Southernization

by Lynda Shaffer, Tufts University

The term southernization is a new one. It is used as well. In the same way, southernization changed
here to refer to a multifaceted process that began in Southern Asia and later spread to other areas,
Southern Asia and spread from there to various which then underwent a process of change.
other places around the globe. The process included Southernization was well under way in Southern
so many interrelated strands of development that it Asia by the 5th century CE, during the reign of
is impossible to do more here than sketch out the India’s Gupta kings (320-535 CE). It was by that
general outlines of a few of them. Among the most time already spreading to China. In the 8th century
important that will be omitted from this discussion various elements characteristic of southernization
are the metallurgical, the medical, and the literary. began spreading through the lands of the Muslim
Those included are the development of caliphates. Both in China and in the lands of the
mathematics; the production and marketing of sub- caliphate, the process led to dramatic changes, and
tropical or tropical spices; the pioneering of new by the year 1200 it was beginning to have an impact
trade routes; the cultivation, processing, and on the Christian Mediterranean. One could argue
marketing of southern crops such as sugar and cot that within the Northern Hemisphere, by this time
ton; and the development of various related the process of southernization had created an
technologies. eastern hemisphere characterized by a rich south
The term southernization is meant to be analogous and a north that was poor in comparison. And one
to westernization. Westernization refers to certain might even go so far as to suggest that in Europe
developments that first occurred in western Europe. and its colonies, the process of southernization laid
Those developments changed Europe and the foundation for westernization.
eventually spread to other places and changed them

The Indian Beginning

Southernization was the result of developments that turn of the 16th century, it continued unscathed.
took place in many parts of southern Asia, both on According to one textile expert, “India virtually
the Indian subcontinent and in Southeast Asia. By clothed the world” by the mid-18th century. The
the time of the Gupta kings, several of its subcontinent’s position was not undermined until
constituent parts already had a long history in India. Britain’s Industrial Revolution, when steam engines
Perhaps the oldest strand in the process was the began to power the production of cotton textiles.
cultivation of cotton and the production of cotton Another strand in the process of southernization,
textiles for export. Cotton was first domesticated in the search for new sources of bullion, can be traced
the Indus River valley some time between 2300 and back in India to the end of the Mauryan Empire
1760 BCE, and by the second millennium BCE, the (321-185 BCE). During Mauryan rule Siberia had
Indians had begun to develop sophisticated dyeing been India’s main source of gold, but nomadic
techniques. During these early millennia Indus disturbances in Central Asia disrupted the traffic
River valley merchants are known to have lived in between Siberia and India at about the time that the
Mesopotamia, where they sold cotton textiles. Mauryans fell. Indian sailors then began to travel to
In the 1st century CE Egypt became an important the Malay peninsula and the islands of Indonesia in
overseas market for Indian cottons. By the next search of an alternative source, which they most
century there was a strong demand for these textiles likely “discovered” with the help of local peoples
both in the Mediterranean and in East Africa, and who knew the sites. (This is generally the case with
by the 5th century they were being traded in South bullion discoveries, including those made by Arabs
east Asia. The Indian textile trade continued to and Europeans.) What the Indians (and others later
grow throughout the next millennium. Even after on) did do was introduce this gold to international
the arrival of European ships in Asian ports at the trade routes.
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Southernization

