 Until about 1500, the Atlantic Ocean was seen as a barrier
 Breaking of this was good for Europe, but bad for native populations

 1450, settle in Azores
 They wanted to find a route to Asia, where they could find silk, cotton, rugs, sugar, spices

 1498 Navigator Vasco Da Gama found himself in a new world of Arabic Commerce
 Southwest coast of India
 Next trip he brought 21 other ships with him

 In the following years, Portugal built stations in the area
 1509 reached Singapore and went into China
 Portugal owned a commercial monopoly in spices for a short while

 The same quest for a route to the East led to the discovery of America
 Thought he was in India
 Columbus was backed by Queen Isabella of Spain,
 Magellan: 1520 found southwest passages into pacific, discovered Phillipine islands

 1. Wealth – explorers were motivated by personal wealth and increased wealth for their nation. They had to be ruthless because they had to repay any debt
 2. Salvation – The Papal Bull declared that all people had to be ruled by a Christian King, and all natives must be Christain. Those who resisted should be killed.

 Spanish Conquistadors fell upon new lands
 Cortez conquered the Aztecs in Mexico
 Pizarro conquered the Incas in Peru
 Natives were put to forced labour in Mines
 Many died
 Church was converting them
 All this led to the eventual use of African slaves

 Most interactions were friendly at first, Euro influence on natives was disasterous
 Entire nations of people destroyed
 Most of the damage unintentional – new diseases

 Columbus – created plantations based on slave labour, hunted natives for sport
 Pizzaro – his conquistadors attacked with 100 soldiers an Incan army that offered no resistance. 70 000
Incans were killed in one day. Took Incan king hostage and killed him anyway
 Cortez – tried to take Tenochititlan, but failed.
Surrounded the city, starved natives

 1. obviously, the native issue
 2. 1545 – Silver discovered in Bolivia by Spanish
 At the same time, better methods of silver extraction developed
 Spanish develop a trade route between Mexico and
Phillipines
 Carried silver to Asia for luxury goods
 Huge network develops – Europe becomes a trade center

 Estimated that 15 million Africans were forced to leave
Africa to cross the Atlantic to be sold into Slavery
 Millions were killed during slave raids and many more died while they were being forced to coastal towns

 Large agricultural plantations developed in the
Americas
 Vast majority went to Brazil, the Caribbean, and
Spanish speaking regions of South America
 Plantations demanded a large amount of labour because of the crops – sugar cane, coffee, cocoa and rice

 Labour on plantations was excessively strenuous
 Plantation owners used them inhumanely
 Portuguese started in Americas growing those crops
 Eventually spread to America were cotton and tobacco was grown

 Africans – excellent workers, had experience in agriculture, used to tropical climates, and could be worked very hard on the plantations
 ‘New Slavery’ – race became an explicit basis of the new slavery. Africans’ blackness and alien religion dehumanized them in European eyes

 Slaves were obtained from along the west coast of
Africa with full and active cooperation of African Kings and merchants
 In return, African Kings and merchants recieved various trade goods ie textiles, brandy, horses and guns
 These guns were used to acquire more land, more slaves and to expand empires

 1. Trade Goods to Africa From Europe
 2. Transport of slaves from Africa to American –
Middle passage
 3. Return to Europe of the plantation goods

 Terrible – middle passage – estimated mortality rate of
15%