Commerce in a Global Age
WHAP/Napp
Cues: / Notes:I. Motivation for Global Trade
A. Commerce joined with empire were the twin drivers of ______during the early modern era
B. European empires in Americas grew out of an accident but in ______, voyage(1497-1499) of Portugal’s Vasco da Gama was certainly no accident
C. Deliberate century-long Portuguese effort to explore a sea route to the East, by creeping slowly down West African coast, around tip of South Africa, up East African coast, and finally to Calicut in southern ______in 1498
D. Most immediate motivation for this massive effort was the desire for tropical spices – cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, cloves, and above, all ______
E. Western Europeàpopulation recovered from plagueànational monarchies taxing more effectivelyàgunpowder weaponsàcities growing too
F. Capitalist economy based on market exchange, private ownership, and the accumulation of capital for further investment
G. Search for all-water route to Asiaàavoid Muslim ______on Indian Ocean trade and Venetian monopoly in Eastern goods in Europe
H. Many Europeans were persuaded that a mysterious ______monarch, known as Prester John, ruled somewhere in Asia or Africa
II. Complexities
A. But few products of less developed Europe were attractive in Asian markets
B. Europeans were required to pay in gold or _____ for Asian spices or textiles
C. Persistent trade deficit contributed to intense desire for precious metals
D. Portuguese voyages along the West African coast were seeking direct access to African goldfields
E. Enormously rich silver deposits of ______and Boliviaàtemporary solution
F. Yet the Portuguese learned that most Indian Ocean merchant ships were not heavily armed and lacked cannons that Portuguese ships carried
G. Military advantage enabled the Portuguese to quickly establish fortified bases at several key locations within the ______Ocean world
H. Portuguese created in the Indian Ocean a “trading post empire,” for they aimed to control commerce and to do so by force of arms
I. Portuguese became heavily involved in carrying Asian goods to _____ ports, selling shipping services because they were largely unable to sell their goods
J. By 1600àother European countries gradually contested Portugal’s efforts to monopolize the ______trade to Europe
K. Spain was the first to challenge Portugal’s position
L. In an effort to catch up, Spaniards established themselves on what became the Philippine Islands, named after the Spanish king ______IIàDiscovered on round-the-world voyage (1519-1521) of Ferdinand Magellan (for Spain)
Summaries:
Cues: / M. Spanish established outright colonial rule on the islands rather than imitate a Portuguese-style trading post empire
N. Spanish colonial territory until the end of the nineteenth century, when the United States assumed control following the Spanish-______War of 1898
O. Far more important than Spanish were the Dutch and English who entered Indian Ocean commerce in the early seventeenth century
P. Around 1600, both the British and ______, unlike the Portuguese, organized their Indian Ocean ventures through private trading companies
III. British and Dutch
A. British East India Company and Dutch East India Company received charters from governments granting them trading monopolies and the power to make war and to govern conquered peoples
B. British East India CompanyàIndia…DutchàIndonesia
C. Dutch acted to control not only the shipping but also the production of cloves, ______, nutmeg, and mace
D. But British were not in a position to practice “______by warfare,” as the Dutch did in Indonesia
E. British secured their trading bases with the permission of Mughal authorities or local rulers, which substantial payments and bribes
F. Both the Dutch and British ______post empires slowly evolved into a more conventional form of colonial domination
G. European presence in Asia was far less significant than it was in the Americas or Africa during the early modern era due to great powers of South and East Asia – Mughal India, China, and ______
H. When Portuguese traders and missionaries first arrived in Japan in the mid-sixteenth centuryàdaimyo fighting in Japanàwelcomed technology
I. But by the early seventeenth century, a series of remarkable military figures had unified Japanàthen Tokugawa shoguns viewed ______as threat
J. Tokugawa expelled Christian missionaries and isolated Japan
IV. Silver Trade
A. Even more than the spice trade of Eurasia, it was the ______trade that gave birth to a genuinely global network of exchange
B. Mid-16th discovery of rich ______deposits in Bolivia, and simultaneously in Japan, suddenly provided a vastly increased supply of that precious _____
C. 1570s, Chinese authorities consolidated a variety of taxes into a single tax (Single Whip), which its huge population was now required to pay in silver
D. This sudden new demand for silver caused its value to skyrocket
E. Foreigners with silver could now purchase far more of China’s ______and porcelains than ever beforeàbulk of silver ended up in China
F. At the world’s largest silver mine in what is now Bolivia, the city of Potosí, some families held funeral services for men drafted to work the mines
G. Infusion of silver in Spain generated more inflation of ______than growth
H. Shoguns used profits from silver to developed a ______-based economy and invested heavily in ______and industrial enterprises
I. Japan developed a flourishing highly commercialized economy
Summaries:
Questions:
· What drove European involvement in the world of Asian commerce?
