HIST 015 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Portolan Chart, Portuguese Empire, Caravel
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●Commodification - making goods, services, ideas and not least people into commodities
or objects of trade
○Any object of economic value
○= Imperialism and Globalization
●Historical contingency - a future event or circumstance that is possible but cannot be
predicted with certainty
○Things in the past depend on other things
○Each map reflects the time it is created, what is important at the time, and what
has been seen.
●Phases of World History, 1500-1900
○1450-1650 - European exploration, early integration, to extraction
■Rices, spices, silks > silver, fish, fur
○1600-1700 - Agricultural transformation, slavery, Enlightenment?
■Sugar, tobacco, coffee
○1700-1900 - Industrialization and Nationalism and other ‘isms
■Cotton, coal, information tech, rubber
●Chinese Silk
○Silkworms are one of the most domesticated “animals” on earth
○Specialization of labor makes economy boom - kind of like an assembly line
○Silk does not have to be a luxury when it is cheap silk
■Europe only thought of China when they thought of silk, which is high
quality and considered luxurious
●Spice Trade
○Circulates throughout the Afro Eurasian world
○Pepper, Cinnamon, Cloves, Nutmeg, Mace
○Requires a lot of labor
○Considered luxury (no value, just make food taste good)
●Eurasian Trade, ~1490
○Between Asia: Rice, Silks Cottons, Porcelains, Spices, Horses
○Europe: traded Silver to Asia
○Asia: traded Spices and Silks to Europe
●Traditional Narrative
○Europeans are culturally better than other people.
○Europeans were seen as better and smarter than other people, had an innate genius
that no one other had.
○God chose Europeans to do this.
●Why did Europeans start exploring?
○Preconditions
■Weak
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■Metal
■Trading routes
○Africa is the initial target, not Asia
■Christian Allies: Prester John
●Central to why Europeans went exploring
●Showed up on almost every map
●Europe wanted to ally with Prester John to fight against the
Muslims
●Not real, mythical
■Slaves
■Gold
●How did Europeans manage to explore?
○Understanding Current/winds
○Used the compass adapted from the Chinese
○Portolan charts (mapping as they go)
○Astrolabe (allows them to figure out latitude)
○Ahmad ibn Majid - book of useful information 1490 - tells Europeans how to
navigate
○Vessels - came up with the Caravel
●Discovery of the Atlantic
○They discovered how to sail around the southern Atlantic Ocean.
PORTUGUESE EMPIRE
●Demographics
○Very small population: less than 1 million people
○65% of land you can grow on, but irrigation is a problem
○Only 15% of the population is urban
●Economy
○Imported labor from North Africa
●Government
○Very very stable
●Religion
○The Catholic Church and the Rise of the Portuguese Empire
■Prince Henry the Navigator , 1394-1460
●Henry hates Islam
●Battle of Ceuta, 1415
○Captured a North African Islamic port
●Order of Christ, 1417
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○Pope gives Henry jurisdiction over all lands, islands, and
places that have yet to be discovered by Portugal
●Continued expansion
○Pope gives Henry the rights so he can control the Church
●Treaty of Tordesillas , 1494
○Established by the Pope
○This treaty divided the New World into two parts, the
Eastern part for Portugal and the Western part for Spain.
Portugal got a small part (Brazil) of the New World, but
had the right to the Old World as well
■Catholic Church Global Missionary Project
●Problems
○Cost
■ No profit in the Church
○Organization
■Empire is literally on the other side of the world
○Demographics / Death
■⅓ of the people who try to run the empire DIE
○Acculturation / Inquisition
■Those who survive have to turn to local woman to make families
○Demand
■They got nothing to trade even though they wanted to trade.
SPANISH EMPIRE
●Cortes’ Conquests , 1519-1535
○Goes from Cuba to explore and conquer the Aztec Empire
○Population of Tenochtitlan falls from the disease the Spanish brought (smallpox,
etc)
○Disease and local allies aided the Spanish
●The Great Dying & Slavery
○Disease nearly wiped out Native population
●Spanish Conquest of the Incas (Peru and Bolivia)
○Potosi , 1545 - literally a mountain of silver
■Becomes largest city left in the Americas
■People moved here to extract silver - many of them enslaved
●Economy
○Based around mining
○Haciendas, Textiles
●The Columbian Exchange
Document Summary
Commodification - making goods, services, ideas and not least people into commodities or objects of trade. Historical contingency - a future event or circumstance that is possible but cannot be predicted with certainty. Things in the past depend on other things. Each map reflects the time it is created, what is important at the time, and what has been seen. 1450-1650 - european exploration, early integration, to extraction. Rices, spices, silks > silver, fish, fur. 1700-1900 - industrialization and nationalism and other isms. Silkworms are one of the most domesticated animals on earth. Specialization of labor makes economy boom - kind of like an assembly line. Silk does not have to be a luxury when it is cheap silk. Europe only thought of china when they thought of silk, which is high quality and considered luxurious. Considered luxury (no value, just make food taste good) Between asia: rice, silks cottons, porcelains, spices, horses. Asia: traded spices and silks to europe.
