How Did The Americans Become Soon Called The New World

Before the sixteenth century, if an explorer were to sail too far west it was thought that he would fall off the face of the earth. This all changed when Christopher Columbus reached was to be soon called the “New World”. This discovery would serve as a huge stepping-stone for trade around the world as well as colonization in the Americas. Following the discovery, European nations set out to colonize this “New World” in order to produce goods and find riches for their mother countries. This was known as the beginning of mercantilism in the Atlantic. Mercantilism is defined as “a system that saw the world’s economy as fixed, meaning that any one country’s wealth came at the expense of other countries” (Tignor, 482). Colonization of the new
First, when Christopher Columbus stepped foot onto the beach of San Salvador he did not realize the discovery he had made. What he had done was open up a new world of riches. The origins of colonization in the new world were violent. Conquest by the Spaniards in Mesoamerica set the foundation for colonization. These conquistadors were able to take over empires such as the Aztecs and Incas simply because of their advanced weaponry that the natives had never seen before. Sharp steel swords and gunpowder were no match for their wooden spears and arrows. Native Americans were forced to leave their homes and the ones who stayed were captured and used as labor for mining and farming. The Spanish had found the gold and silver they were looking for, they also came across new resources and crops such as potatoes and corn that would expand the population in Afro-Eurasia (Tignor, 455). Once word spread through Europe about these new discoveries, rival countries like England, France, and the Dutch were rushing to explore the New World. These conquests in the Americas were cruel, but they led to something far much greater that would benefit the new and old
They brought cheap labor to the table allowing for the plantation owners and merchants to seek an even greater profit. African Americans were not willing to just up and leave their families and homelands. Even their own people took them against their will. A secret male society in Africa called the Epke, would promise deliveries of their people who would not pay off any debt they might have had to European slave traders. For every one European that was coming to the Americas, four African Americans also voyaged to the new world (Lecture 3). Not to mention that Europeans were coming voluntarily and the poor Africans were involuntarily uprooted. These captured slaves were taken and held in vessels below deck until they were full. It could take weeks for the slave vessels to reach maximum capacity and in most cases human carcasses filled the floors before departure. “Crew members tossed dead Africans overboard as they loaded on other Africans from the shore” (Tignor, 488). This goes to show that the Europeans were strictly for profit and did not treat the Africans as civilized human beings, but as objects. Primarily, the Europeans sought out to bring back mostly adult males to the Americas because they were the dominant labor force. They did include females in early trade for household work. It wasn’t until later that slavers realized they would need more females in the Americas so that families could reproduce.