1. Columbus Day
Hero Or Villain?

2. CONS ( - )
His brutal actions toward Native-Americans were unnecessarily cruel and plainly immoral and are not worthy of any national holiday.
Considering a holiday from the viewpoint of Native Americans, who were here far before Columbus, seems insensitive and inconsiderate.
Columbus opened an era of genocide, cruelty, and slavery on a larger scale than ever seen before.

3. PROS ( + )
In sailing west to the Far East, he accidently “discovered” land previously unknown to contemporary Europeans.
His achievement resulted in a permanent relationship between Europe and the America’s.
His was 1st step in a long process that produced the United States, a new democratic society.
The discovery was an essential factor in ushering in the modern age.

4. Impact of Columbus’ Voyage
Columbian Exchange: The exchange of plants, animals, and ideas between the New World (the Americas) and the Old World (Europe)
As a result, European diseases kill millions of Native Americans

5. “Where is that food from?”
Decide where the plants and animals originated (the Americas, or Europe/Africa)

6. Columbian Exchange

7. Impact of Columbus’ Voyage
EUROPEANS
Increase in wealth
Encourages exploration
Ethnocentrism – belief in racial, cultural, national superiority over others
Columbian Exchange
NATIVE AMERICANS
European diseases
Wipes out 90% of Native
population
Forced labor
Rebellion-Suppression
Smallpox, chicken pox, yellow fever, malaria, measles
AFRICA
Slave trade flourishes
African societies devastated

8. The Atlantic Slave Trade (Triangular Trade)
Slavery in Africa
• Slavery had existed in Africa for centuries, but been
minor practice
The Demand for Africans
• Need for workers in Americas raises demand for
enslaved Africans
• Africans withstand diseases, have farming skills,
unlikely to escape
• Triangular slave trade—forced movement of many
Africans to Americas

9. The Atlantic Slave Trade (Triangular Trade)

10. A Forced Journey
The Triangular Trade • Triangular trade—trade network linking Europe, Africa, Americas • One trade route: - manufactured goods move from Europe to Africa - people move from Africa to Americas - sugar, coffee, tobacco move from Americas to Europe The Middle Passage • Voyage of enslaved Africans to Americas known as the middle passage • As many as 20 percent of Africans die on these journeys

11. Global Trade Changing Economies
• Wealth from Americas, growth of trade changes
business in Europe
The Rise of Capitalism
• New economic system—capitalism—based on
private property, profit
Joint-Stock Companies
• Joint-stock company lets investors share risk,
profits of business
• These companies help fund colonies in America
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12. JAMESTOWN

13. The Growth of Mercantilism
New Economic Policy
• Policy of mercantilism emphasizes national
wealth as source of power
Balance of Trade
• One way for nation to increase wealth: gather gold, silver
• Favorable balance of trade when nation sells
more goods than it buys
• Colonies provide raw materials that home country uses to make goods
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