Indian Ocean Trade Route Map

Historians commonly recognize the importance of the Silk Road on Eurasian merchandise and the impact of the Atlantic triangular trade in shaping our mod globe. However in that location was another, often forgotten trade system. Rivaling the Atlantic trade and Silk Road in scope and influence: the Indian Sea Trade was a thriving merchandise system that stretched from East Africa to China, connecting the furthest edges of the Eastern Hemisphere. Keep on reading to learn more about the route, the fourth dimension menstruum, and the economic freedom as a result of Indian Ocean Trade.

Indian Ocean Trade Definition

Sometimes referred to as the "Maritime Silk Road," the Indian Bounding main Trade tin be all-time divers equally a global trade system (an interconnected network of many merchandise routes) based primarily in the Indian Sea. The Indian Sea Trade peaked at diverse levels throughout history. Historians believe that Indian Ocean Trade began gaining new momentum around the 7th century, reaching a nail from 1000 to 1200 C.Eastward. It was the period 1200-1450 that the Indian Ocean Trade reached its Medieval Era peak.

The Indian Sea merchandise was a globe of Islamic merchants ferrying porcelain from Prc to the Swahili Coast, ivory to Bharat, cotton to Indonesia, spices to Arabia, and then on. Regional cultures, politics, religions, and entire histories were exchanged through the Indian Ocean Merchandise.

Indian Ocean Trade, New Map, StudySmarter

Early 20th-century map of the Indian Bounding main. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Indian Ocean Trade Fourth dimension Catamenia

Although the Indian Ocean Trade peaked in the late Medieval Era (1200-1450 CE), its earliest roots can be plant in the maritime trade and travel system of the Austronesian peoples in the second millennium B.C. The timeline below offers a cursory overview of trade inside the Indian Ocean:

Roughly 2000 BC: Austronesian peoples aggrandize from Taiwan, settling throughout Indonesia and the Indian Bounding main.
400 Be to 300 CE: The Classical Empires (Roman Empire, Mauryan Empire, Achaemenid Empire, the Han Dynasty) engage in trade inside the Indian Ocean.
800 to 1200 CE: The Indian Ocean trade is reinvigorated by Islamic Merchants from Arabia, the Srivijaya Empire in Indonesia, and the Song Dynasty in Red china.
1200 to 1450 CE: The Indian Sea merchandise approaches its zenith, as largely unregulated trade between the Heart East, Africa, People's republic of china, Southeast Asia, and Bharat reaches new heights. (This late-Medieval period is the focus of this article.)
1450 to 1750 CE: The European Maritime Empires launched naval expeditions into the Indian Body of water, before long dominating the trade networks of the region.

The Austronesian People

They were Austronesian-language people who migrated past sailboats throughout the Indian Sea and the Pacific oceans, settling in regions such as Madagascar, Polynesia, and Southeast Asia. Their innovations in sailing immune for extensive body of water travel, facilitating future trade between Bharat and Greece, and later on the Roman Empire, many centuries earlier the Europeans claimed to take discovered body of water routes to India.

Indian Body of water Merchandise Economic Freedom

A key feature of the 1200-1450 Indian Ocean Trade was its relative lack of regulation. Islamic merchants and traders sailed throughout the Indian Ocean, riding the consequent Summer monsoon winds Northeast and the Wintertime monsoon winds Southwest. Taxation was non uncommon, but without rampant piracy in the Indian Ocean, traders did not need policing royal navies to regulate their every move. Rather, merchants were frequently organized and protected under various merchant guilds.

Merchant gild:

A medieval organization centered on commerce.

Profits influenced traders at every plough. Traders gained meaning power over traditional nobility in the Indian Bounding main through the swinging economics of supply and demand. (Much of the system would change after the Portuguese discovered a ocean route to the Indian Ocean in the belatedly 15th century).

Indian Bounding main Trade Map

On the subcontinent of India itself, the Konkan, Malabar, Coromandel, and Utkal Coasts had meaning trading ports for traveling merchants to visit. The rising Swahili Coast of East Africa was Africa'due south contribution to the Indian Ocean Trade. The lands of Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Kingdom of cambodia, Thailand) and the eastern coast of China also played a function. Islam, the most influential religion of the Indian Ocean Merchandise, spread from Arabia to China.

The map below is an early European map representing the Indian Ocean. How does it differ from the contemporary map above?

Indian Ocean Trade, Old Map, StudySmarter

Early 16th-century European map of the Indian Bounding main. Source: Wikimedia Eatables.

