Modern Day Trade

“No nation was ever ruined by trade.” This quote was said by Benjamin Franklin in the late 1700s. These words are so simple, and it seems like anyone could have said them. However, this quote has a bigger meaning in that throughout world history, trade has been so important to so many countries and it has led to many empires successes. It has occurred for a very long time, and it has progressed dramatically. Trade has changed a lot, but some parts of trade stayed the same over a long periods of time. In the era between 300 CE and 1450 CE, trade between Eurasia and Africa changed because the empires and kingdoms in power were replaced and their control over trade differed;

It analyzes the interaction between the Chinese, Indians, and Arabs. This chapter examines the trade situation before and after the European invaded. Around 1500, was the first time the trade began and it was one of the greatest generators of the economy. Therefore, it was really important for places like Asia, Africa, and Arabs to get access to the Indian Ocean.

From their origins to 1500, the attitudes of both Christian and Muslims toward trade shifted as conditions in the Christian and Islamic worlds changed. In the beginning, Christian attitudes were more negative, while Muslims tended to encourage and respect trade and merchants. Over time, Muslims became more like early Christians in that they were suspicious of traders whereas the Christians became more like the early Muslims, equating merchants (at least honest ones) with doing God’s work, reflecting the changed importance of trade in the high Middle Ages in Europe.

If there was ever an important period historians, and people could put a finger on, this would be it. This is the important period where the world’s countries, kingdoms, and dynasties established trade routes. This is the period where countries were made and countries were destroyed because of the importance of trade and the importance of building a fundamental, religious, and economical way of life. This paper will discuss the goals and functions of trades, and traders, and a historical analysis of world trade. This paper will also get into world trade patterns, of The Americas, Sub-Saharan Africa, The Indian Ocean, The Silk routes, China and The South China Sea, Europe and The Mediterranean, and The Atlantic Exploration.

Native Americans easily engaged in trade with Europeans. They wished to include new glass and metal items in their society. European and Native Americans viewed trade as a means for economic development. Native Americans viewed trade, also, as a way for communicating with individuals and maintaining interdependence. This is evident in the elaborate gift giving celebrations that occurred before exchanging of goods occurred. For Europeans, however, these social and spiritual functions of trade were limited a great deal more.

When studying trade and commodities of Empires in any period of time, it is important to look at the changes that the trade created within the involved nations. What crops were popular enough to grow commercially in the empire, what the increase of trade did to the population demographics, and how the global system influenced the interactions of the countries involved can be found through close reading primary sources. Through sources like Trade and Travel in the Far East by G.F. Davidson and Tearful Conversation over the Mulberry Fields and the Sea by Nguyen Thuong Hien, scholars can determine the impact these factors had on the lives of those who experienced empirical trade. In comparing these two documents, the most prominent focus is on

1. Long-distance commerce acted as a motor of change in pre-modern world history by altering consumption and daily life. Essential food and useful tools such as salt were traded from the Sahara desert all the way to West Africa and salt was used as a food preserver. Some incenses essential to religious ceremonies were traded across the world because there was a huge demand for them. Trade diminished economic self-sufficiency by creating a reliance on traded goods and encouraged people to specialize and trade a particular skill. Trade motivated the creation of a state due to the wealth accumulated from controlling and taxing trade. Trade posed the problem of if the government or private

When thinking about the history of the world, one must always consider that merchants as well as trade have played an immerse role in shaping the world as it is today. They are responsible for many of the cross-cultural interactions that we have had in the past. Christianity and Islam, the two predominant religions of the world today, have both grown and spread through merchants and trade also. These two chief religions both have attitudes towards merchants and trade that have either developed or decreased overtime. According to these documents, from up to the year 1500, Christianity went from a negative view of merchants and trade to a positive view while Islam went from a positive view to a negative view, but both sides

