Trading Empires

1
Trading Empires

• 1450 - 1750

2
Empires Dutch

• Dutch East India Company universal carriers
  In 1660, employed 12,000 people and had 257
  ships. Sought monopolies and large profits.
• North America (fur trade along the Hudson river,
  New Amsterdam)
• Caribbean islands for plantation settlements
• Cape Town South Africa way station
• Southeast Asia spice trade (nutmeg in Banda
  islands, cloves in Melaka and pepper in Banten)

3
Empires Spain

• Columbus voyage
• Arrival of Cortez in Mexico and Pizarro in Peru
• Took over existing tributary empires labor
  (mita), silver, gold, and foodstuffs
• Demographic impact disease, death, and mestizos

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Spain

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Empires Portugal

• Search for Maritime route to Asia
• Advanced naval technology caravels, carracks,
  astrolabe and compass
• Established fortresses along the Gold Coast
  sugar plantations and African slave labor
• Indian Ocean trade and Da Gama Malindi, Sofala
  and Kilwa, Calicut and Goa, and later Macao
• Atlantic trade with conquest of Brazil sugar
  plantation

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Brazil Plantation colony

• Portuguese due to Treaty of Tordesillas 1494
• African slave labor used to support the
  plantation complex (sugar)
• Largest producer of sugar in world first half of
  17th C.

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Empires African

• Characteristics of
• Stateless societies - organized around
  kinship
• Forms of government
• Kongo (Congo) Diving Right
• Songhay (Niger/Mali) Emperor of conquered
  territories (no local rule)
• Oyo Benin (Nigeria) Independent city-states
• Ashanti (Ghana/Ivory Coast) Union of states.
  Gold-trading and transitioned to slave-trading
• Some large centralized states increased unity
  came from linguistic base Bantu, Christianity
  and Islam, as well as indigenous beliefs
• Trade markets, international commerce, taxed
  trade of unprocessed goods.

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Gender and Empire

• How might colonial conquests influence gender
  roles?

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Demographic and Environmental Changes

• Predict what the consequences of increased
  integration and empire building be on population?
  On the environment? Think long and short term.

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Land Based Empire vs. Sea Based Empires
C
Ben Needle Kell High School Marietta,
GA Ben.needle_at_cobbk12.org
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Land Based Sea Based

• Self-defense extremely important
• Examples?
• Ottoman, Russian, Mughal, Ming
• Relatively Large
• Expensive
• Focused on agriculture and not industry
• Many were located in arid uninhabitable area
• Involved in forced labor
• no longer in WE
• Power was centralized
• Between 1500 and 1800 had the largest
  administrative and economic systems because they
  were more of a threat to each other

• Few strategic concerns
• Examples?
• Spain, Portugal, England
• Relatively Small
• Self-sufficient
• Settled in profitable areas
• Involved in forced labor
• Increasingly brutal
• Power divided amongst lands
• Benefited from private investors or joint-stock
  companies

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Labor Systems

• 1450 1750

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Types of Labor

• What are the two main types of labor systems?
• Paid and Unpaid
• When were paid systems used?
• Indentured servants/Debt Peonage
• Who were these indentured servants?
• Europeans who came over during the first wave of
  imperialism.
• Debt Peonage (enforced servitude)
• Debtor provides service until their debt is paid
  off
• Basis of tenant farming and sharecropping in
  post-Civil War south.
• Kept former slaves tied to land
• Common in 19th and 20th Century Latin America
• What was the second labor force of imperialism?
• Indigenous people

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Indigenous Labor in the New World

• What were encomiendas and the mita system?
• Land granted to Spanish Conquistadors in Latin
  America
• This land included the Indian Laborers living
  there
• Forced labor system replacing indentured servants
  with Indian slaves
• Based off of the Incan labor system
• What were Potosi and Huancavelica?
• Largest silver mine and source of mercury
• What was the similarity between Viceroyalities
  and Capitancies?
• V Spanish representative of the king
• C Portuguese representatives of the king
  (Brazil)
• Why were Europeans forced to turn slave labor
  in the New World?
• Indigenous people were dying and the emergence of
  plantations demanded far more labor

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The Emergence of Slave Labor

• Why was there little need for slave labor in the
  Northern American colonies?
• Crops requiring large numbers of laborers were
  grown in the south
• What crops require large amounts of labor?
• Rice, tobacco, sugarcane, cotton
• As the New World colonies increasingly turned to
  plantation crops, the need for slave labor
  skyrocketed

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The Slave Trade

• Reasons for British Institutionalization of
  slavery
• Need for cheap, abundant labor
• Viewed Africans as less human
• Natives and European indentured servants worked
  for only a specific amount of time
• Other reasons slavery was so successful
• Seemingly limitless supply
• Natural increase allowed for population
  maintenance
• 1660s(VA) 300
• 1756 120,000
• Thousands were brought in daily at one point

• Involved approximately 20 million Africans
  (survived)
• Triangular Trade
• West Coast of Africa ? Caribbean/Latin America/
  North America ? Europe
• 13 20 died during the trip

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Effects of the Slave Trade

• Areas of Africa depopulated
• Took youngest and healthiest
• Social organization disrupted
• Local culture suffered (arts and trade)
• Dependent on European goods
• African empires lost prominence as power/trade
  shifted to the coast
• Desire for wealth/guns perpetuated the slave
  trade
• View of Africans as an inferior race led to poor
  race relations today

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Questions to Consider

• What effects would the slave trade have upon
  Africa in the future?
• What effects did the slave trade have upon the
  New World?