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Lect9f17AgeofDiscovery.pptxLecture 9 Age of Discovery
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Topics
Age of Discovery: beginning of modern era; effects on Europe and rest of world; why Europe and not China?
Portuguese Empire
Dutch Golden Age
1. Portuguese Empire
Landes, Chap 6; Henry the Navigator (died 1460) encouraged astronomy, collection of technical information on currents and winds in Atlantic; voyages down African coast; commercial motivation
1488 reached Cape of Good Hope
1492 Columbus; 1498 Vasco da Gama to India; list of questions for next expedition
1. Portuguese Empire
Portuguese ships had cannon, could outsail Asian ships
Trading-post empire; highly profitable trade, esp in spices
Superior navigation in 1450? Landes says yes
No military superiority on land; better naval guns and fortifications (trace italienne)
1. Portuguese Empire
Trade routes: Egypt and Red Sea became dominant route for Asian trade after fall of Baghdad in 1258; Mamluks profited from this trade until 1517; then Ottomans; Red Sea route dwindled after 1600 with arrival of Dutch and English
Portugal’s license system for Asian traders; only partially enforced
1. Portuguese Empire
Why not China? See Landes on Zheng He voyages, p 93 on
He says the Chinese lacked curiosity, were not motivated by greed and passion…
Institutions versus culture
What would have happened if the Chinese were still in the Indian Ocean in 1500? Landes says the Europeans by then had better guns..
1. Portuguese Empire
Dutch started taking over around 1590
Portuguese internal weaknesses: Inquisition arrived 1540; loss of intellectual contact with rest of Europe
Good astronomers were suspected of being Jewish converts
Why did Portuguese lose out to the Dutch?
2. Dutch Golden Age
Landes, Chap 10, pp. 137-44 (The last part of the chapter after p 144 is not so relevant.)
Landes, Chap 12, pp. 173-85 (on Max Weber, “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism”
Wikipedia: Portuguese Empire, Dutch Empire; good maps
2. Dutch Golden Age
Low Countries history as commercial center
After 1400 they began to displace Hansa merchants in northern Germany; imports of grain from Slavic lands, furs from Russia; larger ships
Economies of scale in trade and finance; they outcompeted in commerce, not force
2. Dutch Golden Age
Protestant Reformation 1517; Protestant sects spread through northern Europe, parts of France, Low Countries, England
Low Countries became property of King of Spain in 1519; Catholic counter-Reformation, Spanish Inquisition
2. Dutch Golden Age
Spain repressed Protestants in Low Countries; war of independence 1580-1640; effective independence by 1609
Merchants migrated from Belgium to Netherlands; example of market for protection
Large navy; training of troops to use muskets
2. Dutch Golden Age
Golden Age 1600-1700
When Spain took over Portugal in 1580, Dutch were cut off from Asian trade; they spied on the Portuguese and then sent their own ships
To avoid Dutch ventures competing with each other, they quickly established the VOC (Dutch East India Company) to establish control and set prices
Dutch Golden Age
To secure spice monopoly, they took over Moluccas (Spice Islands); pepper can grow in many places, but nutmeg grew only on five Banda islands; cloves also had limited area
Ruthless program of ethnic cleansing of Banda population; nutmeg trees destroyed on all but one island; Dutch settlers and slaves were brought in to do the cultivation
2. Dutch Golden Age
Dutch were more effective than Portuguese in establishing trade monopoly on spices; they fought the English to keep them out
Some territorial occupation, not just trading post forts
Power and Plenty: you need protection for trade and trade for protection; similar to Venice and Genoa in Mediterranean
2. Dutch Golden Age
Dutch became trading center for trade within Europe: grain from eastern Europe (via Baltic Sea), furs and forest products from Russia (via Archangel); fish from North Sea
Amsterdam became the entrepot for Europe’s overseas trade: spices, cottons, New World products
2. Dutch Golden Age
Dutch took Java for sugar plantations, Ceylon for tea, Taiwan, South Africa, Brazil for sugar briefly; toe-hold in island off Nagasaki; cotton cloth from India
Gradually lost out to English (and French) after 1700; English Navigation Acts reserved English trade for English ships
Dutch Golden Age
We must not exaggerate the importance of the Asian trade for Holland; most trade was in Baltic, North, Mediterranean Seas; the fishing industry was very important
Total ships in 1634: 4250
Fishing fleet 2250
European trade 1750
Trade from East and West Indies 300
Dutch Golden Age
Per capita income in 1990 dollars; see Table 1 in Reader, p. 37
Highly urbanized; imported much of their food
First modern economy
Safety nets for the poor
How was it governed?
Per capita income in 1990 dollars
| 1500 | 1600 | 1700 | |
| W. Europe average | 774 | 894 | 1024 |
| Netherlands | 761 | 1381 | 2130 |
| Britain | 762 | 1043 | 1405 |
Dutch Golden Age
How was it governed?
States General was made up of representatives from the towns; Amsterdam dominated in population and influence
Town representatives chosen by leading citizens; town councils co-opted new members