This trade route definitely made it possible for the religion to diffuse as goods moved between territories and populations, but more importantly they facilitated the movement of these items to otherwise isolated locations, like small towns and villages, consequently exposing millions of these areas to ideas and religious ideologies from which they;d been oblivious to be beforehand. After a while, merchants weren’t the only ones who would exploit the kickoff of trade routes; warriors and proselytizers (people who were dedicated to converting others to a religion) also joined them. These routes were critical in the integrating of peoples of different cultures, religions and philosophies. The merchants would practice their religious traditions routinely, which created a strong influence on the non-Christians and induced them into advancing the spread of

Work, Exchange , and Technology: How did the Columbian Exchange – the mutual transfer of material goods, commodities, animals, and diseases – affect interaction between Europeans and natives and among indigenous peoples in North America?

Food, a basic need in society, has played a pivotal part in the history of our world. Many early societies formed around the production of food and developed social structures that allowed people to focus on agriculture while others focused on various trades, in turn leading to social stratification. Food has also played a very influential role in the political systems of many societies and has been the driving force of interaction between different regions around the world. During the period of 1450-1750, food played a crucial role in the developments of European, African, and American societies, especially during the era of the triangular trade . Triangular trade, receiving its title due to its involvement of the trade passages between

Hickerson (1973) stated that “trade had the twin functions of providing communities with useful goods that they lacked and of reinforcing social and territorial relations among neighboring groups” (p. 19). Essentially, Indigenous communities exchanged their surplus goods for the surplus goods of another

With the collapse of the Great Silk Road, trade routes through the waters became more necessary. Muslims and Europeans fought over the Indian Ocean and the several prosperous ports (plus major cities and villages in Ethiopia) during the fifteenth and sixteenth century. (McKay et al., 2009) Although Muslims had controlled the Indian Ocean trade for centuries, Portugal’s ability to circumvent the southern tip of Africa led to war and Portugal’s eventual defeat of Muslim traders and their imperialism throughout the Southeast Asian market. Africa’s Swahili people and their ivory, copra and rhinoceros horns and China’s “age of commerce”, which was developing within the neighboring countries of Vietnam and Burma, multiplied the available goods for Europeans to bring back home. (McKay et al., 2009) Portugal, as with most European countries, was beginning their recovery financially after years of war and plague. With the growth of trade and the amount of people in the Indian Ocean area, religion quickly followed. (McKay et al., 2009) Again, Muslims and Europeans were in battle. But this time they fought for religious supremacy in numbers. Each faction quickly moved to convert as many people as possible. Settlements were formed, cities grew, and customs and culture began mixing in an early version of a melting pot. (McKay et al., 2009)

In the past, before the invention of money, countries would use various goods as a means of exchange. The material that was used had to be satisfying to the recipient. In East Africa, they would use minerals such as iron, gold and at times diamonds to exchange goods. In places such as West Africa, they would trade horses, ostrich feathers and gold. These means were used as a measure of one’s value until the whites came into Africa and introduced the concept of slavery. In the past, slavery was still existent. However, the white missionaries, explorers and traders added value to the idea of having slaves. In the Transatlantic Trade (Triangle Trade), slaves, at some point, became the most valuable material of exchange. One of the countries that participated in this trade was America. In spite of the wars and protest during the reign of Abraham Lincoln regarding slavery and the slave trade, the South Americans were adamant about this idea, to the point where they used religious texts to justify their actions . This study debunks all their arguments, using the same books, especially the Bible.

For a brilliant suggestion of how individuals from even the most different cultures can interact with one another in a nonviolent, conventional, and communally advantageous style, it is challenging to summit Herodotus’ portrayal of a single market amid the Carthaginians and not well named North African ethnic groups in about sixth century. The two continents had a silent trade due to the language barrier. The market was barter trade where the Carthaginians arrive in the market area by ship; they unload a pile of commodities from their crafts, go back to the boat and send a smoke signal. The North African tribes, on the hand, would come to supervise the goods by themselves, exchange the gold with commodities and leave. The other party would also come to inspect the gold and if it is not satisfied would return to the