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IMMACULATE HEART ACADEMY
World History
Honors
C HAPTER 1
The First Global Era
“Globalization,” the relatively free flow
of people, goods, technology, and ideas,
is characteristic of the world today. But it
was not until the barrier of the world’s
oceans was conquered that this process
began. Western Europeans, building on
the discoveries of other cultures, pioneered the first era of globalization. Beginning in the 1400s, when sailors first
from Portugal and then from Spain
crossed the world’s oceans, they ushered
in an era the writer Thomas Friedman
calls “globalization 1.0.
Unit 1 Introduction and The First Global Era Proficiencies: student will be able to
1. Understand the distinction between primary and secondary sources.
2. Define sourcing questions, context questions, and corroboration questions.
3. Use primary sources to construct historical arguments to answer historical questions.
4. Read secondary sources to identify an author’s thesis and explain how the thesis is supported.
5. Contrast the world of the early Middle Ages with that of the High Middle Ages and explain the factors that contributed to the revival of Europe after the year 1000.
6. Define the term globalization and apply this term to the Age of Exploration.
7. Identify and describe economic, religious, and political factors that led to the Age of Exploration.
8. Describe the factors that first led the Portuguese and Spanish to assume early leadership in exploration and empire building, followed by the northern Atlantic Powers.
9. Explain the concept of the Columbian Exchange and its impact on the environment and on human populations, and assess the impact of disease
on exploration and conquest.
10.Give examples of and evaluate the impact of technology as an important factor in the ability of Europeans to explore distant places and maintain
links to their overseas empires.
11. Describe the development of a world system of trade and the role it played in the expansion of European global power.
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S ECTION 1
Historical Thinking,
Sources, and History
Q UESTIONS :
Read the secondary source What Came Before
How did life in the early Middle Ages contrast with life in
Roman times in terms of political organization, economic
prosperity, and advanced culture?
Read primary sources A-D and respond.
1.
Sourcing question: what do all four sources have in
common?
2.
How does each below match your understanding of
life in the Early Middle Ages and how things changed
after the fall of Rome?
The Revival of Western Europe
1. What factors caused the revival of Europe during the
High Middle Ages (1000-1300)?
2.Which factor do you think was probably the first
important change that allowed the other to develop?
3. Which factor contributed most to the revival of local
trade and which to the revival of long-distance trade?
SKILL: Using Primary Sources and Asking Historical Questions
How do we know about the past? Historians turn to many sources to
understand history. Some sources are oral: your grandmother’s recollections, for example, about growing up in the 1950s. In an era of
sound recording, people can leave behind their thoughts so we can literally hear the historical record. Other sources are visual. We can see the
past in an ancient temple, in a Renaissance painting, or, back to
grandma, in her old photograph album. We read about the past in old
document, church records, journals of explorers, in the texts of laws, or
treaties.
When a source was created during the period of history being studied,
it is called a primary source. Secondary sources are sources produced later (like a history textbook or a biography of a famous person).
Historians--and history students--read source materials in a very special way—a questioning way. This makes sense when you think about
what the word “history” originally meant. It is a word that comes from
Greek and means “asking why.” Historians ask three kinds of questions, beginning with sourcing questions. History students need to
ask themselves who wrote this and why? History students also always
need to think in “context.” Context questions require students to ask
what was going on at the time this source was written and what else do
I already know about document? Finally, thinking almost like detectives, history students ask corroboration questions, asking how
the source supports or corroborates the other things they read about
the topic. Sourcing questions, context questions, corroboration questions are at the heart of history’s “asking why.”
To interpret the following documents in this section, you need to ask
context, sources, and corroboration questions. Questioning sources,
placing events in historical context, and looking for evidence that sup3
ports or corroborates ideas about the past is at the heart of what we
will be doing in history class this year.
Sources of the Early Middle Ages
Secondary Source: “What Came Before the Modern Era?”
(World History Honor text.)
At the height of the Roman Empire (the first two centuries after the
birth of Christ), Europeans lived in a unified empire under the control
of powerful emperors and enjoyed a sophisticated culture, high levels
of literacy, and a thriving economy based on the exchange of goods
throughout the empire. Much of this came to an end with the fall of the
empire about 500 years after the birth of Christ. For the next 500 years
after the Empire’s fall, Europeans in the West struggled to survive. A
prolonged period of invasion, chaos, and instability followed the fall of
Rome: trade collapsed and cities declined, forcing Europeans to revert
to a traditional economic system: one that produced only enough
goods to survive. With a few exceptions, kings found themselves without the resources to control their kingdoms, and power shifted to local
nobles or “lords” to whom people were loyal. Such was the condition of
Europe from 500-1000, a period called the Early Middle Ages.
