Emeralds

Overall, I found Kris Lane’s The Colour of Paradise to be a very interesting and fast-reading book. In tracing the path of emeralds from the highland mines of Columbia to the courts of Islamic leaders and “gunpowder empires,” Lane discusses in detail the entire process of production, movement/trade and consumption. For Lane, the main focus of the book is to discuss the lesser-known trade routes and smuggling rings that passed emeralds across the Atlantic to Persian and Mughal courts. In addition, agency is given to multiple players throughout the chain, which makes the analysis much more interesting and enlightening. Emeralds were often smuggled by miners, past tax officials and mine owners into the hands of Dutch “New Christians” or families of “converted” Sephardic Jews. These Jews, with connections to jewelers and buyers in Lisbon, Amsterdam, and other trading ports, were one of the most integral and successful players in the commodity chain. Lane shows that, once the Spanish officials began to crack down on these Jews and evict them from Columbia during the Inquisition, the business of emeralds quickly shifted to the East India Company as the recent evictees moved their webs of contacts elsewhere.

While reading this book, I was also very interested in the importance of emeralds to the Islamic empires and the travel logs of those traveling throughout the region to initiate trade. Lane’s inclusion of personal accounts of East India Company traders perfectly highlighted both the immense dangers and massive rewards that could come along with searching for buyers in Mughal territory. Traders who fell out of favor could be sentenced to death by the Shah or a prince, or they could strike huge deals, earning diamonds and silver in return for high-quality emeralds. Green, the color of Islam and “paradise,” could mean prosperity or death in the empires of Asia and the Middle East, emphasizing the created cultural meanings that become attached to commodities, a subject we have discussed throughout the semester.