Toward a Global Economy - laspuertascommunityschool.org … · Europe. This painting depicts the large market in Naples, Italy, in the early 1700s. All five of these states had ports

Toward a Global EconomyWhat factors led to European dominance in the emergence of the firstglobal age?

Vocabulary

Glossary VocabularyCards

Treaty of Tordesillas

conquistadors

Great Dying

indentured servitude

triangular trade

Columbian Exchange

Commercial Revolution

Introduction

T O W A R D A G L O B A L E C O N...

2020 Teachers' Curriculum Institute Level: A

Portugal, a small European country bordering the vast Atlantic Ocean,sent sailors south in the early 1400s to explore the western coast ofAfrica. Part of their mission was to find West Africa’s fabled “River ofGold.” The Portuguese believed that this river was the source of thegold that trading caravans had, for centuries, carried north across theSahara.

At the time, however, sailing the seas was a dangerous business. Andeven the bravest sailors feared Cape Bojador. Part of modern-dayWestern Sahara, this piece of land bulging out into the Atlanticpresented a psychological barrier, as rumors hinted at the manyhazards, including sea monsters, that lay beyond the cape.

In reality, the environment around Cape Bojador was the primaryhazard. Shallow water, violent waves and currents, and a network ofreefs made traveling past the cape a risky venture. In 1434, aPortuguese captain named Gil Eannes dared to sail past Cape Bojadorinto the unknown waters to the south and learned of these dangershimself. At the cape, a powerful ocean current drove ships to the south,accompanied by winds blowing in the same direction. These windsmade it nearly impossible for ships to return north past the cape,forcing them to veer well out into the Atlantic.

Despite the dangers that sailors encountered, the knowledge and


Level: A 2020 Teachers' Curriculum Institute

experience they gained by sailing in the open ocean was invaluable toPortugal. They helped guide further explorations as well as trade, andinformed improvements in ship design and navigational tools. Thanksto these developments, Portuguese sailors eventually found gold, whichhelped to make their explorations a commercial success.

By the end of the 1400s, the Portuguese had sailed around thesouthern tip of Africa to India and other lands bordering the IndianOcean. They called that region the Indies. Reaching the Indies markedan important stage on the road toward a global economy.

1. Economic and Political Changes in Europe

Portugal’s ocean voyaging came less than a century after the BlackDeath swept through Europe in the mid-1300s. This killer plaguesharply decreased populations and damaged economies. Although theplague recurred periodically, Europe had begun a healthy recovery by1400. Two key changes marked this revival. Together, they would helpEuropeans dominate the first global age of world history.

Trade Connects Southern and Northern Europe The first changewas economic. Trading centers in southern and northern Europe, overtime, established strong ties with one another.

These two regions had separate patterns of trade. In the south, Italiancity-states such as Venice and Genoa grew rich from Mediterraneantrade with Muslims from the Middle East. This trade brought themluxury goods, including silk from China, ivory from East Africa, andpepper and other spices from India. In the north, a powerful associationof trading cities known as the Hanseatic League developed a secureand profitable commercial network. Its products were mainly bulkgoods, such as grains, wool, wood, fish, and iron. Hanseatic merchantsalso traded furs, beeswax, honey, and amber.

Earlier, in medieval times, merchants from the south and north wouldhave come together to trade goods mainly at fairs. Fairs were regionalmarkets set up from time to time in a central location. As economicactivity increased, Europe’s merchants sought more regular trade. By1400, direct trade had largely replaced commercial fairs, withmerchant ships carrying goods back and forth between European portcities in the north and south. As a result of this regular direct trade,Europe began to unify economically.

National States Arise The second change was political. Through the1400s and 1500s, unified nation-states slowly emerged. In Spain,



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Portugal, England, the Netherlands, and France, kings secured theirpolitical authority by seizing power from local nobles and the CatholicChurch. These newly formed nation-states were sovereign andterritorial. That is, they were self-governing and independent, and theyruled over a specific geographical area.

Italian city-states became rich in the Middle Ages from Mediterraneantrade. In the 1300s, they also increased their direct trade with northernEurope. This painting depicts the large market in Naples, Italy, in theearly 1700s.

All five of these states had ports on the Atlantic Ocean. This put themin a good position to take advantage of future long-distance tradingopportunities. It also meant that they would compete with one anotherto advance their own fortunes.

This led to economic competition among European nation-states. Thiscompetition gave Europe an advantage over other regions of the worldbecause it led to innovation. For example, each state sought to buildstronger and faster sailing ships to outdo its rivals. In turn, these rivalswould quickly copy—and try to improve upon—any such innovation.

As the competition for trade increased, governments soughtpartnerships with businesses. Merchants, bankers, and investorsprovided the resources that a state needed to succeed with its venturesoverseas. A sovereign nation-state was then able to mobilize theseresources in a number of ways. It could create a national market for the



exchange of goods. It could standardize weights and measures. It couldenact laws to protect private property. The state could also ensure thesafety of merchants traveling within its boundaries. European statesmaximized their success by doing all these things.

Competition among Europeannation-states led totechnological innovations inweaponry. Nation-statesbegan to fortify their navieswith powerful weapons suchas cannons.

In addition to competing economically, European states often competedmilitarily. England and France had fought off and on from the mid-1300s to the mid-1400s during the Hundred Years’ War, and after, theyremained bitter enemies. Later, during the Reformation, warfare pittedCatholic states against Protestant states for another 80 years, startingin the 1560s.

