CH 14: Economic Transformations: Commerce & Consequence

World Commerce

What drove European involvement in the world of Asian commerce?

Motivating factors, including the desire for ★ tropical spices ★ Chinese silk ★ Indian cottons ★ rhubarb ★ emeralds ★ rubies ★ sapphires

Recovery of European civilization following the disaster of the Black Death was a factor.

Europeans were also driven by a resentment of the Muslim monopoly on the flow of Indian Ocean products to Europe, & the dislike that many European powers had for Venice’s role as intermediary in the trade.

Hoped to discover & ally with the mythical Christian kingdom of Prester John to continue the Crusades & combat a common Islamic enemy.

The need to secure gold & silver to pay for Asian spices and textiles also played a role.

A Portuguese Empire of Commerce:

To what extent did the Portuguese realize their own goals in the Indian Ocean?

Original Goal: create a trading post empire with control of the commerce of the Indian Ocean (at best only partially realized) Never succeeded in controlling much more than 1/2 the spice trade to Europe, & by 1600, their “trading post empire” was in steep decline.

Overall, Europeans created a network that became just one among a number of thriving Asian commercial networks that had already existed.

How did Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, and British initiatives in Asia differ?

Portuguese sought to set up a trading post (or "Ports") empire that controlled the trade routes of the Indian Ocean. Later blended into local populations - assimilating to the culture.

Spanish established colonial rule over the Philippine Islands. Drew on their experience in the Americas, converting most of the population to Christianity, ruling over the islands directly, & setting up large landed estates owned by Spanish settlers. The Dutch & British organized their Indian Ocean ventures through private trading companies, which were able to raise money & share risks among a substantial number of merchant investors.

Trading companies obtained government charters granting them trading monopolies, the power to make war, & the right to govern conquered peoples.

Established their own parallel & competing trading post empires; the Dutch seized control of some of the Spice Islands through violent & deadly force. While the British set up trading centers in India by securing the support of the Mughal Empire or of local authorities with treaties.

Silver & Global Commerce World historical importance of the silver trade?

Silver trade: 1st direct & sustained link between the Americas & Asia

Initiated a web of Pacific commerce that grew steadily over the centuries.

Transformed Spain & Japan: States that controlled the principal new sources of silver.

Deepened already substantial commercialization of China’s economy, which fueled global commerce.

Became a key commodity driving long-distance trade & offered the Europeans a product that they could produce that was also in demand elsewhere in the world. Mankind: The Story of All of Us,

Episode 8, Treasure.

Potosi: Enormously rich silver mines of Potosí, then a major global source of the precious metal & the largest city in the Americas.

Brutally hard work & poisonous exposure to mercury, which was used in the refining process, led to the deaths of many thousands of workers, even as the silver itself contributed to European splendor in the early modern era.

Spain did not become world’s greatest economy, even with possession of the biggest manufacturing site in the world.

Generated more inflation of prices than real economic growth. A rigid economy laced with monopolies & regulations, an aristocratic class that preferred leisure to enterprise, & a crusading insistence on religious uniformity all prevented the Spanish from using their silver windfall in a productive fashion.

When the value of silver dropped in the early 17th century, Spain lost its earlier position as the dominant Western European power.

Potosi: World’s Richest Silver Mine

The Global Silver Trade Silver was one of the first major commodities to be exchanged on a genuinely global scale.

Spanish Empire under Philip II (takes over from Charles, you know... from the NOT Holy, & NOT Roman, & NOT an Empire: Holy Roman Empire) includes American & European lands.

Philippines - yeah, that comes from the VERY Catholic Philip II.

Spanish will lose it all, pretty quickly.

Wars of Religion, Spanish Armada’s defeat to England’s Protestant Queen Elizabeth I, silver inflation, and very poor economic decisions all helped create their collapse.

YouTube: Charles V & the Holy Roman Empire: Crash Course World History #219

YouTube: CC WH Spanish Empire, Silver, & Runaway

Inflation

Ivan III “Ivan the Great” rips the khan’s letter to pieces.

Married a Byzantine princess & united Russian lands, & brought in Italian builders.

