AP WORLD HISTORY - Chapter 14: Economic transformations: Commerce and Consequence 1450 - 1750

AP World History - Ways of the World Book by R. Strayer.
Chapter 14: Economic Transformations: Commerce and consequence 1450-1750. Summary.

1. COMMERCE AND CONSEQUENCE 1450 – 1750 AP WORLD HISTORY WAYS OF THE WORLD SECOND EDITION ROBERT W. STRAYER CHAPTER 14: ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATIONS

2. Commerce and Consequence The Atlantic Slave trade remind us of the enormous significance of this commerce in human beings for the early modern world and of is continuing echoes even in the 20th century, The Slave Trade component of those international networkds of exchange that shaped human interactions during centuries. European now smashed their way into the ancient spice trade of the Indian Ocean, developing new relationships with Asian societies as a result. Silver obtained from mines in Spanish America enriched Europe.

3. Europeans and Asian Commerce The voyage (1497-1499) of the Portuguese mariner Vasco da Gama in which Europeans sailed to India for the first time was no accident. = outcome of deliberate effort to explore a sea route to the East by slowly down the West African coast around the tip of South Africa to finally across the Indian Ocean in 1498. Desire to look for tropical spices: cinammon, nutmeg, mace, cloves, pepper. (Aphrodisiacs?) Chinese Silk and Indian Cotton.

4. Portuguese Commerce European popullation was growing again after Black Death. National monarchies forming – Spain, France, and England: were learning how to tax their citizens more effectively and build substantial military forces equipped with weapons. The main italian commercial city Venice was monopolized the European trade in Eastern goods, annually sending convoys of ships to Alexandria in Egypt. Venetians resented Muslim monopoly in the Indian Ocean. Portuguese attempt a sea route to India that both passed Benetian and Muslim intermediaries.

5. Portuguese Empire of Commerce Portuguese soon learned that most Indian Ocean merchant ships were not heavily armed, They had military advantage that made them establish fortified several key locations within the Indian Ocean world. Mombasa in East Africa, Homuz at the Persian Golf, Goa on the Coast of India, Macao on the coast of China. Portuguese bases were obtained forcibly against small and weak states.

6. Portuguese Monopoly Portuguese authorities in the East tried to require all merchant vessels to purchase a CARTAZ or pass to pay 6 to 10% of their cargoes. Monopolized – blocked Red Sea route to Mediterranean for a century. They became heavily involved in carrying Asian goods to Asia ports. Unwilling to accept a dominant Portuguese role in the Indian Ocean, other European countries gradually contested Portugal´s efforts to monopolize the rich spice trade to Europe.

7. Spain and the Philippines Spain was the firs to challenge Portugal’s position. They establish themselves on what became the Philippine Islands, named after King Philip II. These spice islands / small and weak societies encouraged Spanish to establish colonial rule. Eventhough Christendom was spreding, the Islam gained strength in resistance of Spanish colonial rule. Periodic revolts led by massacres from the Spanish, soon they left and let Chinese invasions in.

8. East India Companies Northern European powers were both military and economically stronger than Portuguese. The British India Company and the Dutch East India Company received granting from government to monopolies and govern conquered peoples. Dutch controlled spices: Cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. Much bloodshed, and massacres. Led the islands that only their production was sold to Dutch. Slave labor force to produce nutmeg crop in islands of Indonesia.

9. British India Company British largely excluded from the rich spice islands by the Dutch monopoly. They establish themselves in India, specially with major power in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. British didnt practice the “war by trade” instead through bribes, then little by little acquire Indian cotton textiles and the tea, coffee industry. British came to rule India and the Dutch controlled Indonesia.

10. Asians and the Asian Commerce European political control was limited to the philipphines, parts of Java and few other islands. Japan was one of the few islands that Europeans couldnt penetrate. Japan had feudal lords, known as DAIMYO, and its own warriors SAMURAIS. By the early 17th century, remarkable military figures unified Japan because of the Tokugawa clan. Tokugawa shogunate largely closed their country off from the emerging world of European commerce, although maintained their trading ties with China and Korea.

11. Silver and the Global Commerce Silver trade gave birth to genuinely global network of exchange. Spanish America alone produced perhaps 85% of the worlds silver during the early modern era. Chinas huge economy, demanded greats amounts of Silver. Much of silver shipped across the Atlantic to Spain was spent in Europe. The largest mine in the world was in Bolivia (potos í), with horrible conditions for the miners. Latin America´s silver enriched the Crown, making Spain the envy of its European rivals only during the 16th centuries. The value of silver dropped in early 17th century as Spain lost its position and countries started lookinf for raw materials, historians call this a “general crisis”.

12. World Hunt : FUR in Global Commerce Furs, had long provided warmth and conveyed status in colder regions of the world. (North America, Siberia, Russia). European population growth and agricultural expansion had sharply diminished the supply of fur bearing animals. These conditions pushed prices higher. Led to trapping and hunting. Over 3 centuries enormous quantities of furs and deerskins found their way to Europe. Led to many extintion of animals. 500,000 animals per year of animals such as deer, bears, beavers, foxes.

13. Commerce in People: The Atlantic Slave Trade None had more profound or enduring human consequences than the Atlantic slave trade. 12.5 million people from African societies were shipped across the Atlantic in the infamous Middle Passage. 1.8 million died during the transatlantic journey. This African diaspora injected into these new societies issues of race that endure still in the 20th centuries, Slavery became a metaphor for many kinds of social oppression, quite different from plantation slavery, in the centuries that followed. Workers protested the slavery of wage labor, colonized people rejected the slavery of imperial domination and feminists sometimes defined patriarchy as a form of slavery.

14. Slave trade in Context The Atlantic stalve trade and slavery in the Americas represented the most recent large scale expression of a very widespread human practice- owning and exchange of human beings. Slavery took form in many places, into their owners hoseholds, or communities. Children could inherit the slave status. Slavery in Americas was immense size of traffic in slaves – led economy. = sugar, tobacco, cotton.

15. Reflections: Economic Globalization The study of history remind us of contradictory truths. One is that our lives in the present bear remarkable similarities of the past. We are pehaps not so unique as we might think. Still our lives have changed substantially, this chapter about global commerce; long distance trade in spices, textiles, silber, furs and slaves provides both perspectives. Globalization started when? Circulation of goods, international currency, production for world market, private enterprises. We have mention all of these during this chapter.