Another striking feature of the Early Middle Ages was the decline of literate culture. For the most part, only members of religious orders
living in monasteries and convents retained the ability to read and
write. Even lords and kings were illiterate during this period. The
schools that survived were attached to monasteries where the next generation of religious learned to read and write. Copies of books were
carefully preserved and copied by monk-scribes working in “scriptoriums” in monasteries.
Primary Source Documents: Early Middle Ages
Document A: The Life of Charlemagne (Einhard, 9th century) Note on the source: Einhard, educated at the monastery of
Fulda, was a priest and scholar in Charlemagne’s court and served as
an abbot of a Benedictine Monastery. He wrote The Life of Charlemagne about AD 830. Charlemagne, the greatest medieval king of
the Early Middle Ages, created the largest kingdom after the fall of
the Roman Empire. His empire, like Rome’s fell soon after his death.
Charlemagne took lessons from deacon Peter of Pisa, at that time an
aged man. The King spent much time and labor and learned to calculate…He also tried to write, and use to keep writing tablets in bed under his pillow, that at leisure hours he might accustom his hand to
form the letters. However, as he did not begin his efforts in due season,
but late in life, his efforts at forming letters met with ill success.
Document B: Germanic Law: Ordeal of a Queen
Note on the source: The person on trial below is Emma, a tenthcentury queen of England and Denmark. What is described is a “trial
by ordeal” in which an accused person is forced to undergo a form of
physical torture, the result of which will prove or disprove their innocence. Source: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, a collection of sources
written by monks in England.
On the appointed day the clergy and the people came to the church and
the king himself sat on the tribunal. The queen was brought before her
son the king . . . Nine glowing blades were placed on the carefully
swept pavement of the church. After these had been consecrated by a
short ceremony, the queen's shoes and stockings were taken off; . . .
and, supported by two bishops, one on either side, she was led to the
torture. Uncontrollable weeping broke out allover the church and all
voices were united in the cry "St. Swithin, St. Swithin, help her!"
In a low voice the queen offered a prayer as she undertook the ordeal. .
. Behold the miracle! She walked upon the nine blades, pressing each
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one of them with the full weight of her whole body; and though she
thus passed over them all, she neither saw the iron nor felt the heat…
She gazed and her eyes were opened; then for the first time she looked
about and understood the miracle.
Document D: Medieval Scribe-Monk Note on the source: Illustration from a manuscript created around 1040 at a monastery in St
Omer, France. A monk-scribe is copying a manuscript by hand in a
monastery scriptorium.
Document C: Ninth Century Invasions Note on the source:
The following are records from the Monastery at Xanten, Germany,
from the 800s.
The Northmen [Vikings] plundered the countryside and burned the
town of Dordrecht, with two other villages, before the eyes of the king,
who was then in the castle of Nimwegen but could not punish the
crime…. . At this same time, as no one can mention or hear without
great sadness, the Mother of all churches, the Basilica of the Apostle
Peter, was plundered by the Moors, slaughtered all the Christians
whom they found outside the walls of Rome. [Recorded at the monastery in846]
The Northmen…horribly devastated the kingdom of Charles…They destroyed houses, and monasteries and churches…Lord Hugo, when he
heard of these calamities, gathered an army and came to aid the King.
When the Northmen came back from a plundering expedition, Lord
Hugo and his knights gave them chase. They, however, betook themselves to a wood, and scattered hither and yon, and finally returned to
their ships with little loss to themselves. . . [Recorded at the monastery
in 882]
The Revival of Western Europe
Between 1000 and 1300—the High Middle Ages— Western civilization
recovered and expanded, and its people began to explore new possibilities. While it is often easier to describe a recovery than it is to explain
it, historians are in general agreement about some of the key factors
that contributed to the revival of Western Europe after 1000.
1. Climate Change: Scientific evidence points to a warming trend
that began around 1000 and lasted through the 1200s. Warmer
weather and longer growing seasons produced more food. Populations grew and trade revived.
2. An End to Invasions: Raids and invasions that had ravaged the
West during the 800s and 900s slowly came to an end. The easing
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of this burden of endless war saved many regions from periodic devastation and set the stage for economic recovery.
