During 1492-1750, the Atlantic world endured social and economic transformations due to new contacts among Western Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Some social changes that occurred among the Americas and Africans were the transformation of the Indies and the Africans to the bottom of the social structure and the creation of new classes, like the mulatto class, all because of Spanish dominance. The economic transformations that occurred were the creations of sugar plantations and gold mines, creating brutal labor for African slaves and American Indians. A continuity that remained throughout the period was basing the economy on agriculture.
As Spain and Portugal start dominating the eastern hemisphere, a new social structure starting taking place. The Spanish were obviously in the higher classes of the new colonies since they dominated the Indian societies for their cruelness and weaponry. The new classes that occurred were the peninsulares, creoles, and mestizos. The peninsulares were Spaniards who were born in Spain, and they were the highest class of the social structure. Creoles came after the peninsulares. They were Spanish parents who were born in New Spain. After the creoles came the mestizos who were Spanish and Native American Indian parents. The Native American Indians came after the mestizos. At the bottom of the social structure were the enslaved people who were brought from Africa and the Caribbean. The social structure was full of miscegenation, creating a new type of social structure because most countries consist of one race like the in China, Japan, and France. However, the Indian nobility remained throughout the period.
At first, Brazil was irrelevant to Portugal because the only thing they found useful there was their logwood. However, sugar started developing in Brazil. Ever since sugar was introduced to the Caribbean in 1493, Brazil became the biggest sugar producer by the 15th century. Brazil was the first sugar plantation colony with the help of the Portuguese and especially the African slaves. During the 17th century, about 7000 slaves were imported from Africa to Brazil, so they could be forced to work in the sugar mills. The forced labor was brutality and the conditions were terrible. There were unsanitary and dangerous, because the slaves had to chop the sugarcanes as close as they can to the ground. Because of that, many lost fingers and legs. However, Brazil lost their dominance of the sugar market in the 17th century because the English, Dutch, and French established their own plantation colonies in the Caribbean and produced sugar in the 1680s.
The trans-Atlantic interactions from 1600 to 1763 significantly contributed to maintaining continuity and fostering changes in the labor systems in the British North American colonies. When the colonies were founded, plantations played an important role. The Europeans maintained continuity of labor systems since the demand for labor was high in the colonies. By using African slave labor, they endorsed change to the labor systems.
Between the years of 1600 and 1763, the labor systems were transformed to compliment the demand of much needed labor. While the demand for labor stayed consistent throughout Triangular Trade, those who were cursed to endure the burden of labor went through compositional changes. Although slavery has always been seen as a European avocation, the Portuguese actually started the profitable occupation. However, the English quickly replaced the Portuguese as the dominators of the epidemic. The subtle emergence of racism also played a part in the evolving of the labor systems.
The expansion of Western Europe started with the Iberian phase. Spain and Portugal, the two countries of the Iberian Peninsula, had a short-lived yet important role in European expansion. European expansion then turned to Western Europe. Western Europe consists of the Dutch, French, and British. While Western Europe was exploring new worlds overseas, the Russians were expanding westward across all of Eurasia.
An early example of this was the creation of the republic of Indians. When the indigenousness people of America became known as Indians. At the start of this the Indian nobility capitalizes on their power and beings to assert influence on the poor Indians similar to the way the Spanish nobles controlled the Spanish peasants. It realigns wealth and title into the Native Americans’ society. The Native elites used their power and positioning to get out of labor systems like the Mita because they could use their influence to get lower class Native to take their place. The legal system enabled further subdivisions of hierarchies within racial and ethnic hierarchies existed class hierarchies. This allowed the wealthy natives to subjugate fellow Natives just as the Spanish subjugate fellow Spaniards. We can see they Ayllu breaking down because of internal conflict between the Native nobles and the regular natives. We can also see this among Spanish elites and commoners. The elites were granted access to certain positions such as commerce and high-ranking government positions. The poor Spanish and creoles had limited access to education specifically the women. The groups with the most rights were the Spaniards and the Creoles but among these two there were big differences. The Creoles could not hold the highest positions in the
Evidence of African roots are identifiable throughout Brazil. Brazil is the second most populated country of Blacks. Many different tones from mulatto to caboclo to black are present with culture that has flourished since African slaves first arrived to the country. The slaves that came to South America, brought their religion, gods, and music along with them, giving Brazil a cultural identity and a place among other nations. The profits of African slavery have allowed Brazil to gain capital and build a government based mainly on sugar exports. Although Brazil was the first to claim themselves free of racism, throughout history they often put slaves in even worse conditions than the US. Easy accessibility to import African slaves, meant that
the Portuguese had a sudden interest in Brazil because of French and Spanish invaders, and because of the economic downfall that was taking place in India. The Spanish were succeeding in Peru, which in turn made the Portuguese bitter, but the Portuguese still believed that Brazil had a value yet to be discovered. The thriving of Brazil finally came with the introduction of sugarcane during the mid-sixteenth century, but the Portuguese did not see much success until after 1570. Sugarcane trade was primarily in control of Muslims; prior to expanding their empires, the Europeans made a devastating political choice of expelling Moors from Europe, which in turn caused the Muslims to stop sugar trade with the Europeans. Therefore, sugar became
Originally, sugar started in Southwest Asia and made its way to the New World by Christopher Columbus in 1492. He started to grow it in this new tropical environment and the plant grew rapidly. Due to the success of this plant, other colonies wanted to get their hands on it. The colonists spread the plant out to the European colonies, Spanish colonies, and the Portuguese brought sugar to Brazil. Sugar made its way all around the world.
