Transoceanic Connections and Global Encounters

Readings: Smith, et al., 474-505

Eurasia and Africa Very Connected

Center of Trade—Asia:

Japan Moluccas China India

More Peripheral but still involved in Trade

Swahili Trading Cities—Kilwa

Sahara Desert Cities—Timbuktu

MAIN GOODS Spices—

Pepper, Cloves, Gold, Frankincense, Myrrh

Chinese Porcelain

Silk

Main Source of Gold: Africa

West Africa along Niger River

East Africa: The Great Zimbabwe

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

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

East Africans, Muslims, and Europe’s Problem

East Africans—the Swahilis controlled the Indian Ocean Trade until Annihilated by the Portuguese.

Arabs controlled overland trade to Asia

Triple threat: economic, religious, cultural

Turned to seaborne exploration

Complicated by winds and currents

EUROPE’S PROBLEMS Europe increasingly on Periphery

Rise of Great Islamic Empires, especially the Ottoman Empire

Problems gets worse With Conquest of Constantinople, the Great Byzantine City

Europe’s Problem and Solutions

Columbus Solution: Sail across the Atlantic

Why was Columbus’ voyage possible?

The European Printing Press

New Maps Travel Accounts like

Marco Polo’s Inventions

WHY NOT CHINA? Zheng He and Ming

Treasure Ships, which were largest ships, largest in the World At Time

Got to Africa, But then China Threatened from the North—Emperor Ends Voyages

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