Prompt: Analyze the social and economic transformations that occurred in the Atlantic world as a result of new contacts among Western Europe, Africa, and the Americas from 1492 to 1750.
The Atlantic world during the near end of the 15th century introduced western Europe into a more globalized economy and a drastically changing social structure, due to interactions between explorers from the age of exploration with the societies of Africa and the Americas. The contacts that western Europeans made between the people of Africa and the Americas was a catalyst to the expansion of the western European economy because they were able to obtain new crops, metals, and other resources that would be in high supply and demand. Not only that, but it also had drastic changes on the social structure of the African and American societies due to the effects of European colonization, which interconnected the cultures and social classes of the Atlantic world.
During the late 15th and early 16th century, western Europe just recently exited from the middle ages and would begin to expand their socioeconomic power by initiating expeditions into foreign areas in the hopes of returning with valuable resources. Western Europeans would begin to more often seek resources and imperialistic power in areas besides Eurasia, which they would have usually done their empire building and economic business in. For example, during the 1400s western European nations started to go by the notion of “gold, god, and glory” to express their mission of searching for valuable resources (gold), spreading their western values which included their faith in Chrisitianity (god), and the overall goals in strengthing their own imperialistic power (god). The notion of “gold, god, and glory” would shape their economy in a whole new different direction where they would start to capitalize on African slavery and Native-American indentured servantry, harvest their resources such as silver, cotton, tobacco, sugar cane, maize, and etc. Not only that, but it would also reconstruct the cultures of African and American societies such as the slaves who would end up in Brazil would conform to speaking Portuguese or how the dominant language of the Haitian population today is French because of the French colonizers who controlled the nation all the way up to the beginning of the 19th century. The blend of cultures also resulted in mix bred people such as the creoles, mestizos, peninsulars, and etc. One characteristic that did remain the same throughout the era was their spread of Christianity. Even before 1492, western Europeans attempted to spread Christianity throughout the world to people such as the Slavic peoples of Eastern Europe, Chinese Confucianists, the Japanese during shogunate rule, and etc. Western Europeans would attempt to erase the heretic beliefs of the African and American societies and replace it with Christianity as they believed it was the only true religion to follow in order to receive salvation in heaven. It would help to explain why many areas today in North and South America are dominantly Christian. These areas would include the United States where the majority of the American population is Protestant while areas in Latin America such as Mexico are dominantly Roman Catholic.
Meiji Japan and Korea during the 19th and 20th century is similar to the Atlantic world since Meiji Japan not only entered an era of socioeconomic development right after an era of feudalism, but they also took over areas such as Manchuria (Trading network) and Korea (colony). The Japanese during the beginning of the Meiji era began to modernize themselves and would seek out people and resources needed to catch up with the rest of the other modernized nations during the era. The Koreans would have represented the African slaves and indentured Americans of the Atlantic world. For example, Koreans were exploited the most by the Japanese since they would usually use the males as laborers or soldiers, and females as prostitutes for Japanese soldiers and nobility. Western Europeans would also have also used male slaves for most of their labor since they believed that African male slaves were more capable in strength of managing all the work in comparison to that of a female.
During the 17th century to mid-18th century, some western European nations who had formerly experienced socio economic growth, began to decay, as a result of the colonies they had controlled in Africa and the Americas. For example, Spain by the 1600s became bankrupt because they invested too much into their colonies, had limited labor in their very own country, and faced high inflation rates due to the excess import of precious metals such as silver and gold. These factors negatively affected Spain because it would propel them into increasing taxes for the poor of Spain and would force the monarchy to lead Spain into wars that would only end in failure making their socioeconomic situation even worse for them. Spain failed to invest more into manufacturing and productive trading which would have allowed them to avoid the consequences of their poor economic choices. Not only that, but Other western European powers during this time period such as Britain and the Netherlands made strategic investments in manufacturing in trading, which allowed them to experience periods of industrialization such as Britain who would become the first industrialized power in the first half of the 19th century. One characteristic that continued to remain the same even after this time period were the effects of early industrialization. Investments in important necessities such as manufacturing machinery helped to produce more goods like the the spinning jenny that helped revolutionize the textiles industry or the railroad which helped by revolutionizing the transportation of people and goods.
China during the Ming dynasty and the Qing can be compared to Spain as they also made poor economic choices leading to a similar economic downfall. For example, one mistake that resulted in the economic (as well as empirical) downfall of the dynasty’s was choosing an economic policy of self-sufficiency which closed their doors to foreign trade and economic business because they believed that they did not need the help of the outside world in order to advance themselves. As a result, they would seclude themselves from the rest of the world which prevented them from observing the socioeconomic and technological innovations that would be occurring in western Europe. Spain made a similar mistake by making the poor economic choice of focusing too much on their colonies as they thought that everything they needed could be supplied from their colonies, and forgot to realize that there were shortages of labor at home making lives of those who stayed in Spain difficult.
The Atlantic world experienced several socioeconomic transformations that resulted in a more interconnected social structure in the Americas, drastic expansion in the western European economy, and the consequences that varied in several western European areas as a result of western European colonization and economic exploitation of the African and American societies.