Chapter 14, Part 1

This chapter is split into two sections.  The first section mainly talks about the role that Europeans played in Asian commerce.

As most schoolchildren are taught, Columbus landed in the Americas by accident - he was actually trying to find a "shortcut" to East Asia by sailing there from the west.  The end result was the development of colonial societies and new commercial connections to the west.  In Asia, however, it was a very different story.  Vasco da Gama's voyage to India, the first ever by Europeans, was the result of a deliberate Portuguese effort to find a sea route to East Asia, going around the western part of Africa, past the tip of South Africa, up the eastern coast, and finally to the Indian Ocean, where the most prestigious trade markets were at the time.  The Europeans had many motivations for this massive effort to gain access to this trading network, chief among them tropical spices which were widely used as condiments and preservatives.  However, they saw major problems with the pattern of trade with Asia they had used previously.  First, the source of supply for the desired goods was solidly in Muslim hands, particularly Egypt, which was the primary point of transfer into the Mediterranean.  In addition, the Italian city of Venice held a monopoly on the European trade in Eastern goods.  Other European powers increasingly disliked having to rely on Venice and Muslims, providing another impetus for Portugal to attempt a sea route to India that bypassed both intermediaries.  Another problem Europeans had was that few of their products were attractive enough for Eastern buyers, so they were required to pay gold or silver for the Asian goods, a persistent trade deficit that further spurred the desire for precious metals.

In succeeding in finding a sea route to India, the Portuguese paved the way for other European countries, such as the Spanish, British, Dutch, and French, to make their way into the Indian Ocean commercial network.  In doing so, they established three main patterns of behavior and control in that region.  The Portuguese came to build an empire of sorts based on the establishment of trading ports, as they had relatively little interest in controlling huge amounts of land in these regions, but rather in controlling the commerce there.  However, they were only able to control around half of the spice trade to Europeans.  Their neighbors, the Spanish, meanwhile, established themselves on what they named the Philippine Islands, after their king, Philip II.  Unlike the Portuguese, they were encouraged to establish outright colonial rule on the islands, for a variety of reasons, including their proximity to China.  Meanwhile, the British, Dutch, and later the French, established their presence in East Asia mainly through the establishment of privately chartered companies that enabled them to establish trading post empires of their own, with little direct involvement from their respective governments.  That being said, the involvement of Europeans overall was much more limited than it was in Africa and the Americas during this time period.