Transformations due to European Expansion and Economic Development
by Louie Grant
1. Land in the Americas owned by Europeans, profit flows directly back to the Old World.
1.1. Dutch West Indies Company (and British Monarchy) develop new banking, trade, and technological innovation that cater to a new era of globalism.
1.2. Increased international trade stimulates port cities.
2. An entire continent of people are arbitrarily exploited and experience a racial diaspora.
2.1. New ethnicities and culture are created in New World locations, as African culture evolves independently in slave populations.
3. Plantation agriculture redefines societies, as it creates distinct and rigid social classes.
3.1. While 12.5 slaves were shipped out of Africa, only 10.7 survived the passage to the new world. Mortality was cripplingly high, and slaves working on plantation were considered a disposable resource. On Santo Domingue, slaves were only expected to live 3 years.
3.2. Africa suffered massive population loss and a correlating lack of a workforce. Their economy was stifled and mercantilism became their main source of economic stimulation, creating dependency.
4. Business of slavery is highly profitable but deadly for slaves; middle passage claims the lives of almost half who travel it.
5. British Farms,French Fur Trade, Dutch Oceanic Trade
5.1. French Fur trade and introduction of guns to the Native Americans leads to situation much like Africa; newer, more deadly warfare.
6. Slave traders are the most important maritime powers.
7. The Spanish and Portuguese established the first empires in the new world.
8. Sugar an important commodity to trade with China, entire Mesoamerican races exploited and wiped out in order to obtain it. Columbian Exchange and the global homogenocene.
9. Slaves sent from Africa to satisfy the need for labor in the Americas.
10. Plantation agriculture becomes the norm as the world develops as taste for coffee, tobacco and SUGAR
10.1. These products fuel European factory workers, as Europe becomes a producer of consumer goods.
11. African states at war, already have a thriving slave trade of prisoners of war. Selling off their own people decimates populations, introduced mercantilism and disrupts traditional power structures.
11.1. Africans become consumers of cheaply made European manufactured goods.
11.2. trade of guns with African nations redefines warfare in that region.
11.3. Merchant Princes take the place of traditional rulers who inherit their power
