European & Asian Links

1. European & Asian Links

2. Connection primarily through trade • Recall the Spanish & Portuguese get out the gate first • Treaty of Tordesillas 1494 Divides Latin America and Africa • What’s going on in the world at this time? • Trade commodities • Mughal Empire in 17th century • Wars of Religion in Europe • Protestant Reformation overlaps with political wars • Rise of Enlightenment • Rise of Enlightenment & Colonies • Scientific Revolution

6. Overcoming Economic Obstacles • Overcoming Economic Obstacles • Two important types of trade • Exploiting resources in the Americas • Establishment of the Encomienda system • High death rate among Indians • Replacement of Indian labor with African slaves. • Dominating trade with East Asia • Example: Dutch merchant wanting to undertake a venture in Indonesia to buy pepper and spices. What obstacles would he face? • Capitalization • Investment – joint stock companies • Logistics • Establish colonies and support stations along route • State-enforced monopoly • Naval presence to deter piracy • Risk of loss • Maritime insurance

7. European Empires • New empires created by Europeans were sea based • New technologies were sea based • Difficult to move inland • Only exception: the Americas • Even those tended to be based along the coast • Two other civilizations had the capability to challenge Europe’s domination of the seas: the Chinese and the Ottomans • In the 15th century, Chinese explored Southeastern Pacific and Indian Oceans • Zheng He reached India and East Africa 80 years before Portuguese • Ottoman power was land based and in the Eastern Mediterranean • Same reason as decline of Italian trading cities such as Venice – no access to the Atlantic • Spain, Portugal, France, England, and the Netherlands all better positioned to trade in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. • Major challenge to trading empires came from rival European powers • Struggle between Portuguese, French, Dutch and English for control of Indian trade • Came to a head in the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) • British success laid the groundwork for British colonial empire

8. Columbian Exchange • The Columbian Exchange • Movement of plants, animals, and disease shaped human civilization in the Old World • Movement was mostly horizontal across bands of climate zones • The Americas ran north to south, which made movement of domesticated crops more difficult • Most human diseases result from humans living in close proximity to domesticated animals • E.g. the Flu, smallpox • Overtime, most people developed immunities to these diseases and they became less virulent • Almost no domesticated animals in the Americas, so little few diseases. • No exposure to the animal diseases that humans in Old World had lived with for 1000s of years. • Smallpox and the flu wiped out whole communities in the Americas within 100 years of contact • In 1519, a smallpox epidemic broke out in the Aztec empire • By 1600, the population had fallen 90% • When English settlers arrived in North America, they sometimes found abandoned villages, where the entire population had died some decades before. • Hard to overestimate the death toll in the Americas from these new diseases • Contact with the Americas also led to a great increase in the world population • The introduction of foods such as pineapples, potatoes, corn, cassava, peanuts, and tomatoes, led to much better nutrition across the globe. • Between 1500 and 1900, the world’s population doubled from 425 million to 900 million.

10. Thomas Hobbes 1588-1679 • Leviathan (1651) • Myth of Natural Law • Concept of “Social Contract” (not the work by Rousseau) • “…Life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” • The original state of human kind is not redemption, but original sin

11. John Locke 1632 - 1704 • Essays on Human Understanding • 2 Treatises on Gov’t • (both in 1690) • Hobbes is WRONG!!! • Tabula rasa • “You MUST oppose bad government”

12. Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet)1694-1778) • Candide • Letters on the English • “Newton for Dummies”

13. Baron de Montesquieu • Spirit of the Laws • What is the best form of government? • Sometimes it’s monarchy, or republic or empire • Checks and balances

14. Jean Jacques Rousseau 1712-78 • 1750 Discourse on the Moral Effects of the Arts and Sciences • 1755 Discourse on the Origins of Inequality • 1762 Social Contract • “All men are born free, but everywhere they are in chains”

15. Concept of Political Rights “Civil Liberties” Religious Freedom Wars of Religion; Reformation Colonization and Empire building by conversion Spanish vs. English Requiremento

16. Effects of Enlightenment • This is not restricted just to intellectuals in Europe • Ideas travel in this new age and new economy • Not just to the English colonies, but that’s one of the first places to see Revolution • Part of the separation from the East; takes European focus off the overseas (political) campaigns; • Economy is still focused on commodities exchange • Religion is still trying for missionary and conversion missions, particularly after Jesuits are formed