Chapter 13

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What enable Europeans to carve out huge empires an ocean away from their homelands? (Pag 554)


Europeans were extremely motivated to build more empires.

They did a lot of trading which enabled a profit and transportation of human and material resources. When the Europeans were on the go, they became much closer to the Americas than Asians. The Asians were highly competitive with the Europeans, but the Europeans had the upper hand due to distance. 

Geography offers a point of departure for describing American empires in Europe. Countries on Europe's Atlantic rim (Portugal, Spain, Britain and France) were merely closer to the Americas than any possible competitors in Asia. In addition the Atlantic's set winds blow constantly in the same direction. If these air currents were understood and perfected, they provided a dramatically different maritime climate than the Indian Ocean's alternating monsoon winds, under which Asian forces had long operated. 

Europe's advances in navigation mapping, sailing techniques, and ship design allowed Europeans to enter the Atlantic. European elites were increasingly conscious of the precarious role of their country in Eurasia 's rich world of trade and were determined to gain access to that market. When the Americas were discovered, natural resource windfalls like highly productive agricultural land contributed to further development, eventually underpinning the European economy's long-term growth into the 19th and 20th centuries. Rulers were pushed beyond these economic or ecological influences by the persistent rivalries of competing states. In a rapidly commercializing Europe, the rising and comparatively autonomous merchant class wanted direct access to Asian resources to avoid relying on Muslim intermediaries that they found so distasteful. Impoverished nobles and commoners aside found prospects for acquiring colonial wealth and prestige. Missionaries and others were motivated by crusading zeal for spreading the Christianity true. Persecuted minorities were seeking new beginnings in life. All of these conflicting interests have pushed the colonial frontier in the Americas to unremittingly grow. One Spanish conquistador summarizing their intentions declared: “We came here to serve God and the King, and also to get rich.”. 

Nonetheless, Europeans bore certain companies allowing the effective mobilization of human and material resources. Based on Chinese and Islamic precedents, their seafaring technology allowed them to cross the Atlantic with increasing ease, transporting people and supplies across great distances. Initially their ironworking technology, gunpowder weapons, and horses had no parallel in the Americas, though they were later acquired by many peoples.

Division within and among local communities provided allies for the determined invaders of Europe. 

The most significant European advantages lay in their germs and diseases that were unfamiliar to native Americans. Those diseases decimated society after society, sometimes before the actual arrival of the European. In particular regions such as the Caribbean, Virginia, and New England, the rapid build-up of immigrant populations, coupled with the sharply diminished native numbers, enabled Europeans within a few decades to actually outnumber local populations.

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