Chapter 5 Review for the World That Trade Created

During the late 19th to early 20th century, King Leopold II impacted the African Continent and the larger International community more than any other European monarch. Firstly, King Leopold II sinisterly orchestrated a colonization operation that is comparative to a genocidal regime. Secondly, King Leopold II’s actions in the Congo led unified condemnation across oceans from a broad range of socioeconomic statues. Lastly, the opposition forces against King Leopold II’s colonization of Congo helped pave the way for future justice on the continent as well as internationally. Ultimately, this Europe created the competitive environment that promoted King Leopold II’s quest for colonization.

The overseas trade in the South was completely different from that in New England and the middle colonies, as there was a shortage in crops of tobacco, rice, and indigo in conjunction for the English goods, which ended up being a downfall. Even with this being a downfall, New England had shipbuilding, fishing, and maritime trading which brought them in a good cash flow for trade. New England ended up inputting into place a high tax on specific goods such as fish, flour, and wheat, in order to safeguard there own agriculture and fishing wealth.

The rule of King Leopold II instilled disturbing methods of ruling. He enslaved the people of The democratic republic of Congo (Congolese) to gather him resources that would only benefit him. He was willing to do whatever it took to gain resources, even if it meant enslaving the people. “ King Leopold II nearly enslaved many of the Congolese people in order to gain wealth, and to bring power” (Citation) imperialism had a negative impact on the country, it had a long lasting impacts on the country because he depleted them of their resources which means they don't have much to export as a country now. King Leopold II used the people as slaves to gather their resources due to the danger of the work, which resulted in many casualties and injuries. He wanted to rule the country as he wanted rather than what was right for the people. He lied to the Belgian government in order to gain power of the country, by saying that his

The Spanish exploration of America brought many new foods, types of plants, and many forms of wealth to the European world. However, the wealth that was brought from the Americas came at a cost. The suffering and enslavement of the Native people and the transportation of Africans to America to be used as slaves alongside the Natives. Many motivations were used to support this extraction of wealth and treatment of the Natives and Africans, however two are easily verifiable. The Spanish colonization from 1492 to 1700 was motivated by religious conversion of all peoples in America and the desire for wealth and profit that had a significant impact on the lives of Native Americans and Africans.

The Trans-Atlantic Trade has diversified the economy more in the North than in the South. While Southern farmers were able to acquire more lands and so more slaves; Northern farmers had to look for other opportunities. The economic development in the eighteenth century combined with the population growth changes the way people saw themselves, but also the way people understand the authority that surrounded them. Economic growth in America also led to the development of social life with the diversification of the society. While the market economy created those with wealth and those who seemed to be permanently poor, social hierarchy became challenged by the social stratification of the society. Blackburn, Robin (1997) highlights in his article

The Belgians imperialized Congo to exploit their natural resources to make a profit. King Leopold II of Belgium imperialized Congo with his army, known as the “The Forced Publique” in 1885, despite Leopold having never gone to the Congo himself. Belgian’s imperialism was set with the goal in mind of exploiting Congo’s enormous supply of ivory. By the 1890’s King Leopold controlled the vast majority of Belgium. Over time, “the world did not lose its desire for ivory, but by the late 1890’s wild rubber had far surpassed it as the main source of revenue from the Congo.”(159). Leopold did not care about the Congolese or their land, and in fact was so aggressive with using Congo’s rubber plants, and free labor that Alexandre Delcommune, a Congolese business man, predicted that in ten years if Leopold was still in power, “[people]

“To Europeans, Africans were inferior beings: Lazy, uncivilized, little better than animals... In any system of terror, the functionaries must first of all see the victims as less than human, and Victorian ideals about race provided such a foundation” (Hochschild 121). The society in which King Leopold II lived shaped his view that the people of Africa were inferior, that their lives were significant, and this idea began to spread to most of Europe. This allowed the Belgian king to focus on his main purpose of colonizing the Congo: money. Despite his portrayal that his main motivation for colonizing the Congo was not profit, King Leopold was definitely motivated by money, and and because of this motivation he turned a blind eye to what was happening in

Leopold never actually stepped foot in Congo, he had used explorers such as Stanley Mortan and other white men to establish the colony for him. To sneakily undergo his objectives without other countries noticing, he created organizations in which he could operate under. For instance, the International African Association to stop the outspread of slavery. Leopold additionally hosted conference meetings to speak on human rights. “If he was to seize anything in Africa, he could do so only if he convinced everyone that his interest was purely altruistic”. (46) King Leopold succeeded at convincing every one of his goodwill, that he was supported financially from the Belgian government in introducing free trade and religion in the Congo.

