The following is a review written in June
of 2013 of Pepper: A
History of the World’s Most Influential Spice by Marjorie Shaffer.
Pepper: A History of the World’s Most
Influential Spice by
Marjorie Shaffer tells the story of the development of global trade, beginning
with the arrival of Europeans in the Indian Ocean.
Shaffer argues that it was a desire to reach the source of pepper that drew
Europeans into the Indian Ocean, and that
competition to control access to and trade in black pepper contributed to the
development of modern global trade. Shaffer does an excellent jobof
contextualizing the European role in this trade, pointing out that trading
networks flourished in the Indian Ocean well before European arrival, but her
book is primarily focused on the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the English in the
fifteenth through nineteenth centuries.The first chapters are basically
chronological, following the activities of each European power.Topical chapters
on the impact of Europeans on the wildlife of Sumatra—including the extinction
of the dodo—and research into possible medicinal propertiesof pepper follow.
Throughout, Shaffer refers to the consequences of European activities for the
peoples they encountered.
Black pepper, or
Piper nigrum, is indigenous to India. It does
not easily grow elsewhere (x) and hence it was not until the 1930s that it was
successfully cultivated on a large scale in the New World,
and interestingly this was a Japanese experiment. (225) Pepper was used by
ancient Greeks and Chinese in the treatment of medical conditions. (3, 18) It
first arrived in China in
the 2nd century and China
was trading directly with Java and Sumatra
since at least the tenth century. (30) Rome had been trading with India through
the Red Sea since the first century A.D., (19) and pepper was among the riches
that Alaric the Goth demanded and received in 408 in return for not sacking the
city—which he returned to do two years later. (17-18) In the West, it was the
Romans “who apparently first made pepper an integral part of their meals,” as
opposed to using it only medicinally, though they continued to use it
medicinally: “in the Roman Empire, pepper was
the equivalent of aspirin.” (2) Presumably pepper was an integral part of the
diets of only the wealthy, though Shaffer does not say so. The fall of Rome in the fifth century cuts Europe off from oceanic
trade with India,
and it is with the Crusades that upper class Europeans again encounter pepper
as well as other spices from the East. Following the Crusades, “the ruling
classes didn’t consider a meal worth eating unless it was generously spiced
with pepper, cloves, and cinnamon,” (19) though Shaffer points out that it is a
myth that Europeans habitually used spices to disguise the flavor of rotten
meat. (20-21)
It was Venice
that dominated the trade in spices to Europe in the Middle Ages, and it was the
desire to break Venice’s monopoly on the trade that motivated the Portuguese
search for an ocean route to India, (21) culminating in da Gama reaching
Calicut, “a vibrant pepper port,” in 1498. (35-6) In 1510 the Portuguese
captured the city of Goa on the west coast of India (49) and in 1511 they
captured the city of Malacca on the Malay Peninsula, “one of the greatest
seaports in the world.” (49-51, 52, 70) (The page 51 statement that the
Portuguese captured Malacca in 1522 is a typo.)
Pepper was
eventually cultivated in places other than India—Vietnam, the Malay
Peninsula, and Java. (75) Shaffer barely touches on the history of
the spread of pepper’s cultivation in places other than India, but she does state that it is believed
that it was “sometime during the fifteenth century” that “Muslim traders first
brought black pepper from India
to northern Sumatra.” (75) With the Portuguese
controlling access to Indian pepper, the Banda Sultanate in northern Sumatra became a powerful competitor for trade in spices
and gold. (70-71) The English and Dutch encouraged its cultivation on Sumatra, apparently in order to bypass the Portuguese.
