Age of Discovery

==Global impact==
{{Main|Columbian exchange|History of colonialism|Globalization}}

[[File:New World Domesticated plants.JPG|thumb|upright=1.35|New World crops. Clockwise from top left: 1. [[Maize]] (''Zea mays'') 2. [[Tomato]] (''Solanum lycopersicum'') 3. [[Potato]] (''Solanum tuberosum'') 4. [[Vanilla]] (genus ''Vanilla'', esp. ''[[Vanilla planifolia]]'') 5. Pará [[Natural rubber|rubber]] tree (''Hevea brasiliensis'') 6. [[Cocoa bean|Cocoa]] (''[[Theobroma cacao]]'') 7. [[Tobacco]] (''Nicotiana rustica'')]]
European overseas expansion led to contact between the Old and New Worlds producing the Columbian exchange.<ref name="McNeill 2019">[[#McNeill 2019|McNeill 2019]], web.</ref> It started the [[Global silver trade from the 16th to 19th centuries|global silver trade]] and led to direct European involvement in the [[Chinese export porcelain|Chinese porcelain trade]]. It involved the transfer of goods unique to one hemisphere to another. Europeans brought cattle, horses, and sheep to the New World, and from the New World Europeans received tobacco, potatoes, tomatoes, and [[maize]]. Other items and commodities becoming important in global trade were the tobacco, sugarcane, and cotton crops of the Americas, along with the gold and silver brought from the American continent not only to Europe, but elsewhere in the Old World.<ref name="oxfordbibliographies1">{{cite web |last=Hahn |first=Barbara |date=31 July 2019 |orig-date=27 August 2018 |title=Tobacco – Atlantic History |url=https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199730414/obo-9780199730414-0141.xml |website=oxfordbibliographies.com |location=[[Oxford]] |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |doi=10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0141 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201028093226/https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199730414/obo-9780199730414-0141.xml |archive-date=28 October 2020 |access-date=4 September 2021}}</ref><ref name="Escudero 2014">{{cite book |last=Escudero |first=Antonio Gutiérrez |year=2014 |chapter=Hispaniola's Turn to Tobacco: Products from Santo Domingo in Atlantic Commerce |editor1-last=Aram |editor1-first=Bethany |editor2-last=Yun-Casalilla |editor2-first=Bartolomé |title=Global Goods and the Spanish Empire, 1492–1824: Circulation, Resistance, and Diversity |location=[[Basingstoke]] |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |pages=216–229 |doi=10.1057/9781137324054_12 |isbn=978-1-137-32405-4}}</ref><ref name="Knight 2010">{{cite book |last=Knight |first=Frederick C. |chapter=3 Cultivating Knowledge: African Tobacco and Cotton Workers in Colonial British America |date=2020 |title=Working the Diaspora: The Impact of African Labor on the Anglo-American World, 1650–1850 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZqQUCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA65 |location=[[New York City|New York]] and [[London]] |publisher=[[New York University Press]] |pages=65–85 |doi=10.18574/nyu/9780814748183.003.0004 |isbn=978-0-8147-4818-3 |lccn=2009026860 |access-date=2021-09-04 |archive-date=2021-09-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210904052526/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZqQUCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA65 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Nater 2006">{{cite book |author-last=Nater |author-first=Laura |year=2006 |chapter=Colonial Tobacco: Key Commodity of the Spanish Empire, 1500–1800 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mnvBYQqpJbQC&pg=PA93 |editor1-last=Topik |editor1-first=Steven |editor2-last=Marichal |editor2-first=Carlos |editor3-last=Frank |editor3-first=Zephyr |title=From Silver to Cocaine: Latin American Commodity Chains and the Building of the World Economy, 1500–2000 |location=[[Durham, North Carolina]] |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |pages=93–117 |doi=10.1215/9780822388029-005 |isbn=978-0-8223-3753-9 |access-date=2021-09-04 |archive-date=2021-09-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210904054104/https://books.google.com/books?id=mnvBYQqpJbQC&pg=PA93 |url-status=live }}</ref>

