Economic Systems, 600-1450 Flashcards
Caravanserais
● Roadside settlements providing safety and shelter
● Alongside the Silk Road
Galley
● Well adapted to coastal navigation
● Used in Mediterranean trade
Arab slave trade
● A newer element in the trans-Saharan network
● Controlled by Arab merchants, who had transported African slaves across hte Shaaran since the 600s, but were greatly increasing the volume of trad eby the 1000s
● Caught on in east Africa as well and eventually resulted in the forcible removal of at least 10 million Africans
Lateen-sailed dhows
● Used in Indian Ocean trade
● Sail long distance and against the wind
Lateen sail
● Triangular sails
Junks
● Chinese ships
● Some used in Indian Ocean trades
Astrolabe
● Measured the sun’s position int eh sky to calculate latitude
● Came into wisder use at sea after the 700s
Compass
● Invented in China during the 1000s
● Reached the Middle East and Europe during the late 1100s and early 1200s
Longboats
● Viking ships
Banking
● Exension of credit in the form of checks, bills of exchange, and loans with interest
● Required trust, often over long distances, but allowed for hte safer and simpler transfer of wealth
Why did economic productivity grow substantially in most parts of hte world?
● Improved or innovative methods and technologies
● All the methods of intensive agriculture continued to be used and became more common
● Industrial production began to appear alongside traditional artisanry and craftsmanship
- Not the full-scale, mechanized industialization, but involved systematized manufacture, often taking the forms of cottage industry or proto-industrialization
What was the Silk Road experiencing and why?
● Active from 100 B.C.E. to approximately 800 C.E.
- Major emperies supporting it
● Disrupted from 800 C.E. to 1200 C.E.
● Fourished again thourhg the 1400s
● Its economic relevance started to fall after the fall of Constantinople to the Turks
What were the key cities passed by the Silk Road?
● Baghdad, capital of the Islamic Abbasid caliphate
● Samarkand, the Central Asian metropolis
● Chang’an, capital of Tang China and once hte eastern terminus of the Silk Road
What were the products traveling along the Silk Road?
● Slik from China remained the best-known commodity traded along this route
● Porcelain and its industrial production of iron and steel were also sold by China
● Cotton, spices, and jewels came from India and Southeast Asia
● The Middle East became a source of slaves, metalware, and glassware
● Persia specializing in textiles
What else did the Silk Road transfer other than goods?
● Cultural and religious practices
● Technolgoical innovations
● New diseases–black death
What cultural and religious practices spread along the Silk Road?
● Christianity and Islam moved eastward
● Buddhism spread along it as well
What technological innovations spread along the Silk Road?
● Printing
● Gunpowder
● Navigational technology
What ethnicities were important in the Silk Road?
● Sogdians of Central Asia
● Zoroastrian and Buddhist merchants from the Samarkand region
● After 1200, the revival of Silk Road trade owed much to the Mongols adn the pax Mongolica
● Muslim
● Jewish
● CHinese traders
What was the Mediterranean trade route experiencing and why?
● Continued to support large-scale trade between Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East
● Political distirbances affected commerce
● The fall of the ROman Empire largely disrupted trade in the western Med and Europe between 500-1000 C.E.
● Europe’s Crusades against the Middle East (1100-1300 C.E.) had their own impact on economic life in the Med, increasing European awareness of and appeptite for goods from Asia and the Middle East
What were the major centers of Mediterranena trade?
● Italian city-sates
- Venice being one of the wealthiest and most powerful
● The ancient Egyptian port of Alexandria
● Constantinople, the seat of the Byzantine Empire and a key crossroads point between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East
What was trans-Saharan caravan routes experiencing and why?
● Vastly increased
● Influenced by dramatic changes
- The fall of Rome
- Rapid expansion of Islam into North and West Africa (both peacefully and by means of forced conversion)
- Formation of strong African states like Ghana and Mali
What were the commodities traded in the trnas-Saharan caravan routee?
● Ivory, exotic animal skins, and foodstuffs like nuts and fruits flowing northward from sub-Saharan Africa
● Salf and manufactured goods (such as metalware, pottery, and glass) traveling southward
● Gold, which states like Ghana and Mali supplied in sizable quantities after about 800 C.E., became more important in the trade route
What wree the major hubs for trans-Sharan commerce?
● Koumbi Saleh in Ghana
●Timbuktu in Mali, a famed center for Islamic scholarship,as well as a key site in the salt and gold trades
What were the goods traded in the Indian Ocean Trade?
● Ivory, diamonds, animal hides, ebony, gold from East Africa
● Copper, textiles, glassware, and Arabian horses from Middle East
● India offered precious gems, elephants, salt, and cotton cloth
● From Sri Lanka (Ceylon) came cinnamon
● Other spices, as well as exotic woods, came from Indonesia
● China traded silk, porcelain, and paper
● Japan acted as a major source of silver
What were the key points in the Indian Ocean trad?
● Swahili city-states of the East Afrian coast
● Mecca in Arabia
● Hormuz in Persia
● Malibar metropolis of Calicut in western Indai
● malaysian city of Melaka (Malacca), which dominated hte chokepoint between the Indian and Pacific oceans
● Chinese ports of Canton (Guangzhou) and farther up the coast, Hagnzhou (located in teh Yangzi delta and at the soutehrn end of China’a Grand Canal)
What were the major cities in trade routes in the Americas?
● Cahokia, in Mississippian North America, arose as a center of wide-ranging exchange
● City-states of Mesoamerica traded heavily, Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan
● Andean communities of Incas
What improvements benefited overland transport?
● Wagons
● Carriages
● Harnesses–better camel saddles in the Sahara and along the Silk Road
How did states contribute in facilitating trade?
● Policing adn regulating trade routes
- Customs houses
- Enforcement of standard weights adn measures
● Supporting currencies, whetehr that meant minting coins, or printing paper money (chinese invention)
● Good infrasturcture
● Markets, trading outposts, and port cities and caravanserais
● Networkds of raods and man-made waterwyas (China’s Grand Canal)
How did large empires make the trad routes viable?
● Brining vast territories udner thie rauthority
● Consistent laws and regulations
● Relative safety from bandits or pirates
● Mutually-recognized currencies
● Proper care for transportational and communications infrastructure
