Answer the questions in at least 350 words.

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grossmont and cuyamaca college

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Please read the file I have attached down below and briefly answer the questions I have provided in at least 350 wordsQuplease make sure you included quotes from the chapter to support your answers and cite material. Please please use your own words And make sure you come u with answers from the chapter. I am looking for at least 350 words for your main entry.

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As with Africa and India, some areas also experienced the long arm of European imperialism. Please discuss the Opium Wars. What were they, when did they happen, and why? What were the consequences of the Opium Wars for China?

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Moving Toward a Global Market Since ancient times, the peoples of Europe, Asia, and Africa have exchanged luxury goods and other commodities. This interaction led to the development of trade networks such as the ​Silk Road between China and the Levant. Trade networks in turn allowed for cultural interaction between the regions as the spread of Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam indicates. Despite economic and cultural exchange, the histories of the regions connected by trade networks were largely separate. The situation began to change in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. After nearly 100 years of demographic, economic, social, political, and religious crises – collectively known in European history as the “crisis of feudalism” – the various Eurasian civilizations slowly began to recover starting in the fifteenth century. Territorial expansion was a crucial aspect of their recovery, and the growth of gunpowder empires at this time led to the political integration of many areas of Eurasia. The ​Ottoman Empire expanded into the Mediterranean and the Balkans; the ​Mogul Empire was establishing itself in India and unifying the sub-continent; and China under the ​Manchus expanded into Xinjiang. European maritime expansion, however, had the most profound, long-term effect on the world. Europe was a marginal area in the Middle Ages, consisting of many small, warring kingdoms. It was not as wealthy as the other Eurasian civilizations. Yet, Europeans had an insatiable demand for the products of Asia and Africa, and the medieval trade networks failed to satisfy their desires. Consequently, Europeans sought direct access to African and Asian markets through transoceanic exploration. In the process, they discovered not only maritime routes to sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, but also to North and South America. Slowly, a new global market linking Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas emerged. European control over the transoceanic trade networks allowed Europeans to move from being at the margins of the world economy to being at its center. This chapter examines European expansion and the development of new trade networks in the first global age. This expansion transformed the world, connecting regions that had previously had limited or no contact with each other, thereby creating a new global economy. In some places, European explorers, merchants, and colonists tapped into existing markets and trade networks, but in other places their arrival disrupted existing networks or required the development of new marketplaces and new trade goods. In time, these new trade networks favored European merchants and undergirded European economic preeminence. Transoceanic expansion also led to intercontinental migration, most notably from Europe and Africa to the Americas. Migration led to new cultural syntheses and cultural tensions; it also left the painful legacy of slavery. Finally, transoceanic expansion and trade corresponded with internal reforms within Europe that led to the emergence of stronger European states, which dominated the world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This chapter highlights the role of Europeans, particularly the Portuguese and Spaniards, in the creation of a global market. This Euro-centric perspective should not eclipse the fact that without the cooperation and partnership of Africans, Asians, and Native Americans, many European achievements would have been impossible. Non-Europeans were active participants in the encounter that brought four continents together. African and Asian elites, for instance, often dealt with Europeans from a position of power, and they expected to benefit from the exchange. Moreover, prior to 1700, there were relatively few Europeans in Asia and Africa. So Europeans had little impact on those societies. Even in the Americas where the arrival of Europeans did radically change social relations, Native Americans were able to limit Spanish authority and retain significant autonomy in their communities. Portuguese Maritime Empire It was from Portuguese shores that European explorers initially set sail. Several factors explain why Portugal led the way in transoceanic exploration. First, Portugal had achieved greater political stability than larger, more important European kingdoms in the fifteenth century. Second, the Portuguese were skilled shipbuilders and had extensive knowledge of new navigational tools (such as the compass, the astrolabe​, and ​portolan charts​). Third, the geographical location of Portugal was ideal to explore the coast of Africa and to take advantage of the Atlantic trade winds and currents. Portuguese mastery of the prevailing winds, for instance, allowed for safer and faster voyages. Voyages of exploration would have been impossible without good ships, and the Portuguese had the perfect vessel – the ​caravela or ​caravel – for long-distance exploration by the early 1400s. In 1456, a Venetian sailor called the caravels, “The best ships that sailed the seas.” The average caravel weighed 50 tons, and was about 70 feet in length and about 25 feet in beam. The wide hull displaced little water, and the use of sternpost rudders (i.e., a rudder fixed to the stern-board of the keel, instead of the oar-like lateral rudder) allowed for better steering. The ships typically had two or three masts, and the use of both lateen and square sails allowed sailors to take advantage of a wider range of wind conditions than the use of a single lateen or square sail would have allowed. The use of lateen sails, for instance, meant caravels needed to tack less often in contrary winds, guaranteeing a speedier return, which made sailors more willing to risk longer outward voyages. Wind propulsion also meant that caravels required fewer sailors than galleys, and the small crew size – typically twenty sailors – made it possible for many more ships to ply unknown waters. The caravel’s shallow draft also reduced the chances of the ship running aground in unknown waters and made it easier for the crew to beach the vessel for repairs. Finally, caravels cost less to operate than larger vessels, so voyages of exploration could easily pay for themselves. To keep their bearings in the open sea, sailors looked to the heavens, using the sun, moon, stars, and constellations to mark their positions. Some stellar observations could be made with the naked eye, but instruments such as the astrolabe, the cross-staff​, and ​the quadrant allowed navigators to calculate their latitude, or north-south position, more accurately. The North Star was the primary reference point for navigators in the Northern Hemisphere, and the Southern Cross, which the Portuguese identified around 1500, for the Southern Hemisphere. Navigators could not calculate their longitude (east-west position), however, until the English developed an accurate sea clock in the mid-eighteenth century. The compass, which had come to Europe from China via the Arabs in the thirteenth century, compensated somewhat for navigators’ inability to calculate their precise coordinates by allowing them to maintain their course, even in cloudy weather, with only rough latitudinal coordinates. In addition to the astrolabe and compass, a navigator needed charts and tables to plot his course over the open sea. The most famous charts were the portolan charts (​portolanos)​ , with their “wind rose,” which indicated the orientation of the winds. Portolan charts also included compass directions for sailing from one port to another. They had no universal system of coordinates though, and no two charts were alike. Tables on the declinations of the heavenly bodies allowed navigators to match their latitude in the open sea to the latitude of known landmasses. The Portuguese added significantly to this knowledge by calculating the latitude of places on the African coast for future charts and tables. Despite improvements, navigation was still rather rudimentary. For instance, navigators relied on “​dead reckoning​” or estimating their east-west position by using sand clocks and observing the speed of the hull to calculate the distance traveled from a previously known position. Sailors were suspicious of the new navigational tools as well. Many sailors believed that the compass was an occult instrument, and early navigators consequently tried to hide their instruments. Navigators and captains, for their part, believed that onions and garlic could counteract the effects of a magnet and therefore barred sailors from bringing those vegetables on board. The participants in the voyages of discovery were still men of their times, with medieval tools and attitudes, even as their exploits on the high seas helped to move the world into modernity. Not only did it have the best ships and navigational techniques for overseas expansion, Portugal had the will to expand. The Portuguese population recovered sooner from the ​Black Death than other European populations, and by the fifteenth century, the growing population provided the manpower to carry out exploration. There was also wide support in Portuguese society for territorial expansion and exploration. Expansion offered the economically stricken aristocracy leadership opportunities as well as financial opportunities. The growing merchant class (​bourgeoisie​) saw exploration as a way to expand markets and to accumulate capital. The lower classes hoped to escape from dire economic straits and feudal rule at home. For the crown, overseas expansion minimized internal disorders by preventing societal pressures from building up. Portuguese expansion initially focused on Morocco. In 1415, Portugal captured the strategic city of Ceuta, and in subsequent years it captured other strategic points along the Moroccan coast. In many ways, the push into Africa was a continuation of the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from Islam. The spirit of crusade continued to motivate the Portuguese until the tragic death of ​King Sebastian and most of his army at the Battle of Alcazar el Kebir (1578) in Morocco. Expansion into Morocco also had a commercial aspect. The Portuguese hoped to reap financial rewards by controlling various North African termini of the sub-Saharan gold trade. The medieval ideas of crusade, which were foremost in the minds of Portuguese elites, such as ​Prince Henry “the Navigator” (d.1460), were often at odds with the commercial aspects of Atlantic exploration and expansion. The task of mapping the African coast was slow and arduous. Cape Bojador in the present-day Western Sahara was the first navigational obstacle. Strong northerly winds deterred many sailors from venturing beyond that cape, fearing that they would be unable to return. Finally, in 1434, an expedition led by ​Gil Eannes sailed beyond Cape Bojador and returned. Within the next 30 years, the Portuguese had reached Sierra Leone. Along the way, they established profitable trading posts (​feitorias)​ such as Arguin off the coast of present-day Mauritania. The prospect of profits motivated further sailors to undertake voyages and investors to finance them. In 1468, Fernão Gomes secured from the crown a five-year trade monopoly with coastal Africa beyond Arguin. All he had to do was pay the crown 500 ​crusados a year and discover 320 miles of coastline (i.e., 100 leagues) a year. Gomes profited handsomely from this contract. In 1471, he had reached the Gulf of Guinea and gained access to the gold producing regions in West Africa. The shoreline of the Gulf of Guinea initially led the Portuguese to believe