3. New Methods of Farming: A revolution in farming produced a
food surplus. The development of the heavy plow increased the
amount of land that could be cultivated. The horse collar replaced
the ox yoke and oxen--horses were easier to train and faster, increasing agricultural output. Dams and canals were built to provide water, control floods and drain swamps. Watermills and windmills
were in wide use by the tenth century to grind grain, pump water,
hammer cast iron, saw wood, among other kinds of work.
Holy Land—where Jesus lived and Christianity was born. In 1095,
Pope Urban II called on the lords and knights of Western Europe to
march to the Holy Land and free it from Muslim domination. For the
next two centuries, Western Europeans attempted (unsuccessfully in
the end) to end Muslim control of the Holy Land. The Crusades greatly
stimulated long-distance trade between Europeans and the people of
the Middle East. Luxury goods from far away China and spices from
the far East made their way along trade routes from Asia.
Route of the first Crusade (note Italy as a crossroads)
The Crusades had a significant transforming effect on European society, stimulating trade between east and west.
4. Revival of Trade: The existence of a food surplus led to the revival
of local trade and to a rising population as more food was available. A
rapidly expanding population further increased the demand for goods.
5. The Crusades: The religious wars known as the Crusades contributed to the revival of long-distance trade. Islam, born on the Arabian
peninsula, had spread widely into areas that included Palestine—the
5. Revival of City life: With little trade and the chaos of invasions,
life in cities was difficult to sustain in the Early Middle Ages. Populations fled to the countryside seeking security and work on the estates of
the great lords of the Middle Ages. With a surplus of food came the
need to create places where the surplus could be traded: towns and cities. With more food available, not everyone had to live and work on
farms: the surplus of food could feed and sustain city inhabitants.
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Notes:
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S ECTION 2
The Age of Exploration (1400s-1700) marks the beginning
Empire Building: Spain
and Portugal
of a dramatic, global expansion of Western European power and influence. Western global power is one of the four important themes we are
tracing this year. In the 1400s, Western Europeans set off on voyages
of global exploration and conquest that began a period of over 500
years of Western domination, or hegemony, that extends into the present day.
Q UESTIONS :
1. What is meant by the terms “New Imperialism”
and “Old Imperialism” (note the difference in
time period and place).
2. Identify the “Atlantic Powers.”
3. Summarize the three principle motives for
exploration.
4. What factors may explain why Portugal was
first to explore?
5.
What held Spain back and what caused Spain
to launch its voyages of exploration?
Scholars identify two important eras of European empire building
around the globe. European exploration between 1400 and 1700—begun by Portugal and followed by Spain, the Netherlands, France, and
England—is known as the era of “Old Imperialism.” While the initial
focus of the Old Imperialism was Asia and access to its valuable luxury
goods, its greatest impact was felt in the Americas. Europeans established outposts of empire in Africa and Asia, but it was in the Americas
where they founded colonies and where they transferred people,
plants, animals, and diseases. A second wave of empire building, the
so-called era of the “New Imperialism,” happened between the
1880s and 1914, and focused on colony building in Africa and Asia (see
unit six).
The First Explorations In the 1400s, the “Atlantic Powers”
of Western Europe—first Portugal and Spain, followed by England,
Netherlands, and France— were ready to begin programs of systematic
exploration. A variety of things motivated these projects of exploration
and made them possible.
• Profit Finding more efficient sea routes to the riches of the East was
a powerful motivating force. The Crusades had helped stimulate
the revival of long-distance trade during the High Middle Ages.
Europeans had acquired a renewed taste for luxury items that had
long been traded from the Persia, India, and China. The lure of profits from cotton, silk, precious stones, exotic spices, and slaves
prompted Europeans to find a better way to directly access these
items.
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only individual but national: voyages of exploration brought opportunities to extend the power and importance of the nations of Europe
and of the kings who ruled over them.
“God, glory and gold” is the often-used formula that captures the
range of motivations of the first voyages of exploration.
Portugal: the Route Around Africa The Portuguese were the
first Europeans to begin a systematic search for a sea route to the East.
Supported by their royal family, the Portuguese explored a sea route
around Africa, looking for the all-water route to the riches of Asia. Portuguese explorers were the first to complete this route. Bartolomeu
Dias reached the tip of Africa in 1488 and ten years later, Vasco da
Gama sailed all the way to India and back, laying the foundation for a
mostly trading empire with limited territorial holdings.
