Between 1500-1800: - European powers expanded globally through exploration and colonization motivated by trade, wealth, and religion. Portugal led expansion in Africa and Asia while Spain dominated in the Americas. - The slave trade dramatically increased to supply labor for American plantations, devastating parts of Africa and changing its political/social structures. - Europeans established overseas colonies and trading posts in Asia, Africa and the Americas, transforming global economics and introducing mercantilism. Their presence impacted politics, culture and religion in conquered regions.

1. 1500 ce – 1800 ce

2.  Beginning in the 1500s, European countries began to
expand into the rest of the world
 Europeans were motivated by trade and potential wealth
that could be gained through trade with Asia and the East
 The conquests of the Ottoman Turks in the Middle East
prevented Europeans from traveling to the East and Asia;
Europeans sought oversea routes instead
 Religion was also a factor in European expansion; the
Spanish, especially, were motivated by “God, Glory, and
Gold” and wanted to convert native populations to
Christianity
 European monarchies were stabilized, so the monarchs
could focus on expansion
 The level of technology had increased, enabling people to
make long sea voyages

3.  Portugal was the leader of European exploration
and expansion
 In 1420, under the sponsorship of Prince Henry
the Navigator, Portuguese fleets moved
southward along the western coast of Africa
 They discovered new sources for gold; the area was
called the Gold Coast
 In 1488, Bartholomeu Dias rounded the tip of
Africa (the Cape of Good Hope)
 Vasco de Gama went around the Cape and cut
across the Indian Ocean to the Coast of India,
arriving in 1498

5.  After de Gama reached the Indies, Portuguese fleets
returned to the area and attempted to destroy Muslim
shipping routes so the Portuguese could control the
spice trade
 In 1509, Portuguese warships destroyed a combined
fleet of Turkish and Indian ships off the coast of India
 Admiral Alfonso de Albuquerque established an Indian
port for the Portuguese
 Albuquerque eventually sailed to Melaka on the Malay
Peninsula, which also led to trade with China and the Spice
islands
 The Portuguese signed a treaty with the Spice Islands
allowing them to control the spice trade

7.  Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer
 He believed he could sail west around the world and
reach Asia and the Indies
 This was an alternative route to sailing around the tip of
Africa and going east
 Columbus was sponsored by Queen Isabella and King
Ferdinand of Spain
 He reached the Americas in 1492, where he explored Cuba
and the island of Hispaniola
 He believed he had reached Asia; in three more voyages,
he attempted to find a route through the major islands of
the Caribbean to central Asia; he named the islands the
Indies (Caribbean, Honduras, Cuba)

8.  Spain and Portugal were both extensively exploring other lands
and creating new sea routes for trade
 Both were concerned the other country would attempt to infringe
on their newly discovered territories
 They agreed on a line of demarcation, an imaginary line that
divided the earth into two “spheres of influence”
 This line of demarcation was spelled out in the Treaty of
Tordesillas, signed in 1494, which gave Portugal control of
anything east of the line, and Spain control of anything west of the
line
 Portugal gained control of everything around Africa while Spain
was given “rights” to most of the Americas
 Keep in mind they were not concerned with native populations, only
with their expanding territory and wealth
 See the MAP on the next page for the LINE OF DEMARCATION

9. Spanish Control
Portuguese Control

10.  Other explorers recognized what Columbus did not:
he had found an entirely new part of the world (to the
Europeans, at least)
 John Cabot, from Venice, explored the New England
coastline
 Pedro Cabral landed in South America in 1500
 Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine, went on several
voyages to the Americas and wrote letters describing
what he say; the letters led to the use of the name
America for the new land
 Although the Europeans called the Americas the
“New World” it was already inhabited by flourishing
civilizations made up of millions of people

