Perry #12, "17th c. Slave traders"

Slave traders during the 17th century casually describe the cruel treatment of slave purchase and transportation in Africa.

Slaves captured from inland Africa are brought to the coast and held in prisons until they are purchased by a slave trader. When the slave traders come the slaves are stripped and inspected for any diseases or other maladies.

The slaves that are purchased are branded to mark them for a specific country and so that they may not be exchanged for a worse slave.

After they are purchased and branded they wait until the weather is good enough for sailing. They are given small pieces of canvas to wraps around their waists during the cold months.

The captured slaves are usually prisoners of war, taken as spoils of war, some are sold by their own countrymen, and others are criminals being punished. Very rarely do parents sell their children, or husbands sell their wives.

Many of the slaves try to either escape or kill themselves, Their view of slavery, though probably better than their conditions at home, is similar to our view of hell. Some drown themselves or throw themselves into an ocean full of sharks. To prevent this, some traders cut off the arms and legs of the most willful slaves to terrify the rest.

While on the boats the slaves are shackled one person to another. They are fed twice a day at 10 in the morning and 4 in the afternoon, when they are most likely to try to escape. The traders keep many guns and overseers with whips on the ship to deter and prevent mutiny.

Dutch Trade and Commerce

Even though the Dutch lacked natural resources that could sustain trade, the Dutch created very successful trade connections and modeled a modern day economy by lowering duties, saving expenses on ships, and creating a monopolized trading company.

Background on the Dutch Trading:

· Dutch rebelled against their sovereign, the Spanish king Philip II, in that they sought trade in the Americas and East Indies

· Philip II, having been the king of Portugal in 1580, banned the rebellious Dutch from trading in his ports

· Dutch merchants decided to break the Portuguese monopoly over trade with the East Indies

· Created East India Company, which built the foundation for their colonial empire; Inspired other European states to establish monopolized trading corps

· Dutch became extremely successful, attracted attention of other countries

John Keymer’s analysis of the Dutch trading system

****Englishman John Keymer published a series of tracts urging major reforms in English economic policies with these following points

· Liberty of free-trafficking for strangers to buy and sell in Holland

· Small duties levied upon merchants, draws all nations to trade with them

· Fashioned ships continually freighted before others, by reason of their few mariners and great bulk, serving the merchant cheap

· Their employment of herring boats for fishing, and the great returns they make

· Their giving free customs inwards and outwards

Perry v1: Equiano

Rob Edwards

Equiano “Memoirs of a Former Slave”

• An 18^th century African from present day Nigeria

• His life was unlike most slaves, he educated himself, started trading, and eventually purchased his freedom

• Upon his capture in africa, Equiano thinks that he is being taken to a terrible place full of demons to be killed and eaten

• Fear of the unknown makes him still wish to be a slave in his native country

• He is whipped for not eating, and all the slaves on the ships are kept in terrible conditions with awful smells and quality of sanitation

• As the slaves are kept under the hot deck of the ship, many of them die from the sheer lack of clean breathable air

• Describes how the white man is the cruelest beast he has ever seen

  • They will beat the blacks almost to death, and the ones that do die on the voyage are simply tossed over the side like brutes

• The full length of the journey is over 2 months to cross the Africa to the West Indies, and many slaves died along the way

• All the slaves are astonished at the technology that the white man has once they arrive in the new world

• After having their predicament explained to them by veteran slaves, all of the new crop was sold off or put to work

• Many families were separated, and the selling of the slaves was extremely emotional for those blacks that lost family members to distant masters

  • Equiano claims that this “adds fresh horrors even to the wretchedness of slavery.”

Perry: Bernal Diaz del Castillo

Rob Edwards

Bernal Diaz del Castillo, “The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico”

• Castillo (1492-1581)

  • accompanied Hernando Cortes on his conquest and wrote a first hand account of Montezuma and his courtiers

• Montezuma is a powerful, happy looking man that had many women as mistresses

• He commands power and respect from everyone

• All people that entered into his presence had to put on very cheap clothes to humble themselves in his presence

  • Even foreign leaders were forced to show respect

• Rumored that he would eat the flesh of young boys, although his feasts were always so extravagant that it was hard to distinguish one thing from the next

• Cortes was forced to make it clear that he did not want to be served any human flesh

• The dinners also include smoking a mixture of sweet gum and herbs called “tabaco” by the Aztecs

• Another house holds many Idols that are the fierce gods of the Aztecs, as well as a ton of carnivorous animals

• Often make a human sacrifice to these idols, which consists of tearing out the heart and then eating much of the rest of the body

• The aztecs also keep many snakes to also feed on the human sacrifices

• Every man who is employed is incredibly skilled, whether it be gem cutting, painters and sculptors, or the women who did the weaving

• There is a humongous market called Tlaltelolco

• Large slave trade in the empire

• Very advanced water system

• Cortes tries to erect a cross and is scolded by Montezuma for denying the authority of the Idols

• Cortes and others find the humongous storage of wealth in Montezuma's palace, and say that it is most likely the most valuable collection in the world

