Armenian merchantry

From antiquity, Armenian merchants have played a pivotal role in transcontinental trade across Eurasia. Positioned strategically along the vital trade route linking Europe and Asia, Armenia's geographical advantage has sustained its centrality of international trade in the economic life of Armenians until the close of the early modern period. Armenians historically served as merchants at the crossroads of Central Asia, India, China, and the Mediterranean, facing persistent attacks from various quarters vying for control over the pivotal trade routes.
Armenians established colonies in various urban centers across Europe and Asia. Simultaneously, they developed necessary infrastructure for successful involvement in long-distance trade.
In the early modern era, Armenians played a highly active and potentially dominant role in overland trade. The significance of the Armenians in long-distance trade across Asia during the 16th to the 18th centuries is a pivotal subject in trade history.

History

Antiquity

According to the Bible, in ancient times the Armenians engaged in commerce with Tyre and other Phoenician cities, trading with horses and mules.
The ascendancy of Classical Greece in the 6th century BCE triggered substantial economic transformations in Armenia, fostering its engagement in international trade. Greek trade routes to India and China traversed Armenia and its territory saw the establishment of new cities inhabited by foreign merchants. A notably impactful outcome of Greek commerce was the introduction of coinage to Armenia, catalyzing the growth of a money-based economy and with it profound economic and social changes. This period witnessed the emergence of urban life, the implementation of fiscal administration and taxation systems, and a burgeoning demand for luxury goods.
Social elite of western Armenia, where Alexander the Great had founded new cities, were Greek-speaking and felt some influence from post-Alexandrian Hellenistic dynasties. Among other things, Greek became the language of trade. Road system was introduced to Armenia by Hellenistic rulers. To facilitate travel of merchants and troops between the Mediterranean and Central Asia, roads were constructed throughout Anatolia and Armenia and formerly isolated towns gained accessibility and established closer connections with the broader region.
In 176 BCE, King Artaxias I of Armenia founded Artashat as the capital of Armenia. The city becomes the largest in Armenia and its principal commercial center. Following its reconstruction in 166 BCE after being sacked by the Romans, Artashat was recognized through a treaty between Rome and Iran as an official hub for international trade between the two empires. Subsequently, the city prospers as a flourishing center for commerce and industry.

Middle Ages

Throughout Byzantine, Persian, and Arab rule, Armenia remained a pivotal trade conduit between East and West.

Bagratid period

Armenia regained its independence from the Arabs as a state in the late 9th century under Bagratuni dynasty. It retained a symbolic allegiance through the tribute payment to the caliph, but as Armenia's economy rapidly recuperated, it wasn't a financial burden anymore. Armenian society was significantly influenced by achievements yielded by the rapid economic progress of Bagratid Armenia. Central to these accomplishments was the reurbanization of Armenia, marked by growth and prosperity in cities. This period was characterized by wealth, expanded commerce and the emergence of new classes of men whose livelihoods were based not in rural areas but in the cities on the international trade routes intersecting Armenia. The new wealth was directed towards fortifying and embellishing the major Armenian cities, especially the new capital and economic hub, Ani.

Mongol period

Although the Mongol invasion in the 13th century caused significant human and property losses in Armenia and the subsequent Mongol rule over Armenia was characterized by high taxes leading to social unrest and violent uprisings, the period saw the continuation of trade prosperity. Armenia served as an important trade crossroads, through which merchants were allowed secure passage to India and China through Central Asia. Merchants enjoyed secure passage through the country, and Armenians established trading posts in Trebizond, Tabriz, Soltaniyeh, Bukhara, and Beijing.

