HST1010S Exam Notes: Summary of all content

The Making of the World: Atlantic and
Indian Ocean First Encounters
Atlantic Ocean
Convergence
 Society
 Culture
 Economics
 Politics

Previous ideas
 Small world
 Religious perspectives

Exploration
 Options wide by 15th century
 Cartography improved
o Maps
 Improved naval capabilities

Important to European development
 Colonial empires
 Trade and commerce
 Cultural diversification

Black Atlantic
 Slave trade and diaspora
o Diaspora=the dispersion of any people from their original homeland
 Early trade from Portugal and Spain
o Kongo and West Africa
 Part of Atlantic Triangle



Indian Ocean
Exchange
 Trade
 Cultural/social ideas
 Humans

Trade interest
 Spice trade
 Silk trade
o Silk Road – China to Rome

Emporiums
 Part of trading practises

,  Collectives of merchants in major cities
 Trust between social/cultural groups
o Only traded amoungst themselves
o Had to gain trust to trade
 Link to Islamic power
 Christian/European entry difficult


Monsoons
 Predictable weather season
o Wind direction important
 Aided/abetted trade

China
 Dominated from 15th century
 More powerful than contemporary Europe
 Self-sufficient
 Large naval and economic power

Why China didn’t dominate trade
 Cut down expansionist policies
o New emporer
o Focused on internal matters
o Expansion not traditional
 Internal conflict

,Columbus
Chronology
 1488
o Dias rounds the Cape
 1492
o Columbus arrives in North America
 1519-1521
o Magellan circumnavigates the world

Aims
 Reach China and India to establish trade links
 Avoid competition from Europe
 Return Spain to glory
o Dark Ages
o Black Death
o War with the Moors
 Greed for gold, prestige and fame

Discovery was accidental
 Was trying to find india

First impressions
 Unsure of natives
 Simplistic communities

1st voyage

 crew arrived at an island in the Bahamas that he named San Salvador, believing he
had reached the Indies
 proceeded onward and landed in Cuba

Return to Spain
 Influential discoveries
 Over-emphasized idealism of natives
 Columbus on second trip sends many men to the Caribbean
o Colonized the area
o Made the Indians there bring them gold every 3 months or else
o Pretty much all of them died
 Spanish brutality
 Disease
 Couldn’t work on crops
 Had to get gold


 Found America on third trip
 Realized it wasn’t Asia

, The Columbian Exchange
Pre-dated Atlantic Triangle
 15-16th centuries

Early exchange
 Culture
o Indian culture seen as “primitive” and barbaric
o Typical western attitude
 Food & crops
o Indians became more pastoral
 Kept livestock
 Livestock carry disease
o Europeans took pototoes and corn back
 Helped sove european hunger
 Illness
o Examples
 Smallpox
 Malaria
 Syphilis
o Natives hadnt built up immunity to the european diseases
o These had catastrophic consequences for natives
 Killed so many allowoing european domination


Cash crop growth
 Cash crops
o Tobacco
o Sugar
o Coffee
o Tea
 Enforced need for slaves
 These crops helped so