European & Asian Commerce, Silver, Fur, and Transatlantic Slave Trade Flashcards

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Columbus' encounter with the Americas

An accidental encounter with the Americas, contrasting with Vasco da Gama's deliberate voyage to India.

Vasco da Gama's encounter with India

An intentional voyage to India aimed at engaging in Asian commerce, unlike Columbus' accidental voyage.

Asian Spices

Highly valued luxury goods including nutmeg, clove, pepper, and cinnamon that served as the primary motive for European trade in Asia.

European Bubonic Plague Recovery

A recovery period that led to urban and population growth in Europe, sparking European participation in global trade.

Venice

A European commercial center that maintained a monopoly on Eastern goods by sending ships to Alexandria in Egypt.

Muslim Middlemen

Traders who controlled land routes between Europe and Asia, whom Europeans sought to circumvent by finding a direct sea route to India.

Prester John

A mysterious Christian monarch in Asia or Africa believed by Europeans to be a potential ally against the Islamic enemy.

European Trade Deficit in Asia

A situation caused by low Asian demand for European goods, forcing Europeans to pay for spices and textiles in gold and silver.

Goldfields of West Africa

African coastal locations explored by Europeans searching for precious metals to fund their Asian commerce.

Silver in Mexico and Bolivia

Precious metal deposits discovered in the Americas that provided Europeans with payment for Asian goods.

Portuguese Military Advantage

Superiority in Indian Ocean commerce gained because Portuguese ships were stronger and better armed, and Zheng He's fleet was gone.

Zheng He's Fleet

The Chinese naval fleet whose departure from Indian Ocean sea lanes left a void that allowed Portuguese military dominance.

Mombasa

A Portuguese base established by force on the coast of East Africa to control trade.

Hormuz

A Portuguese base established by force near the entrance to the Persian Gulf.

Goa

A Portuguese fortified trade base established by force on the western coast of India.

Malacca

A Portuguese base established by force in Southeast Asia to control maritime trade routes.

Macao

A Portuguese trading base in China acquired through bribery of Chinese officials rather than by military force.

Trading Post Empire

A type of empire established by Portugal aimed at controlling commerce rather than populations, using force to seize trade hubs.

Cartaz

A pass or permit required by the Portuguese from merchant ships in the Indian Ocean, accompanied by required duties and taxes.

Red Sea Route

A trade route to the Mediterranean that the Portuguese partially blocked to control the spice trade.

Portuguese Carrying Trade

The practice where Portuguese merchants sold shipping services in Asia instead of European goods and assimilated into local cultures.

Portuguese Trading Post Empire Decline

The decline of Portuguese commercial dominance around 1600 caused by Asian resistance and European competition.

Spain's Asian Colony

The Philippine Islands, established by Spain to challenge Portugal's monopoly on the spice trade.

King Philip II

The Spanish monarch after whom the Philippine Islands were named.

Philippine Chiefdoms

Small competitive political entities in the Philippines that initially attracted little interest from major powers like China and Japan.

Spanish Establishment of 1565

The colonization of the Philippines achieved with little force or bloodshed through alliances, gifts, and favors to local chiefs.

Spanish Missionaries in the Philippines

Religious figures brought by Spain whose efforts converted the Philippines into the only major outpost of Christianity in Asia.

Mindanao

An island in the southern Philippines where Islam was practiced as a form of resistance against Spanish colonization.

Spanish Colonial Relocation

A policy requiring native Filipinos to move into organized Christian communities, similar to Spanish practices in the Americas.

Displacement of Female Ritual Specialists

The process in the Philippines where traditional female ritual specialists, healers, and midwives were replaced by male Spanish priests.

Manila

The new capital of the Spanish Philippines that saw rapid population growth and attracted thousands of Chinese and Japanese immigrants.

1603 Manila Chinese Massacre

An event in which Spanish colonizers killed nearly the entire Chinese population of the Philippines, numbering around 20,000 people.

Dutch East India Company

A private, highly commercialized joint-stock company operating in Indonesia that monopolized spice shipping and production.

British East India Company

A private joint-stock company operating primarily in India that negotiated trade permissions with the Mughal Empire.

