What are the consequences of geographical discoveries?

At the end of the Middle Ages, European technological progress led to the emergence of new navigational equipment and ships, through which the sailors of the Old World began to open all new lands. These studies entailed drastic changes in all spheres of human life.

The Conquest of the New World

The beginning of the era of the great geographical discoveries is the year 1492, when Christopher Columbus discovered America. Almost the entire New World was declared a Spanish possession. For European ships, overseas land was a source of income and rare resources, including precious metals. In this exploitative relation to America were the first consequences of the Great Geographical Discoveries. The Spanish colonialists mercilessly destroyed the indigenous population or made slaves from local residents. Such a policy adversely affected the development of the entire continent.

For 150 years since the appearance of strangers in America, the indigenous population has decreased by about 15 times. The able male population was driven to mines, where they had to work in inhuman conditions. As a result, fertility declined and traditional forms of agriculture deteriorated. Other negative consequences of geographical discoveries are regular epidemics of deadly diseases for Indians of European diseases.

Reduction of the indigenous population of America

In the middle of the XVI century, the Spaniards began to settle the local residents in special settlements located near the mines. These people had, on the one hand, to carry out public works, and on the other - to look for food for their own families. The influx of Spaniards in the colony was small. Gradually formed a special stratum of the population - Europeans, born already in the New World and almost had no connections with the metropolis. These people began to be called Creoles. Their identity was preserved due to the fact that they lived away from the Indians.

The local population eventually blurred. Entire ethnic groups and tribes disappeared. Local languages were superseded by Spanish. In addition to Creoles, there was a group of Métis - descendants of mixed marriages between Europeans and Indians. In the 17th century, a similar process began with an alien black population that appeared in America because of the slave trade. He led to the appearance of mulattoes. Particularly large communities emerged on the Caribbean islands, including Cuba and Haiti, where the plantation industry flourished.

Ethnic pot

All ethnic groups (Indians, Europeans, mulattoes, mestizos, Negroes, Creoles) existed in a closed manner, they differed noticeably from each other with their legal and social status. The existence of castes was enshrined in the laws of the Spanish Empire. The consequences of geographical discoveries were also that in the new colonial society the social position of a person was determined by its racial and ethnic characteristics.

Relative full rights with Europeans received only Creoles. Mestizos, on the contrary, could not own land, have weapons, live in the community, although they did not need to serve labor. The Indians were the most injured.

Christianization

The beginning, history, consequences of the Great Geographical Discoveries - all this could not do without the influence of the European Church on the open continents. The Portuguese and the Spaniards were the first to force Catholicism in the conquered regions of America. The priests intentionally destroyed not only pagan cults, but also the culture of the indigenous population of the New World. The monuments of antiquity and other symbols of the pre-Christian past were destroyed.

Expressed in the pressure of the church, the consequences of geographical discoveries, the history of which stretched for several centuries, evoked protest and resistance from the Gentiles. Regular riots forced priests and bishops to change their policy somewhat, making it milder and more compromising. One way or another, but the Indian culture, having survived the terrible onslaught of Europeans, still survived and survived.

Operation of blacks

The New World has become a source of enormous resources for Europeans. Many slaves were required for their extraction and production. As noted above, America's population has tragically declined. Small enslaved Indians could not satisfy the demands of the metropolitan countries.

The solution to this contradiction was the emergence of the transatlantic slave trade. In the middle of the XVI century, a whole system was formed for the capture of slaves in West Africa and their transportation to America (mainly to Brazil, Colombia, the Caribbean islands and the south of the USA). Most of them were exported from the Congo River basin.

Fighting slavery

Studying the consequences of geographical discoveries (Grade 7), they dwell on this topic in detail, and this is not surprising, considering the scale of what has been happening for several centuries. According to various estimates of forced deportation, about 17 million people were subjected to 400 years of imprisonment. The United Nations regards the transatlantic slave trade as one of the most serious violations of human rights in history.

The struggle against violence over blacks began in the XVIII century. In England, the first human rights organizations were created, which informed the public about the difficult living conditions of slaves. Quakers of America were also negative towards slavery. The turning point came after the famous Haitian slave uprising. It lasted for thirteen years (1791-1804). In the end, the French authorities recognized defeat and granted independence to the colony.

abolition of slavery

Other European powers reacted to what had happened in Haiti cautiously. It became clear that an increase in the number of slaves would only aggravate the situation in the whole of America and lead to an uninterrupted war. Against the backdrop of these sentiments, the transatlantic slave trade began to gradually curtail. Nevertheless, in some regions the old orders were eradicated with great difficulty.