Palmer 13 Question 2

On pg 119, a monk is teaching to a class at the University of Salamanca in Spain. Although the vast majority of the students are male (there are over 30), there are 5 female students.
-After the protestant reformations, society was not as patriarchical as before.
-Under Queen Elizabeth of Castille in Spain and Queen Elizabeth II in England, noble women were encouraged to get a formal education.
-Vast majority still male students
-Education opened to a wider range of students, because the need for educated men was increasing, especially in the field of law
-from nobels (esquires) to peasants (plebians)
-biggest group was "hidalgos", or lesser nobels aspiring to church or government positions.
-hundreds of english "grammar schools" and french "colleges" were started by the philanthropy of the upper class
-Oxford
-Cambridge
-Eton
-Ursiline sisters
-Salamanca
-Harrow
-beginning of the concept of universal education
-education by no means was universal, but the importance of a good education in life was beginning to be recognized more than before

Palmer #13 Question 3

Palmer #13, Question 3

Will Stewart

“How did the economic changes of the 16^th and 17^th century affect the rural classes of Eastern and Western Europe differently?”

Thesis: In Western Europe, the commercial revolution proved advantageous to the middle class and peasants, while it benefited the lords in Eastern Europe.

I. Western Europe

a. Towns strongeràmanors weaker

b. Lightened burdens of manorial system, increased independence of peasantry

c. Peasants were technically free under law

d. Owed virtually no forced labor to their lord

e. Could migrate, marry, and learn trades

II. Eastern Europe- Germany, Poland, Russia, Bohemia, Hungary

a. Lords benefited from commercial revolution

b. Increased prices and expansion of shipping gave lords incentives to increase output

c. Peasants became serfs, closer to slaves than lower classes

d. Owed certain amount of days (called robot in Bohemia) to work lord’s land, used rest of time for their own land

e. Couldn’t leave manor, marry, or learn trades without lord’s express permission

f. Lords became entrenched in their domains

g. Social structure set in stone, little dynamism or innovation

Palmer #11, Question 3

Palmer #11, Question 3

Will Stewart

“How would you assess the nature of the Spanish empire in America? What negative and positive aspects would you mention?"

Thesis: The true nature of the Spanish empire in America is murky, as it had both positive and negative impacts on America and the world as a whole.

I. Background

a. Spanish empire based in South America, Mexico, and the Caribbean

b. Turned national energy of reconquista outwards, used it in America

i. Set up Inquisition in America

c. Spain regarded empire as means of production for mother country

II. Negative Aspects

a. Civilizations and cultures destroyed

i. Inca, Aztec, etc.

b. Indians put into servitude, essentially slaves for Spanish

c. Spread diseases that destroyed entire Indian populations

d. Exploited the vast natural resources of the land

III. Positive Aspects

a. Indians were actually better off than they were under tribal leaders

i. They weren’t free then either, they were now spared from tribal war, and the Inquisition was practically humane compared to the practices of the Aztecs and Incas.

b. 5 European style universities were set up in America by 1636

c. Spanish set up trade routes for the silver they mined

i. Manila Route- silver went from Mexico to Manila, silver was traded for Chinese goods, these transported back to Mexico, across to the Atlantic, then back to Spain

ii. First global network for commercial exchange

iii. Sustained Asian-American-European trading system

Keymer: On the Dutch Trading System

Keymer describes the Dutch economy and notes the reasons that it was so successful.

· Have little internal production, so they were forced to develop trade

· Government is not as regulatory and permits for beneficial trade practices, such as free entrance into the country and selling of goods within by strangers

· Superior ships and smaller fleets mean cheaper and faster shipping

· Duties encourage trade with Dutch

· Eagerness and innovativeness

· Using naval infrastructure to increase fishing

“They drain, and still covet to exhaust, the wealth and coin of this kingdom, and so with our own commodities to weaken us, and finally beat us quite out of trading in other countries"

Palmer #12 Question 3

-system developed to compete with guilds
-entrepreneurs "put out" the work to rural families, giving the supplies they needed (like looms)
-people would give the entrepreneurs back finished products and would be paid for their services.
-became a gendered division of labor
-women spun wool into thread
-men wove thread into cloth
-Clothers dealers in Rouen developed a cheaper way to spin cloth, the guild banished it to protects its own members, and the entreprenuers put the work on the peasants, bypassing the guild's regulations

Palmer #11 Question 2

-in 15th century, people had no way of judging longitude based on the stars
-learned geographer greatly misjudged the distance to Asia going westward
-when Columbus landed, he thought he was in the Indies
-named the people "Indians" and the island the "West Indies"
-although he had found land, it did not match descriptions of the incredible Far East.
-Until Columbus's death in 1506, he continued to search for the elusive passage to the East
-Church and government officials readily accepted the new landmass for what it was: a new horizon for conversion and wealth
-Conquest began immediatly

Olaudah Equiano, - Memoirs of a Former Slave

Olaudah Equiano – Memoirs of a Former Slave

Thesis: Equiano describes his experience into bondage and questions slavery and its controversy with Christian values.

