Trade Routes: 1200-1450

3 major trading routes across Africa, Europe, and Asia: Silk Road, Indian Ocean, and Trans Saharan

Overview

• Land based: Silk Road + Trans-Saharan Desert
• Sea based: Indian Ocean

• Silk Road and Indian Ocean existed before 1200 but experienced growth between 1200-1450 because of:

• Economic revival in China during Tang + Song Dynasties -> able to export abundance of goods
• Rise of Islam -> creation of Islamic empires led to large amount of land connected by Islam

• Religions, ideas, languages, and cultures spread through interactions at resting stops and cities by merchants, which led to the spread and birth of new religions 
• Trade benefits empires and vice versa

• Long distance trade through empire = more tax money for the government
• Empires help look over trade: police and military forces keep people safe + legal systems established in case of a dispute in a contract or trade

• Similarities: 

• Trade routes caused the increase of new trading cities
• Religions spread through the trade networks beyond their original homelands
• New inventions and technologies helped increase and improve trade
• Trade grew because of desire for goods that weren’t available in their own region
• Increase of wealth along the Silk Road and Trans-Saharan encouraged invasions
• Trans-Saharan and Silk Road relied heavily on caravans and domesticated animals

• Differences:

• The types of goods being traded (Silk Road: luxury items, Indian Ocean: common items in bulk, Trans-Saharan Desert: local items)
• Transportation costs more on the Silk Road than on the Indian Ocean

Silk Road

• Land based : Asia + Europe + Africa

• Luxury (valuable) goods because of limited space: silk, china, iron, porcelain

• Goods became more expensive as they traveled further along the silk road, price rises

• Spread of Religion

• Buddhism from South Asia -> Central, South-East, East Asia
• Islam from Middle East -> Central, East Asia

• Diseases traveled across the silk road (bubonic plague, measles, smallpox)

• Different civilizations have different diseases -> develop immunities over time // civilizations that don’t have those immunities are affected badly

• New ideas/technologies that increased trade:

• Caravanserai - inns/resting stops outside of cities
• Credit System - well known merchants were able to buy things on credit + pay back later -> led to quicker + more efficient trade

Indian Ocean

• Sea based : Stretched from China to East Africa
• Common (bulk) goods were exchanged ; Ships were able to carry more things than on the Silk Road: spices (South-East Asia), pepper (India), wheat, sugar, rice
• Rise of large trading cities along the coast
• New technology + knowledge

• Inventions: 

• Magnetic compass - allowed sailors to hold their bearing w/o seeing the sun
• Lateen sails - triangular-shaped sails that allowed ships to be easily maneuverable
• Astrolabe - allowed sailors to calculate latitude

• Knowledge of monsoon winds (yearly predictable storms)

• Summer: wind blew northeast
• Winter: wind blew southwest

• Rise of diasporic communities (people who left their homeland (merchants, slave trade, etc.) to live in another region)

• Spread of religion + culture + language

• Islam from Arabian Peninsula -> East Africa, South-East Asia
• Buddhism from South Asia -> South-East Asia

Trans-Saharan 

• Land based (desert) ; North Africa + Sub-Saharan Africa
• Produced different goods because of different environments:

• Manufactured goods (cloth + glasswork + books) from North Africa
• Agricultural goods ( crops) from Southwest Africa
• Gold and Salt

• Trade increased because of:

• Arabian Camel (could walk up to 10 days w/o water)
• Caravans (group of people traveling together)

• Cities grew because of trade , became centers of commerce and education
• Led to new kingdoms + more interconnectedness
• Spread of religion

• Islam from Arabian Peninsula -> North Africa -> West Africa