CH 13 BLOG

Chapter 13 of Ways of the World  describes the impact of expanding empires. It is stated that Europe wanted to expand their lands in an effort to recover from their losses of the great dying. They wanted to add grain, sugar, meat, and fish to their economy that at the time had relied on mainly wheat and livestock. I think it made sense for them to want to expand. Europeans also were able to move people and resources across the Atlantic only because of their seafaring technology, which was inspired by Chinese and Islamic innovations. I think it is interesting how the different empires were able to learn from each other and inspire each other to build off each other's ideas in this way. It surprised me that Chinese and Islamic transportation technologies inspired the Europeans, because my assumption had been that Europeans were the ones inspiring other countries with their technologies. Learning about the Great Dying was very saddening and almost frustrating. The book states that 90% of the Native American population died from the diseases Columbus and the other Europeans brought to the Western Hemisphere. Losing such a grand portion of a population seems devastating, especially to the prosperity of their culture. I greatly value my Mexican culture, which makes me empathetic to the Natives who must have lost a lot of their traditions in the process of losing so much of their peoples. It was weird to hear that the Colombian Exchange was what brought wheat, rice, sugarcane, grapes, horses, pigs, cattle, goats, sheep and many vegetables and fruit to the Americas. I had assumed these things had always been here in the Americas, and I wonder how different life would be today if the Europeans had never brought these resources that are so important to our everyday life now to the Americas. It is also intriguing how different castes were established based of the different mixings of races in places like Mexico and Peru. It is said that native women would marry Spanish men for the advantages that came with the relationship, such as higher social status and family income. I think it is sad people would consider people lesser than others because of their heritage and even today some people retain the mentality that fairer skin tone equates to more desirable personality traits. It is also shared that the Europeans began sugar plantations in Brazil and the Caribbean.  Apparently, the conditions were terrible on the plantations and the heat of the cauldrons reminded some of images of Hell. It gets bothersome to live out everyday duties such as school and work but, I can not even imagine what it would be like to live everyday in a place so unbearable and defeating. It was also very interesting to me how much people valued fur, to a point where they even used it as currency back then.  Overall, chapter 13 was very interesting and taught a lot about the empires of the time.