European Encountersand Mercantilism

Chapter 8—Section 2

Impact on Native Americans

• Europeans were learning of the profitability of the plantation system – relying on what?– Economic benefit of using local forced labor

• Disease – Europeans, unknowingly brought measles, mumps, chickenpox, smallpox, typhus and others.

• The local people had no built-up natural immunity to these diseases yet.

Impact on Africans

• With decline of native work force, labor was needed from elsewhere.

• Slave trade exploded, especially in Western Africa

• Over the next 300 years (1500-1800) almost 10 million people were taken

Impact on Europeans

• Europeans began to cross the Atlantic creating one of the largest voluntary migrations in world history.

• Overseas expansion inflamed national rivalries in Europe causing conflict.– Treaty of Tordesillas, 1494

• Growth of trade markets completely changed the world FOREVER.

Columbian Exchange

• New World cropsmaize (corn), vanilla,white/sweet potatoes,squash (incl. pumpkin), manioc/cassava,tobacco,peanuts,tomatoes,pineapples,papaya,avocados 

• Old World cropsrice, wheat, barleyoats, rye, turnipsonions, cabbagelettuce, peachespears,sugar, olives,

bananas

Devastating Impact

• Native American population continued to decline for centuries

• Inca Empire decreased from 13 million in 1492 to 2 million in 1600

• North American population fell from 2 million in 1492 to 500,000 in 1900—but disease not only factor in decrease of population

• Intermittent warfare, other violence also contributed

The Introduction of New Diseases

• Native Americans had no natural resistance to European diseases

• Smallpox, measles, influenza, malaria killed millions

• Population of central Mexico may have decreased by more than 30 percent in the 10 years following first contact with Europeans

Different Foods

• Exchange of foods, animals had dramatic impact on later societies

• Over time crops native to Americas became staples in diets of Europeans

• Foods provided substantial nutrition, helped people live longer

Italian Food Without Tomatoes?

• Until contact with Americas, Europeans had never tried tomatoes

• Most Europeans thought tomatoes poisonous

• By late 1600s, tomatoes had begun to be included in Italian cookbooks

Economics and Gastronomics

• Activities like Texas cattle ranching, Brazilian coffee growing not possible without Columbian Exchange; cows, coffee native to Old World

• Traditional cuisines changed because of Columbian Exchange

Effects of the Columbian Exchange

The introduction of beasts of burden to the Americas was a significant development from the Columbian Exchange. The introduction of the horse provided people in the Americas with a new source of labor and transportation.

• Voyages launched large-scale contact between Europe and Americas.

• Interaction with Native Americans led to sweeping cultural changes.

• Contact between the two groups led to the widespread exchange of plants, animals, and disease—the Columbian Exchange.

• Plants, animals developed in very different ways in hemispheres

• Europeans—no potatoes, corn, sweet potatoes, turkeys

• People in Americas—no coffee, oranges, rice, wheat, sheep, cattle

The Exchange of Goods

The Columbian Exchange

• Arrival of Europeans in Americas changed all this

• Previously unknown foods taken back to Europe

• Familiar foods brought to Americas by colonists

Sharing Discoveries

The Exchange can be positive or negative in its effects

• In the exchange that started along the coast of Newfoundland and was made widespread by Columbus, disease was the most negative for the Native American population

• Fatality rate over a period of two to three generations was 95% for many tribal groups

• In some cases, as in the Mohegans case, the fatality rate could be 100%

Europeans believed that it was God’s will that Indians died

• No germ theory at the time of contact.

• Illness in Europe was considered to be the consequence of sin

• Indians, who were largely “heathen” or non-Christian were regarded as sinners thus subject to illness as a punishment

New World Microbes

• Not all pathogens traveled from Europe to the Americas

• Syphilis, polio, hepatitis and encephalitis were new world diseases

• African slaves were less vulnerable to European diseases than were Indians

• Europeans succumbed to Malaria easily

Old World Diseases

• European disease was particularly virulent• Smallpox, measles, diphtheria, whooping cough,

chicken pox, bubonic plague, scarlet fever and influenza were the most common diseases

• Nearly all of the European diseases were communicable by air and touch.

• The pathway of these diseases was invisible to both Indians and Europeans

Diseases

Smallpox

Bubonic Plague

Measles

Disease raced ahead of people

• In most cases, Indian peoples became sick even before they had direct contact with Europeans

• Trade goods that traveled from tribe to tribe though middlemen were often the source

• There is little or no evidence to think that Europeans intentionally infected trade items for trade with Indians to kill them

Mainland outbreaks

• Diseases, especially smallpox, were transported from the Caribbean to the mainland by the Cortez expedition in the 1630s

• A sick African infected the Aztecs of Mexico City• Incubation of smallpox is 14 days—this causes

the disease to spread over great distances• Smallpox killed half the Iroquois populations in

1738 and again in 1759• Entire tribe of Mandans died during the winter of

1837-1838

Conclusion

• All of these exchanges then, of microbes, plants and animals had a dramatic effect on the environment of the New World, and by extension, a dramatic, and often negative effect on the economies and cultures of Indian peoples.

• Wealth measured by amount of gold, silver possessed by nation

• Mercantilists believed there was fixed amount of wealth in world

• For one nation to become wealthier, more powerful—had to take wealth, power away from another nation

• Mercantilism led to intense competition between nations

Intense Competition

• Founding of colonies, new goods in Europe led to significant changes

• 1500s, Europeans developed new economic policy, mercantilism

• Nation’s strength depended on its wealth

• Wealthy nation had power for military and expanded influence

New Economic PolicyMercantilism

• Mercantilists built wealth two ways—extract gold, silver from mines at home, in colonies; sell more goods than it bought from foreign countries, creating favorable balance of trade

• With favorable balance of trade, country received more gold, silver from other nations than it paid to them

• Increased its power; weakened foreign competitors

• To achieve favorable balance of trade, could reduce amount of imports by placing tariffs on goods

• Importer paid tariff, added cost to price of good

• Imported goods more expensive, discouraged people from buying

Imports • Encourage exports that could sell

for higher prices than raw materials

• Countries encouraged manufacturing and export of manufactured goods

• Governments provided subsidies to help start new industries

Exports

Balance of Trade

Controlling SourcesThird approach for favorable balance of trade,

controlling sources

• Nation that controlled own sources would not need to import from competing nations

• Why important

– Country did not need to spend own money to obtain raw materials

– Foreign countries considered rivals, might become active enemy, cut off supply of raw materials

• European nations worked to become more self-sufficient

• Nations began to establish colonies