Perhaps Indonesia was the most fascinating of the territories involved in the Indian Ocean Trade. The Strait of Malacca (pictured below) acted equally an of import ocean road between the Indian Ocean and the South Cathay Ocean. The narrow channel was enforced past multiple city-states, each seeking tribute for passing through their waters. Contest led to victories and defeats, with the Srivijaya Empire (7th to 13th century C.E.) ascension as an Indonesian empire based nearly solely on decision-making trade.

Indian Ocean Trade, Map of South East Asia Strait of Malacca, StudySmarter

Map of Southeast Asia, denoting the Strait of Malacca. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Still, equally was the nature of merchandise forth the Strait of Malacca and the Indian Ocean Trade system, survival was based on commerce rather than war or sheer manufacturing power. When the Srivijaya Empire exacted too heavy taxes, other Indonesian kingdoms with more lenient rates became more than popular with traders and thusly more powerful. Srivijaya savage for the same reasons that information technology rose in the commencement place. The Indian Ocean Trade arrangement was built on commerce and the economic principle of adjusting supply to demand.

Indian Bounding main Trade Route

As previously mentioned, it was the consistently anticipated Indian Ocean monsoon winds that fabricated travel and commerce so effective in the Indian Ocean throughout all of history. Technological innovations in the magnetic compass and lateen sails further supported the mail-1000 C.Eastward. nail in the Indian Body of water merchandise.

Indian Ocean Trade, Chinese Junk Ship, StudySmarter

Art depicting a Chinese Junk Transport flight an Islamic flag. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Trade routes extended from the Mali Empire in Africa to Beijing in Cathay, covering every extent of coastline. However, the Indian Body of water Trade did not stop at sea, as many coastal cities traded with inland cities, kingdoms, and urban center-states. Dissimilar wagons on the Silk Road, the sheer size of boats allowed for the transportation of inexpensive mass appurtenances, not just luxury appurtenances. Seemingly, anyone within 100 miles of the Indian Body of water and Pacific coastline could reasonably await a timely shipment of the finest silk from Mainland china or a bushel of cotton wool from India, much like how we anxiously await a package ordered on the Internet today.

Indian Bounding main Merchandise Goods

The Indian Sea Merchandise supported the transfer of cotton, wood, ivory, animal hides, golden, silver, black pepper, and other spices, books, weapons, and enslaved people. Indian Ocean markets boomed, every bit nearly supplies could discover need somewhere between the Pacific Ocean and the Cape of Good Hope, and most demand could find supplies. Indeed, the Indian Body of water slave trade was active long before the Atlantic slave trade began. Unfortunately, the Indian Ocean slave trade would continue long after the fall of the Atlantic slave trade. With an estimated 1,000 enslaved Africans reportedly purchased and transferred throughout the Indian Body of water from the period 800 C.East. to 1450 C.Due east., the world history of slavery just becomes darker.

Indian Ocean Merchandise Route Cultural Transfusion

Indian Ocean Trade was the most effective organisation connecting Asia's distant fringes. Islam from the Eye East flowed Eastward, landing in Bharat, Indonesia, and even China. Ane of the virtually remarkable maritime travelers, a 14th-15th century C.Eastward. Chinese admiral named Zheng He, led 7 massive Ming Dynasty expeditions into the Indian Bounding main. He was a Muslim. Buddhist monks and Hindu Brahmins found purchase in Southeast Asia, where the native populations rejected China's expansionism.

Religions were spreading throughout Asia, merging in distant and alien lands. Sailors married natives of other countries. Political alliances merged distant factions under the aforementioned religious banner. Through the Indian Bounding main Merchandise, it became pretty evident in the Eastern Hemisphere that information technology was not the power of nobles and kings who controlled the world's future simply brave sailors and enterprising merchants.

Indian Bounding main Trade - Central takeaways

The Indian Sea Trade was a system of trade in the Indian Ocean and Pacific territories that flourished from 1200 to 1450 C.East. (though it existed well before and after that fourth dimension flow).
Islamic merchants dominated the relatively peaceful Indian Sea Merchandise. Islam spread from the Heart Eastward across Asia and into China.
The nature of commerce and competitive trade allowed for the ascension of the Srivijaya Empire on the Strait of Malacca in Indonesia, an empire based about purely on controlling trade (the footing would too exist its undoing).
The Indian Ocean Trade facilitated an unprecedented transfer of civilization, religion, influence, and goods between East Africa and East Cathay and all the lands and seas in between.