The Atlantic world Essay Example

million. With the loss of population also came a shortage of labor.

There were less people to work on the lands and as farmers which meant a shortage of crops and food decimated even more of the population. Economic changes were present as well. Another change brought by the Europeans was the use of slavery. Slaves were important to growing cash crops which were then exported to Europe. The slave trade was created which imported African Americans from ports in Africa as manual labor. The Atlantic economy was tied into the idea of mercantilism. English and Dutch merchants then formed two joint-stock companies which were the English East India Company and the United East India Company.

Soon, the Atlantic Slave Trade prospered into a bigger economic transformation being the Triangular Trade. The Triangular Trade involved the exchange of slaves, crops and manufactured goods between West Africa, the Caribbean and American colonies and colonial powers in Europe. A continuity that remained was the belief that Europeans were superior to natives. When Europeans arrived in Latin American and North America, they started to take over these areas, thinking that their political systems were not good enough.

Europeans tried to change the lifestyles of these places because they thought that their ways were better. This is a continuity because throughout times, Europeans always used people of color to perform the hard manual labor. They even started the slave trade to sell people of color as labor and they never had to work or become slaves. Europeans were also superior in their technology. They had many weapons people living in the Atlantic region had yet to

develop and produce so the Europeans were able to establish power based on violence as well.