Blog #4

Chapter 14 (pp. 687-699) & documents

One of the first things I read made me sick; that back in the 14^th century the image of Africans held by Muslims was: “ black people were submissive to slavery because Negroes have little that is essentially human and have attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals”. Even though they still wanted slaves, I was impressed that the Europeans figured out they did not have to use guns and the like to get their slaves, but they actually wanted to do so peacefully and wait off the coast in their ships. This was made easier for them due to the fact that a lot of the Africans were willing to trade slaves for goods, money, guns and gunpowder as well as tobacco and alcohol. I had not realized that during the slavery years, that the amount of slaves that went to North America was only 3.6% compared to such large percentages going to the Caribbean and Brazil. They mention a few times of the elite Africans selling their own people as slaves or trading them for goods was also surprising but made perfect sense when Equiano spoke of one of the homes where he stayed had the same language spoken and they lived with the same customs he knew at his own home. The King of Portugal had told his people they only had to write a letter to him asking what they wanted  and King Alfonso finally wrote one, asking that he not allow the tradesman that came to their village to totally disrupt their way of doing things. The people of the village no longer wanted their relatives sold off to other countries.  Another ridiculous subject was the way that Osei Bonsu was so irritated that the King of England wanted to stop shipping slaves. Making fun of the fact that this would be the humane thing to do and stating that the book (Quran) made by God tells them to buy slaves and teach them good things…Very different to see views of someone who was put into slavery at the very young of age of 11 to reading about the African elites that facilitated traffic of slaves, then go to a letter from the same country, asking their King to stop letting the countries he is dealing with, come into their kingdom and take what they want. Seems that in the end, the only people wanting the slaves were the top officials in countries that made most of their wealth from the slave trade.

Blog #3

Chapter 14 (pp. 669-687)

Politics and religion both played roles in the economic transformations that took place through commerce and each had significant consequences. Eastern markets were not very interested in European products and therefore instead of trade, Europeans had to pay with cash/ gold and silver for their products. The Portuguese wanted to find their own sea route to India so they did not have to deal with Venetians or Muslims. Arabs, Persians, Indians, East Africans and some Chinese were mainly Muslims while Hindus, Christians, Jews and Chinese also had roles in the commerce network.  Portuguese wanted to have peaceful trade. They figured out most merchants in Indian Ocean did not have many arms or cannons like they did so they tried to out maneuver and set up many bases within that area.  Portuguese tried to control commerce to monopolize the spice trade and for a while partially blocked the Red Sea route which gave them control of about half of the spice trade to Europe. The Portuguese eventually carried Asian goods to Asian ports, were outnumbered by Asian traders and ended up marrying Asian women to get out of being controlled by the Portuguese government. Many converted to Islam. When their empire started to decline the slack was picked up by Japan, Burma, India and Persia. Other Europeans countries wanted to get a piece of the action for spice trade. Spain established colonial rule in the Philippine Islands and with the majority being Catholic, they had a major missionary effort being the only major outpost of Christianity in Asia.  Many Chinese settled in Manilla and were essential to Spain’s growing economic relationships.  However Spain turned hostile towards the Chinese and there were revolts and massacres with the Spanish killing approximately 20,000 Chinese on the island. The Dutch and English were even more of a threat to the Spanish than the Chinese. They killed around 15,000 to take over an island and then used slave labor to produce the crops. Europeans presence was much larger in the Americas and Africa than in Asia. Japan initially welcomed Europeans who had more knowledge with regards to military technology. Christianity converted at least 300,000 but after civil war, again Christian missionaries were destroyed, Christianity oppressed and Japanese were forbidden to travel due to Europeans now being regarded as a threat. Next to spices, silver was even more of a global exchange. Silver was the first direct link between Americas and Asia, with furs joining the global commerce next. Europeans population growth had diminished their supply of fur bearing animals and they looked to North America for deerskins for leather and skins besides fur. Native Americans and Siberians had same consequences when dealing with Western European and China; this leading to many dying because of diseases, germs, guns instead of bow and arrows and the introduction of alcohol. The Atlantic Slave Trade was the most profound in the network of commerce and exchange. It was an ancient practice of people owning and selling people. So here we have had greed, countries trying to take over certain commodities where they could get rich because everyone wanted these items. Religions not agreeing and yet going into wars and massive killings taking place and then the biggest of all, what was termed as the ancient practice of slave trade... all for making a buck and not letting everyone have a small piece of the pie instead of wanting the whole pie for themselves.

