Topic 4.5 Flashcards
Maritime Empires Develop (32 cards)
How did Europeans generally measure the wealth of a country in the 17th century?
How much gold or silver it has in its coffers
How did nations acquire their wealth?
Countries used economic strategies designed to sell as many goods as they could to other countries in order to obtain massive amounts of gold and silver
How did nations keep their wealth?
Countries would also spend as little of their precious metals as possible on goods from other countries.
What is ‘capital’?
Material wealth available to produce more wealth in Western Europe it grew as entrepreneurs entered long-distance markets.
- Capital changed hands from entrepreneurs to laborers, putting laborers in a better position to become consumers and even investors.
What was the Commercial Revolution?
The transformation to a trade-based economy using gold and silver
What 4 key factors was the Commercial Revolution a result of?
- The development of European overseas colonies
- The opening of new ocean region routes
- Population growth
- Inflation -> Cause partly by the pressure of the increasing population and partly by the increased amount of gold and silver that was mined and put in circulation
What was the Price Revolution?
The high rate of inflation, or general rise in prices, in the 16th century and early 17th century
What were joint-stock companies?
- Aiding the rise of this extended global economy
- They were owned by investors who brought stock or shares in them
- People invested in such companies and shared both the profits and the risks of exploration and trading ventures
What was limited liability?
The principle than an investor was not responsible for a company’s debts or other liabilities beyond the amount of an investment, made investing
Where did the European middle class have capital to invest? What else were they able to do with their money?
- The European middle class had capital to invest from successful business in their home countries
- They also had money with which to purchase important luxuries
What were the two most powerful joint stock companies?
British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company
How were things different in Spain and Portugal?
In Spain and Portugal, however, the government did most of the investing itself through grants to explorers
Why were joint stock companies the driving force behind the development of maritime empires?
Joint stock companies were a driving force behind the development of maritime empires as they allowed continued explorations as well as ventures to colonize and develop the resources of distant lands with limited risk to investors
Why did the Dutch lead the way in Commerce and finance?
- The Dutch were long the commercial middlemen of Europe, having maintained the trade routes to Latin America, North America, South Africa, and Indonesia
- The DEIC was also highly successful and made enormous profits in the Spice Islands
- Dutch ships were also faster and lighter
What was the Dutch Standard of living?
Was the highest in Europe as such goods and diamonds, linen, pottery, and tulip bulbs passed through the hands of the Dutch traders
Describe the condition of the French and British economies
- France and England were not so fortunate, they both fell victim to speculative financial schemes. (financial bubbles)
- The schemes were based off on the scale of shares to investors who were promised a certain return on their investment
- After a frenzy of buyers that drove up the price of shares, the bubble burst and investors lost huge amounts of money, sending many into bankruptcy and inflicting wide damage to the economy
What was the ‘Triangular Trade’?
Voyages often had three segments
- A ship carries manufactured goods such as firearms to West Africa, and from there transport enslaved Africans to the Americas, and then load up with sugar or tobacco to take to Europe.
What allowed the Spanish and the Portuguese to gain control over the Western African region of Songhai?
- The Portuguese soundly defeated a combined Muslim and Venetian force in a naval battle in the Arabian Sea over controlling trade
- Yet, when they tried to conquer Moroccan forces, its coffers depleted after the victory Morocco looked inland to capture the riches of the Songhai Kingdom
- Songhai, though much much larger, were overcome by Morocco
- The Spanish and Portuguese soon overtook much of this territory
What was going on with the trade networks at this time?
Involved a new circulation of goods, wealth, and labor
- Silver from the Spanish colonies in the Americas flowed to Asia where they exchanged silk, porcelains, steel
What were the trade monopolies being established by the European rulers?
Granted merchants (usually through joint stock companies) or the government itself the exclusive right to trade
- The Spanish were the first to establish one over all of the tobacco grown in its American colonies
* The profits from this monopoly greatly enriched the Spanish government -> made up 1/3 of the Spanish’s total revenue
How was improved shipping impacting merchants?
The increasing out put of peasant and artisan labor
How was the Atlantic slave trade impacting West African kingdoms, such as Kongo?
- The loss of so many people slowed population growth
- Trade competition led to violence among other societies, but also made African slave raiding kingdoms economically dependent on goods from Europe
- They became slow to develop more complex economies in which they produced their own goods
- The slave trade set the stage for European conquest and imperialism of the late 19th century
What was happening to African societies like Dahomey and Oyo?
- Became richer from selling their captives to Europeans
- The Dahomey exchanged people for guns, to become fortified against neighboring societies
- Interwarfare became more common and bloodier
What happened to the people of Ghana and Benin? How were genders impacted?
- They were most affected by the slave trade, they had the most Africans who were kidnapped or sold
- Gender distributions in those regions became severely imbalanced, because more than two thirds of those were taken were males
- Rise in polygyny
