Recently I have been working on a series where the narative is that of the origins of international trade of food stuffs, rather than the personal narative of market users. Last summer we spent a fantastic afternoon walking though the streets of Cahors former spice quarter: The area where the English traders would buy from the French, who in turn had bought from the Venetians, who before that had bought from the Phoenicians or other Middle Eastern traders who had procured spice from, according to their stories, the dangerous Phoenix and dragons that guarded them fiercely somewhere at the other end of the Silk Road.
This was before Vasco da Gama, but it is the start of the story of international trade. The silk route traders must have had plenty of time as they traveled along the great roads to make up their stories. The stories of the Phoenix with sharp beak and long talons which could arise from the dead. Of the dragons and monsters to the East who were busy protecting their hoards of magical spices so much in demand in Europe. The wealth of this trade lives on in the buildings of the spice bazaar in Istanbul and the wealth displayed in the many buildings of Venice.
In Europe where a nutmeg was worth more than its weight in gold, and where that value was 7 well fattened oxen. If you wanted to buy 7 well fattened cows today, and lets face it they are not such a common currency these days, unless you happen to be a farmer or butcher, you would pay £868.(Farmers weekly current average price for cull cows described as well fleshed with even fat cover, the nearest I could get to a fattened ox.)…but you would not pay that for one nutmeg would you? It makes an economic issue out of a hot cross bun.
These prices were the engine behind many wars in Europe and across the globe in the name of European powers, wars, naval exploration and international shipping. Spices were the oil of its day. So this week I have been thinking about the history of International Trade and the role of spice in motivating various European powers in building shipping fleets and the perception of easy money to be made in creating economic crises.
The East End of London used to be the centre of the import trade in the south East. Both the wealth and extremes of poverty associated with the British East India Company have their geographic origins here. The history of London as a market is the history of the river. There have been trading posts here since the earliest traces of settlement. The legacy of this is the massive range of markets across this area, probably denser than the rest of London, and the range of people, probably more diverse and mixed than any other part of London. The East End has also long been the artist quarter, which is why Bow Arts Artist Quarter is so well named, with a lower (although no longer low) cost of living, and old warehouses, factories and religious buildings used for studios. This is shifting, the City creeps across the East End, with development projects which displace rather than carry people with them all built on the perception of easy money to be made.
Many people think of Bengali immigration as a new thing, however it has its roots in ship workers stepping ashore in Limehouse from the ships of the East India Company after the Mughal Emperor made an exclusive trade agreement with the EIC in 1634 that allowed the EIC the sole trader status in spice and sugar from the Bay of Bengal. The Chinese population in Limehouse, London’s old China Town have a similar history. Here is where trade and reputation are not always fair bed fellows, because why is it that in popular culture it is the Chinese who brought opium to the UK when in fact it was the British EIC that took Opium to China from India. The British East India Company that had its own armies, that resisted control by state powers, and in many ways was the first UK based Transnational Corporation. If you have been watching “The Night Manager” think Richard Roper in period costume.
So this area has always been tied up with making massive sums of money, at the same time as having a concentration of poverty.