Beginning in the 1300s, European states underwent a militaryrevolution. They began to use gunpowder weapons, and as monarchsconsolidated power, their militaries grew in size and strength. Thesechanges enabled nation-states to build large and powerful armies andnavies and to supply them with advanced weaponry. For example, largecannons appeared not only on the battlefield but also on ships.However, this growth and need for new military technologies came at afinancial cost.

To support this military buildup, European states raised massiveamounts of revenue through taxation and borrowing. To collect anddistribute revenue and otherwise administer the state’s governmentand military affairs, complex bureaucracies arose. Those bureaucracies



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also managed the voyages of exploration that several nation-statesundertook—voyages that had both economic and military aspects.

2. Europeans Look Outward

In the early 1400s, economic competition led some European states tobegin looking to gain direct access to goods and resources from otherparts of the world. They knew that trade could bring wealth, and withwealth came power. The first of those states was Portugal.

The explorers who sailed south from Portugal along the western coastof Africa hoped to find gold, and they did. But some leaders andthinkers in Portugal, and in its neighbor, Spain, had a longer-term goalfor these sailing expeditions.

Both Portugal and Spain hoped that by sailing south, they could bypassthe Muslim and Italian traders who controlled the luxury goods arrivingin the Mediterranean from Asia and East Africa. They wanted directaccess to those markets, and to profit from that trade.

Portugal led the Age of Exploration. Its rulers first sent explorers alongthe coast of Africa. Later, European explorers voyaged across theAtlantic and Pacific Oceans. The crew of one Portuguese expeditionsailed completely around the world.



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Reasons for Exploration The pursuit of profit was the main reasonfor all European exploration. Two related motives, competitiveness andthe craving for Asian goods, also played important roles.

Other factors, too, pushed European states to explore and expand. Anew type of ship, the caravel, made it possible to sail against winds andcurrents and survive long voyages across stormy seas. It was on acaravel that Gil Eannes was able to sail around Cape Bojador. Curiosityabout the unknown world and an adventurous spirit also motivatedEuropeans. In the Middle Ages, Europeans had thought of Jerusalem asthe center of the world, with Africa, Asia, and Europe spread around it.By the 1600s, they had a more accurate view of the world.

Religion was yet another prime factor for exploration. Europeanswished to bring Christianity to non-Christians because they believedthat doing so would save those people’s souls. To accomplish this goal,the European nation-states and the Catholic Church establishedmissions in Africa and Asia. Christians were also concerned about thegrowing power of another religion, Islam. They failed to weaken thatpower through the Crusades, the religious wars of the late Middle Ages.By the mid-1400s, a powerful Muslim empire led by the Ottoman Turksthreatened to overrun Europe. The Ottomans would soon control alloverland trade moving west into the Mediterranean Sea. By bypassingthe Mediterranean gateway, Christian states in Europe could strike afinancial blow against their enemy.



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This wood engraving from the late 1800s shows African slaves at aPortuguese fort in Mozambique as they are marched to work. ThesePortuguese forts played a significant role in the slave trade for a periodof several centuries.

Portuguese Ships Reach India European monarchs andgovernments supported these voyages in the hopes of generatingprofits and gaining new territory. However, in Portugal, one of theking’s sons, Henrique, was more personally involved. Henriquesponsored the early explorations of the African coast and often helpedplan and direct expeditions, earning him the title Prince Henry theNavigator. Though he did not join any voyages of discovery, Henry didhelp launch a steady stream of explorers who would eventually open asea route that stretched around Africa all the way to India.

After sailing past West Africa’s Cape Bojador in 1434, the Portuguesekept exploring southward. Along the coast, they traded for gold, andthey also looked for slaves. Initially, the Portuguese brought a smallnumber of slaves to work in Portugal and Spain, where slavery hadplayed a significant role for centuries. Unlike in the past, when they hadobtained slaves through trade, the Portuguese began raiding villages tocapture and carry off Africans. However, Africans fought back againstraiding, which limited the practice. Additionally, local African rulers



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frowned upon this, and the Portuguese realized that trading for slavesmade better economic sense.

By 1450, the Portuguese had begun actively bartering for slaves. Tofacilitate trade, the Portuguese established trade posts and forts atregular intervals along the African coast and joined local tradenetworks. These networks provided the Portuguese with access toenslaved Africans as well as to goods such as ivory, textiles, andcopper. Muslim merchants and local African rulers would gathercaptives taken in raids in the interior and trade them to the Portuguese,usually for cloth but also for grain, silver, and horses.

The Portuguese trade posts attracted merchants away from the trans-Saharan routes that had been used to deliver gold and slaves to theMediterranean. Moreover, in 1455, the pope granted the Portugueseexclusive trading rights along the west coast of Africa south of CapeBojador. The Portuguese monarchs controlled this monopoly, butallowed others to pay for the right to trade in Africa. The Portuguesegovernment profited from trade sponsored by the monarchy and fromtaxes on all goods and slaves brought to Portugal by other traders. Inturn, Portugal used the profits to finance further voyages, build moretrading posts and forts, and expand its trading network.