•
Middle Eastern traders had established overland routes to the East
through central Asia and Italian traders crossed the Mediterranean
Sea to link up with Middle Eastern traders. Among Europeans, it was
merchants from Italy, who led the way, dominating trade in Eastern
luxury goods by exploiting their central position in the Mediterranean Sea. The “Atlantic Powers” were determined to find a way to
break the Italian monopoly on trade with the East.
• Religious motivations prompted individuals and nations to explore and colonize. Many saw their actions as a logical extension of
the Crusades against Islam—a new way to spread the Gospel and win
converts to Christianity.
• Fame and adventure Exploration was fanned by the quest for
knowledge about the world as well as by a spirit of individual adventure and the quest for individual fame. That quest for glory was not
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Several factors contributed to Portugal’s becoming the European pioneer in overseas exploration. The first was its geographic position
along the west coast of the Iberian Peninsula, which allowed for the
natural development of a seafaring tradition. The second was the existence of port cities that became the commercial centers of the country.
The merchant community used these port cities as their base of operations from which they financed exploration and trading ventures.
The third critical factor that made Portugal a forerunner in exploration
was its monarchy. Portugal benefited from a royal family that encouraged maritime trade and shipping ventures, most famously Prince
Henry the Navigator. Henry used his wealth and royal connections
to promote Portuguese voyages of exploration down the coast of Africa.
Spain The Portuguese had a seventy-year head start over the Span-
The Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella decided to back the
scheme of the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus to find an allwater route to Asia by sailing west across the Atlantic. Since educated
people understood the earth was round, Columbus knew he could find
a different route to Asia from the one the Portuguese were seeking
around Africa. His accidental discovery of vast lands to the west of
Europe put in place the foundation for Spain’s impressive territorial
empire in the Americas.
Royal support for empire building gave a great advantage to the European powers that had strong, centralized governments. Kings by the
late 1400s had the resources, ships, and soldiers to build and defend
empires across the seas. They understood the advantages to them from
global trade, control of natural resources, and expanding territories
around the world.
ish. Spain had problems at home to resolve first. Spanish voyages were
delayed by the Reconquista, Spain’s efforts to defeat the Moors, the
descendants of Muslim invaders who conquered Spain in the 700s.
Voyages of Christopher Columbus
Portrait of Christopher Columbus
It was not until 1492 that the Moors were finally defeated and Spain
was in a position to challenge Portugal's predominance in exploration.
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Notes:
11
S ECTION 3
By the 1200s, Europeans had developed a sophisticated sea-based com-
Technology and Empire
Building
merce that included the navigation of the Mediterranean Sea, the
North and Baltic Seas, and the passable stretch of Atlantic Coast between them. But crossing the oceans of the world would require new
technologies of ship building and navigation. As early as the seventeenth century, the writer and scientists Francis Bacon noted the important role of technology in the success of European exploration and empire building:
Q UESTIONS
1. What four areas of technology played a vital
role in Western exploration and colonization
and what are key examples in each category?
2. Westerners were not the inventors of these
technologies: from whom did Europeans
learn?
3. Which technology was most vital for
exploration; which was most important to
empire building?
4. What is meant by the term “technology
complex?”
“We should note the force, effect, and consequences of inventions
which are nowhere more conspicuous than in those three which were
unknown to the ancient world, namely print, gunpowder, and the
compass. For these three have changed the appearance and state of
the whole world” (Francis Bacon, 1616).
Ship Building Technologies Before Europeans could go anywhere,
they needed to develop ships that could withstand long ocean voyages.
The Mediterranean galleys used for sea voyages (with a single large
sail and oars for rowing when the wind failed or blew in the wrong direction) were inadequate for ocean voyages. The development in northern Europe of a rudder which protruded from the stern (back) of the
ship and was connected to steering gear allowed one man to keep a
ship on course. The Portuguese built a new type of ship—the caravel—
that was sturdy enough to withstand a variety of maritime conditions,
could carry large cargoes, and had multiple sails to sail closer into the
wind. The caravels were followed in the sixteenth century by stronger,
larger galleons equipped with decks that bristled with cannons. This
potent combination of guns and ships made empire building possible.