that they had found the all sea route to India. On his last voyage, however, Gomes discovered that the coast turned suddenly south at Fernando Po Island. He sailed until Cape Santa Caterina before returning home. After Gomes’s contract expired, Portuguese exploration slowed down until the reign of ​King João II or John II (1481 – 1495). João II created a comprehensive plan to reach India and gave Portuguese exploration a unity that it had previously lacked. In 1482, he built the first European fort in sub-Saharan Africa, São Jorge da Mina (St. George of the Mine), commonly called ​Elmina​, to protect Portuguese trading interests near the Volta and Niger deltas from other Europeans. Elmina was situated on the coast of present-day Ghana. The king also sent ​Diogo Cão to explore the coast south of Cape Santa Caterina and gave Cão giant stone crosses (called ​padrãos)​ to mark his most important landfalls. Between 1482 and 1486, Cão charted the coast to Cape Cross on the coast of present-day Namibia, where he died. He set up his first padrão at the mouth of the Zaire River, and his fourth marks his resting place at Cape Cross. All future Portuguese explorers erected padrãos at key places along the African coast. In 1487, João sent ​Bartolomeu Dias to continue the search for a seaway to India. Dias reached the Cape of Good Hope, the tip of Africa, in 1488. His men’s refusal to go further forced Dias to return home. That same year, João sent two emissaries by land to Ethiopia (believed to be the kingdom of the mythical ​Prester John​) and India to gather strategic information about potential Christian allies in the conflict with Islam and commercial information on trade routes, trade sources, and places for settlement. The Portuguese used this information to develop a strategy for expansion in the Indian Ocean. The Portuguese did not follow up on Dias’s accomplishment immediately. It was Christopher Columbus​’ returning from America in 1493 that prompted the Portuguese into action. In fact, Columbus’s discoveries almost sparked a war between Spain and Portugal because his discoveries were south of the Canary Islands and therefore according to the ​Treaty of Alcácovas (1479) belonged to Portugal. To prevent war, Pope Alexander VI intervened in 1493, dividing the non-Christian world between Portugal and Spain according to a meridian passing 100 leagues (320 miles) west of the Azores or Cape Verde Islands. The wording of the papal decree or bull, ​Inter Caetera​, however, was unacceptable to the Portuguese. In the ​Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), Spain and Portugal renegotiated the dividing line, making it a meridian line passing 370 leagues (1,184 miles) west of the Cape Verde Islands. In the end, neither side adhered strictly to the treaty’s clauses. Portuguese colonists eventually settled beyond the demarcation line in Brazil, and Spain claimed Portuguese territories in Asia. Other European powers, especially Protestant ones, also questioned the validity of the initial papal bull and the Treaty of Tordesillas. Nevertheless, papal bulls, such as ​Inter Caetera (1493), were fundamental to justify the Spanish and Portuguese claims to possess newly discovered territories and to legitimize their dominion. King Manuel (1495 – 1521) finally sent ​Vasco da Gama to India in 1497. After extensive preparation, da Gama’s four ships set sail in July. By skillfully using the prevailing winds, da Gama reached the Cape of Good Hope in three months, half the time that it took Dias. On reaching the Indian Ocean, da Gama secured a pilot familiar with the Indian Ocean’s currents and winds to bring him to India. In 1499, da Gama returned to Portugal, having lost a ship but with promising ​results​. In 1500, ​Pedro Alvares Cabral led a larger expedition to India. The expedition was blown off course, and he discovered Brazil on April 22, 1500. Brazil was well within the Portuguese sphere according to the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494). Cabral’s discovery came as no surprise to contemporary Portuguese, who apparently knew that land existed somewhere in that vicinity. This has led scholars to speculate that at Tordesillas the Portuguese purposefully negotiated a dividing line further west than the pope originally proposed in ​Inter Caetera to secure the anticipated landmass for themselves. While engaged in this project of exploration, Portugal also began to establish overseas colonies in the fifteenth century. Madeira and the Azores Islands served as the experimental laboratory for the Portuguese Empire in America. The Portuguese began to settle Madeira around 1419, and they replicated their way of life on these Atlantic islands. The islands were divided between several captains who had administrative responsibilities within their areas. Villages and towns were also established, and they eventually gained their own charters and municipal governments. When a community was large enough, the king petitioned the pope to create a bishopric. Agriculture was the main source of revenue from the Atlantic islands. Initially, the Portuguese planted wheat, but the soil of the islands, especially Madeira, was ideal for growing sugarcane. By the mid-fifteenth century, Madeira was exporting ​sugar​. The planting and harvesting of sugarcane was labor intensive, and the plantations were always short of labor. The importation of African slaves solved the labor problem. The traffic in slaves between Africa and the Atlantic islands was soon extended to the Americas, thereby beginning the transatlantic slave trade. Thus, in the Atlantic islands of Portugal, the prototype of the overseas plantation (relying on the monoculture of an export crop worked by black slaves from Africa, financed by outside capital, and often marked by absentee ownership) took shape. The basic structure of European colonization in the Americas developed in the Atlantic islands. Sugarcane Workers in the Dominican Republic Another mode of colonization employed by the Portuguese and their rivals was the trading post​. The establishment of trading posts predominated in Africa and Asia. Essentially, trading posts allowed Europeans to tap into existing trade networks or to establish new networks that were more convenient for African and Asian merchants. The Europeans were often on the fringes of the intra-Asian trade, shaving off a portion of that commerce for export to Europe. One reason Europeans played a marginal role in Asia is that Asian merchants desired few European goods except for silver, which was in short supply in the early sixteenth century. Since they had little to trade with Asians, the Portuguese tried to force their way into the Indian Ocean trading system. Governor-General ​Afonso de Albuquerque (1509 – 1515) is considered the founder of the Portuguese “empire” in Asia. He successfully conquered several strategic locations (Malacca, Hormuz, and Goa, which became the administrative capital), destroyed rival cities, and established Portuguese naval power in the region. The Portuguese lacked the military resources to create a land-based empire, and the military strength of the Muslim powers in the Indian Ocean basin prevented large-scale conquest. By occupying strategic points, though, the Portuguese disrupted existing trade networks and briefly monopolized the Asian trade with Europe. Portuguese control over the spice trade made Portugal extremely rich, but its monopoly only lasted about 30 years. By the 1530s, the Indian Ocean trade networks that had been disrupted by the Portuguese were operating once again, bringing spices and luxury goods to the Middle East to trade with Italian merchants. The bulk of Asian goods, however, continued to arrive in Europe via Portugal for the rest of the sixteenth century until the English and Dutch supplanted them in Asia in the seventeenth century. In addition to importing Asian goods to Europe, the Portuguese became middlemen in the lucrative intra-Asian trade. The profits earned from transporting goods within Asia helped the silver strapped Portuguese purchase more Asian goods for export to Europe. The Dutch and English would play the same role as middlemen in the seventeenth century. Only in the late eighteenth century did Europeans become more than middlemen in Asia. Maintaining a seaborne empire was less expensive than conquering territory, but it was still costly. Pirate attacks and the threats of local Asian elites required Portugal to maintain a military presence in Asia. Despite these risks, the Asian trade generated significant wealth for Portugal and the rest of Europe. Spanish Colonization of the Americas The Spanish kings were not far behind the Portuguese in sponsoring voyages of exploration and conquest, starting with the Canary Islands in the early fifteenth century. They also supported the most celebrated and controversial explorer of the period, Christopher Columbus. He was born in 1451 in Genoa and became a sailor at a young age. While living in Portugal, he conceived his plan for a western route to India. According to his calculations, the westward voyage from Europe to Asia was roughly 2,500 miles, much shorter than the anticipated African route. The King of Portugal and other European rulers hesitated to support Columbus not because they doubted that the world was round, but because they doubted Columbus’ calculations for the ​circumference of the earth​; he believed it was less than 18,000 miles. Ferdinand and Isabel​, the Catholic Kings of Spain, finally agreed to sponsor Columbus. They drew up a contract, the Patent of Santa Fe, in April 1492. The contract made Columbus Admiral of the Ocean Sea and granted him noble status. It also gave him administrative privileges in any newly discovered lands. The rest of the Patent of Santa Fe’s clauses addressed financing the voyage and dividing the profits. The Catholic Kings saw the voyage as a commercial venture, and they reserved for themselves nine-tenths of the proceeds from the sale of precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other goods obtained on the voyage. Ferdinand and Isabella Contrary to popular legend, Isabel did not sell the royal jewels to finance the voyage. Rather, she got a loan and ordered the town of Palos to provide two caravels for the voyage. Columbus, however, still had to secure another vessel and a crew, which he did after striking a deal with ​Martín Alonso Pinzón​, a fellow captain and explorer. Columbus also had to raise part of the money himself, which he borrowed from Genoese bankers. Columbus’ voyage was thus a partnership. He had royal backing, but not complete royal sponsorship. Such arrangements were typical in early voyages of exploration. On August 3, 1492, Columbus set sail from Palos with three ships (​Niña,​ ​Pinta,​ and Santa María​) and 90 men. On October 12, he made landfall in the Bahamas (possibly Watling Island) and named the island San Salvador. He then found Cuba and Hispaniola. Columbus dutifully claimed the islands for the Catholic Kings. On his return, he wrote a royal minister, “I took possession of all of [the islands] for our most fortunate King by making public proclamation and unfurling his standard, no one making any resistance.” Columbus’ proclamation was the first of many proclamations by Europeans claiming land in the Americas. Columbus made four voyages to America (1492 – 1493, 1493 – 1496, 1498 – 1500, 1502 – 1504). His first voyage is the most celebrated. Not only did he “discover” America, he also charted the best westward passage to the Americas and the best eastward passage back to Europe. Given that his navigational techniques relied mainly on the compass and dead reckoning, Columbus’ ability to return to the islands on future voyages attests to his seamanship. He proved to be an inept administrator, however. His decision to ship 500 Indians to Seville to be sold as slaves in 1495 rankled the Catholic Kings, who considered the Native Americans to be their subjects, and Columbus was brought home in shackles for the misadministration of the colony in 1496. On his third voyage, he discovered the Island of Trinidad and the delta of the Orinoco River in Venezuela, but on his final voyage he failed to discover anything new. Columbus died in 1506 still believing that he had reached Asia. News of Columbus’ voyages captivated Europeans and set in motion further voyages of exploration. His ​initial letter to the Catholic Kings was published nine times in 1493 and another