Ccot - Triangle Trade

564 Words3 Pages
In 1453, the Ottoman Empire began to block trade routes from Europe to the East. This forced the European countries to search for new trade routes. These new trade routes led from Europe to Africa and the Americas. From 1492 to 1750, the results of new contact between Western Europe, Africa, and the Americas changed all three socially by a development of a middle class within Europe, mass exports of slaves in Africa, and the placement of the encomienda system. Many aspects of the African and American economies remained unchanged by maintaining an agrarian based economy. As trade began to increase between Europe, the Americas, and Africa, many social transformations began to take place. The national monarchs that lived within Western Europe wanted to increase their power and began to look for more trade routes to increase their wealth. This rise in trading led to the growth of the middle class in Western Europe. The middle class developed because the increase of trading opened up room for specialized workers Along with the growth of the middle class bankers, capitalists, and other occupations also began to develop. The development of the capitalist industry produced a concentration of banking, and this concentrated banking system was an important force in attaining the highest stage of capitalist concentration in cartels and trusts. As Western Europe began to colonize the Americas, more social changes started to take place. The encomienda system was set up in the Spanish colonies to distinguish the Europeans from the slaves. The encomienda system divided the all the people now living in the Americas into distinct social groups with the foreigners (peninsulares) at the top, those born to European parents in the Americas (creoles) and natives at the bottom. Conflict involving the peninsulares and the creoles broke out over their social statuses. The Spanish and
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