In the United States, the slave trade was abolished in 1807. However, slavery itself remained there. It was finally abolished only in the middle of 1860. To do this, the US had to survive first the economic and then the military conflict of the northern industrial and southern slave states, which resulted in a bloody Civil War. The last trade of slaves from Africa in 1888 was abolished by Brazil.

Economic consequences

Some consequences of geographical discoveries led to profound changes not at once, but only on the scale of several generations. For example, together with some other reasons, they destroyed the European feudalism, which capitalism replaced. Market relations developed after the number of goods sold increased. These were rare Asian products and American treasures.

There were huge trading companies, and the major maritime powers began to compete with each other not only on the battlefield, but also in the economy. Such consequences of geographical discoveries as the "price revolution" in Europe in the 16th century, when they grew by about 400%, turned the political situation in metropolises. Countries with developed commodity production (England and the Netherlands) remained the winners. Gradually, they pushed out of the markets old colonial empires (Portugal and Spain), which eventually came to a serious decline.

Changes in industry

The colonies became a capacious external market for the industry. These changes led to a crisis of the medieval shops, unable to meet the increased demand. In place of the old craft came the capitalist manufactory. It began to apply the division of labor, which increased the scale of production by an order of magnitude. The result of these changes was the concentration of capital and the formation of the bourgeoisie.

The causes and consequences of geographical discoveries have benefited some European countries and greatly harmed others. So, the appearance of the American market has lowered the value of trade in the Mediterranean, which painfully hit the Italian cities. Those who played an important role in the Middle Ages of the Republic of Venice and Genoa, declined.

New trading centers

From Italian cities, the status of centers for international maritime trade passed to Seville, Lisbon and Antwerp. An example of this Dutch port is particularly revealing. Even in the XV century Antwerp became an important selling point for English cloth, French wool and German metal. With the opening of new continents in the Dutch port concentrated trade in colonial goods and spices.

Antwerp has become a place of concentration of European money. His offices in it were opened by all banks and merchants of the Old World. There was also a stock exchange. Important consequences of geographical discoveries were the emergence of a system for issuing the necessary international trade credits for trade. There were modern securities: bonds, bills and shares.

Capitalism replaces feudalism

Small in area, the Netherlands quickly became the most economically developed state in Europe. Their capitalist system proved to be more effective than feudalism (characteristic of Spain and Portugal). The first colonial empires received colossal revenues, but to their detriment they spent it on maintaining the aristocracy and the royal court. Taking advantage of the new colonial opportunities, English and Dutch free entrepreneurs helped their countries become the richest and most prosperous states of the New World.

Columbus exchange

In everyday life of ordinary Europeans, the consequences of the Great Discoveries were most affected in such a way that new goods unfamiliar to people appeared in the Old World: coffee, cocoa, tobacco, tomatoes, potatoes, tea, spices. The movement of animals, plants, technologies, cultural achievements from one part of the world to others was called the Columbus exchange.

In America, as a result of this process, cows, horses, sheep, wheat, coffee, cotton, sugar cane, etc. appeared. Some species migrated to other continents inadvertently. These include rats, Colorado beetles, some weeds. Trying to explain what the consequences of the Great geographical discoveries affected the life of Europe, the scientists introduced a new term: "neophyte". This name was given to plants that appeared in a flora alien to themselves as a result of human activity. Thus, the consequences of geographical discoveries, the table of which is presented below, have affected the most diverse spheres of human life.

Imperialism

Thanks to the colonial conquests, the European powers began to control most of the world. This is how a new political order emerged-imperialism. His first incarnation was Spain. Destroying the formidable states of the Incas and Aztecs, she took their place, creating in their American possessions a rigid system of coercion and slave labor.

Then the Spanish example served as a prototype for the colonial policy of Holland, Britain, France and some other countries. Aboriginal peoples were destroyed, religious cults were uprooted. Europeans have conquered all parts of the world except the Middle East and East Asia. In this region, the Chinese and Japanese civilizations have survived. Both countries periodically tried to take the path of isolationism from aggressive colonialists.

The causes and consequences of the Great Geographical Discoveries have redrawn the political map of the world. Colonial empires continued to exist for several centuries. The last of them granted independence to the conquered countries (primarily in Africa) only in the second half of the 20th century.