--- title: The spice trade and the Indian Ocean — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «The spice trade and the Indian Ocean», a lesson of the geography course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Today a pepper pot sits on every café table. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/29-the-spice-trade-and-the-indian-ocean/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Geography](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/) / The spice trade and the Indian Ocean # The spice trade and the Indian Ocean Lesson 29 of the geography course of Mova's primary school: 17 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/geography/29-the-spice-trade-and-the-indian-ocean/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/29-the-spice-trade-and-the-indian-ocean/0/) — Today a pepper pot sits on every café table. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/29-the-spice-trade-and-the-indian-ocean/1/) — In medieval Europe a sack of pepper could be worth a fortune, because it grew only in tropical Asia and passed through many hands, each trader adding a profit, before it reached a market in Venice. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/29-the-spice-trade-and-the-indian-ocean/2/) — Cloves and nutmeg grew only on a few tiny islands in the Moluccas, in today's Indonesia; black pepper came mostly from the Malabar coast of south-west India, around Calicut and Cochin. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/29-the-spice-trade-and-the-indian-ocean/3/) — Long before Europeans arrived, the Indian Ocean was a busy sea of trade linking East Africa, Arabia, Persia, India, South-East Asia and China, with great ports like Malacca, Calicut and Kilwa and huge Chinese fleets under Zheng He. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/29-the-spice-trade-and-the-indian-ocean/4/) — The Portuguese did not simply join this trade: they used warships and forts to force others to buy passes and pay duties, and later the Dutch East India Company killed or enslaved most people of the Banda Islands in 1621 to control nutmeg. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/29-the-spice-trade-and-the-indian-ocean/6/) — Real history was rougher and longer: the Indian Ocean was full of trading powers when the Portuguese came, and Europe's merchants won their place largely by force, not by better prices. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/29-the-spice-trade-and-the-indian-ocean/7/) — Pepper, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg were very valuable in medieval Europe because they grew only in tropical Asia and passed through many traders. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/29-the-spice-trade-and-the-indian-ocean/8/) — Venice grew rich buying spices in ports such as Alexandria and Beirut and selling them across Europe, but once ships sailed round Africa straight to India, its spice trade faced strong competition and declined. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/29-the-spice-trade-and-the-indian-ocean/9/) — Cloves and nutmeg grew only on a few tiny islands in the Moluccas, now part of Indonesia. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/29-the-spice-trade-and-the-indian-ocean/10/) — Black pepper came mostly from the Malabar coast of south-west India, around Calicut and Cochin, and Vasco da Gama reached Calicut in 1498. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/29-the-spice-trade-and-the-indian-ocean/11/) — Long before Europeans came, the Indian Ocean was a busy trade world linking East Africa, Arabia, Persia, India, South-East Asia and China. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/29-the-spice-trade-and-the-indian-ocean/12/) — Malacca on the Malay Peninsula grew into one of Asia's greatest ports in the 1400s by controlling the Strait of Malacca, and the Portuguese captured it in 1511. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/29-the-spice-trade-and-the-indian-ocean/14/) — Between 1405 and 1433 the Chinese admiral Zheng He led seven great fleets for the Ming across the Indian Ocean, as far as East Africa; his biggest ships were larger than Columbus's, though historians argue about their exact size. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/29-the-spice-trade-and-the-indian-ocean/15/) — The Portuguese did not simply join the Indian Ocean trade but used warships and forts to force others to buy passes and pay duties. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/29-the-spice-trade-and-the-indian-ocean/16/) — The English East India Company was founded in 1600 and the Dutch East India Company in 1602 to trade with Asia; merchants shared the cost of costly, risky voyages in them, and both became armed powers, the English one later ruling much of India. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/29-the-spice-trade-and-the-indian-ocean/17/) — In 1621 the Dutch East India Company killed or enslaved most people of the Banda Islands to control nutmeg. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/29-the-spice-trade-and-the-indian-ocean/18/) — By the 1700s spices became much cheaper in Europe as more were shipped by sea and plants were grown in new places. - ← previous: [The Silk Road](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/28-the-silk-road/) - next →: [The Atlantic routes and the slave trade](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/30-the-atlantic-routes-and-the-slave-trade/) - ↑ back to [Geography](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/)