Commerce in Peru throughout its history

Peru’s first settlers were able to recognize the importance of commerce for the development of their cultures and therefore established contacts that enabled commerce between them, through the exchange of products from the different natural regions. Peru, as a nation, would not exist until after the colonial period, but the first sense of sharing a common space was brought about by these commerce exchanges; which further on, with the Incas, would grow to become marketplaces without frontiers, that would allow the import and export of products to and from the Inca Empire with almost all of South America.

Already since the Empire of the Incas, the geographical location of Peru turned it into the centre of commerce and exchange for the whole of South America, having they established a great number marketplaces and commerce routes that allowed the transport and storage of large amounts of products, coming from agriculture and fishing as well as mining. On a small scale, export and import exchanges took place through Peru, between the coast, sierra and jungle natural regions, which allowed the presence of a wide range of products and goods throughout the Empire. Even though wholesale didn’t exist as such in that period; because commerce and trade was done through the exchange of one product for another or others; they already had large storage facilities, called “tambos”, located on strategic points of the commerce routes. These “tambos”, served at the same time as spaces around which marketplaces arouse, which are thought managed to extend their commercial influence across South America’s borders.

The Spanish conquest brought about the disappearance of the Inca’s Empire and also dramatically reduced the commerce and trade practices of exchange of products and goods that took place until then. Despite this, the exchange system held on and is still practiced within some rural regions of Peru, which remain distant from the cities. The Spanish dedicated themselves to import of new products and the export of products from Peru to Spain and the rest of Europe. The extraction of gold and silver became the base of commerce between Peru and the rest of the known world, these two minerals becoming the main product of export towards new marketplaces. Meanwhile, from Spain came the import of fine fabrics, wine and fruits unknown to this region. It is from this stage on that we can talk about wholesale and the birth of new local marketplaces for the commerce of these products in the flourishing Spanish cities of South America. New commerce routes were strengthened, which had as its center point, for South America, the port of Callao; which even today is Peru’s main port for maritime commerce.

Related themes:

Main indicators
Peru's geography
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