-states and the Indonesian island and Malay peninsula of Southeast Asia.

Chinese merchants

Chinese merchants moved into Southeast Asia and brought Confucian values and the Chinese variant of Buddhism to the areas where they moved. However, women in Chinese diaspora communities had more independence than women in China as their communities adapted to Southeast Asian cultures where women traditionally had more rights. It was common for women in Southeast Asia to be involved in commerce and family finances. Women in the Angkor kingdom of Thailand and Cambodia were artists, gladiators, poets, religious teachers, and warriors.

Malaysian merchants

Malaysian merchants were one of the largest merchant groups in the Indian Ocean region. As a result, the Malaysian language became the dominant language of commerce in the Eastern Indian Ocean. The Malay language also found its way into non-Malay cultures' literature, such as in Java in Indonesia. Even after Europeans conquered the Southeast Asian islands and began controlling the trade, Malaysian merchants had a favored status in the trading system. European financial records refer to Malay traders with respect markers, which Europeans did not use for other non-Malay traders.

Indian and South Asian merchants

Indians living in Southeast Asia had the most significant impact on the region before the arrival of Islamic merchants. The various great Southeast Asian powers had Hindu or Buddhist monarchies between the 1st and 15th centuries CE. Indian cultural elements that spread to the region included the Indian language of Sanskrit, Indian literature, such as the Hindu epic, the Ramayana, and Indian architecture, like the pagoda.

Historical comparison

Communities of people outside their homelands have been important causes of change throughout history. In the 13th century, Turkish Muslim converts from Central Asia reshaped the Islamic world when they migrated to the Middle East and attacked the Abbasid Empire, weakening the hold of Arab Muslims over the Islamic world. Turkish political dynasties dominated much of the Muslim world between North Africa and India for the next 500 years.

Influential Trading Cities Arose Across the Indian Ocean

Main idea

Wealthy and influential trading cities arose around the Indian Ocean. These cities were relay points from which goods were sold and passed between merchants. Diaspora merchant communities most often lived in these significant trading cities.

Cities served as hubs of exchange and relay stations for exchanging goods in the Indian Ocean. 

Guangzhou in China

Guangzhou has been one of China's leading export port cities for millennia. The city's connection to the Grand Canal allows imports and exports to move into and out of the city efficiently. Both foreign and Chinese traders exported products like silks and porcelains out of the port to Southeast Asian ports. Italian explorer Marco Polo visited the city in the 13th century as he traveled throughout Mongol China.

Malacca in Southeast Asia

Established in the late 14th century, the city of Malacca benefited from its position on the Strait of Malacca, which is the shortest sea route between China and India. As merchant vessels passed through the strait, Malaccan authorities taxed their cargoes. Tax revenues helped enrich the city and its rulers, who kept some of the income for themselves and used other funds to ensure that travel through the strait was safe to navigate and secure from pirates. In addition to foreign goods transiting through the port, exports from Malay included locally produced products like sandalwood and spices like cloves and nutmeg.

Calicut in India

Calicut was one of the great port cities in South Asia. It was a vibrant and cosmopolitan culture in which merchants from Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia came together. Islamic merchants set up a sizable diasporic community in Calicut. As a result, Islam developed a sizable presence in the city. Muslim merchants in and around Calicut built some of the first mosques outside the Middle East and North Africa. Cotton textiles and spices like pepper, ginger, and cinnamon were major exports from Calicut.

Kilwa in Swahili

Kilwa was a Swahili trade hub on the east coast of Africa. The height of the city's power city was between the 13th and 14th centuries. As a major commercial center, the Kilwa hosted merchants from as far as China. The largest trading population in the city were Islamic merchants whose influence peacefully converted the Swahili ruling classes to Islam. The major imports of the city were silver, carnelians, perfumes, and Chinese porcelains. Its primary exports were gold, ivory, and animal skins from the African interior.

Historical trend

Cities have had essential roles throughout history.  They are centers of trade, governance,  artistic production,  technological advancements, and cultural exchange.