The Indians’ search for gold may also have led Malay sailors had reached the eastern coast of
them to the shores of Africa. Although its interpre- Africa at least by the 1st century BCE, if not earlier.
tation is controversial, some archaeological Their presence in East African waters is testified to
evidence suggests the existence of Indian influence by the peoples of Madagascar, who still speak a
on parts of East Africa as early as 300 CE. There is Malayo-Polynesian language. Some evidence also
also one report that gold was being sought in East suggests that Malay sailors had settled in the Red
Africa by Ethiopian merchants, who were among Sea area. Indeed, it appears that they were the first
India’s most important trading partners. The sixth- to develop a long-distance trade in a southern spice.
century Byzantine geographer Cosmas Indico In the last centuries BCE, if not earlier, Malay
pleustes described Ethiopian merchants who went sailors were delivering cinnamon from South China
to some location inland from the East African coast Sea ports to E. Africa and the Red Sea.
to obtain gold. “Every other year they would sail far By about 400 CE Malay sailors could be found two-
to the south, then march inland, and in return for thirds of the way around the world, from Easter
various made-up articles they would come back Island to East Africa. They rode the monsoons
laden with ingots of gold.” The fact that the without a compass, out of sight of land, and often at
expeditions left every other year suggests that it latitudes below the equator where the northern pole
took two years to get to their destination and return. star cannot be seen. They navigated by the wind
If so, their destination, even at this early date, may and the stars, by cloud formations, the color of the
have been Zimbabwe. The wind patterns are such water, and swell and wave pat terns on the ocean’s
that sailors who ride the monsoon south as far as surface. They could discern the presence of an
Kilwa can catch the return monsoon to the Red Sea island some thirty miles from its shores by noting
area within the same year. But if they go beyond the behavior of birds, the animal and plant life in
Kilwa to the Zambezi River, from which they might the water, and the swell and wave patterns. Given
go inland to Zimbabwe, they cannot return until the their manner of sailing, their most likely route to
following year. Africa and the Red Sea would have been by way of
Indian voyages on the Indian Ocean were part of a the island clusters, the Maldives, the Chagos, the
more general development, more or less contem- Seychelles, and the Comoros.
porary with the Mauryan empire, in which sailors Malay ships used balance lug sails, which were
of various nationalities began to knit together the square in shape and mounted so that they could
shores of the “Southern Ocean,” a Chinese term pivot. This made it possible for sailors to tack
referring to all the waters from the South China Sea against the wind, that is, to sail into the wind by
to the eastern coast of Africa. During this period going diagonally against it, first one way and then
there is no doubt that the most intrepid sailors were the other. Due to the way the sails were mounted,
the Malays, peoples who lived in what is now they appeared somewhat triangular in shape, and
Malaysia, Indonesia, the southeastern coast of thus the Malays’ balance lug sail may well be the
Vietnam, and the Philippines. prototype of the triangular lateen, which can also be
Sometime before 300 BCE Malay sailors began to used to tack against the wind. The latter was
ride the monsoons, the seasonal winds that blow off invented by both the Polynesians to the Malays’
the continent of Asia in the colder months and onto east and by the Arabs to their west, both of whom
its shores in the warmer months. Chinese records had ample opportunity to see the Malays’ ships in
indicate that by the 3rd century BCE “Kunlun” action.
sailors, the Chinese term for the Malay seamen, It appears that the pepper trade developed after the
were sailing north to the southern coasts of China. cinnamon trade. In the 1st century CE southern India
They may also have been sailing east to India, began supplying the Mediterranean with large
through the straits now called Malacca and Sunda. quantities of pepper. Thereafter, Indian merchants
If so they may have been the first to establish could be found living on the island of Socotra, near
contact between India and Southeast Asia. the mouth of the Red Sea, and Greek-speaking
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Southernization

