Download Resisting European global dominance

Trade and exploration
The acceleration of long distance trade
European exploration and expansion
The Atlantic world
1450-1600
Acceleration of trade
• As Afro-Eurasia recovered from the
Mongol conquest and the Black Plague,
they began to resume the pattern of longdistance trade developed in the period
1000-1300
• By 1450, the pace began to accelerate
and the volume of trade expanded greatly,
bringing far-flung areas of the world
together
Ming China’s economy
• One of the keys to the acceleration of
global trade was the dynamism of the
internal Chinese economy
• Luxury goods like silk and porcelain were
traded vigorously as were more staple
goods like rice, tea, and metals
• Despite experiments with paper money,
most traders preferred to sell for precious
metals, particularly silver
• The Grand Canal
linked the new
capital, Beijing,
with the port city of
Hangzhou in the
South, facilitating
the flow of goods
from all over China
Indian Ocean Trade
• The most dynamic area for trade was the
Indian Ocean, controlled in large part by
Mulim and Hindu traders
• Traders from East Africa and the Red Sea
were again connected with traders in India
and China
• Textiles and spices were the main
commodities being traded – Europeans
before 1450 were only minor players in
this trade network
Indian Ocean and Silk Road
Overland Trade
• Though it was being eclipsed by maritime
trade, there was still a very active trading
system over land stretching from China in
the East to Constantinople in the West
• The route these traders travelled was
known as the Old Silk Road which had
opened officially in 139 BCE – and
continued to be used well into the modern
period when it would be abandoned for the
Trans-Siberian express train
• Caravanserai like these ones preserved in
modern-day Iran acted as a resting place for
travellers and their animals along the Old Silk
Road
• They also acted as centres of social, religious,
and cultural exchange among traders from the
Muslim world
Portuguese explorers
• Especially after the fall of Constantinople
the Portuguese recognized the great
wealth potential for brining luxury goods
from the east to sell in European markets
• With advanced marine and military
technology they established outposts
along the coast of Africa and the Indian
sub-continent as well
Vasco de Gama’s voyage in 1497-99 brought Portugal into direct
contact with the bustling world of Indian Ocean trade
Colonial Experiments
• During the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries Portugal colonized the Azores
and Cape Verde Islands
• The used the islands to grow crops to feed
the mainland, but also diversified into
sugar plantations
• Their connections with Western Africa
brought them into contact with the slave
trade, which they used to get labourers for
the sugar plantations
Crossing the Atlantic
• In the short term Portugal’s connection to
the Indian Ocean trade network was a
major breakthrough in making global
connections
• In the long term, that breakthrough has
been eclipsed by the crossing the Atlantic
and the development of permanent ties
with the Americas – which drew the
Americas into a global network for the first
time
First Encounters
• Columbus was trying to do what Vasco de Gama
achieved – get to the Indian Ocean – he just
took a different route
• Arriving in San Salvador he thought he had
reached India and immediately set out to trade
with the inhabitants
• Our seminar next time will deal with the problem
of how to understand these first encounters and
to consider how first impressions influence
subsequent behaviours
Conquest in Mexico
• The Aztec Empire in modern-day Mexico was a
wealthy, powerful, centralized state governing
about 25 million people
• An intensely religious culture that practiced
human sacrifice, believed the Europeans were
gods and consulted their prophecies to see what
to do
• Cortes and his small Spanish force had the
upper hand, and in 1519 they entered the Aztec
capital
City of Tenochtitlan before the conquest
Violent overthrow
• After remaining in the city for two years the
Europeans faced an uprising (while Cortes
was away) and the Incan Emperor
Montezuma was killed
• Cortes gathered a force to retake the city
and by 1524 had done so, as European
guns and germs decimated the Aztec
population
• Now Cortez became the ruler of this large
area
Conquest in Peru
• Though much smaller than the Aztec
Empire, the Inca Empire was nonetheless
a powerful state in the Andes mountains
• Spaniards arrived there in 1532, lured by
the prospect of gold and riches
• A group of 600 men led by Francisco
Pizarro laid a trap for the Inca army and
slaughtered them, thus taking control of
this vast area for Spain
The Columbian Exchange
• This is a term used to describe the transfer
of plants, animals and people between
America and the rest of the world
• The Americas gave corn, beans, tobacco
and cacao and in return received wheat,
grapevines, and sugar cane
• They also received diseases to which they
had developed no immunity, as well as
animals which grazed in land that had
earlier been used to grow food for people
Silver
• One of the things that the Spanish
discovered in South America was silver –
a coveted natural resource which would
give Europeans a large stockpile of really
the only thing that Chinese traders wanted
from the west
• This new influx of silver on the world
market fuelled the acceleration of world
trade
Conclusion
• The search for new trade routes to the
Orient had the unintended consequence of
discovering new lands for conquest
• Despite Ming efforts to isolate China from
the outside world, exploration and
conquest gave Europeans what they
needed to become major players on the
global stage – silver