The formation of new transoceanic links and expansion of European influence led to the [[Imperialism#Age of Imperialism|Age of Imperialism]], which began during the Age of Discovery, during which colonial powers from Europe colonized most territory on the planet. European demand for trade, commodities, colonies and slaves had a drastic impact on the rest of the world; during [[European colonization of the Americas]], European colonial powers conquered and colonized numerous [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|indigenous nations and cultures]], and conducted numerous conversions and attempts at cultural assimilation both voluntary or forced. Combined with the introduction of infectious diseases from Europe, these events led to a [[Population history of Indigenous peoples of the Americas|drastic decrease]] of the indigenous American population. Indigenous accounts of European colonization were summarized by scholar Peter Mancall: "the arrival of Europeans brought death, displacement, sorrow, and despair to Native Americans".<ref name="Mancall1998">{{cite journal|first1=Peter C.|last1=Mancall|date=1998|title=The Age of Discovery|journal=Reviews in American History|volume=26|issue=1|page=35|doi=10.1353/rah.1998.0013 |issn=0048-7511|jstor=30030873|s2cid=143822053 |quote=Other documents from the sixteenth century, such as the magnificent [[Florentine Codex]], contain testimony from native observers whose views were recorded by European witnesses to the conquest. These texts provide details about indigenous practices as well as views of the conquest from the perspective of the invaded. Some of these indigenous sources have been translated into English. On the issue of the encounter, these sources concur: the arrival of Europeans brought death, displacement, sorrow, and despair to Native Americans.}}</ref> In some areas, like North America, Central America, Australia, New Zealand, and Argentina, indigenous peoples were badly treated, driven off their lands, and reduced to dependent minorities in the territory.

[[File:Namban-08.jpg|thumb|left|Portuguese ''[[wikt:南蛮人|Nanbanjin]]'' arriving at Japan much to the surprise of locals, detail from a [[Nanban trade|Nanban]] panel of the [[Kanō school]], 1593–1600]]

Similarly, in [[East Africa|East]] and [[West Africa]], local states supplied the appetite of [[Atlantic slave trade|European slave traders]], changing the complexion of coastal African states and fundamentally altering the nature of [[slavery in Africa]], causing impacts on societies and economies deep inland.<ref name="Knight 2010"/>

In North America, there were many conflicts between Europeans and indigenous peoples. The Europeans had many advantages over the indigenous people. Introduced Eurasian diseases wiped out 50–90% of the indigenous population because they had not been exposed before and lacked acquired immunity.<ref>[[#Brook 1998|Cook 1998]], p. 13</ref>

Maize and [[Cassava|manioc]] were introduced into Africa in the 16th century by the Portuguese.<ref>[[#OSU 2006|OSU 2006]], news.</ref> They are now important staple foods, replacing native African crops.<ref>"[http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/a0154e/A0154E02.HTM The cassava transformation in Africa] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140609000851/http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/a0154e/A0154E02.HTM |date=2014-06-09 }}". The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).</ref><ref>[[#Scitizen 2007|Scitizen 2007]], web.</ref> [[Alfred W. Crosby]] speculated that increased production of maize, manioc, and other New World crops led to heavier concentrations of population in the areas from which slavers captured their victims.<ref>[[#Crosby 1972|Crosby 1972]], p. 188.</ref>

In the global silver trade, the [[Ming dynasty]] was stimulated by trade with the [[Portuguese Empire|Portuguese]], [[Spanish Empire|Spanish]], and [[Dutch Republic|Dutch]]. Although global, much of that silver ended up with the Chinese, and China dominated silver imports.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=von Glahn|first=Richard|date=1996|title=Myth and Reality of China's Seventeenth Century Monetary Crisis|journal=Journal of Economic History|volume=2|page=132|quote=... silver wanders throughout all the world... before flocking to China, where it remains as if at its natural center.}}</ref> Between 1600 and 1800 China received 100 tons of silver on average per year. A large populace near the [[Yangtze River Delta|Lower Yangtze]] averaged hundreds of [[tael]]s of silver per household in the late 16th century.<ref>{{Citation|last=Huang|first=Ray|chapter=Financial management|pages=266–305|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-511-73540-0|doi=10.1017/cbo9780511735400.011|title=Taxation and Governmental Finance in Sixteenth-Century Ming China|year=1975}}</ref> More than 150,000 tons of silver were shipped from Potosí by the end of the 18th century. From 1500 to 1800, Mexico and Peru produced about 80%<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Flynn|first=Dennis O.|date=1995|title=Born with a "Silver Spoon": The Origin of World Trade in 1571|url=http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/journals/jwh/jwh062p201.pdf|journal=Journal of World History|publisher=University of Hawaii Press|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180423072506/http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/journals/jwh/jwh062p201.pdf|archive-date=2018-04-23}}</ref> of the world's silver, with more than 30% of it eventually ending up in China (largely because European merchants used it to purchase exotic Chinese commodities). In the late 16th and early 17th century, Japan was exporting heavily into China and foreign trade at large.<ref name=":0" /> Trade with [[Early modern Europe|European powers]] and the Japanese brought in significant amounts of silver, which then replaced copper and paper [[banknote]]s as the common medium of exchange in China. During the last decades of the Ming Dynasty the flow of silver into China was greatly diminished, thereby undermining state revenues and the entire Ming economy. This damage to the economy was compounded by the effects on agriculture of the incipient [[Little Ice Age]], natural calamities, crop failure, and sudden epidemics. The ensuing breakdown of authority and people's livelihoods allowed rebel leaders such as [[Li Zicheng]] to challenge Ming authority.

