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Similarities Between 19th Century And 16th Century Imperialism

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During the 19th century, European nations took part in imperialism and expanded their influence to foreign lands across the globe. This expansion of influence marked a turning point in history compared to the expansion in the 17th and 16th centuries. Even Though the way Europeans treated the native populations were similar in their enslavement and taking advantage of them, these two periods differed since the 19th century was motivated by market and influence instead of gold as well as a new process of taking over by assimilation rather than conquering demonstrating that the 19th century was, in fact, a turning point. Both the time periods of the 19th century and the 17th/16th centuries were similar in how poorly Europeans treated native peoples. In the period of the 17th and 16th century, Europeans, namely Spain, enslaved the entire native …show more content…

In the period of the 17th and 16th centuries, the Spanish sought out to discover new lands and gold deposits in the New World. The system of mercantilism, where acquiring the most land meant the most power, motivated Spain to establish colonies throughout central and South America. El Dorado, a mythical “City of Gold”, inspired many Spanish settlers to continue inland in search of this fortune. However, these motivations were very different than the motivations of Europeans in the 19th century. In the 19th century, Europeans exhibited imperialism in the Eastern Hemisphere in order to expand their markets and acquire items to sell back in Europe. India and China were home to millions of people and possible customers for the industrialized Europe. The British established key port cities such as Singapore and Hong Kong in order to import their products for sale in these new markets. Furthermore, the desire for new markets marked a turning point in expansion from the previous search of just

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After the Ottoman Turks gained control of the Middle East, trade with Asia became difficult for Europeans across land. Many European explorers began searching for sea routes to Asia to renew trade. When explorers found the Americas, they had their mind set on gold to cope with the deteriorating European economy, but upon arrival and the realization gold was minimal, explorers enslaved many Natives and put them to work to produce another metal abundant in the area - silver. At the time, they really had no idea about the global impact silver would make. The discovery of silver by the Spanish in the Americas in the period of 1550 to 1700 brought about vast changes in economic exchange and production by making the world more interconnected through

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935 Words | 4 Pages

After meeting Montezuma, Cortés requested of the leader’s services to uncover the locations of the gold mines and to map the coastal waters. Cortés hopes to find regions along the New World’s coast safe enough to build forts to expand Spanish settlement and to transport tradable goods. Cortés’s urgency to locate the reserves extrapolates Spain’s focus in becoming one of the dominating world powers and an active player in the Afroeurasian trade competition. Cortés’s claim over the mines under the name of the Spanish Crown foreshadows the exploitation of the new lands to generate Spain’s wealth through the demand of gold.

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531 Words | 3 Pages

During the 16th and 17th centuries, the trade networks of Afro-Eurasia expanded into a truly global economy, where once isolated civilizations were now actively involved in global relations. Expeditions, expansion, conquest, and colonization, specifically by Western Europe, brought the Americas, Atlantic islands, and West Indies into the world network for the first time. Not only did this surge bring new crops, animals, and products into the trade network, it also created new economic techniques, like slaveholding. The period also saw once economically powerful nations lag behind, as Western Europe became a dominant force after a major shift in power. The economy of the 16th and 17th centuries differed from the previous trade networks because

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117 Words | 1 Pages

Spanish Florida was “an unanticipated discovery,” which was the first major European land in the New World. It was also the first attempted settlement in North America during the European Age of Discovery. From the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, the Spanish Florida, also known as La Florida, was a colonial military outpost for the Spanish Empire. La Florida was maintained for the protection of the Spanish treasure fleets during their return from Havana, Cuba to Spain. The success or failure of the Spanish settlements was in the hands of the native populations that needed food, protection, and labor.

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The 19th century was the era of the Gilded Age, where the economy was booming, bringing great changes that affected the lives of workers and entrepreneurs. During this period, there was a large influx of immigrants that were coming to America to look for job opportunities. The migration of immigrants proved useful as a source for cheap labor, allowing an even higher rise in the U.S. economy. While American industrialization may have benefited the upper class of the American society, the effects were opposite to the workers of the lower classes. This problem was especially worse for immigrant workers as their belief in the so-called American dream has been worn down due to the misery they had to endure.

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463 Words | 2 Pages

Colonialism and Imperialism affected our world both positively and negatively. On one hand, Imperialism has often been linked with racial segregation, manipulation, and hardship. On the other, it has been said that many colonial powers contributed much in terms of schools, roads, railways, and much more. Whether this time period was constructive or harmful, it has played a large part in shaping our lives today. European Imperialism started long before the 1800’s.

