CH 14-Economic Transformation:

Commerce and Consequence

       

         The three main things we learned about in this chapter are the Spanish in South America, the Portuguese in the Caribbean, and the British in North America. The Spanish was only there due to exploring. Most of the labor was preformed by the native people of South America. They had families with Native women and had many categories of mixed rare people. They were there for silver. The Portuguese were also in the Caribbean due to their exploring. They to didn't intend to stay. Initially they had the native people preform the labor. Later they got African slaves to do labor for them. They had the most African slaves. They made families with both native women and African women. The Portuguese were there for sugar. The British were in North America due to exploring, but unlike the other groups they initially fully intended to stay in the land they had discovered. Labor was preferred by indentured servants. These are people who probably wanted to go to the Americas but couldn't afford the trip so paid with the only thing they had, their lives. They would give off a fraction of their lives just to get to see and to experience this new world. They also had native people do the labor work as well. They were treated terribly and did not sign up for the abuse. Later the work became to much and more laborers were needed. They then started using African slaves. 

        African slaves were also treated badly and weren't even seen as human to the British people. They had the second most African slaves. They made family with other European woman. They believed it was unsure to mix the blood. If they did have a child with a native american or and african slave they just didn't claim it as their own.  The British were there for many reasons, but it was mostly for the land itself. The Americas was in a great location for trade.The new worlds were basically built off of slavery. At the time, the people made reasons as to why slavery was needed or why it was morally okay. Slavery was mostly used for the slaves to do the jobs that the main people found to difficult or to petty for them to do themselves. They consider the slaves to not even be people. In a sense I guess that made it easier for them to do this terrible thing. For the most part the Africans didn't  give their own people up. The African slaves were forced out of their homeland by these people to do their dirty work. I always found this so appalling to learn about because they dehumanized a whole race. 

• The Atlantic slave trade was and is enormously significant. 
• The slave trade was only one part of the international trading networks that shaped the world between 1450 and 1750. 
• Europeans broke into the Indian Ocean spice trade 
• American silver allowed greater European participation in the commerce of East Asia 
• fur trapping and trading changed commerce and the natural environment 
• Europeans were increasingly prominent in long-distance trade, but other peoples were also important
• Commerce and empire were the two forces that drove globalization between 1450 and1750. 
• Europeans for the first time operated on a global scale, forging new trade networks across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
• They also facilitated the full integration of fur- supplying regions into wider trade networks.
• But in other ways, the Europeans assimilated older patterns, as in the Indian Ocean, where they sought to dominate previously established trade routes, and they continued to trade many of the same products.