[[File:Jesuites en chine.jpg|thumb|[[Jesuit China missions|Jesuit]] scholars collaborated extensively with Chinese astronomers, introducing [[Copernican principle]]s. Top: [[Matteo Ricci]], [[Adam Schall von Bell|Adam Schaal]] and [[Ferdinand Verbiest]] (1623–1688); Bottom: [[Xu Guangqi|Paul Siu (Xu Guangqi)]], ''Colao'' or Prime Minister of State, and his granddaughter Candide Hiu]]

New crops that had come to Asia from the Americas, via the Spanish colonizers in the 16th century, contributed to the Asia's population growth.<ref>[[#Columbia University 2009|Columbia University 2009]], web.</ref> Although the bulk of imports to China were silver, the Chinese also purchased New World crops from the [[Spanish Empire]]. This included sweet potatoes, maize, and peanuts, foods that could be cultivated in lands where traditional Chinese staple crops—wheat, millet, and rice—could not grow, hence facilitating a rise in the population of China.<ref name="Ebrey 2006, p. 211">[[#Ebrey 2006|Ebrey 2006]], p. 211.</ref><ref>[[#Crosby 1972|Crosby 1972]], pp. 198–201</ref> In the Song dynasty (960–1279), rice had become the major staple crop of the poor;<ref>[[#Gernet 1962|Gernet 1962]], p. 136.</ref> after sweet potatoes were introduced to China around 1560, it gradually became the traditional food of the lower classes.<ref>[[#Crosby 1972|Crosby 1972]], p. 200.</ref>

The arrival of the Portuguese to Japan in 1543 initiated the [[Nanban trade|Nanban trade period]], with the Japanese adopting technologies and cultural practices, like the [[arquebus]], European-style cuirasses, European ships, Christianity, decorative art, and language. After the Chinese had banned direct trade by Chinese merchants with Japan, the Portuguese filled this commercial vacuum as intermediaries. The Portuguese bought Chinese silk and sold it to the Japanese in return for Japanese-mined silver; since silver was more highly valued in China, the Portuguese could then use Japanese silver to buy even larger stocks of Chinese silk.<ref>[[#Spence 1999|Spence 1999]], pp. 19–20.</ref> By 1573, after the Spanish established a trading base in Manila, the Portuguese intermediary trade was trumped by the prime source of incoming silver to China from the Spanish Americas.<ref>[[#Brook 1998|Brook 1998]], p. 205.</ref> Although China acted as the cog running the wheel of global trade during the 16th to 18th centuries, Japan's huge contribution of silver exports to China were critical to the world economy and China's liquidity and success with the commodity.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Flynn|first1=Dennis Owen|last2=Giraldez|first2=Arturo|date=2002|title=Cycles of Silver: Global Economic Unity through the Mid-Eighteenth Century|journal=Journal of World History|volume=13|issue=2|pages=391–427|doi=10.1353/jwh.2002.0035|s2cid=145805906|issn=1527-8050}}</ref>

===Economic impact in Europe===
{{Main|Commercial Revolution|Renaissance|Renaissance in the Low Countries|Great Divergence}}
{{Renaissance}}
As a wider variety of global luxury commodities entered the European markets by sea, previous European markets for [[luxury good]]s stagnated. The Atlantic trade largely supplanted pre-existing [[Maritime republics|Italian]] and [[Hanseatic League|German]] trading powers which had relied on their Baltic, Russian, and Islamic trade links. The new commodities also caused [[social change]], as sugar, spices, silks and chinawares entered the luxury markets of Europe.

The European economic centre shifted from the Mediterranean to Western Europe. The city of [[Antwerp]], part of the [[Duchy of Brabant]], became "the centre of the ''entire'' international economy",<ref>[[#Braudel 1985|Braudel 1985]], p.&nbsp;143.</ref> and the richest city in Europe.<ref>[[#Dunton 1896|Dunton 1896]], p. 163.</ref> Centred in Antwerp first and then [[Amsterdam]], the "[[Dutch Golden Age]]" was tightly linked to the Age of Discovery.