The movement of goods, people, and wealth in the late 17th and 18th centuries permanently changed societies across the continents of Europe, Africa, and North and South America, thereby increasing the reach of globalization in the modern age. Most influential to this movement was what is sometimes referred to as “The Atlantic Circuit”, a triangle of trade between Western Europe, western Africa, and the West Indies. Out of this circuit came the rapid growth of the Atlantic slave trade, which not only established multiple industries of agriculture, but significantly changed the economies of all countries involved. The agriculture industries, in combination with further colonization transformed the land of the Americas, and the impacted diets across the world. Capitalist systems and mercantilist policies provided structure to trade, and allowed both private investors and nations to profit from it. These systems laid the foundation for future economies by creating new levels of power and interaction between the private and public sectors and, in the process, generating many successes and failures.
Slavery in Brazil began long before the first Portuguese settlement was established in 1532. Because certain forms of slavery had existed for centuries on the continent of Africa, Brazilian historians used to say that us blacks imported from across the Atlantic, were ready to accept their new status as ''Slaves''. Slave labor was the driving force behind the growth of the sugar economy in Brazil. Gold and diamond deposits were discovered in Brazil in about 1690, which sparked an increase in the importation of African slaves to power this new market. According to many depressed characteristics, Brazil is identified as a developing country, nevertheless is occupies a special place on the list of these countries. Having a huge potential and a high level of economic development, Brazil has found a place on the list of the highest slavery rates. With that being said then you could already ready conclude that there where many slaves imported to the country, Brazil. Brazil had the largest slave population in the world, substantially larger than the United States. The Portuguese who settled Brazil needed labor to work the large estates and mines in their new Brazilian colony. They turned to slavery which became central to the colonial economy. It was particularly important in the mining and sugar cane sectors. Slavery was also the mainstay in the Caribbean islands with economies centered on sugar. Estimates suggest that about 35 percent of captured Africans involved in the Atlantic slave trade were transported to Brazil. Estimates suggest that more than 3 million Africans reached Brazil, although precise numbers do not exist. Brazil had begun to turn to slavery in the 15th century as explorers began moving along the coast of Africa.
Disease and Medicine along with war and religion were three ways American history has changed. When the colonists came over from Europe they unknowingly changed the world forever in ways they couldn't have imagined. These effects were present to both Native Americans and Europeans. Some of these changes made life easier for both Native Americans and Europeans but some made relations worse too. And some effects wouldn't show up until it was too late.
By 700 A.D., it was seen that sugar was diffused to the Mediterranean region by Islamic expansion and trade as sucrose was viewed as an exotic spice and medicine (Nunn, Nathan). In 1452, Portuguese sugar production began on Madeira, an uninhabited island off the northwest coast of Africa. Indigenous peoples were the first workers brought to island of Madeira to work on the sugar mills, but the need for labor was too much. To get help with more labor, the enslaved African Americans were brought in and they became the main labor force for the sugar industry. By 1500, Madeira became the largest exporter of sugar in the world (Dunn, R.). With the success of the cash crop and the labor provided by the African Americans, sugar production was seen to have spread to other Atlantic islands; first it was the Canaries, then Santiago in the Cape Verde islands but these islands lacked the required rainfall for good cane culture. This is where the Portuguese, and then later the Spanish, Dutch, and English came to set their sights on other areas to continue this white gold sugar industry hoping to expand the production and gain
Slave labor is the final factor that drove the sugar trade and made it so successful. Slaves were the manual laborers on the plantations, doing the actual harvesting and boiling because the owner wasn’t there to do so (Document 8). Without the slaves working the farm, everything was pretty much useless. There is also a direct correlation between the number of slaves and the tons of sugar produced. This is shown in Document 9, where the island of Jamaica starts out with 45,000 slaves, and produces 4,782 tons of sugar. When the number of slaves increases by less than half to 74,500, the amount of sugar produced is more than tripled at 15, 972 tons. This clearly exhibits how slaves were essential to sugar
The formation of the Atlantic slave trade did distinguish the difference between the societies’ of slaves. Berlin quotes, “In societies with slaves, slavery was just one form of labor among many” as well as “these societies were built on labor and how one should live”. The sellers or the businessmen of the trade made slaves work harder, driving their proprietors to new, already unheard of the status of wealth and power to gain financial
In 1500's the Portuguese, led by explorer Pedro Alvares Cabral, arrived in Brazil. One of the first measures taken by the new arrivals was the conquering of the local population, the Brazilian Indians, in order to allow the Portuguese slave labor (for sugarcane and cotton). The experience with the Indians was a failure. The Indians quickly died in captivity or fled to their nearby homes. The Portuguese then began to import slave labor from Africa. On the other side of the Atlantic, free men and women were captured, loaded onto slave ships and sent on nightmare voyages that would end in bondage.
European exploration brought many new ideas and practices to the world. Europeans exploration discoveries brought negative and positive impacts to the society they were building. The explorations was a success for many countries, but it also was a loss for a lot of Native Americans people. The exploration started a new mankind, it gave countries and people items they never had. The discovery of new world was a big impacts from the European exploration. Countries were now fighting over lands and the resources that were on the land. Slavery and the Columbian change were also big impacts from the exploration. The world changed because of these three big impacts of the European explorations. There