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 long-distance 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