What Was The Difference Between Land Based And Maritime Empires

Between 1450 and 1820, land-based and maritime empires facilitated the diffusion of goods from local, isolated areas to the rest of the world. Two of the main maritime empires who were catalysts to this phenomena were the Spanish and Dutch Empires. Both were large maritime empires who sought to increase their exports in order to garner more wealth and power. That reasoning had global and local consequences. Globally, this brought about a global web of trade routes and commercialization with the use of Spanish silver as a standard currency and brought about a change from mercantilism towards capitalism. Locally, this brought changes in the social hierarchy and increasing hostilities with the native inhabitants. These changes are evident in places

This opened the gateway for exploration of different areas of the globe, which set the path for the subjugation of native inhabitants and the creation of colonies. With these new colonies, empires would set up Mercantilist practices, in which colonies would be used as means of production for trade goods that would profit the government, and native inhabitants would be used as the labor force. For example, the Spanish updated mita the system, program of mandatory public service left over from the Inca, in order to force workers into working the silver mines at Cerro Rico. As shown by the picture in the book (Harsh Labor in a San Potosi Silver Mine), which depicts miners hollowing out Cerro Rico, Spain was intent on mining more silver in order to pay off debts it had incurred from wars. Spain had mined out so much silver that it was called the Spanish silver sieve by historians. In which Spain would mine out so

Empires were beginning the shift away from mercantilism and towards capitalism and free trade. The VOC was one of the first chartered companies, or a modern day corporation, in which investors and merchants had a say in which direction the company will take in terms of trade and colonization instead of the government, and in turn the company will pay a business tax. A direct contrast to mercantilist policy. One of the objectives of the VOC was to destroy, and take over bases of the Portuguese and Spanish in South Asia. They took over Indonesia and gained monopolies of a multitude of spices (Panorama 530). The spice trade was a major success in East Asia, and the VOC held a near monopoly of most spices. In 1652, the VOC created a halfway station for ships making the arduous journey to the East Indies at the Cape of Good Hope (Panorama 561). Throughout that colonies existence, relations with the native Khoisan people remained strained. The Dutch, in contrast to the Spanish, didn’t attempt to enslave the Khoisan people, and instead imported slaves from different areas to build the colony. To an extent, the Dutch didn’t understand the Khoisan people until Peter Kolben came almost half a century later, and wrote an account about the Khoisan people and sent it back to Dutch