1.8-1.10 - Columbian Exchange / Commercial Revolution Terms

Columbian Exchange

1. The widespread transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, technology, and diseases between the Americas and the Old World following Columbus's voyages.

2. Lead to the plantation system, slavery, and European colonial expansion

3. Lifestyles of Europeans were transformed due to increased nutrition and an influx of wealth

Portuguese Exploration

1. First European power to explore the Atlantic and helped establish the shift of power from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic.

2. Henry the Navigator, was a Portuguese prince who significantly advanced maritime exploration and established a school for navigators in the 15th century.

3. They establish forts on the West Coast of Africa, the Gold Coast, that become significant to slavery and establish a trade route around Africa,

Plantation System

1. Large agricultural estates established in the Americas, used to produce cash crops, used enslaved labor, and benefitted the Mercantile System

2. Through the Treaty of Tordesillas Portugal established lucrative sugar plantations in Brazil

Vasco da Gama

1. A Portuguese explorer who was the first to sail directly from Europe to India

2. This significantly impacts the spice trade and leads to Portugal establishing a port in Malacca in the Spice Islands

3. His achievements facilitated the shift in the center of European trade from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic.

Triangle Trade

1. A transatlantic trading system that involved the exchange of goods and enslaved people between Europe, Africa, and the Americas.

2. The exchange from Africa to the Americas was the Middle Passage - The horrific sea journey undertaken by enslaved Africans

3. The trade strengthened the plantation system and benefitted European powers through the Mercantile System.

Commercial Revolution

1. A period of European economic expansion, colonialism, and mercantilism from the 11th to the 18th centuries, marked by the rise of capitalism.

2. This period lead to a rise of banking, insurance, the exchange of money over bartering, and a wealthy merchant class

Capitalism

1. An economic system characterized by private ownership of the means of production and the creation of goods for profit.

2. Requires a cycle of investment and profit that stimulates economic growth.

Joint-Stock Companies

1. Business entities where multiple investors pooled resources to fund trade and colonization ventures, sharing profits and risks.

2. These companies shifted colonization from a state funded to a private enterprise, bringing economies closer to a market or capitalist system.

Enclosure Movement

1. The process in England of consolidating small landholdings into larger farms, leading to increased agricultural productivity but also rural poverty that occurred from the 16th to the 19th centuries (1600-1800s).

2. This movement was caused by a need for more food and efficient farming through a shift from an open field to a three field system. Only wealthy landowning farmers could facilitate the needed transition.

3. displaced many small farmers, pushing them to cities and contributing to urbanization and the labor force for industrialization.

Subsistence Agriculture

1. A farming system where farmers grow enough food to feed themselves and their families, with little surplus for trade.

2. Most peasants (the majority of the population) before the 17th Century (1600s) relied on subsistence agriculture and bartering for their livelihoods.

3. Increased reliance on a monetary (money) system and the Enclosure Movement made this way of life almost impossible