· To what extent did the Portuguese realize their own goals in the Indian Ocean?
· How did the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, and British initiatives in Asia differ from one another?
· To what extent did the British and Dutch trading companies change the societies they encountered in Asia?
· What was the world historical importance of the silver trade?
· Describe the impact of the fur trade on North American native societies.
· How did the North American and Siberian fur trades differ from each other? What did they have in common?
1. Which New World commodity was of the greatest value to the Spanish monarchy?(A) Potato
(B) Tomato
(C) Silver
(D) Sugar
(E) Quinine
2. What was the long-term impact of the massive influx of silver into the Spanish economy that resulted from its domination of the New World?
I. Inflation and unwise government spending
II. A permanent economic advantage over other European powers
III. Development of the most sophisticated banking system in the world
(A) I only
(B) II only
(C) III only
(D) I and II
(E) I and III
3. The initiative for Western exploration and conquest came from the kingdom of
(A) Spain
(B) Sicily
(C) France
(D) Portugal
(E) Tunisia / 4. Which statement most accurately describes Japanese participation in the global trade network?
(A) The Japanese were quickly enslaved by the colonizing Europeans.
(B) The Japanese warmly accepted Western commercial interests and became part of the dependent zones of the global trade network.
(C) The Japanese did display some openness to Christian missionaries and they were also fascinated by Western advances in gunnery and shipping.
(D) After 1600 all Europeans were banned from Japan, but Japanese traders continued to travel and trade abroad.
(E) Japan, like China, showed no interest in any aspect of Western trade.
5. The Portuguese trading post and fortress established in India was
(A) Goa
(B) Mozambique
(C) Macao
(D) Calcutta
(E) Effim
Excerpt from afe.easia.columbia.edu
The story of silver in China is really interesting and has been misunderstood for a long time. From 1500 to 1800, Mexico and Peru produced something like 85 percent of the world's silver. During that same period at least a third and some people would say over 40 percent of all that silver eventually wound up in China. Now what was going on there and what does it mean? The Europeans of course were not shipping the silver to China as an act of donation or charity. They were getting goods in return, such as silk, porcelain, and later especially tea. The large volume of silver that was going there and the volume of other goods that must therefore have been coming back illustrate the dynamism of the Chinese economy. Silver supported the staggeringly large export sector. This is interesting for many reasons because it invalidates one of our stereotypes of China: that China turned its back on the sea and was not interested in the outside world.
Instead, we see massive foreign trade, which was attested to by all the silver coming in. So then the next question becomes: What did they want all this silver for? What were they doing with it? The main thing they were doing with it is monetizing it. They were making it their money supply.
For more or less coincidental geological reasons, China simply has very little in the way of precious metals: not much gold, virtually no silver, reasonable amounts of copper but not massive amounts. However, the huge Chinese population, something on the order of a quarter of humanity for most of the time since we've had decent records, developed an unusually dynamic, commercially sophisticated economy, which needed a medium of exchange: money. And that posed an enormous problem, which the Chinese solved in the Song dynasty by inventing the world's first paper money.
This again is one of the signs of early modernity: that they managed to find a medium of exchange that was extraordinarily cheap to produce. Paper money cost very little, but it required a certain technological sophistication, such as good printing. And again, it required social institutions: paper money is only as good as people's willingness to trust it.
For a couple hundred years, China had a paper currency that worked quite well, centuries before anybody else had it. This didn't last, however, because when later dynasties, the Yuan and then especially the early Ming, got into fiscal crises, they did what many governments in many moments have done: they tried to solve the problem by printing money, and they undermined confidence in it.
And once burned, people are shy for a long time. It will be centuries before they trust paper money again. It meant that this huge commercial economy had to be supplied with something else, with coinage. And what China turns to, for a whole series of reasons that are imperfectly understood, is silver.
Thesis Statement: Change Over Time: Trade: 600 C.E. – 1750 C.E.
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