Chapter 18 - The Atlantic System - 1550 - 1800

     The Atlantic System was a trading network that moved people and goods around the Atlantic Basin after 1500. Many of those who moved goods were charter companies, which consisted of investors who paid for shares of the company in order to control the monopoly on trade of a particular commodity in the West Indies colonies. The overall population of the colonies in the West Indies grew because new people came in on ships and slaves were brought from Africa.  The Dutch West India Company, formed in 1621, was one of the primary trading companies that conducted business in Africa and the Americas. It came to control much of Brazil's sugar and seized ports in the country. The Dutch revived sugar's status as an important crop and made it one of the largest products of the West Indies.

The Atlantic Basin (the Atlantic Ocean)

     Large plantations were built to grow sugarcane. They required lots of slaves to work and messed up the environment pretty badly through deforestation and soil exhaustion (no nutrients are left in soil if you just keep growing the same thing over and over again). These plantations were run by men who formed the plantocracy - the group of people who owned most of the slaves and the land in the colonies.
     Slaves were forced to work in terrible conditions, some working up to eighteen hours a day at the height of the sugar-producing season. Everyone had a job, even if it wasn't working in the fields. Poor nutrition and accidents caused many deaths, requiring additional slaves to be brought in from Africa to replace those that plantation owners had lost. Slaves rebelled because of the bad conditions, most notably during the Tacky Slave Rebellion of 1760 in Jamaica. The slaves attacked plantations after they had broken into a fort and seized weapons, wanting manumissions (grants of freedom). Maroons, runaway slave colonies, began to form, and soon there were many all black communities in the West Indies.

Triangle Trade

     Large financial institutions allowed merchants to act even if they were far from home - the beginnings of capitalism. Mercantilism, on the other hand, promoted overseas trade only between the mother country and the colony, keeping the rest of the world out of the loop. The Middle Passage, however, was open to anyone. It shipped slaves from Africa to the Americas. Triangle Trade was established between continents: the 13 colonies sent rum to Africa, where slaves then went to the West Indies and rum and molasses was shipped to New England (Europe was also involved - they wouldn't miss out on their colonies' trading!).
     Back in Africa, the Songhai of western Sudan became important in trans-Saharan trade but were destroyed by Morocco. Their trading position was taken over by the Hausa and Bornu. Rulers controlled the slave trade, sparing their own people and sending prisoners of war away to the colonial slave markets before sending their own people. The African-Muslim slave trade was 1/4 the size of the African-New World slave trade, but it lasted longer, with most slaves that went to Muslim countries becoming servants or soldiers.

Chapter 17 - American Colonial Societies - 1530 - 1770

     The Columbian Exchange, set up after Columbus' voyages to the Americas, brought in new people and goods. English and French colonies sprung up in North America, bringing with them diseases that the natives had no resistance to. Disease wiped out many native populations and made taking over easier for the incoming Europeans.
     Although Christianity was imposed on them, the Amerindians kept practicing their religions in secret. Some newcomers protected them, such as Bartolome de las Casas, who defended Amerindian's rights in Mexico. Overall, the Amerindians were suppressed by viceroys (colonial leaders)  who forced them into economiendas, or grants of labor to land owners. The mita required that 1/7 of all adult male Amerindians had to work for two to four months in factories or on farms. Portugal forced the Amerindians into slavery, often working in mines or growing sugar and tobacco.
     Some different people groups:

• Creoles - Europeans born in the New World
• Mestizos - 1/2 Amerindian and 1/2 European
• Mullatos - 1/2 African and 1/2 European

     In North America, indentured servants worked to pay off debts while slaves were brought in from Africa to work indefinitely (more on that in the next chapter).
     The groups of colonists we are most familiar with are the Puritans and the Pilgrims. The Puritans wanted to purify the teachings of the Church of England, so they formed the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629 after sailing from England. The Pilgrims split away from the Church of England entirely and went to the New World, landing in Plymouth in 1620.
     *Side note: The Iroquois Confederacy formed from five tribes (six in 1722) who allied with the Dutch and then the English when the English took New Amsterdam (New York). They were a voice for the tribes of the area whenever colonial leaders met.*
     From 1534 to 1542, Jacques Cartier explored Canada, and in 1608, New France (Quebec) was formed. They relied heavily on fur trading and eventually were taken over by the English in 1763. Since they had a small population and limited resources, the French relied on political and military power, which they lost when the English took over America east of the Mississippi River.
     The latter half of the 1700's was a time of rebellion and social unrest. Tupac Amaru II of Peru led an Inca rebellion against the Spanish and was executed in 1781. In the North, England had already limited colonists' trading by passing the Navigation Acts of 1651-73 when they started to pass more laws and taxes for the 13 colonies. New York and Massachusetts overthrew their British governors and politics in the colonies remained confrontational. England's defeat of France and weakening of Spain in 1770 essentially showed that they were the dominant power and readied France (but not Spain) to aid the colonists in the revolution.

Review for the Chapter 14/15 Test

     All of the information provided here will likely be on the test (my class was told what to expect during the code yellow).

• The Bubonic Plague killed nearly 1/3 of people in Europe. It was brought to the continent by rats coming from Mongol lands. Because of the plague, Europe's population in 1400 was equal to its population in 1200.
• Marco Polo traveled from Venice in 1271 to visited China and Kublai Khan.
• 1492 was a momentous year because of Columbus' voyage to the Americas, Iberia's conquest of Grenada, and the expulsion of Jews and Muslims from Iberia.
• Significant developments were made in this period in ecology (antipollution laws, water mills), politics (expulsion of Jews and Muslims, conquest of Grenada, lands claimed in the New World, the Magna Carta) and in culture (the Renaissance, expanded trade, printing).
• The Latin West borrowed technologies from the east and eventually surpassed it as a trading power. 
• Strong motives and military power contributed to Iberian expansion overseas.
• The voyages to the New World were built on 1) urban trade revivals 2) merchant-ruler alliances 3) struggles with Islam and 4) curiosity.
• The Iberian kingdoms have a special history because of Christian expansion (and thus the expulsion of Muslim invaders) and the dynastic marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella.
• Henry the Navigator was a Portuguese prince who encouraged navigation and seafaring, although he didn't go very far from Portugal himself.
• Portugal's naval supremacy allowed them to gain control over much of the Indian ocean and increase their trading power.

Good luck!