Chapter 14 - Commerce in People: The Atlantic Slave Trade

    The Atlantic slave trade took place across the Atlantic Ocean from the 15th-19th centuries. The majority of those enslaved that were transported to the New World, many were on the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage, were the West Africans from the central and western parts of the continent sold by other western Africans to western European slave traders, with a majority of being captured directly by the slave traders in coastal arrest, and brought to the Americas. Many slaves were taken to South America than to the north. The South Atlantic and Caribbean economic system started producing commodity crops, and making goods and clothing to sell in Europe, which led to an increasing amount of numbers of African slaves brought to the New World. This was crucial to those Western European countries which, in the late 17th and 18th centuries, were striving with each other to create overseas empires. Before 1500, the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean basins were the major arenas of the Old World slave trade, and southern Russia was a major source of slaves. Most slaves would work in their owners' households, farms, or shops. Many slaves worked hard labor and on top of that were being treated badly by their owners while the others slaves were lucky enough to have a decent caring owners that will treat the slaves as a human being. When talking about history the most common topics that come up is slaves. When reading this chapter, I remembered how badly slaves were being treated. Slaves were not being treated as a human being but was treated as monsters. The Americans and Europeans shipped the slaves in a ship where the slaves barely have any room to move or go use the restroom. Slaves were shirtless and were lined in rows in order to fit as many as possible in a small ship. Throughout the slave trade the year that began to increase slaveries was in 1751-1850. After 1851-1866, slaves that were imported from Africa decreased by a whole lot. If I were to go back in time to change one thing I would change the usage of slaves. I would ask the owners if slaves did not exist how would the owners and their families survive in rough conditions. 

Chapter 14 - Economic Transformations Commerce and Consequence

This reading made me wonder whether would it be different in today's century if these events did not happen. In what different ways did global commerce transform human societies and the lives of individuals during the modern era be like? During voyage (1497-1499), Portuguese mariner Vasco da Gama, European sailed to India for the first time. Portuguese learned fast. They learned that most Indian Ocean merchant ships did not have secruities. Early in the 15th century, there was no major power in position to dominate the sea lanes, and the many smaller-scale merchants generally traded openly. Portuguese took this opportunity and for their ships could outgun and outmaneuver competing naval forces, while their onboard cannons could devastate coastal barricade. The Portuguese created the Indian Ocean what is known as a "trading post empire" so they can aim to control commerce not territories. Even thought Portuguese were smart they did not have their merchants sell because they had the traditional Red Sea route to the Mediterranean blocked. Portuguese soon became to be involved in carrying Asian goods to Asian ports, selling their shipping services due to the fact that they were unable to sell their goods. By 1600s, Portuguese trading went down hill. Everything was too late and the trading post empire was in trouble. Soon, the Spanish came and helped Portuguese. During the time, both British and Dutch trading companies changed the societies they encountered in Asia. In the early 17th century, British and Dutch entered the Indian Ocean. Soon enough they both took over Portuguese and things start to go smooth afterwards. I wonder what it would be like if there was no wars. Would there still be a treaty? Now a days there are still wars going on around the world. Without wars life would be boring and there would not be anything to fight for.

Colonial empires in the Americas

     While educating ourself about world history, we ask if we are still in the modern world. But what does the term modern mean? Modern relates to the present or what is happening now opposed to the past. World history has a variety of eras to cover and in this lecture I am going to be learning about the Paleolithic Era to Modern Era. In today's reading of the big picture, countries are starting to be modernized. China, Japan, India, an Europe are experiencing their first step on becoming the modern population growths as Eurasia recovered from the Black Death and Mongol wars. Other than the countries are finally turning turning into a modern world. The food products are also. For instance, corn and potatoes are starting to grow and provide nutritions to support the people on land. Moving forward to the 18th century, Japan became the one of the most urbanized societies in the world with Edo housing with over a million of inhabitants. Going into chapter 13 that talks about the Political Transformation Empires Europeans and African start to bring in their plants, animals, and wheat. Crops were needed to be picked from the ground so the farmers needed slaves. African American families became the farmers slaves and worked day and night. The slaves worked on sugar to produce estates in horrendous conditions. On the other side, the women were working in the urban areas but mostly for the white female owners where the women were just did some domestic chores. As time flew by, the Europeans transformed by its American possessions far more than China. The Europeans gained resources from their empires corn, potatoes and wheats in order to form gold, silver and land.

World History 2

YAAY, I'm done! :)