eleven times by 1500. People throughout Europe were curious about the western lands, which the humanist Peter Martyr dubbed ​novus orbis or New World, and anxiously awaited news of other voyages to the Western Hemisphere. ​Amerigo Vespucci​, a Florentine navigator who made several trips to the New World between 1499 and 1502, provided that news. His letter to Pier Francesco de’ Medici describing the geography of the New World was printed in the principal European languages. In 1507, a German mapmaker, ​Martin Waldseemüller​, published a map of the world in which he named the southern continent America, after Vespucci. In time, Northern Europeans called the entire Western Hemisphere America. The Spanish, however, called the western lands “the Indies” until the eighteenth century. The Spanish king sponsored ​Ferdinand Magellan​, a Portuguese sea captain, to circumnavigate the earth with five ships in 1519. Magellan’s expedition was the first to pass the southern tip of South America, discovering the strait that bears his name, and to sail across the Pacific Ocean. In 1521, Magellan reached the Philippines. There he was killed in a battle with locals, but one of his ships made it back to Spain in 1522. Within 30 years of Columbus’s landfall in the Bahamas, Europeans’ knowledge of the world’s geography had changed dramatically, and better knowledge of winds and currents was reducing travel time, making the economic integration of the world more feasible. Ferdinand Magellan Despite all the excitement, settlers did not rush to the New World. Conditions in the Americas were difficult, and few Spaniards were willing to go. In fact, at the end of 1498 over 300 of the earliest settlers returned to Spain, seeing no future in the islands. Although the lucrative trade that everyone hoped for did not develop right away, within a short time, the Spanish had explored the Caribbean basin and successfully colonized several islands. These islands provided Spain with bases to explore the coasts of North, Central, and South America and to launch the conquest of Central and South America. The men who carried out this conquest are known as conquistadors. They came from all parts of Spain, but the leaders came overwhelmingly from Extremadura (a remote region along the border with Portugal). Most were in their twenties and thirties, and perhaps 10 percent were ​hidalgos (lower nobility). Most came to America in search of a better life. They were not bloodthirsty killers; rather, they were men who joined these expeditions to fulfill their goals. ​Bernal Díaz​, a conquistador, stated: “We came here to serve God and also to get rich.” The basic motives for conquest then were God, gold, glory, and king. These goals were often at odds and led to serious disputes among the Spaniards. For example, the conquistadors’ rush for gold and wealth spurred the Dominican friar ​Bartolomé de las Casas to attack the economic motivations of the conquistadors, which he feared would undermined the evangelical mission of the Church in the Americas and destroy the Indians. Meanwhile, the desire for glory led to infighting between conquistadors, which threatened the political stability of the colonies. Such conflicts led to denunciations of abuse and accusations of disloyalty as well as to debates over the meaning of conquest and the proper relationship between Europeans and Native Americans in post-conquest society. The Spanish struggle for justice in the conquest and the texts it generated, such as Las Casas’ ​Very Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies,​ eventually provided the fodder for Spain’s enemies to construct a narrative of Spanish cruelty and brutality in the Americas, commonly known as the Black Legend. The conquest of the Americas was not planned. Rather, it was the result of a series of individual initiatives. The monarchs or their representatives typically drew up an agreement with a commander authorizing an expedition of conquest in return for a share of the treasure. The commanders were generally responsible for financing and organizing the expedition (generally 50 to 500 men). Expeditions had a military structure. There was a commander, captains, a detachment of mounted men (who held superior status and received a larger share of the spoils), and detachments of foot soldiers. The participants, however, were not professional soldiers, and few had military experience before coming to America. The command structure was also slightly more democratic than that of the regular military. The commanders had to consult with their men on important decisions. Participants normally served for booty, allocations of land, and tribute paying vassals instead of regular pay. The division of spoils, however, often left a group of conquistadors unhappy, which fueled further expeditions. Royal personnel, such as notaries and treasury officials, also accompanied the conquistadors to ensure that the terms of the patent were fulfilled and that the crown received its rightful share of the plunder. Priests joined expeditions to evangelize among the Indians. Some expeditions also included black slaves, Indian auxiliaries, and women. Because these were not professional armies, the soldiers came from a cross section of the population. Expeditions consequently had farmers, tailors, ironsmiths, barbers, scribes, and other skilled workers, many of whom had already acclimatized to New World conditions. With this assortment of skills, the companies were able to survive for extended periods of time far from European settlements and to adapt to New World circumstances. In addition to their skills, the conquistadors brought animals (horses, dogs, and pigs) that helped them to survive in hostile environments. Probably the most famous conquistador is ​Hernán Cortés​. He was born in 1485 to a lower noble family in Extremadura. He studied law at the University of Salamanca but did not finish his studies and became a notary. In 1506, he immigrated to Hispaniola. In 1511, he participated in the conquest of Cuba. He impressed the governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez, who appointed Cortés to lead an expedition to reconnoiter Mexico. In February 1519, sensing that the governor had become suspicious of his loyalty and fearing that his commission might be revoked, Cortés hastily left Cuba with a force of approximately 500 men, sixteen horses, and some artillery. Initially, Cortés followed orders exploring the coastline of Mexico, starting with the Yucatan peninsula. There, he secured two translators, a Spaniard, ​Jerónimo Aguilar​, who had been stranded in Yucatan since 1511 and had learned Mayan, and Malintzin, later known as ​Doña Marina​, a native Nahuatl speaker (the primary language of central Mexico) who spoke Mayan. In April, Cortés reached the Mexican mainland and formally took possession of Mexico in the name of King Charles of Spain. To legitimize his actions and his independence from Velázquez, Cortés and his men founded the town of Vera Cruz, and the “townsmen” promptly elected Cortés their captain. One ship was sent directly back to Spain with a letter to the king attesting to their loyalty and placing themselves directly under royal rule. The rest of the ships were destroyed to prevent anyone from reporting this transgression to governor Velázquez. Cortés and his men then marched inland, fighting skirmishes with the Aztecs, placing crosses in Indian sanctuaries, and most importantly allying themselves with Mesoamericans who were discontented with Aztec rule. By November 1519, nine months after he had left Cuba, Cortés had entered the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. Prior to Cortés’ arrival in Tenochtitlan, the Aztec emperor Montezuma supposedly came to believe that the Spaniards were gods and militarily invincible. To the displeasure of his advisers, he showed little zeal in resisting them. He even welcomed the Spaniards into the city. The encounter between Montezuma and Cortés on the causeway into the city illustrates the problem of miscommunication and misinterpretation. ​Montezuma​’s welcome, “This is your house and these are your palaces,” was interpreted by Cortés as an act of homage and the voluntary surrender of sovereignty. This may have been a deliberate misinterpretation of Aztec courtesy, because recognizing that their situation was precarious and fearing attack, the Spanish took Montezuma hostage. Cortés also had to worry about his Spanish rivals. On learning that a force loyal to the governor of Cuba had arrived in Mexico, Cortés set off with a small contingent to attack them in May 1520, leaving Pedro de Alvarado in charge of his main force in Tenochtitlan. While Cortés was away, the Aztecs celebrated the Festival of Huitzilopochtli. During the celebration, Cortés’ men under Alvarado attacked the unarmed crowd and indiscriminately killed many people. This led to a massive uprising against the Spaniards in Tenochtitlan. In the meantime, Cortés defeated the expeditionary force from Cuba and won the survivors over with offers of booty. He then returned to the city with reinforcements on June 24. The Aztecs subsequently trapped him along with the forces of Alvarado in the city. Cortés’s situation deteriorated even more after a stone hurled at the Spaniards inadvertently killed Montezuma, and the Aztecs elected a new emperor, Cuauhtemoc​. On the verge of defeat, Cortés decided to flee the city. In the middle of the night, the Spanish began their retreat, fighting their way out of the city. Cortés lost roughly 400 Spaniards, 4,000 native allies, and most of the plunder. The Spaniards called their ignominious retreat, ​La Noche Triste or Sorrowful Night (June 30 – July 1, 1520). Fortunately, for Cortés, his Native American allies did not desert him after La Noche Triste. After eight months of preparation, he systematically laid siege to Tenochtitlan. The Aztecs, however, tenaciously resisted forcing the attackers to destroy the city to dislodge them. Instead of capturing a great city, the Spanish won a pile of rubble after a 75-day siege. The inadvertent introduction of ​smallpox also killed many Aztecs and weakened their resistance. On August 21, 1521, the Spanish finally conquered the Aztecs and became lords of Mexico. Smallpox - The Greatest Battle of Mankind The Spaniards then established their capital, Mexico City, on the ruins of Tenochtitlan and essentially replaced the Aztecs as overlords of central Mexico, which the Spanish called New Spain. As long as the indigenous peoples paid tribute and provided labor, the Spanish generally allowed the Native American communities to govern themselves and only ruled them indirectly. The cultural and religious conquest would take much longer than the political conquest. The unions between conquistadors and native women, however, helped that process along as their ​mestizo (mixed race) children often identified with Hispanic culture and became a bridge between peoples as well as a bulwark against rebellion. By 1521, then, central Mexico was basically subdued and the long process of evangelization and Hispanicization began. After capturing Tenochtitlan, the conquistadors had a rude awakening. Díaz reported, “We were all disappointed when we saw how little gold there was and how poor our shares would be.” To prevent his men from fighting amongst themselves, Cortés financed new expeditions to the south and west in search of gold. Unlike most of his men, Cortés did become fabulously wealthy and powerful after the conquest. In 1529, he was made a noble, becoming the first Marques del Valle de Oaxaca. At the same time, the crown began an inquiry into Cortés’ conduct during the conquest; the inquiry generated 6,000 pages of documents over several years (1529 – 1535). As a result, limitations were placed on Cortés’ political authority in Mexico, but he retained most of his post-conquest wealth. He worked tirelessly to develop sugar plantations on his Cuernavaca estates and to profit from long-distance trading ventures. For Cortés, one needed to develop the land, not just conquer it. Other conquistadors were entrepreneurial as well. In fact, most had to be because the easy wealth from silver and Indian labor and tribute (​encomiendas​) was limited to the fortunate few. Spanish American society then had strong entrepreneurial aspirations and should not be characterized as exclusively militaristic and feudal. In spite of these realities, it was conquest and the prospect of easy wealth – “otros Mexicos” (other Mexicos) – that drew the Spaniards on. By the early 1520s, rumors of a rich kingdom in the south circulated in Panama. ​Francisco Pizarro set out to find that kingdom in 1524 and again in 1527 – 1528. On his second trip, he reached Tumbez at the northern edge of the ​Inca Empire​. In January 1531, after receiving a royal patent to conquer Peru, Pizarro led a third expedition of roughly 168 men to Peru. By 1531, civil conflict divided the Inca Empire. The Inca ruler, Huayna Capac, had died from a plague, possibly smallpox, in 1525. His death led to a succession crisis between his legitimate son, Huascar, and the son of a secondary wife, ​Atahualpa​. Incan ideology said that only a legitimate son could succeed to the throne. Huascar emerged as the ruler, but he was an unlikable ruler who alienated many people. Atahualpa then rebelled and defeated his half-brother in battle. Pizarro and his men arrived in Peru at this crucial juncture. On November 15, 1532, they had reached the town of Cajamarca. Atahualpa was encamped nearby with his army. On November 16, 1532, Pizarro invited Atahualpa into the town of Cajamarca, and Atahualpa, underestimating the Spaniards, accepted the invitation and entered the city with just his bodyguard. At a prearranged moment, the Spanish attacked, defeating Atahualpa’s bodyguard and capturing him. The Spaniards now held Atahualpa hostage. This was the last time that so few Spaniards would be able to carry out such an incredible feat. Believing the Spanish only wanted treasure, Atahualpa agreed to pay an enormous ransom and ordered his lieutenants to amass gold and silver plates, jewels, and decorative artwork from all corners of the Inca Empire. A large part of the Andean artistic heritage was then lost as the Spanish systematically melted down the various items into gold and silver ingots. The Spanish divided amongst themselves 13,420 pounds of 22-carat gold and 26,000 pounds of pure silver. The ransom, however, was split unevenly. Reinforcements brought by Diego de Almagro received miniscule shares, which fostered resentment between his men and Pizarro’s men. Even though the ransom was paid, the Spaniards did not free Atahualpa, rather they accused him of plotting with his generals against them and of ordering his half-brother Huascar’s murder. The Spanish consequently tried Atahualpa as a traitor and condemned him to death. Atahualpa was burned to death in June 1533. The Inca Empire was beheaded but not yet overthrown. Inca resistance continued until 1572 when the Incan jungle kingdom of Villcabamba was finally defeated. The Incas, however, were unable to dislodge the Spaniards. Many local tribes that had always opposed the Incas helped the Spaniards, and the Incas themselves were divided between Atahualpa’s supporters and Huascar’s supporters. Once again, internal divisions within the Native American communities aided the Spanish conquest and colonization in the Americas. Although the Pizarro family became the richest and most powerful family in Peru, the family’s fortunes quickly waned. In 1540, Hernando was jailed in Madrid, Spain, for executing ​Diego de Almagro after a 1538 battle between Pizarro and Almagro supporters. Francisco was subsequently assassinated by Almagro’s supporters in 1541. Gonzalo unsuccessfully revolted against royal authority (1544 – 1548) and was executed. The family consequently lost its political authority, but not its wealth. On his release from prison in 1561, Hernando managed to consolidate the family holdings in Peru and through shrewd investments secured the family’s financial footing by the time of his death in 1578. Hernando did not return to Peru; rather, he used the income from Peru to establish the family in the town of Trujillo in Extremadura. More importantly, he invested in and around Trujillo, and the credit he and other conquistadors provided small farmers furthered economic development in Extremadura. So the wealth of the returning conquistadors stimulated local Spanish economies. This pattern lasted for the entire colonial period. People set out for America to enrich themselves, and the lucky ones returned home and invested the money. The Spanish crisscrossed the Americas in search of riches and fame. Many of these expeditions into the frontiers were quixotic quests in search of cities of gold. In 1539, for instance, ​Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and three companions miraculously arrived in New Spain (i.e., Mexico) after escaping captivity near the Mississippi River and walking across the American Southwest. During their journey, they heard numerous stories from Indians about rich cities in the north, which they dutifully reported to the Viceroy of New Spain. The prospect of “otros Mexicos” clearly beckoned, and the Viceroy hastily planned an expedition under the command of ​Francisco Vázquez de Coronado to find those cities. In February 1540, Coronado set off with an army of 200 horsemen, 60 infantry, and over 1,000 Indian auxiliaries. He traversed much of the American Southwest and encountered the Zuni and Hopi Indians, but failed to find cities of gold. Yet, Indian stories of a city of gold in the great plains of Kansas lured the Spanish on, but that city of gold turned out to be a village of straw huts. Finally, in 1542, Coronado led his army back to New Spain. He had discovered various lands and peoples, but no riches. Gold! The History of Man's Greatest Obsession Coronado's expedition brought to an end the search for fabled cities and the era of the conquistadors. People still dreamed of finding fabulous wealth, but with the discovery of silver mines in Potosí (Bolivia) in 1545 and in Zacatecas (Mexico) in 1546, energy that had formerly been spent on conquest turned to establishing mining towns and to developing the export economy. The mid-sixteenth century marked a transition from the era of the conquistadors to the era of the bureaucrats, merchants, and settlers. The mining of silver jump-started the entire colonial economy and transatlantic trade. The areas around the principal silver mines lacked sufficient resources to sustain thousands of laborers and major mining operations (e.g., those regions had poor agriculture, little water, little wood, and lacked many other necessities), so many items had to be transported from other regions of New Spain or Peru to the mines. Tucumán in northwestern Argentina, for example, sent thousands of mules, oxen, and cattle to ​Potosí​. At its peak in 1681 – 1685, Tucumán sent over 69,000 head of livestock to Potosí. The mining operations thus spurred economic development throughout the colonies (e.g., ranches, farms, ​obrajes​) and created internal trade networks. Passing through Bolivia - Potosi Silver also primed the Atlantic trade. Prior to the discovery of large silver deposits, it was expensive to ship American products to Europe. The export of a few tons of silver, however, more than paid for the transatlantic voyage, and plenty of cargo space remained for other products, such as dyes, hides, and sugar, to be shipped profitably to Europe. Silver then gave colonists the means to purchase European goods and allowed non-bullion sectors of the export economy to develop. Silver mining was a highly complex enterprise. It involved advanced technology, many operations, and expensive supplies, like mercury. Its production also employed thousands of people. Potosí had nearly 120,000 people in 1580. The labor force working at the mines consisted of slave labor, forced Indian labor, and free labor. Black slaves were generally limited to surface work, while Indian labor did most of the underground work. Initially, the Indian labor was forced. In 1572, for instance, the ​mita p ​ rovided about 13,000 workers a year to Potosí. Gradually, however, paid Indian workers did almost all of the mining. The work was hard. Miners used picks to follow the silver veins underground, making shafts and tunnels. Workers then carried the ore to the surface on their backs, using rough wooden ladders to climb out of the shaft. The ore was brought to the stamp mills where it was ground to a powder and mixed with mercury in an amalgamation process to extract more silver from the ore than through smelting. Through this amalgamation process, the output of silver increased significantly. The workers then brought the silver to the mint where the ingots were made into standard sized bars; the crown then took its share, the royal fifth, and returned the rest of the bars to the owner. The development of the colonial economy led to growing royal control over the colonies, as increased trade made it possible for the crown to collect more taxes. The basic principles that guided Spanish economic policy in the New World, as well as the economic policies of other European kingdoms, were bullionism and mercantilism. Bullionism was the theory that a kingdom’s power required a large reserve of bullion (i.e., gold and silver). Thus, bullionism meant more gold and silver must flow into a country than out of it. ​Mercantilism restricted trade between the colony and the mother country. Mercantilist policy was meant to foster a dependent relationship between the colony and the mother country; the colony exported its goods (often raw materials) only to the mother country and imported goods (often finished products) only from the mother country. This policy was meant to increase taxes and to protect home industries and merchants from foreign competitors so that only the mother country benefited from trade with its colonies. To implement these policies and to prevent contraband, Spain required that all trade with the colonies be registered in the ​Casa de Contratación,​ or House of Trade, in Seville. It even established a convoy system or ​flota (fleet) to protect Spanish shipping from pirate attacks and to ensure that silver was safely shipped back to Europe. The fleet system proved highly effective as foreign rivals only captured two fleets (1628 and 1656). Spain also only allowed certain colonial ports to participate in the transatlantic trade (such as Vera Cruz, Cartagena, and Portobelo). Regular fairs occurred in those ports were colonial merchants would buy European goods and market their own wares to merchants from Spain. Most importantly, silver remittances were loaded on board the fleet at these fairs. The fairs consequently became the focal point for trade and for piratical attacks. The English cakeeper, Captain Henry Morgan​, for instance, captured Portobello in 1668, and he and his men made off with over 250,000 silver ​pesos in addition to silks and other luxury items. Bullionism and mercantilism often impeded economic development in the Americas. Peru and New Spain, for instance, had a growing trade that the crown continually tried to stop because that trade undermined Spain’s trade with the colonies, particularly the export of Peruvian wines to New Spain, which competed directly with the export of Spanish wines to New Spain. Moreover, Spain was often unable to fulfill its part of the mercantilist compact because it either failed to produce the goods that the colonists wanted or could not regularly provide those goods. Consequently, colonists (even royal officials) often traded with Northern European smugglers to buy higher quality goods at lower prices than what they could buy through the fleet system. The establishment of Northern European colonies in the smaller, uninhabited Caribbean islands, such as the Dutch colony on Curaçao (1634), made smuggling easier and more profitable for both buyers and sellers. In fact, some scholars have speculated that more goods changed hands illicitly than licitly in the seventeenth-century trade between Europe and Spanish America. Whatever the case may be, the seventeenth-century contraband trade in the Americas became an important source of bullion for Northern Europeans, and this source of bullion would ultimately help them to penetrate Asian markets. American silver not only spurred industry and trade in the colonies and in Europe, it also solved Europe’s balance of payment problem with Asia. That is, American silver made it possible for Europeans to purchase the Asian goods they desired. Silver was the only commodity that Europeans had that sold profitably in Asia. The export of silver to Asia caused much consternation among the advocates of bullionism, but other economic thinkers, such as ​Thomas Mun in seventeenth-century England, argued persuasively that to