Week 5

This week’s chapters had much to do with the eastern and western hemispheres coming together as one making up what we know as the geographical world. The beginning chapter talked about how Europeans from mainly Portugal, England, France and Spain began to colonize the Americas. Spain took over what we know as Mexico and continued south into Peru. Spain mainly took over the Inca and Aztec Empires. France was able to take over what we know as Canada and what is today the central United States. England controlled the eastern part of North America yet had a small but powerful section. Portugal took over what we now know as Brazil. These countries had a good strong hold of these areas because they were already on the western part of Europe. They had easier access to this part of the world over China, Russia, or Persian areas. The chapter also went into how Russia developed from Mongolian rule. Russia was taking over a large part of the Europe and Asian area encompassing many cultures and languages. It was kind of like a multicultural empire. The chapter also spoke of Asian empires mainly China. It also said the Ottoman Empire took hold of the Middle East and Northern Africa which was basically controlled by Turkish people.

The next chapter was how the world was becoming a global economy. Spain had invaded the Philippines because they wanted to have a presence in Asia. This also led to the Silver trade. A few other European countries also took over parts of Asia such as the Dutch people controlling Indonesia. Spices were also a big trading export. The chapter also went into the Atlantic Slave trade and how in Western Africa was where most slaves were transported to the Americas. One thing I did not know was that most slaves were put in the Caribbean and in Brazil. Only 6% were transported to North America.

The next chapter I had a hard time understanding for some reason. It had to do with religion and science. Basically, Europe was the center of this movement to spate the church and science from each other. I thought the biggest and most influential person of this era was Nicolas Copernicus from Poland. He discovered that the Earth was not the center of anything and our solar system centered on the sun. The churches of this time were not thrilled since this meant they were going to lose power and influence over the people.