sailors, including the anonymous author of the Moluccan islands were the only places in the world
Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, could be found able to produce cloves, nutmeg, and mace in
sailing in the Red Sea and riding the monsoons commercial quantities. The Moluccan producers
from there to India. themselves brought their spices to the international
Indian traders and shippers and Malay sailors were markets of the Java Sea ports and created the
also responsible for opening up an all-sea route to market for them.
China. The traders’ desire for silk drew them out It was also during the time of the Gupta kings,
into dangerous waters in search of a more direct around 350 CE, that the Indians discovered how to
way to its source. By the 2nd century CE Indian crystallize sugar. There is considerable
merchants could make the trip by sea, but the route disagreement about where sugar was first
was slow, and it took at least two years to make a domesticated. Some believe that the plant was
round trip. Merchants leaving from India’s eastern native to New Guinea and domesticated there, and
coast rounded the shores of the Bay of Bengal. others argue that it was domesticated by Southeast
When they came to the Isthmus of Kra, the narrow- Asian peoples living in what is now southern
est part of the Malay peninsula, the ships were China. In any case, sugar cultivation spread to the
unloaded, and the goods were portaged across to Indian subcontinent. Sugar, however, did not
the Gulf of Thailand. The cargo was then reloaded become an important item of trade until the Indians
on ships that rounded the gulf until they reached discovered how to turn sugarcane juice into
Funan, a kingdom on what is now the Kampuchea- granulated crystals that could be easily stored and
Vietnam border. There they had to wait for the transported. This was a momentous development,
winds to shift, before embarking upon a ship that and it may have been encouraged by Indian sailing,
rode the monsoon to China. for sugar and clarified butter (ghee) were among
Some time before 400 CE travelers began to use a the dietary mainstays of Indian sailors.
new all-sea route to China, a route that went around The Indians also laid the foundation for modern
the Malay peninsula and thus avoided the Isthmus mathematics during the time of the Guptas.
of Kra portage. The ships left from Sri Lanka and Western numerals, which the Europeans called
sailed before the monsoon, far from any coasts, Arabic since they acquired them from the Arabs,
through either the Strait of Malacca or the Strait of actually come from India. (The Arabs call them
Sunda into the Java Sea. After waiting in the Java Hindi numbers.) The most significant feature of the
Sea port for the winds to shift, they rode the Indian system was the invention of the zero as a
monsoon to southern China. The most likely number concept. The oldest extant treatise that uses
developers of this route were Malay sailors, since the zero in the modern way is a mathematical
the new stop over ports were located within their appendix attached to Aryabhata’s text on
territories. astronomy, which is dated 499 CE.
Not until the latter part of the 4th century, at about The Indian zero made the place-value system of
the same time as the new all-sea route began to writing numbers superior to all others. Without it,
direct commercial traffic through the Java Sea, did the use of this system, base ten or otherwise, was
the fine spices—cloves, nutmeg, and mace— begin fraught with difficulties and did not seem any better
to assume importance on international markets. than alternative systems. With the zero the Indians
These rare and expensive spices came from the were able to perform calculations rapidly and
Moluccas, several island groups about a thousand accurately, to per form much more complicated
miles east of Java. Cloves were produced on about calculations, and to discern mathematical
five minuscule islands off the western coast of relationships more aptly. These numerals and the
Halmahera; nutmeg and mace came from only a mathematics that the Indians developed with them
few of the Banda Islands, some ten islands with a are now universal—just one indication of the global
total area of seventeen square miles, located in the significance of southernization. As a result of these
middle of the Banda Sea. Until 1621 these developments India acquired a reputation as a place
4
Southernization

of marvels, a reputation that was maintained for numerals. They have a great deal of poetry,
many centuries after the Gupta dynasty fell. As late many long treatises, and a deep understanding
as the 9th century ‘Amr ibn Bahr al Jahiz (ca. 776- of philosophy and letters; the book Kalila wa-
868), one of the most influential writers of Arabic, Dimna originated with them. They are
had the following to say about India: intelligent and courageous. Their sound
As regards the Indians, they are among the lead- judgment and sensible habits led them to invent
ers in astronomy, mathematics in particular, pins, cork, toothpicks, the drape of clothes and
they have Indian numerals and medicine; they the dyeing of hair. They are handsome,
alone possess the secrets of the latter, and use attractive and forbearing, their women are
them to practice some remarkable forms of proverbial, and their country produces the
treatment. They have the art of carving statues matchless Indian aloes which are supplied to
and painted figures. They possess the game of kings. They were the originators of the science
chess, which is the noblest of games and of fikr, by which a poison can be counteracted
requires more judgment and intelligence than after it has been used, and of astronomical
any other. They make Kedah swords, and excel reckoning, subsequently adopted by the rest of
in their use. They have splendid music. They the world. When Adam descended from
possess a script capable of expressing the Paradise, it was to their land that he made his
sounds of all languages, as well as many way.

