Ptolemy’s massive compendium of mathematical and astronomical calculations had been rediscovered in 1410, after centuries of neglect. The revival of classical learning pushed aside medieval notions of the world based on a literal—yet magical—interpretation of the Bible, but even though Ptolemy’s rigorous approach to mathematics was more sophisticated than monkish fantasies of the cosmos, his depiction of the globe contained significant gaps and errors. Following Ptolemy’s example, European cosmologists disregarded the Pacific Ocean, which covers a third of the world’s surface, from their maps, and they presented incomplete renditions of the American continent based on reports and rumors rather than direct observations. Ptolemy’s omissions inadvertently encouraged exploration because he made the world seem smaller and more navigable than it really was. If he had correctly estimated the size of the world, the Age of Discovery might never have occurred.
Amid the confusion, two kinds of maps evolved: simple but accurate “portolan” charts based on the actual observations of pilots, and far more elaborate concoctions of cosmographers. The charts simply showed how to sail from point to point; the cosmographers tried to include the entire cosmos in their schemes. The cosmographers relied primarily on mathematics for their depictions, but the pilots relied on experience and observation. The pilots’ charts covered harbors and shorelines; the cosmographers’ maps of the world, filled with beguiling speculation, were often useless for actual navigation. Neither approach successfully applied the terms of the Treaty of Tordesillas to the real world.
Although it might be expected that pilots worked closely with cosmologists, that was far from the case. Pilots were hired hands who occupied a lower social stratum. Many of them were illiterate and relied on simple charts that delineated familiar coastlines and harbors, as well as on their own instincts regarding wind and water. The cosmologists looked down on pilots as “coarse men” who possessed “little understanding.” The pilots, who risked their lives at sea, were inclined to regard cosmologists as impractical dreamers. Explorers setting out on ocean voyages to distant lands needed the skills of both; they took their inspiration from cosmologists, but they relied on pilots for execution.
Although the Treaty of Tordesillas was destined to collapse under the weight of its faulty assumptions, it challenged the old cosmological ways. On the basis of this fiction, based on a profound misunderstanding of the world, Spain and Portugal competed to establish their global empires. The Treaty of Tordesillas was not even a line drawn in the sand; it was written in water.
Emboldened by the Treaty of Tordesillas, Ferdinand and Isabella looked for ways to exploit the portion of the globe granted to Spain. Success proved elusive: Christopher Columbus’s voyages to the New World all failed to find a water route to the Indies. A generation after Columbus, King Charles I resumed the quest to establish a global Spanish empire. He, or his advisers, recognized that the Indies could provide priceless merchandise, and the most precious commodity of all was spices.
Spices have played an essential economic role in civilizations since antiquity. Like oil today, the European quest for spices drove the world’s economy and influenced global politics, and like oil today, spices became inextricably intertwined with exploration, conquest, imperialism. But spices evoked a glamour and aura all their own. The mere mention of their names—white and black pepper, myrrh, frankincense, nutmeg, cinnamon, cassia, mace, and cloves, to name a few—evoked the wonders of the Orient and the mysterious East.
Arab merchants traded in spices across land routes reaching across Asia and became adept at boosting prices by concealing the origins of the cinnamon, pepper, cloves, and nutmeg with which they enriched themselves. The merchants maintained a virtual monopoly by insisting these precious items came from Africa, when in fact they grew in various places in India, and China, and especially throughout Southeast Asia. Europeans came to believe that spices came from Africa, when in fact they only changed hands there. To protect their monopoly, Arab spice merchants invented all sorts of monsters and myths to conceal the ordinary process of harvesting spices, making it sound impossibly dangerous to acquire them.
The spice trade was central to the Arab way of life. Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, belonged to a family of prominent merchants, and for many years traded in myrrh and frankincense, among other spices, in Mecca. Arabs developed sophisticated methods of extracting essential oils from aromatic spices used for medical and other therapeutic purposes. They formulated elixirs and syrups derived from spices, including julāb, from which the word “julep” derives. During the Middle Ages, Arab knowledge of spices spread across western Europe, where apothecaries developed a brisk trade in concoctions made from cloves, pepper, nutmeg, and mace. In a Europe starved for gold (much of it controlled by the Arabs), spices became more valuable than ever, a major component of European economies.
Despite the overwhelming importance of spices to their economy, Europeans remained dependent on Arab merchants for their supply. They knew the European climate could not sustain these exotic spices. In the sixteenth century, the Iberian peninsula was far too cold—colder than it is now, in the grip of the Little Ice Age—and too dry to cultivate cinnamon, cloves, and pepper. An Indonesian ruler was said to have boasted to a trader who wanted to grow spices in Europe, “You may be able to take our plants, but you will never be able to take our rain.”
Under the traditional system, spices, along with damasks, diamonds, opiates, pearls, and other goods from Asia, reached Europe by slow, costly, and indirect routes over land and sea, across China and the Indian Ocean, through the Middle East and Persian Gulf. Merchants received them in Europe, usually in Italy or the south of France, and shipped them overland to their final destination. Along the way, spices went through as many as twelve different hands, and every time they did, their prices shot up. Spices were the ultimate cash crop.
The global spice trade underwent an upheaval in 1453, when Constantinople fell to the Turks, and the time-honored overland spice routes between Asia and Europe were severed. The prospect of establishing a spice trade via an ocean route opened up new economic possibilities for any European nation able to master the seas. For those willing to assume the risks, the rewards of an oceanic spice trade, combined with control over the world’s economy, were irresistible.
The lure of spices impelled sober, cautious financiers to back highly risky expeditions to unknown parts of the globe, and enticed young men to risk their lives. In Spain, the best and perhaps the only reason to risk going to sea was the prospect of getting rich in the Spice Islands, wherever they were. If a sailor devoted years of his life to getting there and back, and if he managed to bring home a small sack stuffed with spices such as cloves or nutmeg, legitimately or not, he could sell it for enough to buy a small house; he could live off the proceeds for the rest of his life. An ordinary seaman might attain a modest degree of wealth, but a captain had a right to expect much more than that in the Age of Discovery—not only vast riches and fame, but titles to pass on to his heirs and foreign lands to rule.
Portugal was the first European nation to exploit the sea for spices and the global empire that went along with them. The quest began as early as 1419, when Prince Henry, the third son of João I and his English wife, Philippa, established his court at Sagres, a stark outcropping of rock at the southernmost edge of Portugal. Known as Prince Henry the Navigator, he rarely went to sea himself; instead, he inspired others to conquer the ocean. Portuguese ships faced obstacles so overwhelming, so shrouded in ignorance and superstition, that only extraordinarily confident and accomplished mariners dared to venture into the Ocean Sea, as the Atlantic Ocean was then known.