East India Company Charters

Government authorizations granting private companies monopolies on trade, the right to make war, and power to govern conquered populations.

Joint-Stock Companies

Commercial enterprises where multiple investors purchase shares to spread and limit financial risk in overseas trading ventures.

French East India Company

A French chartered commercial company established in the Indian Ocean basin in 1644.

Banda Islands

Nutmeg-producing islands where the Dutch killed nearly the entire native population of 15,000 to replace them with Dutch landowners and Asian slaves.

Dutch Spice Price Markup

The practice of selling monopolized nutmeg, mace, and cloves in Europe at 14 to 17 times their purchase price in Indonesia.

Impoverishment of the Spice Islands

The economic destruction of local Spice Islands economies resulting from Dutch monopolization and violent labor practices.

Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras

The three primary trading settlements established by the British East India Company on the coast of India.

Mughal Empire

A powerful Asian empire in India that forced the British East India Company to trade via permissions, payments, and bribes rather than force.

Indian Cotton Textiles

Popular goods produced in India that became widely sought after in England and its American colonies.

Bulk Goods Shift

A trade evolution where European merchants shifted from trading luxury items for elites to bulk goods like pepper, textiles, tea, and coffee.

European Evolution to Colonial Domination

The transition by the late 18th century where British and Dutch trading post empires evolved into direct colonial rule over India and Indonesia.

State of Siam

A Southeast Asian kingdom that successfully expelled French forces in 1688.

Daimyo

Feudal lords in Japan who commanded samurai warriors and engaged in internal conflict before Japanese unification.

Samurai

Japanese warrior class employed by competitive daimyo during feudal conflicts.

Japanese Christian Converts (c. 1650)

A population of roughly 300,000 converts in Japan who formed a native church organization before being suppressed.

Shogun

The supreme military commander in Japan who unified the nation in the early 17th century and viewed Europeans as a threat.

Japanese Execution of Missionaries

The execution of 62 Christian missionaries and thousands of Japanese converts ordered by the shogunate to suppress Christianity.

Rangaku

Japanese term meaning 'Dutch learning,' which allowed Western technological and scientific knowledge into Japan during its period of isolation.

Tokugawa Shogunate Isolation

A period from 1650 to 1850 during which Japan closed itself off from European trade while maintaining links with China, Korea, and SE Asia.

Southeast Asian Female Merchants

Women in Southeast Asia who played prominent and active roles in international commercial networks.

Asian Overland Trade

Land-based trade networks that remained firmly under the control of Asian merchants despite European maritime presence.

Armenian Christian Merchants

A merchant network that linked trade across Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, India, the Philippines, and Mexico.

Virji Vora

The head of a wealthy Indian family firm that monopolized products like pepper and coral and forced Europeans to pay 12-18% interest on loans.

Global Silver Trade

A commercial network fueled by silver deposits in Bolivia and Japan that created the first direct, global system of exchange.

Spanish America Silver Production

The source of 85% of the world's silver between 1450 and 1750, produced in colonies like Bolivia and Mexico.

China's Silver Tax Demand

A government mandate requiring Chinese tax payments to be paid in silver, causing a massive inflow of silver into China.

Silver Drain

The movement of the majority of the world's silver supply into China and other parts of Asia.

Piece of Eight

A standard Spanish silver coin used internationally as a global currency.

Potosí

A Bolivian city housing the world's largest silver mine, with a population of 160,000 people and brutal native labor conditions.

Potosí Environmental Damage

Ecological destruction caused by silver mining in Bolivia, including severe deforestation, soil erosion, and flooding.

Mestiza Women in Potosí

Mixed-race women who ran businesses, taverns, and stores, providing food, drinks, and clothing in the mining city of Potosí.

Spanish Silver Inflation

Economic crisis in Spain caused by an influx of silver, monopolies, aristocratic leisure, and lack of growth, leading to a loss of imperial power.

General Crisis

A period of 17th-century global instability, economic distress, and uprisings accelerated by the Little Ice Age.

Little Ice Age

A period of cooling temperatures that contributed to the 17th-century General Crisis and increased global demand for fur.