During the second half of the 1400s, the Portuguese sent moreexpeditions down the western coast of Africa. By 1488, the firstPortuguese sailor, Bartolomeu Dias, sailed around the southernmostpart of Africa and into the Indian Ocean. Then, in 1498, Portugal’sVasco da Gama reached India, establishing what would become a well-traveled route from Europe to the riches of Asia. On a voyage to Indiatwo years later, a fleet of ships under the command of Pedro Cabralsailed too far to the southwest while rounding Africa and encountered apreviously unknown land. Cabral claimed that land—now known asBrazil—for Portugal.



In 1498, Vasco da Gama’sexpedition became the firstto reach India by sea.Reaching the Indies marks asignificant step in thedevelopment of a globaleconomy.

Early Exploration of the Americas Several years before da Gamareached India, an Italian sailor named Christopher Columbus had a boldidea. Knowing that the world was round, he decided to sail west,directly across the Atlantic Ocean to get to the Indies. He believed thatthis westward route would be shorter and faster than the journeyaround southern Africa to Asia. He wrote, “Between the edge of Spainand the beginning of India, the sea is short and can be crossed in amatter of a few days.” Columbus persuaded Spain’s monarchs, Isabellaand Ferdinand, to fund a voyage westward. Like the Portuguese, theywanted access to the silks and spices of the Indies without having toenrich the Muslims who controlled the trade routes from Asia to theMediterranean.

In 1492, Columbus made his first voyage to the Americas. He left Spainin August with three ships—the Niña, the Pinta, and the SantaMaria.Showing his skill as a sailor, he headed south to the CanaryIslands, where he picked up the trade winds that blew westward acrossthe Atlantic. On October 12, Columbus reached an island in the



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Bahamas, which he called San Salvador. He later sailed to Cuba andHispaniola. Columbus called the native peoples he encountered Indiansbecause he believed that he had reached the Indies, a belief he wouldmaintain through three additional voyages.

Spain claimed the right to trade and settle in the lands Columbus hadfound. The pope, who was Spanish, supported their claim and grantedthem control of “all islands and mainland found and to be found . . .towards the south and west.” This vague language alarmed thePortuguese, who wanted to protect their rights in Africa and along thesea route around it. In response, the two countries negotiated theTreaty of Tordesillas in 1494. This agreement drew an imaginary linefrom the North Pole, through the mid-Atlantic Ocean, across Brazil, tothe South Pole. This “line of demarcation” gave Spain all rights to landswest of the line and gave Portugal all rights to lands east of the line.

In 1507, German mapmaker Martin Waldseemüller used the name“America” to refer to the land on the western side of the AtlanticOcean. This was the first time the name had been used.

When the treaty was signed, the land mass on the other side of theAtlantic was largely unknown to Europeans and did not have a name.This changed in 1507 when a mapmaker split the lands into twocontinents and named the southern one “America” after AmerigoVespucci, an Italian merchant and sailor. The name stuck and wasgradually applied to both continents.



Vespucci had made at least two trips across the Atlantic—the first in1499 for Spain and the second in 1501 for Portugal. After his secondvoyage, which took him to Brazil, he wrote a number of letters aboutwhat he saw. These letters convinced Europeans that the western landswere a “new world” rather than part of Asia.

Spanish Conquests in the Americas Spain continued to sendexplorers to the Americas. In 1513, Juan Ponce de León landed on theshores of Florida. The same year, Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed anarrow strip of land—the Isthmus of Panama—and came upon a vastsea. It was the Pacific Ocean.

Before this point, the mission of Spanish explorers was trade anddiscovery. That changed with the expedition commanded by HernánCortés. Unlike previous explorers, Cortés had conquest in mind when helanded in Mexico in 1519. He and his small army of conquistadors, orconquerors, marched inland with their crossbows, gunpowder weapons,and horses. They fought some indigenous groups that they encounteredand forged alliances with others.

From these interactions, Cortés learned of the dominant Aztec Empire,centered in the city of Tenochtitlán. He set out for the city, aiming toconquer the Aztecs. After a series of negotiations, bloody battles, andretreats, the Spaniards and their indigenous allies made a final assaulton the city in May 1521. Three months later, they had achieved victory,at a cost of more than 100,000 Aztec lives.

A similar fate awaited another great civilization, the Incas of Peru.Weakened by civil war, the Incas fell to Spanish conquistador FranciscoPizarro. In 1532, despite being vastly outnumbered by the Incan army,Pizarro and the small Spanish force of foot-soldiers and cavalrycaptured the Incan ruler. The Spaniards later destroyed the Inca capitalat Cuzco, looting the city and carrying away huge amounts of gold andsilver.

Further Voyages of Exploration Spain had a lengthy head startover its competitors in claiming territory in the Americas. But England,France, and the Netherlands all took an interest in this “new world.”However, their early explorations focused on North America.

The king of England sent John Cabot, an Italian navigator, west acrossthe ocean in 1497. In the North Atlantic off the coast of Canada, Cabotfound an abundance of fish, a resource that would attract fishermenfrom England, Spain, Portugal, and France. But Cabot failed in hismission to find what came to be known as the Northwest Passage—a



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route through North America to Asia via the Arctic Ocean.

The French mariner Jacques Cartier also sought in vain for a wayaround the American land barrier. In 1535, he sailed up the SaintLawrence River as far as present-day Montreal. Based on Cartier’sexplorations, France would later claim Canada.

