Black Pepper Cultivation and Trade

Timeline

1. 1451–1453Port of Calicut · Malabar CoastCalicut under the Zamorin was the core hub of Indian Ocean pepper trade; Arab merchants (the Muslim Mappila community) bought up black pepper from inland estates, loaded it onto Arab dhows bound for the Gulf of Aden and the Strait of Hormuz, and passed it on to the Mediterranean trade network.
2. 1453–1455Constantinople (Istanbul) · Bosporus StraitIn 1453 Ottoman sultan Mehmed II captured Constantinople; the overland spice transit route via the Black Sea and Bosporus faced stricter tariff controls, Venetian merchants' monopoly costs rose, and European courts' desire for direct sea routes to India's spice sources became unprecedentedly urgent, directly accelerating Portuguese exploration of the African coast.
3. c. 1456–1460Cape Sagres and the Gulf of Guinea coast of West Africa · West AfricaPrince Henry the Navigator continued to fund voyages of exploration southward along the West African coast in his final years; in 1456 Alvise Cadamosto and Diogo Gomes reached the Cape Verde islands, and the Portuguese gradually accumulated sailing knowledge for rounding Africa's southern tip to reach the pepper lands directly, fundamentally undermining the Arab–Venetian pepper trade monopoly chain.