conduct trade in Asia the export of bullion was necessary. In the end, Europeans did export silver to Asia, and one third of all the silver mined in the Americas may have ended up in China. American silver then not only jump-started the colonial economy, but it allowed Europeans to purchase Asian goods, which was crucial for the creation of a global market and in time allowed Europe to move from being on the periphery of the world economy to being at its center. What the Spanish accomplished in Mexico and Peru was unique. Nowhere else in the New World did Europeans win such decisive victories over the Native Americans and gain large empires in so short a time. What factors explain this success? Spaniards certainly had superior weapons, but firearms and cannons were of limited use. There simply were too few. When Cortés landed at Vera Cruz, for instance, he had a few cannons and only thirteen muskets. Most of the fighting was done on foot with sword, pike, and crossbow. The advantage of the Spanish weaponry also proved short-lived. Firearms were slow, and gunpowder lost its potency in humid conditions. The few horses were probably more valuable militarily than as weaponry. No horses existed in the Americas prior to the Spanish arrival, and the horses frightened the natives. Horses also gave Spaniards greater mobility and striking power. Pizarro found that charging horses could easily break enemy ranks and guarantee victory. The psychological advantage of guns and horses did not last forever: indigenous people gradually responded, reducing the superiority of Spanish weaponry. Mexica/Aztec Weapons Different approaches to war were probably more crucial to victory than superior weapons. Aztec strategy, for instance, was to capture their enemies, while the Spaniards fought to kill their opponents. The different approaches allowed the Spanish to break Aztec battle formations and win victories against larger forces. Indian auxiliaries were also crucial for victory. Cortés, for instance, had some 200,000 native allies during the siege of Tenochtitlan. With the exception of Pizarro’s capture of Ataluapha, all subsequent campaigns of conquest relied on massive native help. In fact, many natives used the Spanish as allies in their internal struggles against their enemies. Some Mayans were even proud of their part in the Spanish conquest of the Yucatan, believing that by aiding the Spanish they had won a victory over their own enemies. Disease was the silent ally in the conquest. The introduction of Old World diseases devastated native populations. Small pox weakened Aztec defenses and likely led to the death of the Inca Emperor, creating the civil disorder that opened the door to Pizarro. The Spanish did not purposefully spread diseases and did not fully understand the pathologies that led to such catastrophic epidemics. They wanted to convert the natives and use them as labor, but the spread of deadly diseases made the conquest and colonization of the New World easier. The population of central Mexico, for example, went from about 25 million in 1519 to less than 2 million in 1580, and the population of Peru went from about 10 million in 1530 to about 1.5 million in 1590. The sudden loss of people left large tracts of farmland vacant, which the Spanish converted to pasture, essentially replacing people with livestock. Finally, the Spanish skillfully used native symbols of the supernatural to their advantage. Many historians now believe that natives crafted the stories of the Spaniards as returning gods after the conquest to rationalize their stunning defeat. Nonetheless, the Spanish grasped important aspects of Native American culture and used them to their advantage. For instance, the Spanish understood that in central Mexico and the Andes conquerors could impose their deities on the conquered and that Spanish victories could be seen as confirmation of the superiority of the Christian God over Native American gods. Only in the Americas were the technological and cultural differences sufficient to allow the Europeans to carve out large empires in the sixteenth century. The Portuguese, for example, were unable to gain anything more than footholds in Africa and Asia at this time. Moreover, only in the highly civilized parts of America (Mexico and Peru) did the Spanish defeat enemies accustomed to one group conquering another and then placing themselves at the head of the tribute system and imposing their gods on local deities. Thus, in a sense, the Spanish were simply another imperial power. From the point of view of most natives, the Spanish just replaced the Aztecs or the Incas as masters. On the frontiers, the Spanish found it difficult or impossible to subdue the less centralized, more nomadic peoples, who quickly assimilated horses and other Spanish techniques into their own military culture. The story of the Spanish conquest and colonization of America is normally told from the Spanish perspective and Native Americans consequently recede into the background. Yet, throughout the colonial period, Native Americans continually challenged and contested Spanish rule. They competed with Spaniards for wealth. Native laborers and entrepreneurs diverted a substantial share of Potosí’s riches into their own hands. Andean chiefs continued to play a political role. In the 1560s, for instance, they offered ​King Philip II 100,000 ducats to let the ​encomiendas (a lifetime grant to Indian labor) lapse. As late as the 1680s, large parts of Spanish America were still controlled by Native Americans or ruled jointly by Native Americans and Spanish settlers in an uneasy alliance. By incorporating Christian symbols and practices into native religious understanding, Native Americans retained certain pre-conquest practices. The Spanish clergy struggled to suppress syncretic practices, but also recognized the need to tolerate certain pagan practices as harmless folk superstitions. The encounter between Native Americans and Europeans then was ongoing, and Native Americans continued to play an active role in their destiny. They were not pawns in the hands of Spaniards. Africa and the Slave Trade The gold of sub-Saharan Africa, not the spices of Asia, was the initial goal of European expansion in the early fifteenth century. Sub-Saharan West Africa had been linked to the Eurasian and Mediterranean trade networks since the eighth century. The Sanhaja Berbers made the first trans-Saharan journey, exchanging rock salt for gold, and Berbers from Algiers and Tripoli established rival trans-Saharan trade routes. The trade between North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa led to the emergence of several powerful states in West Africa – Ghana (700 – 1200), Mali (1200 – 1500), and Songhai (1350 – 1600). In addition to salt, Berber traders brought Islam to West Africa (see Chapter 8). The expansion of Islam in sub-Saharan Western Africa was tied to trade. There was no conquest. In fact, even today, in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, the words “trader” and “Muslim” are synonymous. The link between trade and Islam was so tight that some merchants who had converted to Islam reverted to their former pagan cults on returning to a peasant life. The spread of Islam also brought literacy. Schools and universities were established to teach the Koran – the most famous being the ​University of Sankore in Timbuktu in present-day Mali. It had a large and valuable collection of manuscripts in several languages, and scholars traveled long distances to study there. The schools also trained skilled bureaucrats for the West African empires, and written Arabic helped those bureaucrats to keep imperial records. The intellectual tradition survived the collapse of the great West African empires. A nineteenth-century European was surprised “to find in this out of the way place (Timbuktu) a man not only versed in all the branches of Arabic literature, but who had even read, nay, possessed a manuscript of those portions of Aristotle and Plato which had been translated into Arabic.” Families continue to possess these valuable manuscripts to the present day, and twenty-first century people are just as surprised as their nineteenth-century predecessor to learn of the treasure trove of written records of the history of black Africa in the legendary city of Timbuktu. Islam was crucial for creating coherent and cohesive empires of different ethnic and religious groups in West Africa, but Islam remained the religion of the ruling elite and was never fully embraced by the subject people. Consequently, syncretism was widespread in sub-Saharan West Africa. In the early fourteenth century, the great traveler, ​Ibn Battuta​, ​described the mixing of Islamic and animist customs in Mali. Such syncretism led some Arabs to doubt the sincerity of West African Muslims. The relationship between West Africa and the broader Muslim world would remain problematic until well into the twentieth century. Mali (1200 – 1500) was the principle empire in West Africa in the middle ages. It gained independence with the fall of Ghana, and Mari Diata, or ​Sundiata “The Lion Prince,” began Mali’s expansion between 1230 – 1234. By the fourteenth century, Mali was a powerful empire. Its power came from controlling the trans-Saharan gold trade and a highly productive agrarian sector. The most renowned ruler of Mali was Mansa (i.e., Emperor) ​Musa (1307 – 1337), who made the pilgrimage (​hajj​) to Mecca in 1324. Musa went in regal style. His entourage supposedly totaled more than 70,000 people, including a retinue of 500 slaves, each carrying a gold staff. He also brought 24,000 pounds of gold to distribute as alms and gifts. He gave so much gold to the poor of Cairo that gold lost a fifth of its value in Egypt. Musa’s pilgrimage demonstrates the incredible wealth of West Africa, and stories of this wealth quickly spread throughout Europe. In 1375, Spanish mapmakers in Catalonia produced an Atlas in which the Mali Empire was identified by a dignified black king holding a large nugget of gold. The map was geographically inaccurate, but the prospects of gold south of the Sahara Desert attracted European explorers. Mali’s decline began in the mid-fourteenth century, but a weakened state continued to exist into the sixteenth century. 7 The Kingdom of Mali: Built on Gold Songhai (1350 – 1600) was the last and the largest of the West African empires. Like previous empires, Songhai relied heavily on the trans-Saharan trade networks for its wealth and power. By 1465, ​Sunni Ali Ber (1462 – 1492) had conquered Timbuktu and Djenne – the two principal termini for the trans-Saharan trade – and much of the former Mali Empire. Yet, after Fernão Gomes sailed into the Gulf of Guinea (1471), the trade patterns in Western Africa gradually shifted from the trans-Saharan caravan routes to the West African ports. In time, this shift negatively affected the Songhai Empire. Muhammad Turé, better known as ​Askia the Great​, (1493 – 1528) usurped the throne in 1493 and under him the empire reached its zenith. According to one contemporary, “He was obeyed with as much docility on the farther limits of the empire as he was in his own palace, and there reigned everywhere great plenty and absolute peace.” He reformed the army, improved the banking and credit systems, and supported intellectual centers. ​Leo Africanus​, a sixteenth-century visitor to Timbuktu, noted, “In Timbuktu, there are numerous judges, doctors and clerics, all receiving good salaries from the king. He pays great respect to men of learning. There is a big demand for books in manuscript, imported from Barbary. More profit is made from the book trade than from any other line of business.” Upon Askia’s death, however, factional struggles among his successors weakened the empire, and it fell to a Moroccan army in 1591. The region soon disintegrated into a number of small states. For nearly two centuries after the Moroccan invasion, no strong indigenous Muslim state emerged in West Africa. Islam remained the religion of the towns and traders, but most of the people living in the territories of the former Mali and Songhai Empires reverted to pagan religions. By the time strong Islamic states such as the ​Sokoto Caliphate (1804 – 1903) reemerged in West Africa in the nineteenth century, it was too late to hold back British and French incursions. The coastal regions of sub-Saharan West Africa were more isolated than the rest of Africa. The people there had no