The Southernization of China

These Southern Asian developments began to have developed cot ton canvas, which they used to make
a significant impact on China after 350 CE. The Han a more efficient sail for ocean-going ships.
dynasty had fallen in 221 CE, and for more than 350 Although sugar had long been grown in some parts
years thereafter China was ruled by an ever of southern China it did not become an important
changing collection of regional kingdoms. During crop in this region until the process of southern-
these centuries Buddhism became increasingly ization was well under way. The process also
important in China, Buddhist monasteries spread introduced new varieties of rice. The most import-
throughout the disunited realm, and cultural ant of these was what the Chinese called Champa
exchange between India and China grew rice, since it came to China from Champa, a Malay
accordingly. By 581, when the Sui dynasty reunited kingdom located on what is now the southeast ern
the empire, processes associated with coast of Vietnam. Champa rice was a drought-
southernization had already had a major impact on resistant, early ripening variety that made it
China. The influence of southernization continued possible to extend cultivation up well-watered
during the Tang (618-906) and Song (960-1279) hillsides, thereby doubling the area of rice
dynasties. One might even go so far as to suggest cultivation in China. The eleventh-century Buddhist
that the process of southernization underlay the monk Shu Wenying left an account explaining how
revolutionary social, political, economic, and the Champa rice had arrived in China:
technological developments of the Tang and Song.
Emperor Cheng-tsung [Zhengzong (998-1022)],
The Chinese reformed their mathematics, being deeply concerned with agriculture, came
incorporating the advantages of the Indian system, to know that the Champa rice was drought-
even though they did not adopt the Indian numerals resistant and that the green lentils of India were
at that time. They then went on to develop an famous for their heavy yield and large seeds.
advanced mathematics, which was flourishing by Special envoys, bringing precious things, were
the time of the Song dynasty. Cotton and indigo dispatched [to these states], with a view to
became well established, giving rise to the blue- securing these varieties … When the first
black peasant garb that is still omnipresent in harvests were reaped in the autumn, [the
China. Also in the Song period the Chinese first
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Southernization

emperor] called his intimate ministers to taste Daoist alchemists in the 9th century may also be
them and composed poems for Champa rice and related to the linkages between India and China
Indian green lentils. created by Buddhism. In 644 an Indian monk
In southern China the further development of rice identified soils in China that contained saltpeter and
production brought significant changes in the demonstrated the purple flame that results from its
landscape. Before the introduction of Champa rice, ignition. As early as 919 CE gunpowder was used as
rice cultivation had been confined to low lands, an igniter in a flame thrower, and the 10th century
deltas, basins, and river valleys. Once Champa rice also saw the use of flaming arrows, rockets, and
was introduced and rice cultivation spread up the bombs thrown by catapults. The earliest evidence
hillsides, the Chinese began systematic terracing of a cannon or bombard (1127) has been found in
and made use of sophisticated techniques of water Sichuan, quite near the Tibetan border, across the
control on mountain slopes. Between the mid 8th Himalayas from India.
and the early 12th century the population of south- By the time of the Song the Chinese also had
ern China tripled, and the total Chinese population perfected the “south-pointing needle,” otherwise
doubled. According to Song dynasty household known as the compass. Various prototypes of the
registration figures for 1102 and 1110— figures compass had existed in China from the 3rd century
that Song dynasty specialists have shown to be BCE, but the new version developed during the
reliable—there were 100 million people in China Song was particularly well suited for navigation.
by the first decade of the 12th century. Soon Chinese mariners were using the south-point-
Before the process of southernization, northern ing needle on the oceans, publishing “needle
China had always been predominant, intellectually, charts” for the benefit of sea captains and following
socially, and politically. The imperial center of “needle routes” on the Southern Ocean.
gravity was clearly in the north, and the southern Once the Chinese had the compass they, like
part of China was perceived as a frontier area. But Columbus, set out to find a direct route to the spice
southernization changed this situation dramatically. markets of Java and ultimately to the Spice Islands
By 600, southern China was well on its way to in the Moluccas. Unlike Columbus, they found
becoming the most prosperous and most them. They did not bump into an obstacle, now
commercial part of the empire. The most telling known as the W. Hemisphere, on their way, since it
evidence for this is the construction of the Grand was not located between China and the Spice
Canal, which was completed around 610, during Islands. If it had been so situated, the Chinese
the Sui dynasty. Even though the rulers of the Sui would have found it some 500 years before
had managed to put the pieces of the empire back Columbus.
together in 581 and rule the whole of China again Cities on China’s southern coasts became centers of
from a single northern capital, they were dependent overseas commerce. Silk remained an important
on the new southern crops. Thus it is no export, and by the Tang dynasty it had been joined
coincidence that this dynasty felt the need to build a by a true porcelain, which was developed in China
canal that could deliver southern rice to northern sometime before 400 CE. China and its East Asian
cities. neighbors had a monopoly on the manufacture of
The Tang dynasty, when Buddhist influence in true porcelain until the early 18th century. Many
China was especially strong, saw two exceedingly attempts were made to imitate it, and some of the
important technological innovations—the invention resulting imitations were economically and
of printing and gunpowder. These developments stylistically important. China’s southern ports were
may also be linked to southernization. Printing also exporting to SE Asia large quantities of
seems to have developed within the walls of ordinary consumer goods, including iron hardware,
Buddhist monasteries between 700 and 750, and such as needles, scissors, and cooking pots.
subtropical Sichuan was one of the earliest centers Although iron manufacturing was concentrated in
of the art. The invention of gunpowder in China by the north, the large quantity of goods produced was
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Southernization

a direct result of the size of the market in southern Revolution of the 18th century, no other place ever
China and overseas. Until the British Industrial equaled the iron production of Song China.