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Information Technology Improvements in the recording and communication of new discoveries played a key role in exploration and empire building. Better map-making (cartography) skills allowed earlier
voyages to pass on accurate information to voyagers who came later—
maps published with the new print technology of the printing press developed by Johann Gutenberg in Germany around 1450 meant that
knowledge of new discoveries would spread quickly and widely, accelerating the pace of change at the beginning of the modern era. In 1503,
the Spanish government created a department called the House of
Trade that kept and continually revised the master maps of overseas
expansion. A royal official, the Cosmographer Royal, was responsible
for nautical charts and maps.
!
Galley vs. Caravel
Navigational Technologies Instruments for finding your way were
essential, too, for long ocean voyages in which ships were out of sight
of land for long stretches of time. From Arab mariners Europeans
adopted the compass (borrowed from China and improved by the Europeans) which would always indicate north, and the astrolabe, a device
that allowed navigators to calculate latitude (the distance north or
south of the equator).
Arab mariner using an astrolabe
Weapons Technology A last important technological advantage was
improved weapons. Europeans, in particular the Spanish, produced
some of the finest quality steel in the world. While gunpowder and
early firearms technology had been used by both the Chinese and in
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the Muslim world, Westerners began to take the lead in producing gunpowder weapons by the beginning in the sixteenth century. (Often,
texts state that the Chinese used gunpowder only to entertain--for fireworks. This is incorrect: by the 1200s, the Chinese were using gunpowder weapons on the battlefield.)
When European arrived in the New World, their ships were equipped
with cannons and soldiers who carried steel swords and muskets. This
imbalance in the technology of weapons between the Europeans and
the peoples they encountered gave them a huge advantage. Nowhere
was this imbalance more vividly displayed than when the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro encountered the Incan emperor and his
army in Peru in 1532. In Guns, Germs, and Steel, author Jared Diamond says the Incan Emperor “was absolute monarch of the largest
and most advanced state in the New World” while Pizarro led “a ragtag
group of 168 Spanish soldiers.” Despite an army 80,000, the Incas
were defeated. A Spanish soldier recorded the key moment when the
two armies met: Pizarro ordered his men “to fire off their guns. At the
same time the trumpets were sounded...the Spanish giving their battle
cry, ‘Santiago’ [St. James]. We had placed rattles on the horses to terrify the Indians. The booming of the guns, the blowing of the trumpets, and the rattling of the horses threw the Indians into panicked
confusion. The Spaniards fell on them and began to cut them into
pieces...The cavalry rode them down, killing and wounding, and following in pursuit. The infantry made so good an assault on those that
remained that in a short time most of them were put to the sword.”
Pizarro had the advantage in weapon’s technology. Steel swords, armor, and guns (along with horses, not native to the Americas) trumped
stone and bronze weapons and wooden clubs, slingshots, and quilted
armor.
The technology imbalance: Old World Weapons v. New
The development of a “technology complex”—not just one invention
but diverse and reinforcing technological developments in the combination of ships, navigational instruments, print, steel, guns, and gunpowder—did indeed change the world. Ocean-worthy ships without navigational devices to steer them across the oceans would be useless. And to
arrive in small numbers without superior weapons would have been a
disaster for the would be conquistadors.
As one historian summarized, “equipped with their new ships and
navigation skills and instruments, and armed with their new weapons of iron and gunpowder, the Europeans were able to make their
influence felt all over the globe.”
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Notes:
15
S ECTION 4
The Northwest Passage While the Iberian kingdoms of Spain
Empire Building In
North America
and Portugal began the process in the 1400s, by the 1600s, England,
the Netherlands, and France eventually played active roles in the
exploration of the "New World." These northern “Atlantic Powers” also
shared a geographical orientation toward the Atlantic Ocean, port cities, merchant classes eager for riches, and were developing powerful
monarchies that supported projects of exploration and empire building.
Q UESTIONS
1. What approach to exploration did England,
France, and the Netherlands take?
Their explorers searched the northern Atlantic for a Northwest Passage to the riches of the East (a passage that connected the Atlantic
and Pacific oceans north of Canada.) No such passage was found, but
the English, French, and Dutch established colonies in North America
as a result of these voyages. Rivalries between these powers sustained
and advanced exploration as each sought to outstrip the other in terms
of raw goods and riches provided by their overseas empires.
2. Explain the cause and the conclusion of the
clash between the English and the Dutch.
3. Explain the causes and the conclusion of the
clash between the English and the French.
