Lesson 1.6 · Unit 1 · CED topics 1.7 and 1.8
Rival empires and the Columbian Exchange
Once Spain and Portugal showed what overseas trade could bring, other states followed, and Europe's competition moved onto the oceans. Learning Objective I asks how and why trading networks and colonial expansion affected relations between and among European states. Learning Objectives J and K ask about the economic and the social and cultural impact of colonial expansion and of the trade networks it created. This lesson follows empire from Iberian dominance to Atlantic rivalry, then examines the exchange of living things that changed both hemispheres.
Learning objectives.
- 1I. Explain how and why trading networks and colonial expansion affected relations between and among European states.
- 1J. Explain the economic impact of European colonial expansion and development of trade networks.
- 1K. Explain the social and cultural impact of European colonial expansion and development of trade networks.
Historical developments.
- 1.3.III.B. The Spanish established colonies across the Americas, the Caribbean, and the Pacific, which made Spain a dominant state in Europe in the 16th century.
- 1.3.III.C. The Atlantic nations of France, England, and the Netherlands followed by establishing their own colonies and trading networks to compete with Portuguese and Spanish dominance in the 17th century.
- 1.3.III.D. The competition for trade led to conflicts and rivalries among European powers in the 17th and 18th centuries.
- 1.3.III.A. The Portuguese established a commercial network along the African coast, in South and East Asia, and in South America in the late 15th and throughout the 16th centuries.
- 1.3.IV.A. The exchange of goods shifted the center of economic power in Europe from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic states and brought the latter into an expanding world economy.
- 1.3.IV.B.i. The exchange of new plants, animals, and diseases, the Columbian Exchange, created economic opportunities for Europeans.
- 1.3.IV.B.ii. The exchange of new plants, animals, and diseases, the Columbian Exchange, in some cases facilitated European subjugation and destruction of indigenous peoples, particularly in the Americas.
From Iberian dominance to Atlantic rivals
- Portugal built a commercial network along the African coast, in South and East Asia, and in Brazil during the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It used fortified trading posts, such as Goa and Malacca, rather than large territorial colonies in Asia.
- Spain established colonies across the Americas, the Caribbean, and the Pacific (the Philippines). Silver from Mexico and Potosí made Spain the dominant state in sixteenth-century Europe, and from 1580 to 1640 the Spanish king also ruled Portugal and its empire.
- The Dutch, English, and French. In the seventeenth century the Atlantic nations followed with their own colonies and trading networks to compete with Portuguese and Spanish dominance. The Dutch East India Company (1602) used armed ships to seize much of the Asian spice trade, and the Dutch also operated in the Atlantic. England planted colonies in North America and the Caribbean, and France in Canada and the Caribbean. These powers often used joint-stock companies, in which investors pooled money and shared profits and risks.
Competition for trade led to conflicts and rivalries among European powers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Examples are the Anglo-Dutch wars, the War of the Spanish Succession (1701 to 1714), which ended with the British granting access to the asiento, the contract to supply enslaved Africans to Spanish America, and the Seven Years' War (1756 to 1763), fought in Europe, North America, the Caribbean, and India. Earlier, the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) had tried to avoid such rivalry by dividing the world between two Catholic crowns, but the other powers did not accept the pope's division.
The Atlantic economy
The CED says that the exchange of goods shifted the center of economic power in Europe from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic states and brought them into an expanding world economy. Port cities such as Lisbon, Seville, Antwerp, Amsterdam, London, and Bristol grew rich handling sugar, tobacco, silver, textiles, and eventually enslaved people. Italian cities remained important but lost their edge.
Colonies also produced the price revolution: a flood of American silver contributed to rising prices across sixteenth-century Europe. Landowners who sold crops gained, while wage-earners saw living standards fall (see Lesson 1.8).
The Columbian Exchange
Historian Alfred Crosby coined the term Columbian Exchange for the movement of plants, animals, and diseases between the Americas and the rest of the world after 1492.
| From Europe to the Americas | From the Americas to Europe |
|---|---|
| Wheat, sugar cane, grapes | Potatoes, corn (maize), tomatoes |
| Horses, cattle, pigs, sheep | Squash, beans, peppers, cacao |
| Smallpox, measles, influenza | Tobacco, turkeys |
- Economic opportunities for Europeans. New foods, especially the potato and corn, helped feed growing populations; sugar and tobacco became profitable plantation crops; and animals such as cattle and horses spread across American grasslands.
- Subjugation and destruction of indigenous peoples. In some cases the exchange facilitated European conquest. Epidemic diseases carried from Europe killed huge shares of the indigenous population in the Americas, in many regions on the order of most of the population within a century, which weakened resistance and created labor shortages that Europeans filled by coercion and, later, enslaved Africans.
Description of: Jean Bodin, Response to the Paradoxes of Malestroit (1568), a French thinker's explanation of why prices in France had risen so sharply. Bodin argues that the main cause was the great abundance of gold and silver brought from the New World, along with other factors such as monopolies and royal spending.
Sourcing (HIPP). Bodin was a French lawyer and political thinker writing in the middle of the century of rising prices, so he was an informed contemporary, not a modern economist. His purpose was to correct another writer, Malestroit, who had blamed the coin's metal content. He was among the first to link the quantity of money to prices. As evidence it shows that contemporaries noticed the economic effects of overseas empire, but his claim is only one explanation, and modern historians also point to population growth.
Claim. Bodin attributes rising prices to the arrival of American silver and gold.
Evidence. In the described argument, he names abundant precious metals from the New World as the main cause of price increases.
Reasoning. The claim shows that colonial expansion affected European economies far from the colonies, which supports the CED's point that the exchange of goods integrated Europe into a wider economy. A limit is that other causes mattered too, so Bodin's single explanation is incomplete.
Question. Explain one economic effect and one social effect of the Columbian Exchange.
Model. One economic effect was the creation of new economic opportunities for Europeans: American crops such as potatoes and corn increased the food supply, and plantations producing sugar and tobacco brought wealth to merchants and colonizers. One social effect was the destruction of indigenous societies in the Americas, because European diseases such as smallpox killed a large share of the population and made conquest and coerced labor easier.
Learning Objectives I, J, and K cover three different things: state rivalry, economic impact, and social and cultural impact. Match the evidence to the objective. The CED's own phrase for the economic shift is that economic power moved from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. For rivalry, name the powers and a conflict (War of the Spanish Succession, Seven Years' War). For the exchange, show it went in both directions, and recognize that it helped Europeans while harming indigenous peoples.
- Which three Atlantic nations challenged Spanish and Portuguese dominance in the seventeenth century?
Show answer
France, England, and the Netherlands.
- What was a joint-stock company?
Show answer
A business owned by many investors who pooled money to finance overseas trade and shared the profits and risks, such as the Dutch East India Company.
- Name one conflict that grew out of commercial and colonial rivalry.
Show answer
The Anglo-Dutch wars, the War of the Spanish Succession, or the Seven Years' War.
- How did the Columbian Exchange help Europeans economically?
Show answer
New crops such as potatoes and corn increased the food supply, and sugar and tobacco plantations created profitable trade.
- How did European diseases affect the Americas?
Show answer
Epidemics of smallpox and measles killed a large share of the indigenous population, weakening resistance to conquest and leading to labor shortages.
- What was the price revolution, and how was it connected to the Americas?
Show answer
It was a long rise in prices across sixteenth-century Europe, partly caused by the large inflow of American silver that increased the supply of money.