Small Russian state centered on Moscow River (1500)

★ Moscow conquered neighboring cities ★ Grew into massive empire ★ Early expansion into south-east

grasslands: security against nomads ★ Expansion into Siberia: opportunity

(especially furs), not threat

Strong desire to subdue pastoral peoples of central Asia, establish greater security, yet also profited greatly: fur trade

Russia becomes a great power by 18th century because of: ★ Rich agricultural lands ★ Furs ★Minerals

The Steppes & Siberia: Making Russian an Empire

Empire building motivated by desire to subdue pastoral peoples of central Asia & establish greater security.

Remember their historical encounter with The Mongols?

APWH is not about "Leaders" & "Men" or in this case Women, too. But rather: Ideas, comparisons, themes, & concepts

In this case, the main point is that Russia expanded quickly. Fur trade and the riches of the eastern territories drove this expansion as much, or more so than the leaders did.

Russian Fur Trade: Big $, & Displaced Natives

Profits: chief incentive for expansion

Similar toll on native Siberians as it had on American Native Indians ★ Dependence on Russian goods ★ Depletion of fur-bearing animal ★ Russians didn’t have competition, so

they forced Siberians to provide furs instead of negotiating commercial agreements

★ Private Russian hunters & trappers competed directly with Siberians populations

Expansion made Russia: militarized ★ Reinforced autocracy ★ Colonization experience was different from

the Americas ★ Conquest of territories with which Russia

had long interacted ★ Conquest took place at the same time as

development of the Russian state

Russian Image Problem: Want to be like Western Europe: Civilized, Cultured, & Sophisticated Yet their empire is HUGE. Little competition, extreme power resides in hands of one person.

Russian Empire remained intact until 1991 (more on the Soviets later)

Russian Identity Problem

YouTube: Engineering an Empire~Russia

Both: Driven by demands of world market

Similar consequences for native populations

Native Siberians & Native Americans suffered from new diseases & dependence on the goods for which they traded furs

However: Trade differed in that Native Americans dealt with several competing European nations who generally obtained their furs through commercial negotiations.

In Siberia, Russian authorities imposed a tax or tribute, payable in furs, on every able-bodied Siberian male between 18 & 50 years of age.

Large-scale presence of private Russian hunters & trappers, who competed directly with their native Siberian counterparts.

How did the North American & Siberian fur trades differ?

Japan: Major source of silver production in 16th century

Tokugawa shoguns: Military rulers, silver-generated profits to defeat hundreds of rival feudal lords & unify the country.

Unlike their Spanish counterparts, shoguns allied with country’s merchant class to develop a market-based economy & to invest heavily in agricultural & industrial enterprises.

Japanese state & local authorities alike acted vigorously to protect and renew Japan’s dwindling forests, while millions of families in the 18th century took steps to have fewer children by practicing late marriages, contraception, abortion, & infanticide.

Dramatic slowing of Japan’s population growth: easing of an impending ecological crisis, & a flourishing, highly commercialized economy.

These were the foundations for Japan’s remarkable 19th Cent. Industrial Revolution.

China, Japan, & India: Asia still powerful

China: Silver deepened already substantial commercialized economy. In order to obtain silver needed to pay their taxes, more & more people had to sell something—either their labor or their products.

Those growing mulberry trees (silkworm) buy their rice from other regions. Chinese economy: more regionally specialized.

Particularly in So.China, surging economic growth resulted in the loss of about 1/2 area’s forest cover. No Japanese-style conservation program emerged.

China, Japan, & India: Asia still powerful

China’s role in silver trade: Reminder of Asian centrality in world economy of the early modern era.

Its large & prosperous population, increasingly operating within a silver-based economy, fueled global commerce, vastly increasing quantity of goods exchanged & geographic range of world trade.

Despite their obvious physical presence in the Americas, Africa, & Asia, economically speaking, Europeans were essentially middlemen: ★ Funneling American silver to Asia ★ Competing with one another for a place in the rich markets of the

East. Productivity of Chinese economy was evident in Spanish America: cheap & well-made Chinese goods easily outsold those of Spain.

Indian cotton textiles likewise outsold European woolen or linen textiles in the 17th century to such an extent that French laws in 1717 prohibited the wearing of Indian cotton or Chinese silk clothing as a means of protecting French industry.

China, Japan, & India: Asia still powerful