4. What did Alfred Crosby mean when he
said “the most important aspect of European
imperialism has been biological”?
5. Why were Native American populations so
vulnerable to European diseases?
The Struggle for North America As they expanded their settlements in North America, the nations of France, England, and the
Netherlands battled each other for colonial supremacy.
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The English Oust the Dutch To the English, the Dutch colony of
New Netherlands--today New York-- separated their northern and
southern colonies. In 1664, the English king, Charles II, granted his
brother, the Duke of York, permission to drive out the Dutch. When
the duke’s fleet arrived at New Netherland, the Dutch surrendered without firing a shot. The Duke of York claimed the colony for England and
renamed it New York.
With the Dutch gone, the English colonized the Atlantic coast of North
America. By 1750, about 1.2 million English settlers lived in 13 colonies
from Maine to Georgia.
England Battles France The English soon became hungry for more
land for their colonial population. So they pushed farther west into the
continent. By doing so, they collided with France’s North American
holdings. The French had explored in Canada and down the Mississippi River into the interior of North America. As their colonies expanded, France and England began to interfere with each other. It
seemed that a major clash seemed inevitable.
n 1754 a dispute over land claims in the Ohio Valley led to a war between the British and French on the North American continent. The
conflict became known as the Seven Years War or the French and
Indian War in American history books. The war became part of a
larger conflict known as the Seven Years’ War. Britain and France,
along with their European allies, also battled for supremacy in Europe,
the West Indies, and India.
The French were defeated and surrendered their North American holdings. As a result of the war, the British seized control of the eastern half
of North America.
Note the area of dominance in North America: Spanish control and influence in Mexico and Central America, English control of the coast of
North America, and French control of Canada and the interior of North
America along the great interior river systems of the continent.
The map on the next page illustrate the triumph of England over the
French in North America.
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European dominance of the Americas was not just political. A remarkable process of biological and ecological imperialism was unleashed by
the European conquests of the Americas.
The Columbian Exchange
The arrival of the Europeans in the Americas after 1492 began a massive transformation in the global ecosystem resulting from the exchange of plants, animals, and disease between the “Old World” and
the New. This interchange of native life-forms was first called the Columbian Exchange by the historian Alfred Crosby in his book of
the same title written in the 1970s.
Crops found only in the Americas before 1492 included maize (corn),
white potatoes, sweet potatoes, peanuts, tomatoes, squash (including
pumpkin), and pineapples. Given the importance of the potato and tomato in some European diets and cuisines, it is interesting to note that
they were unheard of in Europe before 1492. Similarly, there is a long
list of foods and animals not found in the Americas before the coming
of Columbus. Crops brought to the Americas by Europeans included
rice, wheat, barley, oats, rye, turnips, onions, cabbage, lettuce, peaches,
pears, and sugar.
As a result of the struggle known as the Seven Years War in world history (and the French and Indian War in American history), French control and influence in North America was eliminated. France retained
Haiti on one half the island of Hispaniola.
The New World was surprisingly devoid of domesticated animals,
important sources of both food and work in much of the world. The
Americas were home only to dogs, llamas, guinea pigs, and a few species of fowl. Old World domesticated animals included horses, donkeys, pigs, cattle, goats, sheep, and a wider variety of barnyard fowl.
The Americas had fewer species of large mammals that could be
tamed. There were, for instance, no wild horses or cattle in the Americas. The Native Americans did domesticate the llama, the humpless
camel of the Andes, but a llama cannot carry more than about two hundred pounds at most, cannot be ridden, and is not a very amiable beast
of burden.
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By contrast, the people of the Americas had spent thousands of years in
biological isolation. They remained untouched by diseases that had
raged for centuries in the Old World. When the newcomers arrived carrying mumps, measles, whooping cough, smallpox, and cholera, Native
Americans were immunologically defenseless.
More astonishing is the lists of infectious diseases native to the Old
World. The Americas had only a few but when we list the infections
brought to the New World by Europeans, however, we find most of humanity's worst afflictions, among them smallpox, malaria, yellow fever,
measles, cholera, typhoid, and bubonic plague.
Many experts now believe that the New World was home to 40 million
to 50 million people before Columbus arrived and that most of them
died within decades. In Mexico alone, the native population fell from
roughly 30 million in 1519 to 3 million in 1568. The eminent Yale historian David Brion Davis says this was "the greatest genocide in the history of man." Most of the deaths were not caused by swords or guns
but by germs.