Blog #2

Chapter 13 (pp. 635-649) 

Different countries and their empires. 

     The Russians started to expand their territory at the same time Western Europeans were making their empires in the Americas.  The Russians started to take over the area of northern Asia that was around Moscow and pushed themselves all the way to the Pacific Ocean, expanding in several directions.  During this push, they encountered numerous other countrymen such as Germans, Ukrainians, and Baltic people, to name a few, who became a part of the Russian Empire.  Some areas were wanted for security purposes to stop the agricultural people from being sold into slavery while other areas such as the huge area of Siberia was wanted, so as to take advantage of the large population of furry animals, which pelts were in the highest of demand all around the world.  During the 18^th century Russian, led by the empress Catherine the Great created a state agency to look over Muslim affairs and she preached religious tolerance for Muslims.  Local people, because of the loss of hunting grounds and pasture lands became dependent on Russian markets for tea, tobacco, alcohol and sugar.  Over time Siberia and the steppes became part of the Russian state. “The Russian Empire represented the final triumph of an agrarian civilization over the hunting societies of Siberia and over the pastoral peoples of the grasslands" (Strayer 638).  Russians stayed dominant politically but the population became overwhelmingly multiethnic while at the same time becoming one of the biggest and wealthiest powers in Europe.  The question of Christianity and Islamic religions became more evident near the borders of China, India, Persia and the Ottoman Empire. This Russian empire stayed its own empire until 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed.  

     Asian Empires were also developing at this same time.  Eurasia was being taken over by the Chinese. “The Mughal Empire from Central Asia ruled the majority of the Hindu South  Asian under a single Muslim ruled political system and the Ottoman Empire brought Muslim rule to a largely Christian population in southeastern Europe as well as Turkish rule to largely Arab populations of North Africa and the Middle East”(Strayer 639). All of these Asian empires invoked cross-cultural encounters, the importance of which would be felt forever after.

     China had its own expansion of an empire however their rulers, who were from the area north of the “great wall” known as the Qing dynasty, decided to not allow marriage between the Chinese and themselves because they wanted to keep their ethnicity separate and distinct.  China eventually took control of large areas of land, but did so not for economic reasons, but for security as they felt threatened by the Russian Empire.  This was taken care of in a peaceful manner which marked a distinct boundary between Russia and China.  Something very notable was that in the areas where the Chinese or Qing officials had conquered or taken over regions of land, they did not try and make people try to adhere to their Chinese culture but allowed them to still use their own cultural ways of Muslim, Mongolian and Tibetan ways. 

     In the Mughal Empire in India, the ones who ruled and approximately 20 percent of the people were practicing Muslims while the majority of other people there favored some portion or another of Hinduism.  In what would appear to be a very intellectual decision, the Mughal emperor Akbar knew that most people were practicing some kind of Hinduism and included some in offices of the empire as well as built Hindu temples, palaces and the like.  At the same time he tried to “soften” some of the restrictions placed on Hindu women.  “Akbar imposed a policy of toleration” and met with leaders from many different religions including Buddhist, Jewish and Christian.  Later an emperor who succeeded Akbar, named Aurangzeb, ”reversed Akbar’s policy of accommodation to the Hindu people and sought to impose Islamic supremacy”, all of which later led to the demise of the Mughal Empire.

    As stated in the book “The Mughal Empire was the site of a highly significant encounter between two of the world’s greatest religious traditions. It began with an experiment in multicultural empire building and ended in growing antagonism between Hindus and Muslims.…and that in the centuries that followed, both elements of the Mughal experience would be repeated"(Strayer 644). Sad state of the world, as this still happens to this day.  If people were more tolerant of others’ religious beliefs, people may worship as they wish, and everyone could live more harmoniously with others, things just might be a little more peaceful.

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