Chapter 15 (433-459)

        This chapter tells of how the Europeans traveled down the coast of west africa ending up in Southern India. In making this effort the goal of the Europeans was to attain valuable spices. For instance, cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, cloves, and pepper. These were used as preservatives in a lot of foods. The interest in Asia started after the Black Death in Europe. When Portuguese learned that many of the other ships on the ocean were not heavily armed they took advantage of this aspect. They went out on the sea with armed cannons. They officially had the power of the sea. I feel like this was a very smart plan by the portuguese. For a country to see this and seize the opportunity is impressive for being in the 15th century and not having knowledge of past wars to learn tactics. Spain was the first country to finally challenge the Portuguese. Philippines soon were forced to move out of their lands for Spanish settlers. This led to Filipino imagrants began to merge in with the Spanish in Manila. Chinese and Japanese moved to Manila aswell. But the Chinese were resistant to converge to Spanish ways and began many massacres. Ultimitaly Spanish killed about 20,000 people. This was definitely a tragedy seeing as how it was almost the entire Chinese population of the island. 

Handout: "Sweet Nexus: Sugar and the Origins.."

      This section of the handout informs us of sugar planting, harvesting, and processing is tiring, hot, dangerous work and requires a large number of workers. A problem from the very beginning of sugar processing in the new world was that there were not enough European settlers to work in the plantations and still make a profit when selling it. The solution they came up with was to force native americans to work on the earliest sugar plantations, especially in Brazil. This was completely unfair. The Europeans just came took over their land then forced them to work very long hours, while being underpaid and still give a profit to the land owners. For the next three and a half centuries, slaves of African origin provided most of the labor for the sugar industry in the Americas.

Men and women were expected to plow plant and harvest the fields. This was such excruciating labor it is hard to even imagine the idea of doing this as your daily routine. It says in this chapter that between 5,000 and 8,000 pieces had to be planted to produce one acre of sugar cane. Workdays in the fields typically lasted from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. with a noon-time break of perhaps two hours.

The slavery in this period makes me sick to think about. Mostly because when you think about where they were technologically wise and medicine wise it is no where. They had little to no vaccines. They had knowledge of probably 1 out of ever 100 illnesses we know of today. They put their body through hell in the process of harvesting this product. They had to stoop to cut the cane at ground level because the most sugary section of the cane is the lower stem. Harvesting cane was as backbreaking work as planting cane, and cuts from the sharp tools were common. Once the cane stalk was cut, slaves stripped any remaining leaves and stacked the cane. It then would be tied into bundles and loaded onto donkeys, wagons, or two-wheeled carts to be carried to the sugar mill. On top of that while they worked their owners walk through and whip the field slaves. Sugar cane brought on an extremely eventful era of new world. 

Chapter 14 (417-430)

 It makes me angry that the Russians went into America and used brute force to gain allegiance from the native people of the land. They had their lives all set up and were doing fine with the systems they had created on their own. Not only did the Russians come in and stir up the natives' customs. They also demanded tribute from them. This could be payed in cash, kind by native americans. This was completely unfair to the native people, first they are invaded and then they are forced to give their hard earned money to the tyrants. Thats like someone coming in your house taking over and then making you continue to live there and pay them what you earn for the rest of your life. There is no way that make sense. They were only able to do this because they were so technologically advanced. From siberians, they demanded furs. Especially the rare sable fur. Siberians have had these furs their entire existance and all they have know is how to use them sparingly so when they were forced to produce mass quantities of this product it was not only dangerous for the animal species but it was saddening in their culture. So many Russians came into Siberia that actually only 30% of the total population by 1720 was native Siberian.