The English navigator Henry Hudson, sailing for the Netherlands in1609, explored the Hudson River, thinking it could be the NorthwestPassage. Sailing for England the next year, he searched the shores ofHudson Bay. But again he failed to find a way through the continent.

Meanwhile, the Spanish mariner Ferdinand Magellan had set out in1519 to find a southern route around the Americas to Asia. Hesucceeded in sailing from the Atlantic around the southern tip of SouthAmerica and into the Pacific. Magellan reached the Philippine islands in1521, where he died in an attack by the indigenous peoples. Theremaining members of his crew continued the voyage westwardthrough the Indian Ocean, around Africa, and back to Spain, thusbecoming the first to circumnavigate—sail completely around—theglobe.

Later, in the 1700s, the British sent expeditions into the Pacific Ocean.Captain James Cook explored and mapped Australia, New Zealand, anda number of Pacific islands, including Hawaii. He also landed on thewest coast of North America. Cook’s voyages helped bring the Pacificregion into the new global system.



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Ferdinand Magellan captained an expedition that would become thefirst to circumnavigate the Earth. Magellan sailed from Spain with fiveships and 270 men, but only one ship and 17 crew members made itall the way around the world and back to Spain. Magellan himself waskilled in the Philippines.

3. The Atlantic World

European exploration, conquest, and colonization of the Americasaffected all four continents bordering the Atlantic Ocean. It resulted in adistinct Atlantic world in which European states used the peoples andresources of the Americas and Africa to boost their own economies.Throughout the Americas, indigenous peoples and Africans brought asslaves suffered under the dominating Europeans.

American Colonies In the 1500s and 1600s, Spain expandedthroughout what we today call Latin America. The Spanish Empireincluded the West Indies (the islands of the Caribbean Sea), Mexico,Central America, and South America except for Brazil, which remainedruled by Portugal. Spain focused on extracting resources from its



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colonies.

One important resource was silver. From the mid-1500s onward, mining—of silver and also gold—became a major industry in Mexico, Peru, andBolivia. The richest silver deposits were found in Bolivia at Potosí, whichproduced half the world’s silver by 1600. These precious metals had tobe extracted from the earth by hand. For this difficult, dangerous work,the Spanish turned to the indigenous peoples, forcing them to labor inthe mines. Toiling long hours, these laborers dug out the metal ore andthen carried heavy baskets of it to the surface.

The Spanish forced natives toperform grueling anddangerous work miningprecious metals in theAmericas. Millions of laborersin Spanish gold and silvermines died from overworkand exposure to theelements.

The amount of silver that Spain took from American mines faroutweighed the amount of gold. Thousands of tons of silver wereshipped from the Americas, and that silver brought the nation greatwealth—and great power. King Philip IV of Spain declared, “In silver liesthe security and strength of my monarchy.”

Silver from the Americas had an enormous impact beyond Spain. Itaffected the world economy. Minted into coins, silver dramaticallyincreased Europe’s money supply. However, the abundance of gold andsilver caused inflation. That is, because these metals were more widely



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available, their value—and thus the value of coins—declined and pricesrose. Wages did not increase at the same rate as prices, leaving manypeople unable to buy the goods, especially food, that they had oncebeen able to afford.

Spain used some of its enormous supply of silver to buy importedgoods, such as grains from the Baltic and spices from Asia. It alsoshipped some to its colony in the Philippines, where it was used to buymanufactured products and Asian luxury goods. Much of the rest ofSpain’s silver went to pay for the series of wars that it fought in the1500s and 1600s.

A second key resource extracted from Spanish America was sugar.Sugarcane thrived in the soil and climate of the West Indies, and theworldwide demand for sugar kept increasing. As a result, Spanishgrowers established a number of sugar plantations on the islands. As inthe mining industry, the indigenous populations served as forced labor—as slaves—on these plantations. Many that were forced to work in themines and on the sugar plantations died from accidents and fromoverwork.

Agriculture remained less important than mining in the colonies, atleast until the development of the plantation system. The Spanishcrown granted large estates to some colonists, stripping the land fromindigenous communities. These landed estates, called haciendas,supplied food to growing colonial cities and reinforced the power ofwealthy families. But they were not a major economic enterprise.Plantations were another story, however. These large estates grewcrops for export, including sugar, cacao, tobacco, indigo, and cotton. Asa result, sugar became the world’s first plantation crop.



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The indigenous people forcedto work on Spanish sugarplantations were oftensubjected to abuses. Somewere forced to walk for dayscarrying heavy loads to bedelivered. Others wereseverely beaten if they weredisobedient.

During the same period, the Portuguese colonized Brazil. They basedtheir early economy on brazilwood, which they cut and shipped toEurope. This wood, a source of red dye, was so important that the earlycolony of Brazil was named after it. Starting in the late 1500s, thePortuguese made far greater profits from sugar. Like the Spanish, thePortuguese in Brazil relied mainly on the native population to performthe grueling work necessary to harvest and process sugarcane. By1600, Brazil produced more sugar than anyplace else in the world. In1695, a huge gold strike in an inland region of Brazil boosted thecolony’s economy further.

Growing European Settlement in the Americas Spanish andPortuguese success at building colonies did not go unnoticed by otherEuropean states. In the late 1500s, the English and the Dutch (people ofthe Netherlands) established a presence in the Americas. First, theyfollowed the Spanish into the Caribbean, looking for profitable ventures.There, Dutch and English pirates attacked Spanish ships and made offwith silver and other precious cargo. Later, they set up bases in theCaribbean islands to support their attacks on shipping. The Frenchestablished bases in the Caribbean as well.