11.  The Spanish conquerors of the Americas were known
as Conquistadors.
 Their guns helped them overwhelm natives
 Hernán Cortés took only three years to overthrow the
Aztec Empire in Central Mexico
 By 1550, the Spanish had gained control of northern
Mexico
 Francisco Pizarro took control of the Incan Empire in
the Peruvian Andes
 Within 30 years of the arrival of the Spanish, the
western part of Latin America (including Mexico,
Central, and South America) were under Spanish
control

13.  By 1535, the Spanish had created a system of
colonial administration in the Americas
 Queen Isabella declared the Natives her subjects
 She allowed the Spanish settlers and Conquistadors
the right to use Native Americans as laborers
 The Spanish were supposed to protect the
Natives (after all, they were the queen’s
“subjects”) but rules were ignored
 The distance to Spain meant any rules were difficult
to enforce
 Natives were used as laborers on sugar plantations
and in mines

14.  Forced labor, starvation, and disease wiped out many
of the Native Americans
 Natives had little to no resistance to European diseases
 When Columbus arrived in Hispaniola, there were 250,000
natives on the island; by 1538 there were only 500 left
 In Mexico, the population dropped from 25 million in 1519
to only 1 million in 1630
 Catholic missionaries converted and baptized
hundreds of thousands of native people
 The missionaries established schools, hospitals, and
parishes; all the trappings of European society
 Native American social and political structures were
destroyed

15.  Colonists established plantations and ranches to
raise sugar, cotton, vanilla, livestock and other
products for export to Europe
 Conquerors sought gold and silver, and exploited
deposits throughout Latin America
 New products, like cocoa, potatoes, corn, and
tobacco were introduced to the Europeans
 Trade with the new world transformed economic
activity in both worlds, and created great wealth
for the Spanish

16.  Portuguese Expansion in the East created its
own economic impact; they soon challenged
the Italian states as great traders of wealth
 Other nations wanted the economic boons of
the Portuguese and Spanish; they began
exploring the New World
 The Spanish took control of the Philippines
(where Ferdinand Magellan had landed
earlier) and established a base for trade
across the Pacific

17.  The English landed in India in the early 17th
century and established trade with India
 Southeast Asian trade followed shortly thereafter
 The Dutch arrived in India in 1595 and formed
the East India Company, which competed with
the English and Portuguese for trade with India
 They also started the West India Company and
started a colony in the New World called New
Netherlands, in the Hudson River Valley
 After 1660, the Dutch lost control of New Netherlands
to the English, who named it New York
 The Dutch commercial empire collapsed

18.  During the 1600s, the French colonized parts
of Canada and Louisiana
 The English founded colonies in Virginia and
Massachusetts
 By 1700, the English had a colonial empire along
the eastern seaboard
 The English also established sugar plantations
throughout the Caribbean Islands

19.  European nations established trading posts
and colonies in the Americas and the East
 A colony is a settlement of people living in a new
territory, linked with the parent country by trade
and direct government control
 Europe entered an age of increasing
international trade
 Colonies played a role in the theory of
mercantilism, a set of principles that dominated
economic thought in the 17th century

20.  According to mercantilism theory, the
prosperity of a nation depended on a large
supply of gold and silver
 To bring in gold and silver, nations tried to
have a favorable balance of trade.
 A trade balance is the difference between a
nations imports and exports
 A favorable balance means a nation exports more
than it imports

21.  To encourage a favorable balance of trade,
governments will stimulate industries that
export, and build infrastructure, like roads,
highways, and ports, to encourage trade
 Governments will also charge a tariff, or a
tax, on imports, so imported goods cannot
compete with local goods

22.  European expansion affected Africa with a
dramatic increase in the slave trade
 Prior to worldwide expansion, the primary
market or African slaves was Southwest Asia
where most slaves were domestic servants
 Slavery also existed in some European countries
 The demand for slaves changed dramatically in the
1490s, as the sugar trade in the Americas increased
▪ Slaves were used on plantations, large agricultural estates,
where sugarcane was grown; sugarcane had high labor
demands