The Muslim Caliphates

In the 7th century CE, Arab cavalries, recently technologies. By 1000 or so sugarcane had become
converted to the new religion of Islam, conquered an important crop in Yemen; in Arabian oases; in
eastern and southern Mediterranean shores that had irrigated areas of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt,
been Byzantine (and Christian), as well as the and the Mahgrib; in Spain; and on Mediterranean
Sassanian empire (Zoroastrian) in what is now Iraq islands controlled by Muslims. By the 10th century
and Iran. In the 8th century they went on to conquer cotton also had become a major crop in the lands of
Spain and Turko-Iranian areas of Central Asia, as the caliphate, from Iran and Central Asia to Spain
well as northwestern India. Once established on the and the Mediterranean islands. Cotton industries
Indian frontier, they became acquainted with many sprang up wherever the plant was cultivated,
of the elements of southernization. producing for both local and distant markets.
The Arabs were responsible for the spread of many The introduction of Indian crops, such as sugar and
important crops, developed or improved in India, to cotton, led to a much more intensive agriculture in
the Middle East, North Africa, and Islamic Spain. the Middle East and some parts of the
Among the most important were sugar, cotton, and Mediterranean. Before the arrival of these crops,
citrus fruits. Although sugarcane and cotton farmers had planted in the fall to take advantage of
cultivation may have spread to Iraq and Ethiopia autumn rains and harvested in the spring. In the
before the Arab con quests, only after the heat of the summer their fields usually lay fallow.
establishment of the caliphates did these southern But the new southern crops preferred the heat of the
crops have a major impact throughout the Middle summer, and thus farmers began to use their fields
East and North Africa. throughout the year. They also began to use a
The Arabs were the first to import large numbers of system of multiple cropping, a practice that seems
enslaved Africans in order to produce sugar. Fields to have come from India. This led to an increased
in the vicinity of Basra, at the northern end of the interest in soil fertility, and to manuals that advised
Persian Gulf, were the most important sugar- farmers about adding such things as animal dung
producing areas within the caliphates, but before and vegetable and mineral materials to the soil to
this land could be used, it had to be desalinated. To maintain its productivity.
accomplish this task, the Arabs imported East Under Arab auspices, Indian mathematics followed
African (Zanj) slaves. This African community the same routes as the crops. Al-Kharazmi (ca. 780-
remained in the area, where they worked as 847) introduced Indian mathematics to the Arabic-
agricultural laborers. The famous writer al Jahiz, reading world in his Treatise on Calculation with
whose essay on India was quoted earlier, was a the Hindu Numerals, written around 825.
descendant of Zanj slaves. In 869, one year after his Mathematicians within the caliphates then could
death, the Zanj slaves in Iraq rebelled. It took the draw upon the Indian tradition, as well as the Greek
caliphate fifteen years of hard fighting to defeat and Persian. On this foundation Muslim scientists
them, and there after Muslim owners rarely used of many nationalities, including al-Battani (d. 929),
slaves for purposes that would require their who came from the northern reaches of the Meso-
concentration in large numbers. potamian plain, and the Persian Umar Khayyam
The Arabs were responsible for moving sugarcane (d 1123), made remarkable advances in both
cultivation and sugar manufacturing westward from algebra and trigonometry.
southern Iraq into other relatively arid lands. The Arab conquests also led to an increase in long-
Growers had to adapt the plant to new conditions, distance commerce and the “discovery” of new
and they had to develop more efficient irrigation sources of bullion. Soon after the Abbasid caliphate
7
Southernization

