The Atlantic Economy

The European Economy from Middle Ages to 1500

Feudal Middle-Ages After the black death, fewer people

meant better conditions for those who survived More agricultural land, greater food

supply, higher demand for labor and higher wages

More people married and established households

Agricultural economy Serfdom disappeared

Laborers became landowners, renters, or wage laborers

Eastern Europe continued feudalism Market Economy grew

People stopped making goods themselves and bought them in a market based economy

Urbanization Mediterranean Trade Network

The Shift to the Atlantic Economy

The Atlantic economy was based on the Mercantilist System.

Mercantilism is an economic system where all resources should be put to the service of the parent country.

Raw materials are extracted from colonies.

Finished products are furnished in the parent country and sold at home or abroad (other nations or its colonies).

A country’s wealth is measured by its ability to import more gold and silver than it exports to other countries.

A nation’s ultimate goal is to be self sufficient.

Mercantilism in Practice

European empires, such as Spain, England and France, colonized the New World in pursuit of resources.

Resources included precious metals like gold and silver, or agricultural products like tobacco, cotton, sugar, coffee, tea, etc…

Slave labor provided much of the labor force in these colonies.

The Columbian Exchange

The trade routes of raw materials, labor and finished products between Europe, Africa and the Americas.

Slaves from Africa to the Americas, raw materials from the Americas to Europe, and finished products from Europe, to the world.

Raw materials, primarily, coffee, chocolate, cocoa, and sugar from the tropics, and fish, tobacco, and furs from further north. Sugar had the most demand,

which fueled the slave trade.

The Slave Experience on a Slave Ship

Slaves travelled the weeks-long voyage through the “middle passage” on slave ships to be sold in the Americas. 10-20 percent of the slaves

died on slave ships. 20-25 percent of the crew

would die. Olaudah Equiano’s

experience. Read ‘Olaudah Equiano

Describes Passage on a Slave Ship”.

Answer questions 1-4. Be prepared to discuss.