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The maltreatment continued throughout with evidence of this happening in Mexico with mass enslavement of natives on the Yucatan peninsula perpetrated in 1526 by Royal militants against rebellious natives more than ten years after the laws were decreed (Maxwell, 58). Though there was a development of clergy awareness in the rest of Latin American, notably by Bishop Bartholomé de las Casas in 1547 in which he demands all native slaves owned by Spaniards to be liberated, as he mistakenly believed the sole purpose of Spanish presence was to convert natives (Maxwell, 65). This leads to a sort of liberation to the owned slaves of Spaniards as they transition from perpetual servitude to indentured servitude, which does not change much in treatment of natives but it did change their residences. The liberation was later upheld by the papal bull Sublimus deus, that rejected the immoral decree held by Spaniards in America where “Indians” were subhuman and unworthy of having human rights; once again, the Latin American conquistadors do not follow it as is orders (Maxwell,

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With the Spanish primarily in Latin America and the English and French in the north, the Europeans toppled empires, destroyed villages, and killed countless civilians on false criminal charges (Leon-Portilla). The Atlantic Slave Trade followed on the heels of conquest after the Europeans had killed so many of the indigenous population that they no longer had enough workers on their plantations and in their gold mines. Millions of enslaved Africans were kidnapped from their homeland and forced to work for their white masters. This slave trade, while highly lucrative for the Europeans who gained both product and production, was ultimately detrimental to the governments and economies of

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Before the 20th century the United States was an isolationist nation but around the late 19th century America decided to convert into an imperialist power. They had numerous reasons to shift into being an imperialist nation. America didn’t want to begin imperializing to settle and live in the nations they were taking over, they already had America for that reason, they wanted to adopt these nations for what they had to offer, which was many things. America saw an opportunity to improving their nation and took it. Even if there were many causes for America to imperialize, three of them stood out the most.

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Bartolome de Las Casas describes the arrival of the Spanish on American soil as “cruel Tygres, Wolves, and Lions, enrag'd with a sharp and redious hunger; for these forty years past, minding nothing else but the slaughter of these unfortunate wretches, whom with diverse kinds of torments neither seen nor heard of before, they have so cruelly and inhumanly butchered, that of three millions of people which Hispaniola it self did contain, there are left remaining alive scarce three hundred persons.” This account for Bartolome de Las Casas exemplifies the cruelty and imperialistic side of Spain. Spain was not just seeking new land, resources, and riches, instead they were seeking a way to exploit natives as they saw them as

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734 Words | 3 Pages

European explorers and conquistadors during the age of exploration were motivated by three things: God, gold and glory. The two most prominent of the three between 1492 and 1607 were gold and glory. Beginning in 1492 gold motivated many explorers, from Christopher Columbus’s voyage to the New World to the Virginia Company’s colonization of America. Gold is a symbol for wealth, and many explorers soon realized the New World’s potential for wealth. The Spanish’s interest in wealth inspired Columbus’s expedition in the first place, as he was sent to India to trade for spices.

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At the start of the 19th century, America was already expanding its territory. In 1803, the United States of America had bought the Louisiana Territory, it was bought from France which had made the country two times larger. In 1819 Spain had given up their territory of Florida to the United States. President Monroe issued the “Monroe Doctrine” in 1823, its main purpose was to warn the European countries to not enter the Western Hemisphere. In order for America to achieve its goal of becoming an imperialist nation they had conquered other countries economically, culturally, and with a strong military in the late 1800’s.

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First Interaction The “Journal extract by Jacques Cartier on meeting the Micmac Indians (1534)” has many great examples of what it was like to be an explorer and how Europeans viewed the Americas. There were many different explorers and each has their own story. Jacques Cartier’s story is especially unique because historians believe that he was one of the first Europeans to have long interactions with the native people of the area they were exploring. That is one reason why I feel this document helps express the way Europeans viewed the Americas the best.

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First, mercantilism and distribution of resources. As Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson (2001) say, the main objective of the Spanish and Portuguese colonialists in the 19th century was to obtain gold and silver from America. As a matter of fact, Spanish conquest of American land was directed at first at the Aztec and Inca empire, which, beyond of having large supplies of food and climatic diversity, also possessed enormous amounts of gold and silver (Bakewell 2004, Mann 2005) and had already good economical organisation. Another example was Mexico, which had the largest deposits of silver in the world, and which therefore became one of the key points in the Spanish empire (Hamnett 1999). Nevertheless, Acemoglu (2001) states that for instance the Spanish empire granted rights of exploitation for lands, gold and silver mines, as well as labour, to a few powerful individuals, encomiendadores.

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131 Words | 1 Pages

The 19th century was a triumphant time, at least for western culture. European armies were starting to march around the world, from Africa to Asia, conquering and colonizing. As a result, European industry grew enormously, the standard of living rose dramatically, but in the process, millions of people from non-western culture were either killed, injured, or dehumanized. At this time, for Europeans, it was acceptable to grow from the exploitation of “the other”. Furthermore, to many Europeans, Western culture was superior to other cultures.

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