In time, these three northwestern European states established sugarplantations on land that they had claimed. By the mid-1600s they werecompeting with Spain on two levels. They were exporting agriculturalproducts, including sugar, to Europe, and they were also providingSpain’s American colonies with most of their manufactured goods. Atthe same time, the French, English, and Dutch also had colonies of theirown on the mainland of North America—in coastal Canada, Virginia,New York, and New England.

The influx of Europeans led to another devastating impact onindigenous peoples: disease. In fact, all over the Americas theindigenous people were dying of diseases carried to their lands byexplorers and settlers. Because they had been isolated from the rest ofthe world, the indigenous peoples of the Americas were never exposedto smallpox, measles, and other diseases. They had no resistance tothem, and many died before even making contact with Europeans, asviruses spread from one community to another. In what historians callthe Great Dying, these diseases killed tens of millions, perhaps half ofall the indigenous peoples in the Americas at the time of Columbus’sarrival.



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Smallpox, which was brought to Mexico by the Spaniards, ravaged thenative Aztec population. This 16th-century illustration shows victims ofa smallpox epidemic being treated by an Aztec medicine man.

The spread of deadly disease made the European conquest of theAmericas much easier. It weakened indigenous resistance and openedup the land for European settlement. It also deprived the colonizers ofindigenous workers and harmed colonial economies. To remedy thisproblem, the colonies began to seek labor elsewhere.

The Trans-Atlantic Slave System As a result of the Great Dying,the Europeans needed more labor for their plantations.At first theBritish (as they were known after England merged with Scotland in1707) tried using indentured labor, as did the French. In the system ofindentured servitude, a person agreed to work for a period of time,often four to seven years, in return for passage to the Americas, food,and a place to live.

Indentured servants from Britain found the work on West Indies sugarplantations to be brutal. Many of them died. They had a similarexperience on the tobacco and rice plantations in Britain’s North



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American colonies.

Since 1500, the Portuguese had been shipping a limited number ofenslaved Africans to the Caribbean. With the decline of the indigenouslaborers due to disease, European mine and plantation owners beganto import many more enslaved Africans. Between around 1600 and1650, more than 250,000 Africans were sent to the Spanish colonies.Another 150,000 went to Brazil.

For many years the Portuguese controlled trade along coastal Africa.Later, the English, French, and Dutch also established trading posts onthe Atlantic coast. Like the Portuguese traders before them, Europeanmerchants from other countries built relationships with African rulerswilling to trade slaves. Together, they set up a system in which Africansmanaged the gathering of slaves and Europeans sent them to theAmericas.

Slavery was not new to African society. It had been widespread forcenturies, with slaves traded across the Sahara and often taken to theMiddle East. Both before and after the arrival of the Europeans, mostslaves were taken captive in war. Others were made slaves by a legaljudgment or to repay a debt, whereas some were kidnapped in raids byAfrican slavers.

However, as European demand for slaves increased in the late 1600s,the slave trade became the dominant economic activity in someregions. A few states in the interior of Africa began to focus on findingand delivering slaves. In contrast, coastal African states tended toserve as middlemen in the slave trade. They established trade routesfrom the interior to the coast and handled the exchange with Europeantraders. The slave trade strengthened these African states and theirleaders and introduced European goods, including guns, into manyparts of Africa.



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Enslaved Africans were brought across the Atlantic to perform labor-intensive and exhausting work in the European colonies in the WestIndies. In this image, slaves in Hispaniola process sugarcane to turn itinto sugar for eventual export to Europe.

The introduction of guns helped further the slave trade. Having gunsgave a village power over those that lacked them. Such villages couldforce neighboring villages to sell slaves in exchange for guns to protectthemselves. The slave and gun trades fueled one another, and thesocietal effects were devastating. The loss of millions of Africans to theslave trade tore African societies apart.

European ships carried the enslaved Africans across the Atlantic. Thevoyage is known as the Middle Passage. It was the middle part of theslave’s overall journey—and perhaps the most horrifying. The slaveship’s crew packed their cargo of Africans into the hold. Often, they hadno room to stand or stretch. To prevent revolts, male slaves were oftenchained in place. The food was limited and of poor quality, andconditions were unsanitary. Disease spread quickly. Those who refusedto eat were tortured, and if they continued to refuse, they were force-



fed. Women and children, in particular, were subject to sexual abuseand violence. Many Africans—around one in six—died on the voyage,which could take from three weeks to three months.

Before 1650, Portuguese ships transported most of the enslavedAfricans heading to the Americas. The majority went to mainlandSpanish America. After 1650, northern European slave traders tookover much of the business, and their main destination shifted to sugarplantations in Brazil and the West Indies. Later, Britain would dominatethe highly profitable slave trade, transporting slaves throughout theAmericas, including to plantations in their North American colonies. Inthe 1700s alone, some 6 million enslaved Africans were forcibly sent tothe Americas.

The transport of enslaved Africans to the Americas was just the first“side” of what is known as the triangular trade. In American ports,the merchants traded their slaves for sugar, silver, tobacco, and otherproducts from the mines and plantations. Then, the shipping of thoseraw materials to Europe formed the second side of the triangle. InEurope, they picked up manufactured goods such as textiles andweapons, as well as raw metal, rum, and tobacco. The third side of thetriangle was the voyage to Africa to trade those goods for slaves.



