Blog #3 Economic Transformations
In this section of the reading, the book says that the Atlantic Slave Trade was not the only way the cultures were being mixed in the world. With the silver coming from the Americas, Western Europe was able to buy its way into the Asian trade commerce. Furs from the Americas helped their cause even further.
I am surprised that the Portuguese were able to create a trading post empire in the Indian Ocean. The book says that the Portuguese were able to forcibly create trading posts in areas such as Mombasa in East Africa, Hormuz at the entrance to the Persian Gulf and Malacca in Southeast Asia. I do not understand how the merchants in the Indian Ocean did not have a form of protection against pirates or attacking ships. The Portuguese deserved what they got for trying to create a monopoly on the spice trade to Europe. They were being greedy and it backfired on them in a major way. The Portuguese have still not been able to recover.
I found the Spanish brutality on the the Philippines Islands interesting. The spanish had constant hostility towards the Chinese because of the resistance to Catholicism. The Spanish often had to put down revolts and murder Chinese immigrants. What surprises me is that at one point the Spanish killed over 20,000 Chinese, which was almost the whole population on the islands. I feel that an event such as this would be more widely known.