established its capital at Baghdad, the caliph al- gold came across the Sahara, and they then became
Mansur (ca. 745-75) reportedly remarked, ‘This is intent on going to Ghana, its source.
the Tigris; there is no obstacle between us and Thus it was that the Arabs “pioneered” or improved
China; everything on the sea can come to us.” By an existing long-distance route across the Sahara,
this time Arab ships were plying the maritime an ocean of sand rather than water. Routes across
routes from the Persian Gulf to China, and they this desert had always existed, and trade and other
soon outnumbered all others using these routes. By contacts between West Africa and the
the 9th century they had acquired the compass (in Mediterranean date back at least to the Phoenician
China, most likely), and they may well have been period. Still, the numbers of people and animals
the first to use it for marine naviga tion, since the crossing this great ocean of sand were limited until
Chinese do not seem to have used it for this the 8th century when Arabs, desiring to go directly
purpose until after the 10th century. After their to the source of the gold, prompted an expansion of
conquest of Central Asia the Arabs “discovered” a trade across the Sahara. Also during the 8th century
silver mine near Tashkent and a veritable mountain Abdul al Rahman, an Arab ruler of Morocco,
of silver in present-day sponsored the construction of wells on the trans-
Afghanistan, a find quite comparable to Potosí in Saharan route from Sijilmasa to Wadidara to
South America. The Arabs mined and coined so facilitate this traffic. This Arab “discovery” of West
much silver that by 850 its value, relative to gold, African gold eventually doubled the amount of gold
had fallen from 10:1 to 17:1. By 940 the ratio had in international circulation. East Africa, too,
recovered to 12:1, in large part because the Arabs became a source of gold for the Arabs. By the 10th
had access to larger quantities of gold. After the century Kilwa had become an important source of
conquest of North Africa they had discovered that Zimbabwean gold.

Developments after 1200: The Mongolian Conquest

and the Southernization of the European Mediterranean
By 1200 the process of southernization had transformations in the distribution of power,
created a prosperous south from China to the wealth, and prestige. In the Western Hemisphere
Muslim Mediterranean. Although mathematics, several great powers went down. Cahokia (near
the pioneering of new ocean routes, and East St. Louis, Illinois), which for three centuries
“discoveries” of bullion are not inextricably had been the largest and most influential of the
connected to locations within forty degrees of the Mississippian mound-building centers, declined
equator, several crucial elements in the process of after 1200, and in Mexico Toltec power
southernization were closely linked to latitude. collapsed. In the Mediterranean the prestige of
Cotton generally does not grow above the fortieth the Byzantine empire was destroyed when
parallel. Sugar, cinnamon, and pepper are Venetians seized its capital in 1204. From 1212
tropical or subtropical crops, and the fine spices to 1270 the Christians conquered southern Spain,
will grow only on particular tropical islands. except for Granada. In W Africa, Ghana fell to
Thus for many centuries the more southern parts Sosso, and so did Mali, one of Ghana’s allies.
of Asia and the Muslim Mediterranean enjoyed But by about 1230 Mali, in the process of seeking
the profits that these developments brought, its own revenge, had created an empire even
while locations that were too far north to grow larger than Ghana’s. At the same time Zimbabwe
these southern crops were unable to participate in was also becoming a major power in southern
such lucrative agricultural enterprises. Africa.
The process of southernization reached its zenith The grandest conquerors of the 13th century were
after 1200, in large part because of the the Central Asians. Turkish invaders established
tumultuous events of the 13th century. During that the Delhi sultanate in India. Mongolian cavalries
century in both hemispheres there were major devastated Baghdad, the seat of the Abbasid
8
Southernization