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This diagram shows how enslaved Africans were packed in boats fortransport across the Atlantic. The arrangement of the slaves shown wasin accordance with Britain’s Regulated Slave Trade Act of 1788, whichplaced limits on slave transport.

The Columbian Exchange The trade between Europe and theAmericas had consequences beyond just boosting European economies.It launched the Columbian Exchange. Named for ChristopherColumbus, this exchange involved the transfer of plants and animalsbetween the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. Until the arrival ofColumbus, the peoples of the Americas were isolated from the rest ofthe world. That isolation meant that many of their plants and animalswere unique to the Americas.

Europeans took a special interest in American food plants. Theseincluded maize (corn), potatoes, beans, squashes, pumpkins, peanuts,avocadoes, tomatoes, chili peppers, and cocoa. Merchants carriedthese to Europe and, from there, to Africa and Asia. Over time, theseplants helped increase food production and improve the diets of peoplearound the world.



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Potatoes were one of thefoods that spread from theAmericas, probably theAndes region, during theColumbian Exchange. Thepotato remains an importantfood crop today.

The Columbian Exchange also brought new plants and animals into the“new world” from the “old world.” Peaches, oranges, bananas,sugarcane, coffee, oats, and wheat all became important crops in theAmericas. Europeans also introduced beasts of burden and new sourcesof protein in the form of horses, cattle, pigs, goats, and sheep.European agriculture and the grazing needs of horses, cattle, andsheep had a great impact on the natural environment. Much of the landwas converted from forest to farm and pasture.

Some historians include people, along with their customs and ideas, inthe Columbian Exchange. Around 1.4 million Europeans and more thanfive times that many Africans had come to the Americas by 1800.Europeans introduced Christianity to the Americas. In Spanish America,Catholic priests converted millions of indigenous peoples toChristianity. In most cases, the indigenous groups blended Christian



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teachings with their own traditional beliefs. The British and French alsobrought Christianity to their North American colonies. Additionally,African slaves introduced elements of African culture and traditions,transforming the social and cultural landscape of the Americas.

In Latin America the intermixing of Europeans, Africans, and indigenousgroups created a distinctive colonial society. That society was stratified,or formed into classes, according to place of origin, race, skin color, andother factors. At the top of the social pyramid stood white colonists,either from Europe or the Americas. Next came the mestizos, ormixed-race descendants of Europeans and indigenous peoples. At thebottom were Africans and indigenous peoples.

A different kind of class structure evolved in colonial North America. Itsbasis was economic, with white merchants and planters at the top ofthe social hierarchy. Within the colonies, indigenous peoples andAfricans had little, if any, social prestige or political power.

4. Europeans in the Indies

The collapse of Mongol rule in Asia, starting around 1300, led to the riseof large, centrally governed states. In the centuries that followed,Muslim empires stretched from India across Southwest Asia and NorthAfrica. China moved westward into Central Asia. Russia expandedeastward. These powerful states, with much to gain from trade, helpedkeep Asia’s overland trade routes secure.

During the same period, European states pioneered the sea routearound Africa to the Indian Ocean and east to China. Economic activityincreased as new channels of trade and commerce opened. Overlandroutes funneled trade goods to dozens of European trading postsplanted along the coast. For the first time in history, Europe, Africa,Asia, and the Americas were directly connected by a global tradingnetwork.

The world was no longer clearly divided into separate worlds: European,Mediterranean, Indian, or Chinese. The world trading system nearlydoubled in size during this period, moving a greater volume and varietyof goods than ever before. It was the beginning of a global economy.

Portugal Gains Access to Asian Maritime Trade The greatpowers of Asia, such as India and China, focused on expanding theirland-based empires. They did take part in maritime, or sea-based,trade, but they claimed no political right of ownership over the seas.Europeans were more possessive. In 1499, Vasco da Gama laid claim to



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the entire Indian Ocean for Portugal. The Portuguese set about buildinga trading empire, based on territorial rights granted to them in theTreaty of Tordesillas.

Westernization and theexpansion of European powerand influence can be seen inthe example of the colony ofMacao, shown here in a 1598engraving. The Portugueseestablished Macao as acolony in 1513. For 300years, it served as a primaryentry point for Europeantrade with China and Japan.The colony also became acenter for PortugueseCatholic missionaries.Portuguese-style churchesand buildings remainstanding today.

Portugal’s main goal was to sail to the Indies and trade for luxurygoods. There was just one problem. The empires of Asia did not need orwant most European goods. Instead of exchanging products, Europeanswould have to pay for Asian goods with money—mainly silver.

One solution was to take part in the intra-Asian trade. Some merchantsbegan carrying foods and other ordinary goods from one part of theIndies to another, making a profit on each trade. Over time, they builtup cargoes that could be exchanged for fine spices (black pepper,



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ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, and cloves), Indian textiles, Chineseporcelain, and other Asian goods highly prized by Europeans.

To conduct trade, Portuguese merchants needed land bases and oftenused force to get them. The Portuguese used their cannon-equippedcargo ships to attack and take control of key coastal towns. In this way,they captured Goa in India, Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, Macao in thesouthern coast of China, and Malacca on the Malay Peninsula, whichwas the center of the East Indian spice trade. Malacca also controlledthe narrow Strait of Malacca, the link between the Indian and PacificOceans, and thus served as the eastern gateway to China and Japan.

