Merchant Communities

Merchants and Trade Routes

Historically, these merchants moved without their families, but many more settled with their families in port cities on extensive trade routes from Lisbon, Portugal, to Goa in western India, and on to Nagasaki, Japan. Others settled in chains of oases along the Silk Road that once extended from the old Chinese capital Changan (modern Xian in northwest China) to Western Europe, Rome, and Rum Byzantium, an island off the west coast of Scotland. Oases such as Turpan and Kaxgar in western China were the locales of numerous merchant colonies in the second century CE.

The Soghdians from Samarkand in modern Uzbekistan were involved in the trade of silk westward from Persia, of jade from the Kunlun Mountains of Tibet, and of musical instruments chiefly from Persia eastward to Changan and to the Japanese imperial court. They also mediated cultural exchanges such as the diffusion of Christianity eastward, and of Buddhism, paper money, and other Chinese inventions, such as paper and printing, crossbows, and gunpowder, to the west during the early medieval period. Like the Soghdians, entire ethnic groups were often successful traders, and even today the Jewish and Tatar communities of Central Asia are regarded as expert traders.

Port Cities and Merchant Associations

In late medieval Europe (fourteenth to sixteenth centuries CE), trading flourished at several major Atlantic port cites, including the Belgian city of Antwerp and, earlier, Bruges, also in Belgium. Here, goods from other regions were assembled for redistribution—for example, amber and jet from the Baltic to Iberia and salt from Portugal to Russia.

To encourage and facilitate trade, civic authorities allowed resident foreign traders to set up their own professional associations. At Antwerp, the Portuguese traders of Lisbon set up their feitoria, and wool merchants and shippers from Bilbao, Spain, established a consulado (consulate). These foundations were early examples of merchant communities.

In the case of the Portuguese feitoria, the Portuguese crown appointed a feitor (director) to manage the association. As a representative of the crown, this official's task was to ensure that trade policies (for example, Portugal's monopoly policy, which made Lisbon the exclusive port trading colonial goods such as spices) were strictly implemented. He acted as arbitrator in disputes between the merchants, and he negotiated on their behalf with the local civic authorities.

Colonial Merchant Settlements

Afeitoria was established by Portuguese commanders on the West African coast in the sixteenth century, where slaves were gathered before being shipped onward. The feitoria also served as centers where local potentates assembled spices which were brought by the Portuguese and then shipped back to Lisbon. A militarized feitoria was the hallmark of Portuguese trading efforts in the East. Here, Portuguese merchants lived in designated settlements, often on the edges of large ports such as Batavia, Malacca, and Goa, where they gathered goods, including spices, cinnamon, nutmeg, and pepper, from East Indian potentates to be transshipped to Europe. The Portuguese navy underwrote their security.

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