Chapter 18Africa, the Americas,

and Cross-Cultural Encounter

Marco Polo (ca. 1254-1324)

Marco Polo’s Description of Java (1)

Departing from Ziamba, and steering between south and south-east, fifteen hundred miles, you reach an island of very great size, named Java. According to the reports of some well-informed navigators, it is the greatest in the world, and has a compass above three thousand miles. It is under the dominion of one king only, nor do the inhabitants pay tribute to any other power. They are worshipers of idols.

Marco Polo’s Description of Java (2)

The country abounds with rich commodities. Pepper, nutmegs, spikenard, galangal, cubebs, cloves and all the other valuable spices and drugs, are the produce of the island, which occasion it to be visited by many ships laden with merchandise, that yields to the owners considerable profit. The quantity of gold collected there exceeds all calculation and belief.

The Travels of Marco Polo, revised and edited by Manuel Komroff. (New York: Random House), 1926, pp. 267-268.

Quibilai Khan

(Kublai Khan)

Spices (1)Spices have helped cure dyspepsia [indigestion],

nausea, malaria 瘧疾 , toothaches, and hemorrhoids 痔 . Historical sources tell us that spices have been used as insect repellents, perfumes, cosmetics, antidotes for poisons, and aphrodisiacs 春藥 . But in the ancient world, judges were bribed with tribute paid in sacks of pepper. And toward the end of the Roman empire, Alaric I demand three thousand pounds of pepper as a substantial portion of Rome’s ransom.

Spices (2)The Arabs controlled the spice trade along . . .

the Silk Road between Europe and the Far East, where the vast majority of spices are found. . . , The exclusive control of the spice trade by the Arabs ended when the Portuguese set up trading depots in . . . The Spice Islands. The Portuguese were soon followed by French, Dutch, British, and American merchants. By the early 19th century, European merchants dominated trade in Sumatran pepper, with profits sometimes as high as 700 percent!

Cladius Ptolemy (323-30 BCE), Geocentric

Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543), Heliocentric

The most dramatic developments in the transition from the Middle Ages to the early modern period of Western European history:

(1) Overseas ventures of Spain and Portugal (1488-1520)

(2) the Protestant Reformation (1517-1522)

1453The Ottoman Empire captured Constantinople.

Motives(1) Search for new land and

wealth(2) Break Muslim merchants’

monopoly of trade with the East(3) Faith and the Renaissance

spirit of enquiry

PortugalExplored along the Atlantic coast

of AfricaSailed around the Cape of Good

Hope and Reached India in 1498Reached Spice Islands in 1515Reached Canton in China by 1516

Canary Islands

SpainDiscovered the Caribbean isla

nds in 1492 (Christopher Columbus)

Landed on the American mainland (Mexico, Yucantán, Peru) after 1518

The New World

1492 Columbus discovered the Caribbean islands

1519-1522 Megellan sailed around the world.

1521 Cortés conquered the Aztecs in Mexico.1533 Pizarro subdued the Incas in

South America

A Global EconomyAsian spicesAfrican slavesAmerican silver

The Slave TradeMajor slave markets were in Muslim handsFew early-fifteen-century slaves were

Africans; most were European ChristiansMid-15th-century Lisbon was major slave

market for enslaved Africans; slave-based sugar plantations emerged in Portugal’s Atlantic colonies.

16th-17th centuries: Slave trade between West Africa and European colonies in the New World.

ConsequencesColonization Increase in world trade Rise of nationalismSpread of Christianity

Food for ThoughtWere the Europeans bringing a more advanced culture to the places they came into contact with?

ReferencesFiero, Gloria. The Humanistic Tradition. M

cGraw-Hill. Vol. 1. Chapter 18.King, Gordon and Frank Owen. Living Wor

ld History. Vol. 2. Hong Kong: Ling Kee, 1987.

Perry, Peden, Von Laue. Sources of the Western Tradition. 4th ed. Vol. 1. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.