Chapter 8
Transoceanic Trading in Two Oceans
Could Spice Islanders Have Traded American Plants
to India?
Abstract This chapter explores the possibility that Spice Island mariners may have
been responsible for trading American plants to India over millennia. That such
trade existed is clear from the research of John Sorenson and Carl Johannessen.
Using a combination of botanical and archaeological evidence, they establish that
over a span of 2,600 years from 1600 BC to AD 1000 at least 40 American plants
were introduced to India. We argue that Spice Islanders had the motive, means and
opportunity to handle such trade: the needed maritime and horticultural skills, a long
history of transoceanic exploration, trading and migration, a long history of plant
domestication in Wallacea and mastery of transoceanic voyaging in two oceans. The
implication of conceivable Spice Island involvement is a frequency of transpacific
voyages far in excess of that implied by the archaeological evidence from California
for Spice Island contact with America.
Keywords Chinese voyaging to America · American plants to India · Old World
plants to America · Transoceanic trading
8.1 Introduction
We have studied the long maritime history and the long horticultural history of
the Spice Islanders and suggested the relevance of both for their colonization of
the Pacific. In this chapter we consider the possibility that this double background
may have been valuable and enabling in another way altogether: that it may have
equipped Spice Islanders to develop a rare plant trade, accessing food and medicinal plants in America and trading them to India. That such a plant trade existed is
clear from the recent research of John Sorenson and Carl Johannessen [1]. Using
a combination of botanical and archaeological evidence, they establish that over a
span of 2,600 years from 1600 BC to about AD 1000 at least 40 American plants
were introduced to India. Recognition of the distance and time scale involved raises
the question as to which traders could have been responsible for this trade. Sorenson
and Johannessen neither raise nor answer this question.
131
C.E.M. Pearce, F.M. Pearce, Oceanic Migration,
DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3826-5_8, C
Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010
Transoceanic Trading in Two Oceans
Could Spice Islanders Have Traded American Plants
to India?
Abstract This chapter explores the possibility that Spice Island mariners may have
been responsible for trading American plants to India over millennia. That such
trade existed is clear from the research of John Sorenson and Carl Johannessen.
Using a combination of botanical and archaeological evidence, they establish that
over a span of 2,600 years from 1600 BC to AD 1000 at least 40 American plants
were introduced to India. We argue that Spice Islanders had the motive, means and
opportunity to handle such trade: the needed maritime and horticultural skills, a long
history of transoceanic exploration, trading and migration, a long history of plant
domestication in Wallacea and mastery of transoceanic voyaging in two oceans. The
implication of conceivable Spice Island involvement is a frequency of transpacific
voyages far in excess of that implied by the archaeological evidence from California
for Spice Island contact with America.
Keywords Chinese voyaging to America · American plants to India · Old World
plants to America · Transoceanic trading
8.1 Introduction
We have studied the long maritime history and the long horticultural history of
the Spice Islanders and suggested the relevance of both for their colonization of
the Pacific. In this chapter we consider the possibility that this double background
may have been valuable and enabling in another way altogether: that it may have
equipped Spice Islanders to develop a rare plant trade, accessing food and medicinal plants in America and trading them to India. That such a plant trade existed is
clear from the recent research of John Sorenson and Carl Johannessen [1]. Using
a combination of botanical and archaeological evidence, they establish that over a
span of 2,600 years from 1600 BC to about AD 1000 at least 40 American plants
were introduced to India. Recognition of the distance and time scale involved raises
the question as to which traders could have been responsible for this trade. Sorenson
and Johannessen neither raise nor answer this question.
131
C.E.M. Pearce, F.M. Pearce, Oceanic Migration,
DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3826-5_8, C
Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010