The distance between the various continents across the Atlantic ocean meant

The distance between the various continents across the Atlantic ocean meant

The distance between the various continents across the Atlantic ocean meant that people across these continents rarely interacted. People would also nurture different animals and plants, and these facilitate there own unique microbes and pathogens across the continents. The trans-Atlantic trade would bring Europeans to the other continents. They did bring with them diseases, gun powder, and Christianity. They would take back silver to Europe, and it would end the cash crisis. They would also bring back new stimulants such as sugar, tobacco, and chocolate from the Americas and, by doing so, started the slave trade that was needed to keep up the new consumer appetites. There were also tensions in Europe that were propagated by religious tensions between Protestants and Catholics. The monarch and wealthy landowners were also in constant loggerheads. Intellectuals and artists would struggle to document these new world orders.

The discovery of the Canary Islands by the Portuguese would start a sailing revolution. Europeans would now start exploring the world, and this enhanced the slave trade that relied on collaborative Africans. Spanish success in invading Mexico would be a stimulant for others to explore. The English monarch would send explorer John Cabot to find the source of St. Lawrence River, and a century later Water Raleigh would follow, he tried to create a British colony in present-day North Carolina. Christopher Newport would also land in North America, and he attempted to develop a colony by force. Other Europeans would also follow, and they would start interacting with the natives. Hence, that fostered trade and spread of Christianity which would eventually be stopped by biological and demographical factors.

The movements of people, plants, animals, and disease would bring the global connection to new heights. These interactions are referred to as the Columbian exchange, termed coined by Alfred Crosby in 1972. This Columbian exchange would extend to the pacific islands and the Australians continent. New animals, plants, microbes, and pathogens would devastate the lands that they were brought to inhabit. Insects such as the honeybee would destroy other insects. Grazing would wipe out vegetation’s and new harmful plants would replace the native ones.  New diseases that were brought by Europeans would devastate natives, conditions such as chickenpox would wipe as much as 90% of the population of the natives in the Americas. The Europeans would also bring with them foodstuffs such as tomatoes back to Europe, and exotics foods would become very fashionable.

About 2 million Europeans settle to the Americas compared to 7 million African slaves., They were many Europeans who were discouraged from making the trip partly because of how expensive it was. The Spanish crown would encourage people to move to the Americas under the encomiendas. Therefore, it would allow them to rule over the land, and they took advantage of this. English would encourage people to move by describing them as indentured servants. They were free slaves. The conquests of the Aztec society in Mexico and the Incas society in Peru would create new colonies that would create a caste system in these societies. The encomienda system was used to rule over the natives. The system was topped by the migrants, followed by the mixed, and the natives at the bottom. The social hierarchy was, however, very fluid, especially between the immigrants and the people of mixed race.

Sugar was one of the commodities that would facilitate governments largely controlled the triangular trade that revolved through the trade of raw commodities, manufactured products, and slaves, This slave trade but there were also private Individuals involved. Wealthy Europeans would finance the slave trade in cities such as Lisbon and Amsterdam. The slave trade that was started by the Portuguese had a high human cost. Almost 60% of the people who got captured would eventually die. Those who would settle would start revolts against the Europeans. Conflicts between the Europeans would mar massive inflations and would destabilize the transatlantic trade in the second half of the 16^th Century and the Europeans economies.