Cookie Policy

Our website uses cookies to understand content and feature usage to drive site improvements over time. To learn more, review our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Maritime Empires Maintained and Developed

Driving Question: How did rulers and merchants use new economic strategies to expand their power and increase their wealth from c. 1450 to 1750 CE?

The new global age born from maritime exploration also gave rise to new economic and labor systems. In this lesson, you will explore how maritime empires extracted and exploited resources and people from their colonies in order to grow and expand their power and influence from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries.

Learning Objectives

  1. Explain how rulers employed economic strategies to consolidate and maintain power throughout the period from 1450 to 1750.
  2. Explain the continuities and changes in networks of exchange from 1450 to 1750.
  3. Explain how political, economic, and cultural factors affected societies from 1450 to 1750.
  4. Explain the similarities and differences in how various belief systems affected societies from 1450 to 1750.
  5. Evaluate the changes and continuities to economic and labor systems as new transoceanic empires expanded, and the strategies maritime empires used to maintain their power.
  6. Analyze primary source documents to understand how individuals experienced the transatlantic slave trade.
  7. Use graphic biographies as microhistories to support, extend, or challenge the overarching narratives from this region. 

Vocab Terms:

  • capitalism
  • commodity
  • indigenous
  • joint-stock company
  • mercantilism
  • Transatlantic slave trade
STEP 2

Overview of New Economic Systems

Credit cards are common today, but there was a time when the notion of credit was entirely new! What effect do you think this had on the economics of the time. What effect does the availability of credit have on us today?

STEP 3

The Spanish Empire, Silver, and Runaway Inflation: Crash Course World History #25

Is silver responsible for the life we have today? That’s what John Green claims in this Crash Course video. Let’s see if you think he’s right!

The Spanish Empire, Silver & Runaway Inflation: Crash Course World History #25 External link

The Spanish went looking for gold in the Americas, but they actually found silver. Unfortunately, all that silver led to death, inflation, and other not-so-good things.

Key Ideas

As this video progresses, key ideas will be introduced to invoke discussion.
STEP 4

The East India Company: Pioneering Corporation or Plundering

Coming soon!

STEP 5

Source Collection: First Person Accounts of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Primary source documents give us a sense of what life was like during a historic period. These documents show us the horrific and dangerous conditions African captives faced as they were transported against their will into slavery in the New World. Use the Quick-Sourcing Tool to help you analyze these primary source excerpts.

STEP 6

Impact of the Slave Trade: Through a Ghanaian Lens

The Atlantic slave trade radically impacted Africa; but was its impact the same throughout the continent? Looking through the Ghanaian lens can provide us with some insight.

Impact of the Slave Trade: Through a Ghanaian Lens External link

How did the Atlantic slave trade impact Africa? We can study a smaller region to try to determine bigger answers.

Key Ideas

As this video progresses, key ideas will be introduced to invoke discussion.
STEP 7

Closer: Maritime Empires Maintained and Developed

Domingos Álvares was one of more than twelve million Africans enslaved to labor in the Americas. But this did not define his identity. As historian James Sweet tells us, he was a healer who created a community and a network around him wherever he went.