16th century Native American illustration of small pox victims.
Why were peoples of the Americas so vulnerable to European diseases?
By the time Columbus set sail, the people of the Old World held the distinction of being thoroughly diseased. Many of the worst epidemic diseases known to man had their origin in the animal world. By domesticating pigs, horses, sheep and cattle thousands of years ago, they had
infected Old World populations with a wide array of diseases. And
through centuries of war, exploration and city-building, they had kept
those agents in constant circulation. Virtually any European who
crossed the Atlantic during the 16th century had battled such illnesses
as smallpox and measles during childhood and emerged fully immune.
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Notes:
20
S ECTION 5
The World System
Western Global
Dominance
Global exploration and empire building brought unprecedented global
power to the West. That power was unparalleled in its worldwide
reach. It also brought ecological and population changes to the world
at large. It constructed a global economy and began to spread Western
peoples to distant continents. In the 1500s and 1600s, it created what
some historians have seen as a "world system" of interlocking trading
relations with each region providing its contribution to the system as a
whole and with the West at its center. This global dominance established a foundation for an emerging Western hegemony (dominance
over others). Western Europeans established a Western predominance
that lasts throughout modern history. The West will expand its political, technological, and economic power over the next centuries.
D IRECTIONS
1. Note the resources acquired by the West in
various regions of the globe.
2. What New World resource was critical for
European trade with Asia?
3. Note the role of business methods, militarism,
and nationalism.
4. As far as social impacts, who were the winners
and losers?
5. Link the concept of the "world system" to the
emergence of Western hegemony (dominance)
—to what extent does the West seem to control
the whole “world system?”
6. How does global power shift in the 1600s?
The roots of the economic rise of the West can be traced to Europe's
first Commercial Revolution, which began during the High Middle
Ages. This transformation brought about the revival of trade and the
end of Europe's relative isolation. During the High Middle Ages, longdistance trade between Asia and Western Europe revived. A second
Commercial Revolution was a consequence of the global rise of the
West.
The world we inhabit today, an era characterized by the term globalization (which can be defined as the relatively free flow of investment,
goods and services, and workers, and ideas) began during this period,
as barriers that inhibited access to and exchange of global resources
began to diminish.
The greatest of these barriers to globalization were the oceans of the
world. European mariners, map-makers, shipbuilders, merchantinvestors, and monarchs were determined to triumph over those barriers in the era of exploration.
Luxury goods from Asia Having reached the East by all-water
routes, Europeans had direct access to the luxury goods they had been
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importing through Italian and Middle Eastern middlemen for centuries. From China, Europeans got silks, porcelain "china," and teas;
from India, indigo dye, cotton textiles and precious stones; and from
the islands of the East Indies, spices such as pepper, cinnamon, and
cloves. Coffee became an important import from the Middle East.
These goods enriched European merchants and changed lives in ordinary ways for many Europeans, altering what they wore and what they
consumed. Luxury goods made up one very important link in the world
system of trade, but only represented one part of this global system.
Luxury goods from an Asian market, 1600s
Labor from Africa Africa, which European traders rounded regularly on their way to the East by sea, at first provided way stations for
replenishing stores for the voyages to Asia. Africa soon became something much more than a obstacle to get around: it was a valuable
source of gold, ivory, and— above all—slave labor for the plantation
economies of the Americas. Within a decade of Columbus's first voyage, African slaves were working in the Americas. First the Portuguese,
then the Dutch, and finally, by the 18th century, the British dominated
this trade in human beings. A "triangular trade" of manufactured
goods from Europe to Africa, slaves from Africa to the Americas, and
raw materials from the Americas to Europe developed. By the end of
the slave trade in the nineteenth century, about ten million Africans
were enslaved, the greatest number arriving in the Caribbean islands
and Brazil for labor on the sugar plantations of those regions.
Commodities from the Americas The dull but enormously profitable commodities of the Americas enriched Europeans, too. The natural resources of the Americas made them the most valuable colonies in
the 1600-1700s. The forests of North American provided the abundant
supplies of oak needed to maintain European sailing fleets and tobacco
from the Southern colonies fueled a new European habit and lined the
pockets of tobacco traders in Europe. But by far, the most profitable agricultural commodity was Brazilian and Caribbean sugar--called
“white gold.”