caliphate since the 8th century, and they captured Such contacts contributed to the southernization
Kiev, further weakening Byzantium. By the end of the Christian Mediterranean during this period
of the century they had captured China, Korea, of Mongolian hegemony. Although European
and parts of mainland Southeast Asia as well. conquerors sometimes had taken over sugar and
Because the Mongols were pagans at the time of cotton lands in the Middle East during the
their con quests, the western Europeans cheered Crusades, not until some time after 1200 did the
them on as they laid waste to one after another European-held Mediterranean islands become
Muslim center of power in the Middle East. The important exporters. Also after 1200 Indian
Mongols were stopped only when they encoun- mathematics began to have a significant impact
tered the Mamluks of Egypt at Damascus. In East in Europe. Before that time a few western
Asia and Southeast Asia only the Japanese and European scholars had become acquainted with
the Javanese were able to defeat them. The Indian numerals in Spain, where the works of al-
victors in Java went on to found Majapahit, Kharazmi, al-Battani, and other mathematicians
whose power and prestige then spread through had been translated into Latin. Nevertheless,
maritime SE Asia. Indian numerals and mathematics did not become
important in western Europe until the 13th
Both hemispheres were reorganized profoundly century, after the book Liberabaci (1202),
during this turmoil. Many places that had flour- written by Leonardo Fibonacci of Pisa (ca. 1170-
ished were toppled, and power gravitated to new 1250), introduced them to the commercial centers
locales. In the Eastern Hemisphere the Central of Italy. Leonardo had grown up in North Africa
Asian conquerors had done great damage to (in what is now Bejala, Algeria), where his
traditional southern centers just about father, consul over the Pisan mer chants in that
everywhere, except in Africa, south ern China, port, had sent him to study calculation with an
southern India, and maritime Southeast Asia. At Arab master.
the same time the Mongols’ control of overland
routes between Europe and Asia in the 13th and In the 17th century, when Francis Bacon observed
early 14th centuries fostered unprecedented the “force and virtue and consequences of
contacts between Europeans and peoples from discoveries,” he singled out three technologies in
those areas that had long been southernized. particular that “have changed the whole face and
Marco Polo’s long sojourn in Yuan Dynasty state of things throughout the world.” These were
China is just one example of such interaction. all Chinese inventions—the compass, printing,
and gunpowder. All three were first acquired by
Under the Mongols overland trade routes in Asia Europeans during this time of hemispheric
shifted north and converged on the Black Sea. reorganization.
After the Genoese helped the Byzantines to
retake Constantinople from the Venetians in It was most likely the Arabs who introduced the
1261, the Genoese were granted special privi- compass to Mediterranean waters, either at the
leges of trade in the Black Sea. Italy then became end of the twelfth or in the 13th century. Block
directly linked to the Mongolian routes. Genoese printing, gunpowder, and cannon appeared first
traders were among the first and were certainly in Italy in the 14th century, apparently after
the most numerous to open up trade with the making a single great leap from Mongolian-held
Mongolian states in southern Russia and Iran. In regions of East Asia to Italy. How this great leap
the words of one Western historian, in their was accomplished is not known, but the most
Black Sea colonies they “admitted to citizenship” likely scenario is one suggested by Lynn White,
people of many nationalities, including those of Jr., in an article concerning how various other
“strange background and questionable belief,” Southern (rather than Eastern) Asian
and they “wound up christening children of the technologies reached western Europe at about
best ancestry with such uncanny names as this time. He thought it most likely that they were
Saladin, Hethum, or Hulugu.” introduced by “Tatar” slaves, Lama Buddhists
9
Southernization

from the frontiers of China whom the Genoese losing Anatolia and parts of south eastern Europe
purchased in Black Sea marts and delivered to to Islam, they had been retaking the Iberian
Italy. By 1450 when this trade reached its peak, peninsula for Christendom.
there were thousands of these Asian slaves in One way to weaken the Ottomans and Islam was
every major Italian city. to go around the North African Muslims and find
Yet another consequence of the increased traffic a new oceanic route to the source of West
and communication on the more northern trade African gold. Before the Portuguese efforts,
routes traversing the Eurasian steppe was the sailing routes had never developed off the
transmission of the bubonic plague from China to western shore of Africa, since the winds there
the Black Sea. The plague had broken out first in blow in the same direction all year long, from
China in 1331, and apparently rats and lice north to south. (Earlier European sailors could
infected with the disease rode westward in the have gone to West Africa, but they would not
saddlebags of Mongolian post messengers, horse have been able to return home.)
men who were capable of traveling one hundred The Portuguese success would have been
miles per day. By 1346 it had reached a Black impossible without the Chinese compass, Arabic
Sea port, whence it made its way to the Middle tables indicating the declination of the noonday
East and Europe. sun at various latitudes, and the lateen sail, which
During the latter part of the 14th century the unity was also an Arab innovation. The Portuguese
of the Mongolian empire began to disintegrate, caravels were of mixed, or multiple, ancestry,
and new regional powers began to emerge in its with a traditional Atlantic hull and a rigging that
wake. Throughout much of Asia the chief combined the traditional Atlantic squaresail with
beneficiaries of imperial disintegration were the lateen sail of Southern Ocean provenance.
Turkic or Turko-Mongolian powers of the With the lateen sail the Portuguese could tack
Muslim faith. The importance of Islam in Africa against the wind for the trip homeward.
was also growing at this time, and the peoples of The new route to West Africa led to Portugal’s
Southeast Asia, from the Malay peninsula to the rounding of Africa and direct participation in
southern Philip pines, were converting to the Southern Ocean trade. While making the voyages
faith. to West Africa, European sailors learned the
Indeed, the world’s most obvious dynamic in the wind patterns and ocean currents west of Africa,
centuries before Columbus was the expansion of knowledge that made the Columbian voyages
the Islamic faith. Under Turkish auspices Islam possible. The Portuguese moved the sugarcane
was even spreading into eastern Europe, a plant from Sicily to Madeira, in the Atlantic, and
development marked by the Ottoman conquest of they found new sources of gold, first in West
Constantinople in 1453. This traumatic event lent Africa and then in East Africa. Given that there
a special urgency to Iberian expansion. The was little demand in Southern Ocean ports for
Iberians came to see themselves as the chosen European trade goods, they would not have been
defenders of Christendom. Ever since the 12th able to sustain their Asian trade without this
century, while Christian Byzantium had been African gold.

