Trade Routes & Networks
This overland trade network connected China to the Mediterranean and facilitated the exchange of silk, spices, and ideas.
What are the Silk Roads?
This forced labor system required Indigenous communities to provide labor for public projects in the Inca Empire and later in Spanish silver mines.
What is the Mit’a System?
This Islamic empire ruled much of South Asia from the 16th to 19th centuries and was known for its religious tolerance under Akbar.
What is the Mughal Empire?
This small, highly maneuverable Portuguese sailing ship was essential to European exploration in the 15th and 16th centuries.
What is a Caravel?
This economic system, dominant in early modern Europe, emphasized accumulating wealth through controlled trade and colonies.
What is Mercantilism?
This maritime trade network linked East Africa, the Middle East, India, and China and was driven by monsoon winds.
What is the Indian Ocean Trade Network?
This labor system granted Spanish settlers the right to demand labor from Indigenous peoples in exchange for "protection" and conversion to Christianity.
What is the Encomienda System?
This West African empire flourished in the 15th and 16th centuries, controlling key trade routes across the Sahara.
What is the Songhai Empire?
This company, founded by Dutch merchants, dominated the spice trade in Southeast Asia.
What is the Dutch East India Company?
This type of crop, grown primarily for export rather than local consumption, fueled plantation economies.
What are Cash Crops?
This Spanish trade system connected Mexico and the Philippines, transporting silver to China and luxury goods to the Americas.
What is the Manila Galleons?
This stage of the transatlantic slave trade forcibly transported millions of Africans to the Americas under horrific conditions.
What is the Middle Passage?
This Japanese ruling dynasty established a military government in 1603 and maintained strict control over foreign trade.
What is the Tokugawa Shogunate?
This British trading company played a key role in colonizing India and controlling its economy.
What is the British East India Company?
This business structure allowed investors to pool their money to fund overseas ventures, spreading both risk and profit.
What is a Joint Stock Company?
This trade system involved the exchange of enslaved Africans, raw materials, and manufactured goods between Africa, Europe, and the Americas.
What is Triangular Trade?
This form of servitude required individuals to work for a set period in exchange for passage to the New World.
What is Indentured Servitude?
This policy of national isolation prevented Japan from engaging in most foreign trade from the 17th to 19th centuries.
What is Sakoku?
Spanish and Portuguese explorers who led military conquests in the Americas were known by this term.
What are Conquistadors?
This economic model explains how European industrialization diverged from Asian economies due to resource access and colonial wealth.
What is the Great Divergence?
This legal code from the Malacca Sultanate governed maritime trade and ensured safe commercial interactions.
What is the Undang-Undang Laut Melaka?
This system, widely used in the Caribbean and southern North America, relied on enslaved labor to produce cash crops such as sugar and cotton.
What is the Plantation Economy?
This Islamic political institution, led by a successor to Muhammad, combined religious and state authority.
What is the Caliphate?
This African region was a major center for the transatlantic slave trade.
What is the Slave Coast?
This historical theory divides the world into "core," "semi-peripheral," and "peripheral" regions based on economic roles.
What is World-Systems Theory?