All the Best

Always until about 1500 the Atlantic Ocean had been a barrier, an end. About 1500 it became a bridge it became a bridge, a starting place. The consequences were enormous for all concerned and devastating for some. In general, they were favorable for Europeans but devastating for peoples elsewhere - in America through massive depopulation by diseases such as smallpox brought from Europe, in Africa through the transatlantic slave trade, and ultimately in places as far away as Australia through the destruction of long-existing cultures or languages. Viewed from these perspectives Columbus's first voyage to America in 1492 launched a history of terrible losses rather than a story of heroic European explorations and conquests. Yet, there were also some positive aspects to the European economy brought about by the exploration and colonization; the endless migration of people, the worldwide movement of trade, and the disorienting experiences of cross-culture encounters.

The Spanish empire in America thus consisted of South America including Mexico, and the Caribbean after the first ferocity of the conquista, the Spanish established their own civilization. The Spanish government regarded its empire as existing primarily for the benefit of the mother country. The Indians were put into servitude, to work in mines or agriculture. They also died in large numbers from infections brought by Europeans to which Europeans over past centuries had developed immunities but against which the native American peoples had no such protection. The Spanish government made efforts to moderate the exploration of Indian labor. It introduced the encomienda, by which Indians were required to work for an owner a certain number of days in the week, while retaining parcels of land on which to work for themselves. The gradual rise in prices, or a slow inflation was also something brought up within the European economy. France depended on financial and administrative unification within its borders; Spain had developed an international absolutism on the basis of silver bullion from Peru. Spanish gold and silver, armies, and glory had dominated the continent for most of the sixteenth century, but by the 1590s the seeds of disaster were sprouting. The lack of a strong and supportive middle class, largely the result of the expulsion of Jews and Muslims, the agricultural crisis and population decline in Spain, the failure to invest in productive enterprises- instead they were worried about funding religious wars, the intellectual isolation - all combined to reduce Spain, by 1715, to a second-rate power. The fabulous and seemingly inexhaustible flow of silver from Mexico and Peru, together with the sale of cloth, grain, oil, and wine to the colonies, greatly enriched Spain. But the increasing persistence of having mostly incomes and a relatively small outcome caused a steep increase in prices. In the early seventeenth century, however, the Dutch and the English began to trade with the Spanish colonies, cutting into the revenues that had gone to Spain. Mexico and Peru themselves developed local industries, further lessening their need to buy from Spain. Between 1610 and 1650, Spanish trade with the colonies fell 60 percent. In Madrid royal expenditures constantly exceeded in income. The remedies applied in the face of mountainous state debt and declining revenues were devaluation of the coinage and declarations of bankruptcy. In 1596, 1607, 1627, 1647, and 1680, Spanish kings found no solution to the problem of an empty treasury other than to cancel the national debt. Given the frequency of cancellation, public confidence in the state deteriorated.

In the Middle Ages the town and its adjoining country formed as an economic unit. Craftsmen, organized in guilds, produced common articles for local use. Peasants and lords sold their agricultural products to the local towns, from which they bought what the craftsmen produced. The town presented itself by its own tariffs and regulations. In the workshop the master both owned his "capital" - his house, workbench, tools and materials - and acted

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