The Portuguese used their naval advantage to dominate shipping in theIndian Ocean. They overpowered Asian merchant vessels and stoletheir cargoes. They blocked access to traditional shipping routes, too.One such route carried spices and other luxury goods through the RedSea and across Egypt to the Mediterranean. However, the Portuguesewere never able to establish a complete monopoly on coastal trade inthe Indian Ocean because Asian merchants fought back. Some armedtheir ships. Others changed their trade routes. Despite this, thePortuguese gained control of a large part of the intra-Asian trade overtime.

The European Model of Expansion By the mid-1500s, thePortuguese had established an effective model of expansion into Asiantrade. The model had three basic parts.

1. The Portuguese relied on their superior ships, armed withgunpowder weapons, to establish land bases and achieve controlof the seas.

2. At their land bases, they established trading posts calledfactories. These commercial centers managed Portuguese tradeand finances in the region.

3. Finally, they built fortresses to protect their factories and thesmall colonies that arose nearby.

By 1600, the Portuguese had a string of more than 50 fortified coastaltrading posts from East Africa all the way to Japan. At this time, the onlyother European state competing with Portugal in Asia was Spain, whichcontrolled the Philippines. Soon, however, Portugal had a lot morecompany in the Indies. The Dutch and the English, by applying thesame model of expansion, would nearly eliminate Portugal from theAsian trade.

Competing for the Asian Trade The English, in 1600, and the



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Dutch, in 1602, each formed an East India Company to carry out long-distance trade with Asia. The government of England gave the EnglishEast India Company, and only that company, the right to trade in Asia.The government of the Netherlands, on the other hand, authorized itsDutch East India Company not only to conduct trade but also to carryout political negotiations and to engage in warfare. By doing this, theDutch hoped to limit the success of the English in the Indies and toeliminate the Portuguese from the region completely.

Like the Portuguese, the Dutch took a military approach to creating atrading empire in the Indies. They hired experienced naval officers tohelp establish and maintain their outposts. Negotiations with local Asianofficials also often went much more smoothly when a ship bristling withcannons was anchored just offshore. The Dutch East India Company setup factories in India and Japan and points in between, but they focusedtheir efforts on the East Indies.

The Dutch East India Company’s Asian headquarters were in Batavia,which is part of present-day Jakarta, Indonesia. The Dutch capturedand razed the existing settlement in 1619 and then built this walledcity. The image shows the city around 1780.

In the East Indies, the Dutch hoped to monopolize the spice trade by



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taking control of the Spice Islands, now part of eastern Indonesia.There, most of the world’s supply of nutmeg, mace, and cloves grew.First, the Dutch wrested control of the islands from the Portuguese.Then, they used force and threats of force to compel local leaders tocooperate. In one group of islands, they slaughtered the native peopleand took over the production of their nutmeg and mace, bringing inenslaved Africans to cultivate the trees that yielded the spices. Finally,in 1641, they seized Malacca from the Portuguese.

The English East India Company, at least at first, took a less violentapproach to the Asian trade. Its traders sought permission beforelocating a factory on foreign territory. Kept out of the East Indies by theDutch, the English focused on trade with India. There, they negotiatedfor trading rights with the Mughal Empire and local Indian officials.

English merchants followed a fairly standard trading procedure. Theyused silver to buy Indian textiles and then traded the textiles in the EastIndies for pepper and other spices, which they shipped to England.They also carried Indian cotton and indigo, a plant that yielded a bluedye, to Europe.

Some 200 years after the Portuguese arrived in the Indies, Europeanmerchants were still confined to coastal trading posts and variousislands. In 1757, however, the British took control of the Indian territoryof Bengal after Mughal power collapsed. In the years that followed,Britain would gain control of all of India and absorb it into its growingcolonial empire.

The India trade brought the British great wealth, helping them expandinto other parts of Asia. Economic power gave them military power—theability to build ships, equip them with weapons, and engage them inwarfare with their competitors. The British ousted the Portuguese fromports such as Hormuz and battled the Dutch off and on throughout the1600s.

In the 1700s, European demand for spices fell, severely reducing theDutch East India Company’s profits. However, the demand for Indiantextiles, Chinese tea, and other such goods rose. The British were well-positioned to profit from trading in those goods. After the Dutch EastIndia Company lost its government charter, the British took over mostof its outposts in the Indies. Great Britain now dominated the Asiantrade.



By the end of the 1700s, the British had become the dominant tradingpower in Asia. Chinese tea was one of their most important tradegoods. In this image, dockworkers unload tea in London.

5. Transformation of European Economies

In the first global age, the European states that engaged in long-distance trade created new economic strategies. Those strategiesrepresented early stages in the growth of modern capitalism. It was theera of the Commercial Revolution, the rapid expansion of business,fueled by overseas trade and colonization.

As commercial activity spread throughout Europe, wealth increasedand living standards rose. This wealth also made countries stronger,enabling them to enhance their military and political power. For thisreason, governments established merchant-friendly policies.