Tokugawa Population Control

Demographic slowdown achieved through late marriage, contraception, and abortion that laid the foundation for Japan's industrial revolution.

Chinese Regional Economic Specialization

Economic shift where Chinese regions specialized in specific cash crops, such as mulberry trees for silk, requiring imported rice.

French Law of 1717

Legislation passed in France restricting the wearing of Indian cotton or Chinese silk to protect local French textile industries.

Soft Gold

A term used to describe animal fur due to its high economic value, status symbol, and profitability in trade.

North American Beaver Depletion

The near-extinction of beaver populations and habitats in North America driven by European fur trade demand.

Southern British Colony Deer Harvest

The annual extraction of 500,000 deer hides by hunters in southern British colonies for the English leather industry.

Hurons

A Native American group that traded 20,000 to 30,000 beaver pelts annually, strengthening chief status and tribal alliances.

Mourning Wars

Conflicts among Native Americans to capture prisoners to assimilate into communities suffering from disease population losses.

Ginseng Root

A natural medicine gathered and sold by the Iroquois to meet high demand in China.

Native Dependency on European Goods

The displacement of traditional Native items (wooden bowls, bows) by imported European goods (iron pots, gunpowder, textiles).

Customary Restraint

The traditional Native American practice of hunting only for immediate needs, which was abandoned due to European trade.

Ojibwa Women's Trade Role

The economic function of Ojibwa women who controlled local trade in essential commodities like wild rice and maple syrup.

Siberian Fur Tax (Yasak)

A mandatory payment in animal furs imposed by the Russian empire on native Siberian males under threat of hostage execution.

Transatlantic Slave System

A trade network between 1500 and 1866 that forcibly transported 12.5 million Africans across the Atlantic ocean.

Middle Passage

The ocean voyage of slave ships across the Atlantic in which 1.8 million enslaved Africans died.

African Diaspora

The forced spread of African peoples across the Americas, introducing African religious practices, traditions, and cuisine.

Old World Mediterranean Slavery

Pre-1500 practice of enslavement centered around the Mediterranean, with major sources of enslaved people drawn from southern Russia.

Trans-Saharan Slave Trade

An ancient trade network transporting enslaved humans across the Sahara Desert to the Indian Ocean and Middle East.

Alexandria

Egyptian port city where Venetian merchants sent ships to purchase Eastern goods from Muslim middlemen.

Islamic Enemy

The religious adversary in the Mediterranean region that Europeans hoped to combat alongside the mythical King Prester John.

Circumventing Muslim Middlemen

The primary European motivation for seeking a direct sea route around Africa or across the Atlantic to Asia.

Cartaz Pass Requirement

The mandate enforced by the Portuguese navy requiring merchant ships in the Indian Ocean to carry a paid license.

Ottoman Spice Trade Revival

The resurgence of traditional Mediterranean land and sea spice routes through Ottoman territory during the 16th to 18th centuries.

Filipino Christianity

The dominant religion established in the Philippine archipelago through Spanish missionary efforts and forced resettlement.

Spanish Priests in the Philippines

Male Catholic clergy who replaced indigenous female healers and ritual specialists during colonization.

Filipino Anti-Spanish Resistance

Unsuccessful local revolts and flight to Manila or Mindanao in response to Spanish taxation, tribute, and forced labor.

Manila Chinese Community

An essential commercial group in Manila whose refusal to convert led to Spanish discrimination, expulsion, and massacres.

Dutch Monopoly on Banda Nutmeg

The total commercial control of nutmeg achieved by the Dutch after annihilating the native population of the Banda Islands.

Asian Slaves in the Spice Islands

Enslaved workers brought from various parts of Asia to work nutmeg plantations owned by Dutch settlers.

British EIC Strategy in India

Securing trade access through bribes, taxes, and diplomatic negotiation with the Mughal Empire rather than force.

Southern Indian Interior Villages

Rural communities in India that adapted their production to manufacture cotton textiles specifically for the British market.

Expulsion of the French from Siam (1688)

The military ejection of French forces from the State of Siam in 1688, demonstrating strong Asian state sovereignty.