Contact, Commerce, and Colonization 1400s-1500s

HIST 105 - Unit 1

What was the set of complex interactions that connected African labor, American land and mineral resources, and European technology and military power

Atlantic system

What were the two major powers that Spain conquered in the Americas

The Aztec and Inca empires

Silver form the Americas helped fuel the maritime trade and economic growth of two empires

Ming China and Mughal Empire

What do historians call the global transfer of plants, animals, people, and microorganisms that took place after Columbus’s voyages

The Columbian Exchange.

The most important contribution made by Dona Marina to the conquest of the Aztecs.

As Cortes’s able translator, Dona Marina helped convince the Tlaxcalans and other dissatisfied tribes to unite with the Spanish to throw off the Aztec yoke.

In what ways did the Spanish use the deaths of Indigenous people caused by Eurasian diseases as a form of spiritual conquest

• Missionaries and magistrates wrote scripts for how Indigenous people were supposed to venerate their dead.
  

• Indigenous people were permitted to build their own Christian churches and hospitals to say farewell to the sick and dying as long as they followed the new doctrine

Ming China was home to one-third of the global population in the mid-17th century, and its cities were rich and varied cultural hubs. How was this economic and cultural vibrancy related to growing European trade

Europeans saw Chinese products as cultured and luxurious, and China’s growing economy needed silver.

Methods used by Spanish or Portuguese explorers and conquerors use to expand their power in the INDIAN OCEAN REGION

• Gained control of port cities

• Taxed local merchants and took a share of trade profits on all business moving through the ports

• Used gunpowder and cannons for attack and intimidation

Methods used by Spanish or Portuguese explorers and conquerors use to expand their power in the AMERICAS

• Forces labor in the mines

• Gained control of both coastal and inland areas, including major cities

• Use gunpowder and cannons for attack and intimidation

Labor practices in early colonial Spanish America

The Spanish settlers of the Americas adopted existing Inca labor-conscription practices but modified them in horrific ways that radically increased worker mortality.