Triangular Trade

We as a world together have been through a lot of changes and made a lot of advances over the past couple of centuries. Many have argued about the outcome of the European expansion on the Americas. Some people feel that the Europeans had both a positive and negative impact on the expansion; however, the negative impact gave a devastating result, which would continue to change history for almost four hundred years. The Europeans were manipulative towards to indigenous people of the Americas. They exploited them, using them as their personal slaves. Most importantly, they silently murdered the Natives by introducing them to diseases such as the measles and smallpox. Consequently, a small pox epidemic was caused, which resulted in the deaths of at least ten million Natives. This exploitation and the introduction of these diseases to these people was done through the “triangular trade”.

The "triangular trade" is a historical term referring to the 18th-century trade between South America, New England, and the west coast of Africa. The commodities involved were several, but principally they were sugar, rum, and slaves. The trade brought much wealth to North America and the profits ultimately became the foundation of American capitalism. Sugar became an important commodity to meet the growing demands of Europeans drinking tea, coffee, and cocoa. Thus sugar was the earliest foundation upon which capitalism began to develop. South American and Caribbean sugar was also distilled into rum in New England, which was then traded in Africa for slaves owned by other Africans, and finally West African slaves were traded for sugar in South America. This forms a triangle on the map, hence the term "Triangular Trade." New England slave ships...

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... As the British increased their grip on Chinese trade, reformers recognized the need to adopt Western ways and implemented a self-strengthening movement. Although the movement had limited success, China eventually did modernize, expanding economically, improving their military, applying Western forms of government, and developing a sense of nationalism. Although British control of China was intended for Britain’s economic gain, the introduction of Western ways still benefited China greatly and gave rise to the Chinese republic. The past few centuries to me don’t seem to going to smooth. It seems that every country is just power hungry and selfish. All these stronger countries taking control over the weaker ones is in my eyes wrong. Instead of attacking a country for theirs good and means of income we should be helping each other survive, not killing one another.