23.  In 1518, a Spanish ship carried the first boatload
of African slaves directly from Africa to the
Americas
 Slavery became part of the triangular trade system,
which connected the Americas, Europe, and Africa
▪ European merchant ships carried guns and cloth (and other
European goods) to Africa, where they were traded for slaves
▪ The slaves were carried to the Americas, where they were
traded for American products like tobacco, molasses, sugar,
and cotton
▪ The American products were shipped to Europe, where they
were sold and the cycle started again

25.  An estimated 275,000 African slaves were
exported during the sixteenth century; 2,000
went every year to the Americas
 In the 17th century, over 1,000,000 slaves were
exported; by the 18th century, it was over
6,000,000.
 As many as ten million African slaves were
brought to the Americas between the 16th
and 19th centuries

26.  One reason for the large number of slaves
exported was the high death rate
 The journey of slaves from Africa to America
was called the Middle Passage, which was
the middle portion of the triangular trade
route
 Many slaves died on the journey, those who
survived the journey often died from exposure to
new diseases from the Europeans and Americans

27. • Before the coming of Europeans in
the 15th century, most slaves in
Africa were prisoners of war
• When Europeans first began to take
part in the slave trade, they bought
slaves from African merchants on
the coasts
• At first, local traders obtained
slaves from the coastal regions
nearby; as the trade increased they
moved further inland

28.  Local rulers were concerned about the impact of the slave
trade on their societies
 King Afonso worried that the Congo was becoming
depopulated
 Some African rulers were using slave trade as a source of
income
 The slave trade depopulated some areas of Africa
 It also deprived many communities of their strongest men and
women
 It increased warfare in Africa, as coastal leaders fought with
inland leaders for a supply of slaves
 Some African states were completely devastated
 Benin, in West Africa, experienced population decline and an
increase in warfare, they lost faith in their gods, their art
deteriorated, and human sacrifice became more common

29.  In general, traditional African political
systems continued to exist
 Monarchy was the dominant form of government
 European influence was felt mostly in coastal
regions
 Europeans were causing changes, including
shifting trade routes, increased warfare, and
religious beliefs
 Islam expanded in Northern Africa
 Christianity was introduced in Africa

30.  Mainland Asia, the Malay Peninsula, and the
Indonesian Archipelago were gradually
penetrated by Muslim merchants attracted to
the spice trade
 The creation of an Islamic trade network had
political results as new states arose along the
spice route
 Melaka became a power, as it had a strategic
location along the Melaka strait

31.  In 1511, the Portuguese seized Melaka and
soon occupied the area
 The area was the chief source of spices to Europe
 Dutch traders followed soon after; in the
early 1600s, the Dutch seized Portuguese
trading posts and began their occupation of
most of the trading posts in the Indian Ocean
 The Dutch consolidated their political and military
control over the entire area; they eventually
brought the entire region under their control

32.  Europeans had less impact on the mainland than
on the Peninsula and Archipelago
 The Portuguese established trade with several
mainland states – part of the continent of Asia –
including Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, and Cambodia
 By the 17th century, other European countries were
trading with the mainland states
▪ European countries interfered with local governments, but
European economic opportunities remained limited
▪ Missionaries attempted to convert many, but many
governments saw Catholicism as a threat to their power and
thus forbid it’s practice

33.  The mainland states were better able to resist
European influences
 They had strong monarchies that resisted foreign
intrusion
 They had distinct political identities
 In the non-mainland states, there was less
political unity
 The non-mainland states were also growing
wealthy because of the Europeans, so they
succumbed more easily to their influence

35.  Religious beliefs changed in Southeast Asia
between 1500 to 1800
 Islam and Christianity were attracting converts
 Buddhism was advancing on the mainland
 Political systems evolved into monarchies: kings,
sultans, and emperors led different countries
 Kings in Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia
 Islamic countries had Sultans, especially on the Malay
Peninsula
 Vietnam had emperors who tended to adapt foreign
models of government; the emperor used the
Confucian model from China