Spice-One of the Reasons for the Colonization of Southeast Asia



The “Spice Boys”

Almost all countries in Southeast Asia were colonized by western nations. What is it about this region that attracted the white men? What were they looking for?
History tells us that what they really, really, wanted was trade. More specifically, the spice trade. The spice trade even helped launch the Age of Exploration. Even during ancient and medieval times, spice was already worth its weight in gold. Spice was used for magical rites and purification ceremonies, embalming, cosmetics, perfumes, medicinal benefits, and of course for its more conventional uses: for cooking, food flavoring, and food preservation.
During the 15th and 16th century, Europeans were looking for the shortest route to the fabulous East, and for the Spice Islands (the Moluccas, or Maluku, in Indonesia). They theorized that by sailing west, they would eventually reach the Spice Islands. Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese explorer sponsored by the Spanish King, in his search for the Spice Islands stumbled upon an archipelago which was later named “Philippines.” Another Portuguese looking for the Spice Islands, Vasco da Gama, found a route via Cape Horn on the southern tip of Africa and reached India. Marco Polo’s travels to China were also attempts to open a spice trade route to Asia.
Later on, the whole Malay Archipelago (Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia) became one of the major centers for the rich spice trade. The Portuguese established outposts throughout the region, and established footholds for future colonization. Eventually, other western nations joined in. The whole region was opened for colonization.
The quest for spice was one of the main reasons for westerners to roam the globe. In the 18th century, the Moluccas ceased to be the main source of spice. Other European nations had found a way to cultivate the spices in their other colonies, most notably the Netherland’s West Indies.
By then, colonies throughout Southeast Asia, where the original Spice Islands are located, were established, and the western nations had found other reasons for colonization.
But that is another story.

Comments

Post a Comment

So, what do you think? Post it here:

Popular posts from this blog

The Square Cube Law and How It Killed Giants

Image
We are so used to the idea of giants that we take it for granted that they exist, or must have existed at one point in our history.  You know, those very large and very tall human-like creatures, carrying a humongous club, and being very nasty. Like this: And if you are a typical, god-fearing Catholic Pinoy, you would swear that not only are they true, you even saw one beside that big-ass, scary-looking tree not far from your home, one night when you were going home after an evening of binge-drinking with your buddies. And the bastard’s smoking a cigar as long and as big as your leg! Or you know someone who saw one of those cigar-smoking monsters. This creature is called a kapre —a cigar-smoking giant wearing a loincloth. Or maybe a tikbalang —a half-man, half-horse creature about as tall as a kapre. Unlike a centaur, however, a tikbalang is a giant with the torso and arms of a man, and the head and legs of a horse.  Scary creatures, these—and, if I may add
Read more

Vincent

Image
Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings are valued today at hundreds of millions of dollars. One of the world’s greatest painters, he is also one of the most influential figures in Post-Impressionism art. Ironic, because nobody wanted his paintings when he was alive.  He was a “weirdo” and nobody really understood him. Except for the few friends he had with other struggling, unsuccessful painters, one of whom he quarreled with, a quarrel that resulted in Van Gogh cutting off his ear with  a razor.  He also suffered from delusions and had psychotic breaks. He seldom ate and drank heavily. He was one of those tortured souls who had so much to give but was largely ignored. His genius and artistry nobody really got while he was alive. He was an idealist, a sensitive soul who had too much empathy. Imagine somebody like that living today.  At age 37, Vincent Van Gogh - struggling with depression, mental illness, and thinking that he was a failure - killed himself.  You know, maybe Don McLean
Read more

Typhoons and Earthquakes in the Philippines

Image
The Philippines has more than its fair share of disasters, and not because the country is particularly cursed or anything, but because the entire archipelago—purportedly composed of 7,100 islands—lies on a region in the Pacific Ocean called the “Ring of Fire” (actually, the area is shaped more like a horseshoe, although to be fair, “The Horseshoe of Fire” doesn’t have the same impact as the “Ring of Fire”). About 40,000 kilometers long, the “ring” runs from the southern tip of South America, up along the coast of North America, across the Bering Strait, down through Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia (the Ring of Fire’s western edge extends into the Indian Ocean), and to New Zealand.  The “Fire” part of the Ring of Fire is because a string of 452 volcanoes dot this line, like a malevolent game of connect-the-dots. The regions along this line experience volcanic eruptions and periodic earthquakes—majority of them small, hardly-felt tremors, and the few devastating ones that kil
Read more

The Queen of Heaven

Image
Inanna, “The Queen of Heaven,” is a goddess of Sumerian origin: goddess of warfare, fertility, and sexual love. The Akkadians called her Ishtar , a name from which Easter was derived. Yes, the Christian holiday. Inanna is the most popular and important female deity in ancient Mesopotamia. She is also known as a healer, life giver, composer of songs, and possessing a wide range of emotions—passionate, ambitious, jealous, grieving, joyful, timid, and generous. In later cultures, she went by different names: Astarte, Isis, Aphrodite—she was the Goddess. She is the original femme fatale , the embodiment of the woman every man dreams about; the female that devours men, the female that attracts/scares men; the virgin harlot. Every man knows at least one. The goddess makes an appearance in Neil Gaiman’s “American Gods.”  Throughout Sumer’s existence, her powers and deeds were glorified and extolled in myth, epic, and hymn. No one dared oppose her, neither god nor man. She was
Read more