Chapter 14 What's the Significance

Indian Ocean Commercial Network

The massive, interconnected web of commerce in premodern times between the lands that bordered on the Indian Ocean (including East Africa, India, and Southeast Asia); the network was badly disrupted by Portuguese intrusion beginning around 1500.

"Silver Drain"

"Specie Drain"; Describes the siphoning of money from Europe to pay for the luxury products of the East, a process exacerbated by the fact that Europe had few trade goods that were desirable in Eastern markets; Eventually the bulk of the worlds silver supply made way to China.

Trading Post Empire

Creation by the Portuguese the Indian Ocean; aimed to control the commerce, not large territories or populations, and to do so by force of arms rather than by economic competition.

African Diaspora

Name given to the spread of African peoples and culture across the Atlantic via the slave trade.

Philippines (Spanish)

1450-1750 : An archipelago of Pacific islands colonized by Spain in a relatively bloodless process that extended for the century or so after 1565, a process accompanied by a major effort at evangelization; the Spanish named them the Philippine Islands in honor of King Philip II of Spain. Beyond missionary enterprise, other features of Spanish colonial practice in the Americas found expression

Potosi

City that developed high in the Andes (In present day Bolivia) at the site of the worlds largest silver mine and that became the largest city in the Americas, with a population of some 160,000; Its wealthy European elite lived in luxury, with all the goods of Europe and Asia at their disposal. This city sometimes referred to as a "portrait of hell".

"Soft Gold"

Nickname used in the early modern period for animal furs, highly valued for their warmth and as symbols of elite status

Tokugawa Shogunate

The military rulers of Japan who successfully unified Japan by the early seventeenth century and established a "closed door" policy toward European encroachments; Largely closed their country off from the emerging world of European commerce, although maintained their trading ties to China and Korea.

Benin / Dahomey

A west-African kingdom whose strong kinds sharply limited engagement with the slave trade; A West African kingdom that became strong through its rulers' exploitation of the slave trade.

British/Dutch East India Companies

Private trading companies chartered by the governments of England and the Netherlands around 1600; Were given monopolies on Indian Ocean trade, including the right to make war and to rule conquered peoples; Received charters from their governments granting them trading monopolies and the power to make war and to govern conquered peoples. English-India/ Dutch-Indonesia

Ayuba Suleiman Diallo

also known as Job ben Solomon, was a famous Muslim who was a victim of the Atlantic slave trade.