Mercantilism The philosophy behind those policies came to beknown as mercantilism. Mercantilism evolved out of the intenseeconomic competition among European states. A major focus of thatcompetition involved trying to build stockpiles of bullion—gold andsilver. English thinker John Locke offered this observation on the role of



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bullion:

Riches do not consist in having more Gold and Silver, but inhaving more in proportion, than the rest of the World, orthan our Neighbours, . . . who, sharing the Gold and Silverof the World in a less proportion, want [lack] the means ofPlenty and Power, and so are Poorer.—John Locke, from Lowering of Interest, 1691

John Locke was an influentialEnglish philosopher andpolitical thinker in the 1600s.His ideas influenced thewriting of the U.S.Constitution. He alsosupported the economicphilosophy known asmercantilism.

Mercantilists aimed to make their country richer and more powerful atthe expense of other countries. To increase national wealth,governments allied themselves with businesses. They founded coloniesto supply industries with raw materials and provide a market forfinished goods—the goal being self-sufficiency. This goal also called forexporting as much as possible while importing as little as possible.



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Exports of goods brought gold and silver into a country. Imports sentgold and silver to other countries. To discourage imports, states placedtaxes on them.

In the Atlantic world, Spain and Portugal paid huge amounts of silverand gold for manufactured goods. This trade made Dutch, English, andFrench mercantilists happy. But trade with Asia frustrated thembecause it drained bullion out of their treasuries. From 1600 to 1800,the nations of western Europe shipped some 21,000 tons of bullion,mainly silver, to Asia.

Capitalism Mercantilism is often viewed as an early form ofcapitalism. Like mercantilism, it is a difficult concept to define. In itsideal form, capitalism is an economic system in which all resourcesare privately owned and markets determine how those resources aredistributed.

During the mercantilist age, with the steady expansion of trade, severalimportant features of capitalism appeared. One was the profit motive.European states began looking outward in hopes of making profits fromforeign commerce. Another was the accumulation of capital. Byapplying mercantilist principles, those states built up their stocks ofgold and silver. A third feature was financial innovation. The Europeansimproved credit techniques, finding more efficient ways of makingcapital available to business.

Bank loans funded entrepreneurs, people willing to take the risks ofstarting and running a business. Entrepreneurs launched the East IndiaCompanies. The English and Dutch East India Companies were bothfounded as joint-stock companies. They raised capital by selling stock,or shares of ownership in the company. The owners held the stockjointly.

This new form of business organization was a forerunner of the moderncorporation. The East India Companies were run not by their investors,but by elected directors. They had access to the large amounts ofcapital needed to fund costly long-distance trading voyages. Aroundtrip to Asia could take three years, but the East India Companiescould afford to wait that long. When such a voyage was successful, allof the owners profited.



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The English East India Company was a joint-stock company, whichmeant that it raised money by selling shares in the company. Thisbuilding, East India House, served as the company’s headquarters inLondon’s financial district. The company’s directors had offices here.

Major Shift in Demand Black pepper remained a highly sought-afteritem of foreign trade well into the 1600s. European consumption of rarespices, indigo, and fine Chinese silks also stayed high. In the late 1600sand early 1700s, however, consumer demand shifted away from luxurygoods. Europeans imported greater amounts of sugar and tobacco fromthe Americas, as well as tea and textiles from Asia. The combination ofimported sugar from the West Indies and tea and porcelain from Chinagave rise to a new tradition—the tea party.

The shift in demand may best be reflected in the flood of cotton textilesfrom India, including cheap calico cloth. Not all of the cotton fabricstayed in Europe. Merchants re-exported much of it to the Americas,Africa, and the Middle East. The growing worldwide demand for cottoncloth had consequences beyond boosting Asian imports. Competitionfor this market helped trigger a revolution in the way goods weremanufactured. England’s textile industry, bolstered by themechanization of spinning and weaving, would be the driving force in



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major changes in manufacturing.

Lesson Summary

In this lesson, you read about factors and events that led toEurope’s dominance in the first global age.

Cultural Interaction European colonizers imposed their customs andreligion on the indigenous peoples of the Americas and on the enslavedAfricans forcibly sent to the Americas. The Columbian Exchangeinvolved the distribution of previously unknown foods across thecontinents. Trade with Asia introduced European consumers to newproducts, such as tea.

Political Structures Sovereign nation-states rose in Europe as kingsmaintained power over local nobles. Through conquest and trade,several nation-states established empires.

Economic Structures Europeans followed a mercantilist philosophy,which encouraged exports and discouraged imports. A state operatingunder a mercantilist system obtained resources from its colonies. Thosecolonies also served as markets for the state’s manufactured goods.Europe’s increased profits from foreign trade led to the accumulation ofcapital, or wealth. The amassing of wealth was a key factor in theexpansion of capitalism that took place during the first global age.

Social Structures European settlement in Latin America broughtabout a stratification of society. People born in Europe occupied thehighest social class.

Human-Environment Interaction Europeans migrated to andcolonized the Americas. The diseases that they brought with themkilled a large number of the indigenous peoples. They forced millions ofenslaved Africans to cross the Atlantic to work on plantations and inmines. Europeans cut down forests in the Americas in order to cultivatecrops. They greatly expanded pasture land in order to feed the cattle,horses, and other domesticated animals that were new to theAmericas. Europeans also extracted resources from the land throughthe mining of gold and silver.



Toward a Global Economy - laspuertascommunityschool.org … · Europe. This painting depicts the large market in Naples, Italy, in the early 1700s. All five of these states had ports

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