Unit 4: Transoceanic Interconnections (1450-1750)

Unit 4 shifts to the oceans. New maritime technology (caravels, the astrolabe, improved maps) let Europeans, led by Portugal and Spain, explore for gold, God, and glory. The Columbian Exchange moved crops, animals, people, and diseases between hemispheres, devastating Native American populations through smallpox and transforming diets worldwide. Know how maritime empires were built and run: Portuguese trading posts, Spanish conquest, joint-stock companies like the Dutch and British East India Companies, mercantilism, and labor systems such as the encomienda, hacienda, mit'a, and the Atlantic slave trade. Study resistance to state power and the new social hierarchies, like the Spanish casta system, that these empires created.