Resumo de THE DISCOVERIES MARKED THE END OF THE FASCINATION FOR SPICES

THE DISCOVERIES MARKED THE END OF THE FASCINATION FOR SPICES Lisboa, Jornal PÚBLICO, 3 December 2006, Sunday Bulletin on Culture, p. 33 Trade in spices did not begin with the arrival of Vasco da Gama in India in 1498 as we are made to believe in the text books in our first classes of History of Portuguese Discoveries. The Egyptians used spices and the Romans had organized trade routes for commerce of spices.Jack Turner, an Australian researcher and author of Spice – The History of a Temptation , reconstructs the history of spice trade from Egypt to the arrival of the Portuguese, the English and the Dutch in the East. The only major difference that the Portuguese introduced was the change of the route.Turner wrote one of the 20 essays for the catalogue of the exposition entitled Encompassing the Globe, which has been inaugurated in Washington at the Simthsonian Institute. The exposition seeks to present the views of a new generation of historians. Turner seeks to respond to a central issue and question: Why were the spices so important for the Portuguese? They were used since the second millennium BP for cooking, as medicines and as aphrodisiacs. They were much sought by the elites. The results were not always the most satisfying, and some were even recipes for torture: imagine a mix of honey, peper and wine for better sight, or applying pepper to genitals as sexual stimulant! Pepper was most in demand before and after the Portuguese discovery of the Cape route. In the first years of this route in the 16th century nearly 90 % of the Portuguese cargo consisted of pepper. When there were shipwrecks with this cargo aboard, they would provoke black tidal waves. Despite the Portuguese crown investments, it never made the expected profits with this trade. Bad administration and excessive expenses with transport and defence did not permit the Portuguese to neutralize its rivals. The Portuguese crown tried in vain to fix the prices in Europe by trying to keep the monopoly of this trade. It never succeeded in doing this. There was corruption and parallel black market which benefited the country, but not the crown. Despite the limited benefits, the spices were greatly responsible for promoting a new vision of the world. It would not have been possible without Gama, who cannot be seen as a discoverer, but as a merchant and investor.Turner concludes that the Portuguese Discoveries had a major cultural impact and were vital for the evolution of the modern world and for the beginning of the globalization. Very differently from the traditional economic and political readings of the impact of the pepper, cinnamon and ginger trade, the Australian historian is more interested in analysing the impact upon the lives and imagination of peoples across centuries. The high point of the trade in spices was also the end point of their fascination. Lucinda Canelas

Resumos Relacionados