Cilician period

Since the second half of 11th century displaced from their homeland by the Seljuk invasions, Armenians migrated into Cilicia, where they formed a new Armenian state.
Thriving commerce of Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia marked one of the most economically prosperous periods in Armenian history. Its Mediterranean coastal position between Asia and Europe gave rise to ports and commercial establishments that were instrumental in opening up trade connections between Asia and Europe. Cilician Armenia became a crucial crossing point for trade caravans from both continents. With it Armenians found themselves at the connection of the two powerful economic forces of the time: the Western maritime Italians and the Mongol horsemen. The former controlled Mediterranean trade and the latter controlled almost all of Asia. Armenian Cilicia, being the only Mediterranean coastal country on friendly terms with both of them, was the place where these two immense commercial zones were coming together.
In his writings Marco Polo, the 13th-century Venetian merchant and explorer, portrayed the Cilician port of Ayas as a bustling trading center. Cilician merchants engaged in the trade of sugar, cotton, raisins, carpets, dyes, textiles, wines, salt, iron, and timber. The spice industry flourished, proving highly lucrative. European traders were granted permission to establish colonies in Sis, Misis, and Tarsus; Venetian and Genoese merchants were the majority of colonists in these thriving settlements.
King Hethum I, concluding an alliance with the Mongols, initiated an era marked by great prosperity and effective governance "that the Armenians had not known for over 200 years". Armenians became part of the Mediterranean community, participating in its commerce, culture and social values.
The wealth of its merchants was a part of the Cilician state's success and attracted the attention of the Egyptian Mamluks that sought to control Mediterranean trade. Mamluks went to war against Cilician Armenia and after more than a hundred years seized in 1375 the kingdom's capital, city of Sis. Following this year the remaining Armenian merchants and nobility of Cilicia departed from the region. Tens of thousands of Cilician Armenians moved to Cyprus, Rhodes, Crete, Smyrna, and other places of the Byzantine Empire.

Early modern period

During the 16th to 18th centuries, Armenian merchants played a vital role in Eurasian overland trade. European goods flowed from the Mediterranean and Black Sea ports, moving eastward near or through historical Armenia to reach the Caspian Sea's southern borders. From there, Armenian merchants operated on three key overland trade routes of those times: one to Central Asia and China, another to India and Southeast Asia, and a third northward to Russia. While active in maritime trade from the east coast of Africa to the Philippines, Armenian involvement was more pronounced in overland routes.
The Armenians' active participation in global trade during the 17th and 18th centuries resulted in the establishment of notable Armenian settlements in Europe, India and in Istanbul and other Ottoman port cities.
Malachy Postlethwayt in the 18th century wrote:

Julfans

Old Julfa

Julfa was a very old Armenian village on the Arax River in historical Armenian province of Nakhijevan. Scant historical information exists about the village until 1500, but in the 16th century it became a commercial center for the Levantine raw silk trade. Political disturbances in Mongol- and Turkmen-controlled Armenia of the 14th and 15th centuries physically and economically devastated the country. Muslim tribal lords gradually confiscated ancestral lands of Armenian landlords of remaining old Armenian principalities and oppressed them. The majority of Armenians were forced to flee the region for safer areas, with some of them settling along trade routes to indulge in commerce. Julfa attracted large numbers of new settlers since it was perfectly situated near an international trade route connecting Tabriz, Yerevan, Erzurum, and Tbilisi. The village experienced the demographic growth and its rise followed.
The 16th-century prosperity of Julfa, located close to the silk-producing regions of Karabakh, Shirvan, Gilan, and Mazandaran, was closely linked to the increasing European demand for raw silk, propelling the growth of the Levantine silk trade. Armenians became strongly immersed in the traffic of raw silk to paramount silk markets of the 16th century, Aleppo and Bursa, and trade contacts with Europe had been established by Julfa's merchants by the end of the 16th century.
The Safavid Persia fought wars with the Ottoman Empire throughout the 16th century and Armenia, divided between them, for the larger part of the century served as their battleground. Although Armenian towns and villages often suffered from devastating scorched-earth policies employed by both the Safavids and the Ottomans, there is little evidence indicating physical hardship endured by Julfa's population. In contrast to other Armenian cities, Julfa was largely spared looting and destruction, whether because of the city's too remote location from the actual battlefields or because of affordability of its citizens to pay large ransoms.
In 1545, Shah Tahmasp I issued a farman designating the city of Julfa as a waqf of the nearby St. Stephen's Monastery. The privileged status of a crown domain that the city enjoyed did so that its citizens paid taxes not to the administration but directly to royal treasury and, as was common in other crown domains, in Julfa the tax collection right evidently was leased to a local headman or wealthy merchant. Thus Julfans were protected from the arbitrary interference of regular state tax collectors.