experience with non-blacks prior to the Europeans’ arrival. A member of the first Portuguese crew to visit the Senegal River in 1455 reported, “They marveled no less at my clothing than at my white skin.” These Africans were perplexed by the white Europeans – were they sorcerers or evil spirits? – but they were also curious about the items that the Europeans offered them. For Africans, the initial encounter was one of fear and curiosity. In time, Africans along the coast became accustomed to Europeans and traded with them, but Africans from the interior were still afraid of the “evil spirits” well into the eighteenth century. Coastal states, such as Benin, Oyo, and Kongo, were strong enough to resist European domination. They had effective armies, and their war canoes could harass European ships and repel naval attacks. Moreover, the climate and prevalence of diseases that the Europeans lacked immunity made the region inhospitable to European settlers. In the late fifteenth century, King João acknowledged these facts by negotiating commercial treaties with African countries. Starting with the Portuguese, Europeans built trading posts, such as Elmina, along the African coast with the permission of the local ruler and in accordance with local restrictions. That is, African rulers dictated the terms of trade, and Europeans often paid them rent for the right to maintain trading posts in their kingdoms. Despite restrictions, these trading posts made it easier for European merchants to purchase goods from the African interior that might otherwise have been inaccessible to them. Elmina Castle The Portuguese made their most significant inroads in the ​Kingdom of Kongo​. Diogo Cão reached Kongo in 1483. He left four missionaries there and took four Kongolese back to Lisbon to become translators. Kongo was a great power. It had a population of 2.5 million people, many towns, and a developed bureaucracy and tax system. The kingdom, however, faced internal rebellion and external threats, and the Portuguese seemed to promise both spiritual and military benefits to the ruling elites. In 1491, for example, Portuguese auxiliaries marching under a cross helped the manikongo (i.e., King) ​Nzinga Nkuwu put down a rebellion. After the battle, seeing a potential new source of divine aid, the manikongo explored Christianity. On Christmas Day 1491, the manikongo and his heir, Nzinga Mbemba, later known as ​Afonso I (1506 – 1543), were baptized. Nzinga Nkuwu soon abandoned Christianity, but Afonso did not. On becoming manikongo, Afonso made Christianity the state religion and renamed the capital São Salvador. Afonso invited missionaries to the kingdom and sent nobles to Portugal for instruction. His son, Henry, was even consecrated a bishop in 1520. From Afonso’s reign on, Kongo was nominally a Christian kingdom. Traditional religion, however, did not disappear. Many people continued to follow traditional practices, and converts often syncretized traditional and Catholic practices, most notably in regard to polygamy. Religious differences between traditionalists and Catholics fueled factional struggles among the Kongolese elite, and these struggles threatened to undermine the kingdom on several occasions. The Kongolese alliance with Portugal and interaction with other Europeans had a destructive side. Portuguese craftsmen, military auxiliaries, missionaries, and goods had to be paid for, and the Kongolese lacked sufficient commodities to export. The only way to meet their balance of payments was through the sale of slaves. A series of letters from King Afonso to the king of Portugal indicates that the slave trade strained relations. In the mid-1520s, Afonso complained that Kongolese were kidnapping one another (including nobles) to pay for European goods and that Portuguese traders were encouraging this through unlawful trade practices. This was unacceptable to Afonso, who asked the king of Portugal to stop further trade with his kingdom. Despite such problems, Afonso maintained cordial relations with Europeans because he needed European missionaries and goods to retain power. In 1540, he was also more sanguine about the slave trade. His wars with neighbors provided many foreign prisoners to be sold abroad, which brought the kidnapping within Kongo to an end; and when a neighboring kingdom sold him slaves from further inland at a low price, it became profitable for Kongo to resell those slaves to the Portuguese. African slavery Fall of the Kongo Regional wars and civil conflict produced a large number of slaves for export, making it possible for Kongo to pay for its imports, but it also created a vicious cycle as the Kongolese elite needed a constant supply of war captives to purchase European goods to meet their consumer needs and to pay European missionaries and auxiliaries to maintain their political power. Trade with Europeans then increased the wealth of the Kongolese elites and the prestige of Kongo’s rulers, but maintaining that trade so that it benefited the Kongolese people was a difficult task. Wars on foreigners to acquire slaves led to retaliation, and these external threats to the kingdom forced Kongo to solidify its alliance with Portugal. Portuguese mercenaries, for example, helped the Kongolese to fend off conquest during the Jaga Wars (1568 – 1569). After the wars, most of the Portuguese settled in Africa and founded the city of ​Luanda​, the first major European settlement in sub-Saharan Africa, in 1575. Luanda itself only survived an attack in 1579 thanks to the intervention of a Kongolese army on behalf of the Portuguese. This illustrates the existence of reciprocity between Kongo and Portugal. In time, Luanda became the major departure point for slaves from the region to America. Kongo consequently became the African state most affected by the arrival of the Europeans, and the state that was most involved in the export of slaves. It might be easy to conclude that Kongo was a victim of European incursions, but Kongo’s rulers had their own reasons for entering into close relations with Europeans. At various points, the Portuguese alliance saved the kingdom, but in the long run the slave trade created persistent turmoil in the region. In the early eighteenth century, for instance, the kingdom almost collapsed during a civil war between ​King Pedro IV and ​Dona Beatrice Kimpa Vita​, who claimed to be Saint Anthony. Dona Beatrice led a large peasant army seeking to establish a millenarian kingdom and end the slave trade. Pedro finally defeated Dona Beatrice and had her executed in 1706, but the kingdom never regained its former glory after this date. The strength of African states meant that trade between Africans and Europeans was a partnership. Local rulers sanctioned it, and then middlemen made it work. Many local Africans acted as brokers and interpreters, and all trade with the interior depended on them. Portuguese, and later other European agents, slowly established themselves along the African coast, having children with local women and learning African languages. These European middlemen and their descendents helped to connect the Atlantic trade with African trade networks. They also helped to create a new hybrid culture along the African coast among African and European middlemen. The use of “pidgin” languages, usually simplified European languages, was common. Most pidgin languages were a variation of Portuguese, but by the eighteenth century a version of almost all Western European languages could be found spoken along the African coast, even German. Since Europeans were highly susceptible to African diseases, their presence along the African coast was always small. Few could survive in tropical Africa, and approximately half died within a year of their arrival from local diseases, such as ​malaria and ​yellow fever​. Only with the discovery of vaccines in the nineteenth century was a large European presence in sub-Saharan Africa possible. Prior to vaccines, Europeans had no choice but to be on the margins of the African trade and work with native rulers. Trade with Africa was also more varied and complex than typically thought. African commerce has often been depicted as a ​triangular trade.​ European traders brought salt, cloth, firearms, metal, beads, and rum to Africa for slaves. Slaves were exchanged in America for plantation products, such as sugar, molasses, and tobacco, which were then brought back to Europe in the hold of the slave ships. Although such voyages took place, slaves did not become the most valuable African export until the late seventeenth century. Until then, most European goods were exchanged for gold. Even after slaves became the principal export from West Africa, it varied from region to region. The area between the Benin coast and the Zaire or Congo River, for instance, sold slaves and little else for a long period of time. In other regions, the exchange was more diversified. Slaves made up three-quarters of the exports from areas between Gambia and the Gold Coast in the eighteenth century, but a quarter of exports consisted of pepper, ivory, and timber. In other places, non-slave exports remained more important. For instance, cotton cloth was the main export from the kingdom of Benin until the late eighteenth century. Africans also did not sell slaves cheaply, and they effectively played the different Europeans off each other to get higher prices for their “goods.” So the idea that Europeans bought slaves for trinkets of no real value is inaccurate. In fact, European vessels destined for African ports regularly carried cargos of greater value than vessels sailing to non-African ports. The growing demand for slaves in the eighteenth century also strengthened the Africans’ trading position, and they sold slaves for three to four times more in 1800 than in 1700. Slave Trade Slavery had existed in Africa since ancient times. The nature of servility varied from region to region. In Islamic Africa, the institution of slavery was the most developed, and there were laws to protect slaves. Muslims also used slaves in the military and government, and those slaves could obtain high office. In fact, Sakura, a court slave, governed the Mali Empire from 1298 – 1308. A majority of slaves were female household slaves who worked as servants, agricultural laborers, or concubines. Some women were even adopted by the families that owned them. On the whole, African slavery appears to have been less permanent and more flexible than American slavery. Oppressive forms of slavery, however, did exist in Africa. Mining gold and producing export crops was grueling work and differed little from the types of work slaves did in the Americas. Most slaves were acquired through warfare. To prevent revolt or flight, war captives were commonly sold in markets far from their home country. This practice led to the development of extensive slave trade networks. In the middle ages, most slaves went to markets in North Africa and the Arab world. On his return from Mali in the early fourteenth century, for example, Ibn Battuta joined a caravan bringing 600 female slaves north. In its nearly 1,000 years of active trade, the Arab slave trade removed roughly 10 million Africans from their homeland. The slave trade consequently was an important part of the economy in many parts of Africa. Although much of the trade was directed inland to the trans-Saharan caravan routes, Europeans were able to tap into existing slave networks and gradually shift that trade to coastal ports. With the development of American plantations worked by slave labor, European demand for slaves sky-rocketed and radically changed the direction of the slave trade. After 1650, most slaves went into the transatlantic trade instead of the slave trade to North Africa and the Arab world. The creation of a transatlantic slave trade did not end the trade within Africa itself. Yet, the internal African trade and the transatlantic trade normally did not compete. Europeans preferred male slaves for plantations, while Africans preferred female slaves for households. So the internal markets valued females more highly, while the external markets valued males more highly. In the eighteenth century, this led to serious distortions in population ratios. In parts of West Africa there were 100 adult females for every 70 adult males. This gender gap led to population decline in those regions. The distortions in population ratios also created a shortage of males at precisely the point in