Trade in Asia and India (Blog #3)

While reading the first half of chapter 14, two things really caught my attention. First was the way the Portuguese set up a trade post empire, in order to take control of trade in the Indian Ocean. This really caught me off guard because rather than attempting to participate in the trade market, they decided to try and take it by force.  It is disturbing to me how easy it is for people to take advantage of others in the pursuit of money and power; however it made me happy to read that even with their aggressive actions they never dominated the trade, and they were quickly challenged by other countries like Spain.

The second part of this chapter that really interested me was the idea of England being behind in the trade market. In all of the history I’ve learned, England has been a major player in the trade market throughout the world. It was honestly intriguing to see them struggle just to be an active participant in Asian and Indian markets. I found the way in which the Dutch and England finally joined this trade market very interesting as well; instead of pirating, like the Portuguese and Spain, they made business connections and was granted charters to monopolize specific trade markets. Although this caused the exploitation and death of native land owners, this introduced a new way to think about trade relationships in the Indian Ocean. I never approve of the way in which people exploit others and their resources, but I found this section of the chapter very interesting because it allowed the reader to understand the similarities and differences between the different countries’ ways of gaining control of or participating in trade.

 

 

***Sorry this is late, I realized I was reading the wrong chapter on Monday and it was too late for me to reread the correct chapter. ****