(71, 76) Sumatra was transformed into “a
virtual pepper mill” (76), becoming “the world’s largest producer of pepper for
more than two hundred years,” (6). So important was Sumatra as a producer that India even imported pepper from Sumatra at times. (76) Pepper became “the first cash crop
to be exported by Southeast Asia” (75), and oceanic transport to Europe
“finally replaced the traditional Muslim trade route through the Levant” in the seventeenth century. (77)
At the very end
of the sixteenth century the English had been trying and failing to reach India, and the
Dutch in fact arrived there before them. (78) Fear that the Dutch would take
control of the pepper trade spurred the English into forming the English East
India Company in 1600 (78), “the first company in the world based on stock
ownership.” (25) “Pepper was the primary reason why the East India Company was
established,” and the “organization required for setting the price of pepper
and for tabulating its profits…contributed to the rise of capitalism in
northern Europe.” (25-6)
However, “the
English East India Company usually lagged far behind [the Dutch East India
Company] during the first half of the seventeenth century.” (154-5) This was
because the Dutch East India Company (VOC) had many advantages over the English
East India Company, including the right to “negotiate treaties with foreign
rulers, hire soldiers, build forts, and arm its ships,” not to mention “ten
times the capitalization.” (154)The Dutch seized Jakarta
in 1619 in order to bypass the Portuguese control of the trade in India, renaming it Batavia. (148-9) “Eventually, nearly all of
the VOC’s trade in Asia would be funneled through Batavia.” (150) The Dutch were more involved
in the intra-Asian trade than any other European power, trading in Indian
textiles, Japanese silver, Chinese goods, and of course spices. (155-7) “The
VOC was the most successful commercial enterprise of its kind in the
seventeenth century,” making that century“the golden age of Dutch history.”
(155) The English had established a trading post in Bantam in 1602, but the
Dutch took it over in 1682 (104-5), forcing the English to relocate to
Benkoolen, or Bengkulu. (108, 110) In 1819 the British claimed Singapore in
order to prevent the Dutch from controlling the Straits of Malacca. (132)
Finally, in 1824, the English and Dutch reached an agreement that defined each
other’s sphere of influence in Southeast Asia.
Sumatra was now to be controlled by the Dutch, Malacca by the English, Singapore would
be a free port controlled by the English, and the Dutch handed their Indian
possessions over to the English. (133-4) Throughout the nineteenth century the
Dutch were involved in warfare with their new Sumatran subjects. (136) Well
before this time, however, pepper had dwindled in importance in the trade to Europe, displaced by tea and textiles. (162)
Shaffer
concludes with chapters that describe how “the first armed, officially
sanctioned, U.S.
intervention in Southeast Asia” resulted from piracy again U.S. pepper ships (188); how European arrival
devastated the ecology of the region, including the rendering extinct of the
dodo, once indigenous to the island
of Mauritius (206); and
discussresearch currently being conducted into the medicinal properties of
pepper. This final chapter is filled with “intriguing” possibilities and
“promising areas of medical research.” “Perhaps one day a derivative of black
pepper will become an important medicine for the treatment of cancer,” Shaffer
writes. Shaffer’s aspirations for pepper seem to subside by the end of the
chapter. “For anyone inspired to eat a lot of black pepper based on all these
findings and reports,” she writes,“there doesn’t appear to be much risk.”
(221).
Pepper: A History of the World’s Most
Influential Spice has
several shortcomings. Though each of the five maps included immediately
precedes a chapter, a map list would have been helpful. (They appear on pages
16, 34, 68, 100, and 168.)Batavia appears on
only one map (page 100), and it appears as Jakarta. Jakarta does not appear in the index
even though it is discussed on pages 149-150, and since it appears throughout
the book almost exclusively as Batavia, it probably would have made more sense
for it to be identified on the map as such, or for the map to have at least
included a note informing the reader that the names refer to the same place.
The chapter titles do not appear at the heads of pages, which is a minor
nuisance when searching through the book. Gold is mentioned in at least three places
not listed in the index (18, 26, 36). And of course there is that typo on page
51. More substantially, the book might have included at least a line or two
more about what the Dutch were doing in Japan
and how they acquired silver—all we read is that they “were lucky to find
additional supplies of precious metals in Asia, especially silver in Japan.” (157)
Despite these small criticisms, this is a very informative, accessible, and well written book. The book includes color photos, including of black pepper as a crop, and the maps are very helpful and easily interpreted.
CITED
Marjorie
Shaffer. Pepper: A History of the World’s
Most Influential Spice. New York:
Thomas Dunne Books, 2013.
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