Especially in the first century or so, the gold and silver mines of Central
and South America enriched Spain, the English “Sea Dogs” (national
heroes to the English but really pirates) such as Sir Francis Drake
raided and robbed Spanish treasure ships from the New World. Since
there was little in Europe that Asians wanted, American silver and gold
completed the global trading circle, providing the money Europeans
needed to purchase the luxury goods of Asia.
While the world system was global in scope, Europeans dominated
two important parts of the system. Europe became the producer and
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supplier to the world of finished products and it was European merchants and European ships that controlled the flow of the goods
around the world.
The earliest joint stock company was organized in 1602 in the Netherlands. The Dutch East India Company dominated the spice trade with
Asia for centuries. The Dutch also invented the idea of a stock
exchange--a place where stocks could be bought and sold--called the
Bourse. The English soon followed, reorganizing the British East India
Company as a joint stock company and the London Stock Exchange.
The Triangular Trade
Role of Business Organization European business organization
had developed impressively starting from the first Commercial Revolution of the High Middle Ages. Equipped with efficient business techniques, from bills of exchange, to new bookkeeping methods, to banks,
Westerners became effective rivals of Muslim, Indian, and south Chinese commercial organizations. Europeans developed new methods in
the 1500-1600s.
The joint stock company, an early version of the modern corporation,
was the most important new business arrangement of the Second Commercial Revolution. Investors bought stock in companies and were
paid dividends if the company made a profit. By pooling the investment capital of many investors in large joint-stock companies, European traders accumulated sufficient capital (money used to invest) to
undertake the global ventures of the Age of Exploration and later centuries.
The shipyard of the powerful Dutch East India Company
Role of Militarism and Nationalism Historians also credit the traditional competitiveness and militarism of the small European states
as a stimulus for exploration and colonization. In fighting and competing among themselves for centuries, they were in effect in training for
global conquest. Added to this was the development of highly organized national monarchies. In the later Middle Ages as part of the project of monarchy building, the European Atlantic Powers had developed complex bureaucracies able to mobilize the energies of the whole
nation for the costly adventures of exploration and colonization. The
combination of commercial know-how, military might, and centralized
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government power were keys to European success in the project of empire building.
Winners and Losers: The Social Impacts of Globalization Between the 1400s and 1700, the wealth of four other continents poured
into Europe. Sudden wealth brought about significant social change in
Europe. The flow of so much silver and gold triggered a serious inflation—a sudden rise in prices of goods—bringing wealth to some and
economic hardship to others. The biggest winners were the middle
class merchants who reaped the profits made from higher prices. Luxuries began to filter down to the middle class, and European producers
tired to match foreign products with European-produced products,
stimulated home-grown industries. New businesses developed around
new goods, such as tea and especially coffee shops that became important centers of business, news, and sociability. Laborers, whose wages
rose more slowly, benefited less, but business expansion did expand
job opportunities in towns and cities for non-farming workers. Profits
from land were not as great as profits from trade, so the economic positions of the land-owning nobles declined, further eroding the traditional position of the landed gentry and noble classes.
Global Power Portugal may have been first to build an overseas empire, but by the end of the 1500s Spain had the largest global empire
and had emerged as the richest and most powerful kingdom in Europe.
Gold and silver poured into the Spanish treasury and the sixteenth century came to be called the siglo d’oro--Spain’s “golden century.” Never
would Spanish wealth and power be greater. The map below shows
only two Atlantic Powers--Spain and Portugal--on the map by 1550.
England, France, and the Netherlands had not yet begun to build their
empires.
By the end of the 1600s, the power of Spain and Portugal was on the
decline as they faced competition in empire building and trade from
France, England, and the Netherlands. The seventeenth century was a
golden one for the Dutch. Seizing most of the “spice islands” of the
East Indies from Portugal, the Dutch built a trading empire based on
their control of the spice trade. Unmatched among Europeans in business savvy, the Netherlands reached the pinnacle of its power in the
1600s.
DUTCH EMPIRE
The Dutch empire was not a territorially large one, but its control of
the “Spices Islands” made the Netherlands rich.
England began challenge Spanish power in the Americas. After a period of tension over English claims in North America, English attacks
on Spanish treasure ships, and religious tensions, Spain launched a naval attack on England in 1588 called the Spanish Armada. It was a disaster for Spain and a complete victory for the English, a turning point
in the balance of power between the two kingdoms. England will be emboldened to establish its first colonies in the Americas--it first success
at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607.
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Notes:
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