Describes his capture from Nigeria and experience on a slave ship

· “When I was carried on board, I was immediately handled, and tossed up, to see if I were sound, by some of the crew” – treated like “goods”

· He describes his astonishment to their different looks

o “Their complexions too differing somuch from ours, their long hair, and the language they spoke….Indeed, such were the horrors of my views”

· Explains the fear and hopelessness he had felt

o “if ten thousand worlds had been my own, I would have freely parted with them all to have exchanged my condition with that of the meanest slave in my own country”

· He fainted from the sight of all the other slaves and realization of his fate

· Loss of hope – “I now saw myself deprived of all chance of returning ot my native country, or even the least glimpse of hope of gaining she shore”

· Equiano describes the conditions under ther decks where he was kept

o Foul stench, crowded, many people got sick

o “with the loathsomeness of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat…I now wished for the last friend, death, to relieve me”

· He got flogged because he refused to eat due to his illness

o Even contemplated jumping overboard to escape the slave holders

· Under the deck

o “the looseness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself”

o this produced an environment breeding illnesses

· Equiano expresses his sorrow and hope

· He meets some people from his own country

o “which in a small degree gave ease to my mind”

o told Equiano that they were going to work in another country

§ “if it were no worse than working, my situation was not so desperate”

o still thought he was going to be killed

· At the slave merchant – separated into sex and age

· Saw people on horseback and other technologies they did not have

o “I did not know what this could mean; and indeed I thought these people were full of nothing but magical arts”

· “O ye nominal Christians! Might not an African ask you, learned you this from your God? Who says unto you, Do unto all men as you would men should do unto you.”

o Questions their commitment to Christianity and morality of slavery

Slave Trade

The 17^th Century Slave Traders

BUYING AND TRANSPORTION AFRICANS

Perry v.1

Thesis: Dealing in slaves was a profitable business that attracted numerous entrepreneurs.

- The slaves are brought down to the shore and placed in a prison.

- They are separated into groups of health or unhealthy (Mackrons)

- The healthy slaves are then branded with the English, Dutch, or French brand.

- They then await the slave ships and upon boarding are granted a piece of canvas to cover themselves.

- Most slaves are prisoners of war, or are sold by their villages during times of extreme hardship.

- Some slaves would starve or drown themselves rather than be herded onto a ship and taken from home.

- The slaves are shackled and guarded by guns, and fed twice daily.

Paul Brazil

Capitalism in Amsterdam

Thesis: The Dutch Republic’s abundance of supplies and highly organized mercantile and financial organizations helped foster Amsterdam as the leader of capitalism at that time.
Ι. Dutch East India Company
A. Mercantile Empire
1. Personal army
a. The Company almost rules the South Seas and Indies.
b. They have soldiers to enforce their trade on other
countries
c. Grand Minister of State of the company is almost like a
sovereign prince
d. Series of forts around the South Seas; helps secure more
stores of supplies for trade
2. Rooting out former colonial empires
a. Controlling colonies formerly belonging to Spain and
Portugal
B. Great Power
1. Privileges given by the States General (ruling council of Dutch
Republic)
a. Gives the company great power to control its own affairs
b. Loose leash allows economy to flourish.
ΙΙ. Abundance and Control
A. Great Number of supplies
1. Spices
2. War Supplies
a. Great supply means lower prices, thus foreign merchants will
buy from Amsterdam
3. Lumber
a. Ships can be built at 20 percent cheaper rate than in
France and England b. France and Spain buy ships from Holland,
increasing their financial power
4. Marble
5. Wine, Dye
B. Controlling European Markets
1. Copper and Iron
a. Controls much of the marketing of copper and Iron in
Sweden
2. Iron works
a.Controls marketing of iron products from iron works on the
Rhine and other Dutch rivers
ΙΙΙ. Bank and Economic Control
A. Merchants’ Bank
1. Quality inspection
a. clerks inspect the value of gold and silver
2. Security
a. No threat of burglary, fire
b. Dutch parliament preserves the bank
3. Convenience
a. Interest in Bank
b. money always secure and given back punctually
c. No added fees
4. Organization
a. shut up the bank annually for fourteen days to check their
books to make sure they are correct.
B.Lumbert Bank
1. Benefits
a. no extraordinary extortion like in France and England
b. Gives out loans secured by collateral

Voyages of the 15th and 16th century

Thesis: With the voyages of the 15th and 16th century the Atlantic ceased to be a barrier for the Europeans and became a bridge to the New World and the Far East as Europeans began to understand the size and shape of the Earth through exploration.
Ι. Discovery of the New World
A. Spain tries to find passage to Far East through the Atlantic.
1. Columbus’ expedition
a. Discovery of the Earth being round
b. Believing they had found the West Indies, and Indians
c. Exploration of new world begins
B. Circumnavigating the globe
1. Magellan
a. 1520 first man to sail around the globe, through southwest
passage to the Pacific
2. Vasco de Gama
a. Discovery of African passage to Asia
ΙΙ. Impact on Europeans
A. Geographical discoveries
1.True Idea of size and interconnection of the oceans was brought to
Europe
2. Knowledge of true size of Earth
3. Geographers began to add this knowledge
4. Knowledge continued to be added as explorers tried to find a
northwesterly passage to the Pacific