Transoceanic Connections and Global Encounters

Readings: Spodek, 388-414, 421, 438-447

Eurasia and Africa Very Connected

• Center of Trade—Asia:

• Japan

• Moluccas

• China

• India

Southernization

Central Area of Early Modern Trade and Empire Centered on Inida

• India Early Began Exporting Cotton, especially to Egypt, the Mediterranean, and East Africa

• 400 C.E. Malay sailors trading goods from Easter Island to East Africa– Rode the monsoons without a compass– Used square pivot sails that allowed them to

sail into the wind, by tacking against it—the prototype of the triangular lateen sail

China and Early Trade

• Cities on China’s southern coasts became centers of overseas commerce

• Exported silk, porcelain, iron hardware—needles, scissors, and cooking pots

• To facilitate commerce, conquest, and government—invented printing and paper, gunpowder, and the compass

Rise of Muslim World

Muslim Trade

• Spread crops developed or improved in India to Middle East, North Africa, and Islamic Spain: Sugar, cotton, and citrus fruits

• Arabs first to import large numbers of enslaved Africans to produce sugar

• By 1000 sugarcane major crop in Yemen, Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, the Mahgrib, Spain and Mediterranean areas controlled by Muslims—in many places had to develop sophisticated irrigation

• Also spread cotton from Iran and Central Asia to Spain and the Mediterranean

• Used silver from mines they developed in Afghanistan and gold from across the Sahara

Southernization reached Zenith after 1200 because of Rise of Mongols

• Mongols wrecked many southern trade centers in China, southern India, and maritime Southeast Asia

• Mongols controlled overland routes between Europe and Asia in 13th and 14th Centuries

• While stopped some trading networks, Mongols retained unified world markets except on fringes (Africa, Mediterranean, and Japan)

• Allowed southern Mediterranean areas to gain older Muslim markets in Sugar and Cotton - Increasingly integral to European commerce- But most of world still dominated by Islamic faith

EUROPE’S PROBLEMS

• Europe increasingly on Periphery

• Rise of Great Islamic Empires, especially the Ottoman Empire

• Spread of Arab Traders• Problems gets worse

With Conquest of Constantinople/Istanbul, the Great Byzantine City

East Africans & African Voyages and Europe’s Problem• East Africans—the Swahilis controlled the

Indian Ocean Trade until Annihilated by the Portuguese.

• Possibility of African Voyages Across the Atlantic.

• Europe’s Problem was how to get past Islamic Middleman for Cheaper Goods: Several Voyages around Africa; Complicated by Currents and Winds

• Must at least get to Africa then Sail almost to Brazil.

Islamic Dominance and the Rise of Europe’s North

• Portuguese became active traders with rise of Chinese compass, Arab knowledge, and lateen sail (in most recent incarnation Arab)

• Once moved into world trade—seized tropical and subtropical territories as they sailed around Africa and moved into the Southern Ocean trade

Europe’s Problem and Solutions

• Columbus Solution: Sail across the Atlantic

• Why was Columbus’ voyage possible?– The Printing Press– Maps– Travel Accounts like

Marco Polo’s – Inventions

Timeline

• 1492—Thinking he reached islands near China, Columbus probably hit what is now the Dominican Republic

• 1497 Vasco Da Gama sails around Cape of Good Horn (Africa)

• 1501—Amerigo Vespucci• 1513—Vasco Nunez de Balboa• 1519-1522—Ferdinand Magellan

Timeline (Continued)

• 1493-1494 Treaty of Tordesillas - happened with the blessing of the Pope

• 1501—Slaves brought to Americas • 1505—Portuguese destroy Kilwa• 1522—Spanish conquer the Americas and

the Americas are incorporated into Eurasian trade

• 1542 Spanish claim the Philippines and later create the Manila Galleon