During the nineteenth-century European drive for possessions in Africa... people justified colonialism in various ways, claiming that it Christianized the heathen or civilized the savage races or brought everyone the miraculous benefits of free trade.”(Hochschild 38)Many people played a major role in colonizing the Congo. Many people tried to end the mass murder in the Congo. Even though most of these people were not able to stop it completely, they were a great input to stopping and putting an end to Leopold’s brutality. King Leopold was one of the sneakiest European leaders. His ambitions to increase his country’s power lead him to hunt for a colony. Leopold was able to manipulate his people, and he tried to hide his true intentions for wanting

The movement of peoples form the old world to the new world happened between 1600-1900. Men and women around the world at this time were being transported to various places for various reasons. Some were involuntary, and on other occasions it was voluntary. The voluntary people are called free settlers and went too another county at their own will because of conflict in the country or like in Britain there was a lot of crime back then and people wanted to get away form it. Involuntary people were the prisoners and had to go even if they didn’t want to like in Britain they were sent to Australia because the prisons were filing up too much and they had nowhere to keep them so they had to transport them. The movements throughout this time

Once the superpowers of Europe heard of this, they all begin to make their move to imperialize the whole neighborhood. This was later known as “The Scramble Of Africa”. When Leopold was colonizing Africa, he convinced explorers, politicians, and even the newspapers that he wanted to aid Africa due to the fact that there were not as developed. But in this quote said by Leopold, to the ambassador of London “I do not want to miss a good chance of getting us a slice of this magnificent African cake” shows that his intent was not to help Africa at all. He only view them as something that can eat or use until he is satisfied. Throughout history, Europeans believed that Leopold would spend a fortune of his fundings to help the congo and stop slavery as a charity, but he actually was forcing them to work for him as he owned a part of the congo. This resulted in the death of ten million people, which was more than half of the congo’s

Albercht, M., & Sack, S. (2011, August). International trade statistics 2010. Retrieved from World Trade Organization:http://www.wto.org/english/res_e/statis_e/its2010_e/its10_toc_e.htmAnderson, S., & Cavanagh, J. (1997, January 1). World trade organization. Retrieved fromhttp://www.fpif.org/reports/world_trade_organizationBloomberg.

Generally reading about history would be torture for some who may not like the idea of sitting and reading information for 200 pages straight. However, the authors didn’t exactly have that in mind when writing this book. From the cover to the last entry in the index, The World that Trade Created is an exquisite source of information about the history of where trade originated and flourished into what we refer to as trade today. The authors, Kenneth Pomeranz and Steven Topik, have organized the sections of this book to be easily read and understood for gathering information and knowledge. An alarming quantity of information clumped together in one section can be exhausting so in the way that it’s spread out in this book makes the information

The new trade theory began to emerge in the 1970s when a number of economists pointed out that the ability of firms to attain economies of scale might have important implications for international trade (Wickramasekera, Cronk & Hill 2013). This theory is based on two major concepts that are economies of scale and first-mover advantage. To elaborate:

Mercantilism was a sixteenth-century economic philosophy that maintained that a country's wealth was measured by its holdings of gold and silver (Mahoney, Trigg, Griffin, & Pustay, 1998). This recquired the countries to maximise the difference between its exports and imports by promoting exports and discouraging imports. The logic was transparent to sixteenth-century policy makers-if foreigners buy more goods from you than you buy from them, then the foreigners have to pay you the difference in gold and silver, enabling you to amass more treasure. With the treasure acquired the realm could build greater armies and navies and hence expand the nation’s global influence.