The Rise of Europe’s North

The rise of the north, or more precisely, the rise of aspects of the process due to their distance from the
Europe’s north west, began with the appropriation equator. Full southernization and the wealth that we
of those elements of southernization that were not now associate with northwestern Europe came
confined by geography. In the wake of their about only after their outright seizure of tropical
southern European neighbors, they became partially and subtropical territories and their rounding of
southernized, but they could not engage in all Africa and participation in Southern Ocean trade. In
10
Southernization

the West Indies and along the coast of South should not be minimized, it should be emphasized
America, the Dutch, the French, and the English that many of the most important causes of the rise
acquired lands where for the first time they were of the West are not to be found within the bounds
able to become producers of sugar and cot ton, of Europe. Rather, they are the result of the trans-
though with African labor on Native American formation of west ern Europe’s relationships with
land. other regions of the Eastern Hemisphere. Europe
In West Africa the Dutch seized the Portuguese fort began its rise only after the 13th century reorgan-
at Elmina, Portugal’s most important source of ization of the Eastern Hemisphere facilitated its
gold. And in the East Indies, the Dutch seized southernization, and Europe’s northwest did not
Portuguese trading posts in the Moluccas and in rise until it too was reaping the profits of southern-
1621 conquered the Banda Islands, thereby gaining ization. Thus the rise of the North Atlantic powers
a stranglehold on the fine spices. Without such should not be oversimplified so that it appears to be
southern possessions the more northern Europeans an isolated and solely European phenomenon, with
had been unable to participate fully in the southern- roots that spread no farther afield than Greece.
ization process, since their homelands are too far Rather, it should be portrayed as one part of a
north to grow either cotton or sugar, much less hemisphere-wide process, in which a northwestern
cinnamon, pepper, or the fine spices. Europe ran to catch up with a more developed
Even though the significance of indigenous south—a race not completed until the 18th century.
developments in the rise of northwestern Europe

Conclusion
The patterns of southernization become apparent century. At that time the nations of northwestern
when one considers “the long duration,” more or Europe were catapulted into a position of global
less from the 4th century to the 18th. It began as a dominance, an event marked by the British
Southern Asian phenomenon and spread through takeover of Bengal and other parts of India. By the
the warmer latitudes of the Eastern Hemisphere 19th century, using the new “tools of empire”
north of the equator. Both in China and in the provided by the Industrial Revolution, the northern
Middle East it stimulated new developments and powers for the first time were capable of imposing
acquired new elements, and its potential continued their will and their way on the rest of the world.
to unfold. After 1200 the radical transformations Both the ocean crossing that knit together two
throughout the Eastern Hemisphere brought about hemispheres and the Industrial Revolution were
by the Mongolians and many others created indeed unprecedented. But their roots are insepar-
conditions that led to the spread of southernization able from the process of southernization. Only after
to Europe and Europe’s colonies in the Western the northwestern Europeans had added to their own
Hemisphere. Ultimately it transformed East Asia, repertoire every one of the elements of southern-
the Middle East, Africa, the Mediterranean, ization did the world became divided into a
northwestern Europe, and portions of the Western powerful, prestigious, and rich north and an
Hemisphere, more or less in that order. impoverished south perceived to be in need of
Southernization was not overtaken by western- development.
ization until the Industrial Revolution of the 18th