GHIST 102 01/09/2013
Motivated by economy (reaching the gold of west Africa) and
geopolitics (encircling and isolating the muslims)
Eased and intensi’ed relations between various parts of the worls
International exercise
2 wings of exploration:
African wing – sought products such as slaves or gold.. sought people
to raid or trade with
Atlantic wing – sought exploitable uninhabited lands
Vasco da Gama (1498)
Pedro Álvares Cabral (1500)
Calicut’s ruler: the zamorin
1/11/2013 – Columbian Exchange, Maize & Other
Things
01/09/2013
“trade cannot be conducted without war, nor war without trade:
Jan Pieterszoon Coen, head of the dutch east india company
Cortes Advantages
Better weaponry
Good at making alliances (germs and disease)
Columbian Exchange
The role of maize in global ecological and demographic changes:
The West African Coast: the Asante Empire
omaize was easily transportable, increase in carbohydrate
intake.
oRitualistic, elites encouraged it.
The Veneto (Venice, economic superpower): agrarian crop revolution
oRevolutionized peasant’s cultivating habits, dominant crop.
oMarket crop in Italy, but also traded throughout Europe.
Ethiopia (East Coast of Africa): no political incentives to change;
little e?ects on diet and farming
oMinor crop. No political incentive to change.
Sustained contact across the Atlantic Ocean → exchanges in politics
and ecology
Specifically:
→ transfer of new elements of political economy and new economies
of labor
→ foundation of empires of extraction (i.e. the forcible removal
of natural and human resources, such as gold, spices, slaves, etc.)
→ exchange of organisms
→ new foods and crops which transformed the agrarian systems
→ new ideas
→ reframing of cultural universes
→ changes in material life
HOT SEAT 1/11/13 01/09/2013
1) Whatis Cortes attitude towards the Aztecs? Please ‘nd a signi’cant
quote.
Western world thought everyone else were savages
2) HowDid the Spanish react to supposed Aztec cannibalism? On what
grounds do they take for themselves the right to punish?
Probably thought it was weird
3) Whatdoes Cortes say to be the purpose of his travel?
“I came to teach them to worship 1 god.”
4) Whatpolitical ideology did Cortes bring to the Aztecs?
5) Whatis Cortes’s reason in this document for mentioning
cannibalism? What doescannibalism indicate?
Hot seat discussion:
1) Thebasics: What is the Florentine Codex?Who is Bernardino de
Sahagún? Who are the Nahua?
2) Howwould you describe the gender and sexual ideologies of Spanish
colonialism? Andthat of the Nahua?
3) Whatwas immoral for the Spanish missionary? And what was
immoral for the Nahua?
4) Whatdid Sahagúnbelieve to be the connection between religion and
