Page 294 - Encyclopedia Of World History

644 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

Fortifications have also been a key component of empire building. This fort is
El Morro, built by the Spanish in San Juan, Puerto Rico and maintained as a
tourist attraction and educational facility.

Like most of their sea-borne predecessors, they set out in style, all of them sought to subordinate the colonies they
search of trade, not of the tribute that sustained land- established to the political will of the metropolis.
based empires.Trade would remain an integral feature of Most historians agree that these European overseas
these empires, so much so that many theorists and his- empires had an unprecedented effect on world history. By
torians have concluded that modern European imperial- bringing together parts of the world that had been effec-
ism was driven first and foremost by the demands of tively isolated from one another since the dawn of civi-
commerce and capitalism. But Western European states lization, they set in motion a series of changes that
also established the sort of centralized political control rippled around the globe.They brought about a transfer
over their overseas possessions that was more character- of diseases, plants, and animals which transformed envi-
istic of land-based empires than of previous seaborne ronments and societies almost everywhere. One of the
polities.This can be explained in part by the fact that they most immediate consequences was the sharp reduction of
were at the forefront of the military revolution precipi- indigenous populations in the Americas, Australia, and
tated by gunpowder weaponry, allowing them to exercise other regions where the arrival of deadly new microbes
power over greater distances than ever before. Above all, generated “virgin soil” epidemics, while over the long
however, it was due to the contemporaneous consolida- term the spread of new food crops supported an unpar-
tion of strong centralized states at home, which provided alleled growth in the world’s population. European over-
the incentives—and the blueprints—for the extension of seas empires also facilitated the transfer of peoples from
these policies and institutions abroad. one continent to another.
Portugal, the earliest and least developed of the Euro- Streams of emigrants from Europe settled in North
pean states that sought an overseas empire, had the least America,Australia, New Zealand, and other mainly tem-
success in establishing a political foothold in foreign perate lands, laying the foundations for what Alfred
lands. Its larger and more powerful neighbor, Spain, Crosby has aptly termed “neo-Europes.” At the same
effected a far greater transformation on the territories it time, millions of Africans were sent as slaves to New
claimed. And although France, England, Holland, and World plantations, while large numbers of indentured
other European states each had its own distinct imperial servants from India, China, and other lands sailed across