time when European demand for male slaves was increasing. In the eighteenth century, then, the supply and demand equation for male slaves favored African rulers and slave traders, giving them more negotiating power in the transatlantic trade with Europeans. The profitability of the slave trade also led to many kidnappings of individuals. In his autobiography, ​The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano ​(1789), ​Olaudah Equiano describes how he and his sister were kidnapped from their village and eventually separated, and how he was sold to various Africans before entering the transatlantic slave trade. Transatlantic Slavery Documentary The Atlantic slave trade was very different from traditional African slavery and the Arab slave trade. Large numbers of healthy men, women, and children – between 11 and 12 million – were transported to distant lands. Approximately 9 – 10 million of them survived the crossing. So roughly 15 – 20% died during the “​Middle Passage​.” An unknown number of people (perhaps four million) also died from the local African conflicts that the trade provoked. A majority of the slaves brought to the Americas came from West Africa between Senegal and Kongo. The slave trade rose rapidly from roughly 600,000 in the sixteenth century to two million in the seventeenth century, five million in the eighteenth century, and three million in the nineteenth century. More slaves went to Brazil than to any other destination. The staggering number of people forcibly removed from Africa has led to scholarly debates on the role of the slave trade in undermining African polities and economies. Earlier scholarship suggested that the slave trade irreversibly harmed Africa and led to nineteenth-century colonization. Recent scholarship, however, has called into question those assumptions. It notes that the value of foreign trade was too small a percentage of the overall African GDP for the slave trade and the introduction of foreign goods to undermine local industry and economies. While the slave trade did increase warfare and raiding, thereby creating instability and removing essential workers from the local economy, not all African societies were transformed into slave-export economies. Demographic studies also indicate that the overall population of sub-Saharan Africa continued to grow throughout this time. The removal of so many people, possibly 100,000 a year at the peak of the transatlantic slave trade in the 1780s, did not significantly lower population growth. In fact, the introduction of American staples, like manioc and corn, into the African diet increased the rate of population growth in some regions. More research is necessary to ascertain the impact of the slave trade on Africa, but recent scholarship suggests a more qualified assessment than earlier thought. The transatlantic slave trade made a significant mark on the demography of the Americas. In fact, more blacks crossed the Atlantic than whites prior to the nineteenth century, with blacks accounting for more than 60% of all migrants. By 1800, a community of roughly five million Africans lived in the New World, the African Diaspora. It was long assumed that the horror of the Middle Passage so traumatized Africans that they were essentially blank slates on arrival. Now it is clear that Africans found ways to maintain their culture and create a new culture in the Americas. Moreover, New World society was not completely foreign to Africans. Many slaves brought to America from Kongo, for instance, were Christians or familiar with Christianity. Their exposure to Western religion and culture made it easier for these individuals to adapt and develop slave communities in the Americas. The nature of slavery also changed in the Americas, where it became a more permanent condition with one race enslaving another race. The status of slaves was also lower in the Americas, and there were fewer legal protections for slaves. More destructive was the development of a new understanding of slavery, which took on a racial component, and blackness began to mean slavery and inferiority in the New World. That is, some Europeans came to believe that the black African was not fully human, so slavery was a desirable condition for him. At the same time that this race based understanding of slavery emerged, abolitionists, such as ​William Wilberforce​, began to condemn the cruelty of the slave trade and of the conditions of slavery, emphasizing the spiritual equality of mankind, which derived from their Christian God. The abolitionists eventually prevailed. Britain and the U.S.A. both outlawed the slave trade in 1807 and 1808 respectively. Most other European states followed by 1815. Britain then outlawed slavery in all its territories in 1833. Slavery, however, was not abolished in the U.S.A. until 1863, and not in Brazil until 1888. The continuing existence of slavery in the Americas in the nineteenth century meant that those traffickers who managed to elude the British patrols sent to stamp out the trade could make hefty profits. Consequently, many Africans continued to procure slaves for European slave traffickers, and the last known transatlantic slaver made the crossing to Cuba in 1867. Slavery within Africa continued until the late nineteenth century, and more people were enslaved within Africa at that point than in any time previously. In fact, the ​Berlin Conference (1884 – 1885) justified colonization in part to bring slavery to an end. Simplistic interpretations of African victimization at the hands of Europeans prevent a clear understanding of this complex exchange and portray Africans as naïve and unable to understand the nature of international trade. African states were too powerful not to benefit from the Atlantic exchange; and European traders complained about the exorbitant prices that they paid for slaves and other commodities. In the long run, Europe might have profited more from the exchange, but in the short run, the terms of trade were probably more equal financially among the European and African slave traders. European Influence in Asia In 1500, most states around the Indian Ocean were small principalities or city-states. There were also three expanding Islamic empires – ​Ottoman​, ​Safavid​, and ​Mogul (see Chapter 14​). Although it was politically fragmented, the Indian Ocean basin was economically united. There was lively trade between the various ports in the region. Trade networks, often based on cultural affinity (mainly Islam), facilitated long-distance trade between different ethnic and linguistic groups. The Indian Ocean trade networks extended to China, Japan, and Southeast Asia, creating the largest and richest economic zone in the world. The prevailing winds and currents dictated the direction and timing of intra-Asian trade, making it difficult for a single ship to travel from Arabia to China in a timely manner. Therefore, merchants developed transfer points or entrepôts to link independent shippers from Arabia to China and thereby facilitate the efficient transfer of goods between regions. For instance, different ships would complete different legs of the Arabia to China voyage: one ship would sail from Hormuz to Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka), another from Ceylon to Malacca, and another from Malacca to China. The use of transfer points allowed for more goods to be transported over longer distances in a shorter period of time. This type of trade, however, required letters of credit, shared understandings of basic commercial practices, and consistent legal enforcement of contracts. Islam facilitated this, and by 1300 most merchants and ruling elites in the Indian Ocean basin were Muslims. Hindu tradition and Neo-Confucian ideas also facilitated intra-Asian trade; but the role of Islam, especially in the ports between Africa and Indonesia, was crucial and, just like in West Africa, the spread of Islam was linked to trade. In 1498, then, the Indian Ocean basin was interconnected with sophisticated commerce and maritime trade networks. This system was too resilient to collapse with the arrival of a few Portuguese warships, and it endured until the 1700s. The arrival of the Portuguese, however, led to a major political shift in the Western Indian Ocean basin. The ​Mameluk Empire (1260 – 1517) had been the most important power in the Indian Ocean. In 1507, the Portuguese destroyed the Mameluk fleet and went on to occupy Hormuz (1508) at the entrance of the Persian Gulf. The Mameluk emperor turned to the Ottomans for help to rebuild his fleet, and in 1513 a Mameluk-Ottoman force repulsed the Portuguese attack on Aden and prevented Portugal from gaining control of the Red Sea. Mameluk dependence on the Ottomans, however, set the stage for Ottoman ​Sultan Selim​’s conquest of the Mameluk Empire in 1516 – 1517. The Ottomans now became an Indian Ocean power, and they maintained 40 to 50 warships in the Indian Ocean in the 1530s and 1540s. Turkish merchants also vied with the Portuguese for control of the Asian-Middle East trade. Turkish influence was not limited to the Arabian Sea. In 1568, a Turkish fleet helped the Muslim state of Acheh in northern Sumatra repel a Portuguese attack. The Turks were able to keep enough trade routes free of Portuguese control so that by the 1530s the flow of Asian goods to the Levant, present-day Middle East, had returned to its earlier levels. The result was to weaken the Portuguese monopoly and to reduce Portuguese profits from the Asian trade. The other major Asian states – Safavid and Mogul – also helped to keep open alternative trade routes to Europe and to prevent Portugal from gaining complete control over the Asian-European trade. By the mid-sixteenth century, trade was regularly being carried out between the Safavid Empire and Russia. Some English merchants tapped into this trade, creating the ​Muscovy Company (1555), and brought a small quantity of Asian goods to England via that route. Although the Portuguese presence in Asia probably never exceeded 15,000 men and a few dozen warships, they quickly grasped the structure of the intra-Asian trade networks and sought to monopolize that trade by controlling its choke points. As already discussed, Governor-General Albuquerque implemented this policy in the early sixteenth century. The Portuguese were able to create a maritime empire because most Indian Ocean states were small city-states. A Portuguese fleet of 8 to 10 heavily armed ships was highly effective against such city-states, which had few defenses from sea borne artillery barrages. The Portuguese also used their artillery aggressively: Da Gama bombarded at least two African towns in 1498. Portuguese ships were also slightly better built than Indian Ocean vessels. Finally, rivalries between the various city-states and principalities prevented them from working together against the Portuguese threat. The Portuguese also tried to impose a licensing system on merchant ships whereby Asian merchants needed to purchase licenses from the Portuguese to sail in the Indian Ocean. The Portuguese Empire was always stretched thin, and they were never able to impose complete control on Asian commerce, but their initial use of force allowed them to gain a lasting foothold in the Asian trade. Force was not an option with China and Japan, so the Portuguese negotiated formal trading agreements with those countries. In 1542, Portuguese merchants first arrived in Japan. Missionaries were never far behind Portuguese merchants in Asia. Trade and evangelization went hand in hand for both the Portuguese and the Spaniards. Probably the most famous mission in Asia was that led by ​St. Francis Xavier, S.J.