By 1549 the Portuguese were sending annual trade missions to [[Shangchuan Island]] in China. In 1557 they managed to convince the [[Ming dynasty|Ming]] court to agree on a legal port treaty that would establish Macau as an official Portuguese trade colony.<ref>[[#Brook 1998|Brook 1998]], p. 124.</ref> The Portuguese friar [[Gaspar da Cruz]] (c. 1520-70) wrote the first complete book on China published in Europe; it included information on its geography, provinces, royalty, official class, bureaucracy, shipping, architecture, farming, craftsmanship, merchant affairs, clothing, religious and social customs, music and instruments, writing, education, and justice.<ref>[[#AAS 1976|Aas 1976]], pp. 410–11.</ref>
[[File:DelftChina18thCenturyCompanieDesIndes.jpg|thumb|[[Delftware]] depicting Chinese scenes, 18th century. [[Ernest Cognacq Museum]]]]
From China the major exports were silk and porcelain, adapted to meet European tastes. The Chinese export porcelains were held in such great esteem in Europe that, in English, ''[[wikt:china|china]]'' became a commonly-used synonym for ''porcelain''. [[Kraak porcelain]] was among the first Chinese ware to arrive in Europe in significant quantities; only the richest could afford these early imports.<ref>For a study on foreign objects in Dutch paintings, see [[#Hochstrasser 2007|Hochstrasser 2007]], ''Still life and trade in the Dutch golden age''.</ref> Soon the [[Dutch East India Company]] established trade with the East, having imported 6 million porcelain items from China to Europe between the years 1602-82.<ref>[[#Volker 1971|Volker 1971]], p. 22.</ref><ref>[[#Brook 1998|Brook 1998]], p. 206.</ref> Kraak, mainly the [[blue and white porcelain]], was imitated all over the world by potters in [[Arita ware|Arita, Japan]] and [[Iran|Persia]]—where Dutch merchants turned when the fall of the Ming dynasty rendered Chinese originals unavailable<ref>[[#Howard 1978|Howard 1978]], p. 7.</ref>—and ultimately in [[Delftware]]. Dutch and later [[English Delftware]] inspired by Chinese designs persisted from about 1630 to the mid-18th century alongside European patterns.

[[Antonio de Morga]] (1559–1636), a Spanish official in [[Manila]], listed an extensive inventory of goods that were traded by Ming China at the turn of the 16th to 17th century, noting there were "rarities which, did I refer to them all, I would never finish, nor have sufficient paper for it".<ref>[[#Brook 1998|Brook 1998]], pp. 205–206.</ref> Ebrey writes of the considerable size of commercial transactions: In one case a galleon to the Spanish territories in the New World carried over 50,000 pairs of silk stockings. In return China imported mostly silver from Peruvian and Mexican mines, [[Manila galleon|transported via Manila]]. Chinese merchants were active in these trading ventures, and many emigrated to such places as the Philippines and Borneo to take advantage of the new commercial opportunities.<ref name="Ebrey 2006, p. 211"/>

The increase in gold and silver experienced by [[Habsburg Spain|Spain]] coincided with a major inflationary cycle within Spain and Europe, known as the [[price revolution]]. Spain had amassed large quantities of gold and silver from the New World.<ref>[[#Walton 1994|Walton 1994]], pp. 43–44</ref> In the 1540s large scale extraction of silver from Mexico began. During the 16th century, Spain held the equivalent of US$1.5 trillion (1990 terms) in gold and silver from [[Viceroyalty of New Spain|New Spain]]. Being the most powerful European monarch at a time full of war and religious conflicts, the [[Habsburg Spain|Habsburg]] rulers spent the wealth in wars and arts across Europe. "I learnt a proverb here", said a French traveller in 1603: "Everything is dear in Spain except silver".<ref>[[#Braudel 1979|Braudel 1979]], p. 171.</ref> The spent silver, spread throughout a cash-starved Europe, caused widespread inflation.<ref>[[#Tracy 1994|Tracy 1994]], p. 655.</ref> The inflation was worsened by a growing population with a static production level, low salaries and a rising cost of living, which damaged local industry. Increasingly, Spain became dependent on the revenues flowing in from the mercantile empire, leading to Spain's first bankruptcy in 1557 due to rising military costs.<ref>[[#Braudel 1979|Braudel 1979]], pp. 523–25</ref> Philip II of Spain defaulted on debt payments in 1557, 1560, 1575, and 1596. The increase in prices as a result of currency circulation fuelled the growth of the commercial [[middle class]] in Europe, the ''[[bourgeoisie]]'', which came to influence the politics and culture of many countries. One effect of the inflation, particularly in Great Britain, was that tenant farmers who held long-term leases from lords saw real decreases in rent. Some lords opted to sell their leased land, giving rise to small, landowning farmers such as [[yeoman]] and gentlemen-farmers.<ref>
{{cite book|title= Agricultural Revolution in England: The transformation of the agrarian economy 1500–1850|url= https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780521568593|url-access= registration|last=Overton|first= Mark
|year=1996 |publisher =Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-56859-3}}</ref>