Page 101 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol V

1878 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

Lee, T. A., & Navarrete, C. (Eds.). (1978). Mesoamerican communication thirteenth centuries, respectively. Melaka, Mindanao, and
routes and cultural contacts (Papers of the New World Archaeological the Moluccas (the Spice Islands) were Islamic sultanates
Foundation,No.40).Provo,UT: New World Archaeological Foundation.
Masson, M.A., & Freidel, D.A. (2002). Ancient Maya political economies. when Portuguese and Spanish ships arrived in the six-
Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press. teenth century. Moreover, three vast Islamic empires—the
McKillop, H., & Healy, P. (Eds.). (1989). Coastal Maya trade (Trent Uni-
versity Occasional Papers in Anthropology, No. 8). Peterborough, Ottomans (Turkey), the Safavids (Persia), and the
Canada: Trent University. Mughals (India)—served as connectors between Asian
De Rojas, J. L. (1998). La moneda indígena y sus usos en la Nueva España Pacific islands and European marketplaces. Venice was
en el siglo XVI [Indigenous money and its uses in sixteenth-century
New Spain]. Mexico City, Mexico: Centro de Investigaciones y Estu- the key marketing power for Asian spices entering the
dios Superiores en Antropología Social. Mediterranean basin prior to the sixteenth century.
De Sahagún, B. (1950–1982). Florentine Codex: General history of the
things of New Spain (A. J. O. Anderson & C. E. Dibble, Eds. and The Portuguese sought Asian spices. In 1511 Albu-
Trans.). Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. querque conquered Melaka—a strategic hub connecting
Smith, M. E., & Berdan, F. (Eds.). (2003). The postclassic Mesoamerican trade networks of the South China Sea, the Indian
world. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
Ocean, and the Spice Islands. From this base, the Por-
tuguese subsequently established entrepôts along the
coasts of China (Macao in 1557) and Japan (Nagasaki in
1570).Vast networks of Indian Ocean and Asian Pacific
Trading Patterns, exchange predate the appearance of European powers.

While Portuguese ships transported perhaps half of the
Pacific pepper and spices that Europeans consumed during the
first half of the sixteenth century, Arabic, Indian, and
he Pacific Ocean comprises over one-third of the sur- Malay merchants continued to play an important role in
Tface area of the earth, is larger than all earthly land- the Indian Ocean trade, shipping spices through the
masses together, and equals all remaining oceans/seas Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and other traditional routes
combined. The Pacific is double the size of the Atlantic into the Mediterranean basin.
Ocean and contains more than twice the water. Spain’s imperial presence in the Pacific followed Fer-
Given the Pacific Ocean’s magnitude, it is unsurprising dinand Magellan’s crossing of the Pacific in 1521, in
that observers traditionally conceptualize it as a colossal search of an alternative route to the Moluccas. Although
barrier to interchange, and regard meaningful and lasting only one small Magellan ship (of several) finally returned
trans-Pacific activity as recent (perhaps post-WorldWar II) to Spain, its 500,000 pesos in spices generated a mod-
and unprecedented.Yet such conventional views are false: erate profit overall.Thus, Spaniards knew for certain that
Crucial trans-Pacific and intra-Pacific interactions have huge profits awaited future silver shipments from Mexico
been unfolding since the sixteenth century. Improved nav- to the Philippines. Over four decades of frustration fol-
igational technology turned oceans into freeways rather lowed, however, because powerful westward trade winds
than barriers to interchange. For example, unusually high and currents thwarted attempts to sail from the Asian side
wages in gold-rush San Francisco prompted its affluent of the Pacific back to the Americas. Miguel Lopez de
residents to have their laundry done in Canton, China, for Legazpi finally succeeded in 1565 by sailing a northerly
a brief time. Control of ports (or at least access to them) route past Japan and then southward down the American
has been crucial to Pacific history for centuries. coast back to Acapulco, a route subsequently followed by
the Manila galleons for 250 years (and followed by
Spices and the Arrival ships today in search of fuel economy). Legazpi estab-
of Europeans lished Spain’s first permanent settlement in the Philip-
Islamic traders were already established in Canton, in pines on the island of Cebu, but abandoned Cebu in
Gujurat, India, and in Sumatra by the ninth, tenth, and favor of Luzon’s great natural harbor in Manila Bay in