​, (1506 – 1552) to Japan in 1549. Xavier and his colleagues spent two years in Japan translating the Catholic catechism into Japanese, establishing churches, and baptizing people. The Japanese Catholic church established by Xavier remained vibrant until the persecutions of the early seventeenth century. In 1555, the Portuguese leased Macao from China. Once again, Jesuit missionaries followed the trade routes. The most famous Jesuit to go to China was probably ​Matteo Ricci (1552 – 1610), whose knowledge of mathematics and astronomy impressed Chinese officials and won him a place at court. However, Ricci and future Jesuits were less successful at winning converts. The colony of Macao survived until 1999. In both Japan and China, the Portuguese traded with the rulers’ consent. Matteo Ricci The arrival of the Dutch and the English in the early seventeenth century changed the dynamics in the Indian Ocean. Portugal was no longer the only European power plying Asian waters, and it would shortly be eclipsed by its rivals. From the Asian perspective, the arrival of the Dutch and British simply meant more Europeans to play off each other. Most local Asian elites were still more interested in their own affairs than the activities of the Europeans, provided that those activities did not impinge on their policies. In turn, the Europeans generally tried to accommodate those rulers, because the Asian trade was more important to them than the European trade was to Asian potentates. The English East India Company (EIC) was formed in 1600. It was a joint stock company, which sold shares to investors to raise money. Joint stock companies limited risks because investors could only lose their original investment. Nonetheless, the EIC was initially under-funded and could maintain only a small trading presence in Asia, typically resident agents in an Asian port, especially in India. By the late seventeenth century, the EIC was reorganized and worked on a larger scale. Silver earned by selling American products – sugar and tobacco – in Europe was used to buy Indian goods. By this time, the English wanted cotton textiles from India. These were the rage in Britain and West Africa, where Indian cotton textiles were exchanged for slaves, and the demand was so great that a regional economy developed in India to produce textiles for export to Europe and Africa. This development marked a major shift within the Indian Ocean regional economy. Previously, the Europeans bought goods that were already circulating within that economy, and European purchases were not essential for the economy to operate. Now, a segment of that economy was dependent on exports to Europe for its livelihood. Trade with Europe was becoming indispensable to some Asian producers. At the same time, the EIC encouraged the development of non-company ships to transport goods within Asia. The result was that the English dominated some parts of the intra-Asian trade by 1700. The EIC’s position had improved after a century of trading, but it was still reliant on the good will of the Mogul Emperor to prosper. The English crackdown on piracy in the 1690s was in response to Mogul threats to close its ports to the EIC after English pirates, including the infamous ​Captain William Kidd​, captured the Indian vessels Gunj-i-Suwaee ​(1695) and ​Quedah Merchant (1698). The threatened embargo would cripple the English East India Company, and the English Parliament responded to pressure from Mogul India and the EIC by passing a new act to suppress piracy in 1700. Securing trade and addressing piracy then pushed the English government and other European governments to clarify legal statutes and to establish a legal system encompassing the globe. This was a slow process, but it culminated in the development of international law. The ​Dutch East India Company was formed in 1602. The Dutch company was well financed and sent a large well-armed fleet to Asia. Instead of wresting the choke points from Portugal, the Dutch went straight to the source of spice production, establishing a factory in 1620 at Batavia (Jakarta) on the island of Java. In time, the Dutch established plantations in Indonesia and made the production of spices there dependent on European demand. The Dutch gradually captured from the Portuguese Malacca (1641), Sri Lanka (1658), and most notably the exclusive trade concession with Japan (circa 1650). Like the English, the Dutch gradually replaced local shippers in Indonesia by 1700. The result was that gradually Asian ship owners and merchants were marginalized in the regional trade. Dutch and other European merchants and captains went from being marginal players to main players in the transport of goods within Asia. The Dutch Trade with Asia The most significant shift in Asia took place in eighteenth-century India. The Mogul Empire was established in 1524, and it managed to limit Europeans to a few scattered coastal regions of the subcontinent until the mid-eighteenth century. With the weakening of the Mogul Empire after 1707, however, Muslim warlords and governors began to declare their independence and created their own states. Hindus also regained independence in the north-central Deccan peninsula where the Marathas Confederacy established itself after 1740. These divisions allowed Europeans, especially the British and the French, to become more active in Indian affairs in the eighteenth century. At first, neither the British nor the French had territorial aspirations in India. Each simply sought commercial expansion. To safeguard trading interests, agents of the French and English East India Companies in India quickly became enmeshed in the political struggles between the new states emerging out of the Mogul Empire. Through their military and commercial aid to the new rulers, the European agents built up a clientele of native allies. In time, this led to a French-British rivalry for control of India, and this rivalry turned violent in 1744 and again during the Seven Years’ War (1756 – 1763). The Indian phase of the Seven Years’ War saw the British win a resounding victory over the French and their Indian allies at the ​Battle of Plassey (1757). This victory destroyed French power in India and gave Britain direct administrative control over the important Indian region of Bengal. The stage was now set for the creation of the British Raj in nineteenth-century India and for the emergence of European economic and political supremacy in nineteenth-century Asia. Conclusion The opening of the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans by the Spanish and Portuguese in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries changed the history of the world. In 1500, the world still consisted of regions with their own separate histories. By 1800, the world was more interconnected than ever before, and we can begin to discern a unified narrative of world history. At the heart of this narrative is the creation of a global market incorporating Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. This chapter has introduced the main themes of how the world moved from being largely separate regions connected by some trade networks to a more unified global market. The history of this process has long been told from a European perspective, primarily because Europeans initiated the transoceanic expansion that led to the global marketplace. Yet, throughout the entire period under review, Europeans were still marginal players in the world economy. Asians dominated the world economy until at least 1800 when roughly 80% of the world’s economic production originated in Asia. Nonetheless, it was Europeans who were building the worldwide trade networks that ultimately led to their preeminence in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Without the cooperation and partnership of Africans, Asians, and Native Americans, however, Europeans would have been far less successful at establishing those networks and creating an interconnected world in the early modern period. Except for in the Americas, Europeans were unable to carve out large land based empires and normally traded under terms set by local Asian and African elites. Even in the Americas, native peoples managed to adapt to the changing circumstances and maintained a level of agency in the economic and social development of colonial Spanish America that is easily overlooked in European accounts of colonization. This chapter has hinted at the vibrancy of local cultures and the need of Europeans to treat Asians, Africans, and Native Americans as partners in the development of new marketplaces. A more nuanced view of the encounter between Europeans and non-Europeans does not negate the dynamism of early modern Europe. It was, after all, Europeans who undertook transoceanic expansion. Their desire for luxury goods prompted small groups of Europeans with limited resources to venture far from home and to establish footholds across the globe. Their tactics were often brutal and unscrupulous; for example, the kidnapping of Atahualpa in Peru. Yet, it was these bold adventurers who found the major sea-lanes that connected the world and carved out large parts of the Americas for European settlement. The inability of European governments to finance expansion completely meant much of the costs of expansion were borne by private individuals. In time, transoceanic expansion became too expensive for individual investors, and Europeans developed joint stock companies to raise capital and limit risk. These forerunners of modern corporations allowed Europeans to create networks of credit that spanned the globe and made it possible for European merchants to engage in trade at unprecedented levels. By 1700, Europeans had achieved a global network of trade and finance. At the heart of this network was the Atlantic economy. The Atlantic economy was small compared to the Asian economy, but it was a dynamic economy. New consumer demand for sugar and other products drove this economy along, creating more trade between Africa, America, and Europe. In the Americas, European colonies produced raw materials to exchange with the mother countries for finished goods and thereby created a dependent economic position that favored metropolitan Europeans. Africa was never fully integrated into this Atlantic economy, but there was enough integration of African markets for the Europeans to obtain a steady supply of slaves for their New World plantations that produced sugar and other export crops. Of course, the most important American export throughout the entire early modern period was silver. Without the influx of New World silver, Europeans would have had little to trade with Asians. For instance, between 1660 and 1720, bullion constituted 87 percent of the Dutch East India Company’s exports to Asia. American silver allowed Europeans, who had been marginal players in the world economy with a perpetual trade deficit, to participate in the Asian trade. The global network of trade and finance that resulted from transoceanic expansion allowed Europeans to gain a dominant position politically and economically in the world in the nineteenth century. Transoceanic expansion also led to the exchange of goods and ideas at a level never before seen. The most influential was the exchange of food, animals, and diseases. Historians have called this exchange, the “​Columbian Exchange​,” because it began with Columbus’ arrival in the New World. In the Americas and Pacific Islands, exploration, conquest, and colonization brought Old World diseases, such as smallpox, to people who were not immune to them. In the Caribbean, for instance, the indigenous population disappeared in less than fifty years. Millions of people died from the spread of Old World diseases. Demographic estimates for the total number of people who may have died from Old World diseases in the Americas and Pacific Islands between 1500 and 1800 are around one hundred million people. The demographic collapse in the Americas also helped to make European colonization possible and led to the creation of a new population and culture combining Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans. The Columbian Exchange The exchange of animals and vegetables changed the world in a positive way too. The new foods from the Americas (e.g., potatoes, corn, and turkeys) made possible the eighteenth-century “population explosions'' in Europe, Africa, and Asia. In China, for instance, New World crops, which could survive harsher climates, doubled the amount of land under cultivation and led to the tripling of the population. The effects of the Columbian Exchange can still be seen today – 37 percent of Chinese food consists of vegetables indigenous to the Americas. This exchange is not just historical. The processes begun in the early modern period continue to the present day. For example, plants, animals, and diseases continue to spread throughout the world with both positive and negative results. The intentional introduction of soybeans in North America in the twentieth century has dramatically increased food supplies, while the unintentional arrival of Chinese beetles in New York City on container ships in the late twentieth century has led to the deadly infestatio...
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