The document discusses Philip II of Spain and the growth of the Spanish empire in the 16th century. It summarizes that in 1555, Charles V abdicated in favor of his son Philip II and retired to a monastery. In 1580, Philip II acquired control of Portugal and its global empire. The Philippines were also seized by Spanish forces in Philip's honor in the 1560s. The document also discusses the history of slavery, noting that indentured peasants were generally more productive than slaves. It describes how the slave trade increased dramatically due to European demand starting in 1444.
Created by María Jesús Campos Fernández, teacher of Social Sciences, History and Geography at a bilingual section in Madrid (Spain).
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For centuries, the trade along a triangular trading route, provide.docxAKHIL969626
For centuries, the trade along a triangular trading route, provided the capital to finance the industrialization of Europe and development of the European economy - trade only possible at the expense of slaves.
The Triangular Trade consisted of three stops:
· The outward passage from Europe to Africa bearing manufactured goods.
· The middle passage from Africa to the Americas bearing African captives.
· The homeward passage from the Americas to Europe carrying sugar, tobacco, cotton, rice, indigo, and cocoa (Source: Triangular Trade).
We know that before the Middle Passage, a slave trade already existed in Africa, but this was different. The Middle Passage was a systematic process of extracting Africans for a specific purpose, as workers stripped of their humanity in the New World.
The ill-fated relationship between the Kongolese and Portuguese evolved over time. While the Portuguese struggled to find an asset with which they could entice the Africans to trade, the shift in their subservient position was gradual. The influx of European goods, particularly firearms, slowly disrupted West African cultures. The technological advancement of gunfire brought the Europeans power and wealth, but for some West Africans is empowered them to more efficiently captured slaves. Religious and political structural division within West African states reinforced the slave system and produced a profitable supply of slaves which were traded for European goods, largely guns. Those communities that captured the most slaves received the most European goods, and were the best equipped to expand their power and prestige in West Africa (Source: Scott).
The Ashantis and Dahomeans specialized in the art of enslaving. Initially cut off from the Europeans by coastal tribes, who acted as middlemen, these two tribes from the interior of Africa, pushed toward the sea, extending their terror as their power increased. In 1727, John Atkins complained that the triumph of Dahomey had destroyed the orderly patterns of the slave trade. Specialized trading states was matched by the arrival of independent traders who sights were set on acquiring slaves quickly for maximum profit (Source: Scott).
It can be argued quite effectively that sugar was the number one crop that produced growth for Europe. Sugar production and potential profits served as the basis for a plantation complex that fueled the need for slaves. Your textbook states that something as evil and gruesome as the Atlantic slave trade was set in motion largely to produce something as apparently benign as sugar. While that is overly simplified, it paints a vivid reality -- trafficking of humans for their labor to satisfy the sweet tooth of Europe and to feed the coffers of capitalists (though they would not have been called capitalists in the 15th century).
Sugar was introduced to Europeans by Muslims during the Crusades. Cultivation began in Cyprus and Sicily at least a centuries before the Portuguese started exploring the ...
2. Philip In 1555 Charles V abdicated in favor his son Philip and retired to the remote Spanish monastery of Juste. In 1580 Philip acquired a claim to the kingdom of Portugal and with it the now sprawling Portuguese overseas empire. In 1560’s Spanish forces seized what are now called Philippines in Philip’s honor
3. Slavery All empires in history up to the beginning of the nineteenth century were slave-owning societies Slaves came from all over the Greek and roman worlds, from Syria, Egypt, Dacia, Moesia, Germany, Gaul, and Britain In medieval Europe, slaves were employed predominantly as agricultural laborers, and they supplemented a largely peasant workforce Indentured peasants were easier to control than slaves and were generally more productive
4. Slavery August 8, 1444, when the first cargo of 235 Africans, taken from what is now Senegal, were put ashore at the Portuguese port of Lagos The slave trade had been endemic within Africa for centuries, but the European increased the demand, and by doing so encouraged African slavers to devastate whole areas and effectively exterminate entire peoples in the African hinterland The European demand for effectively transformed what had been a local commercial practices into the greatest forced migration in human history