Cultural Encounters In The Atlantic World

The Atlantic World has a significant history to understand. Throughout the course of the time period of 1400 to 1900 the Atlantic Ocean was used in ways that undeniably formed its history. It was no more to be just seen as a huge waterway, however rather as a path that joined different gatherings of individuals. From Europe and Africa to America, the Ocean was secured with many countries whom were attempting to survive the Ice Age. The need to investigate and explore what else was out there for them prompt a progression of occasions that nobody could have envisioned were to come. For instance, trades and the trades that were taxed, the slavery, and the arrangement of empires and religious pressures of this undersea territory was significant …show more content…
“These interactions and exchanges transformed European, African and American societies and led to the creation of new peoples, cultures, economies and ideas throughout the Atlantic arena” stated by Benjamin Thomas (The Atlantic World). The Atlantic World offers a complete and articulate history of one of the most significant cross cultural encounters in human history. Europeans were the first to change the Atlantic Ocean from a large and appearing to be impossible to pass barricade into a highway of trade and communication. European sailors and traders as well as settlers, migrants, soldiers, and evangelists crossed the ocean on behalf of leaders, suppliers, church missionaries, and for their own private benefits. Europeans formed the shipping lanes for the oceanic empires and the profitable arrangements that merged every country together. The Europeans and the American societies invented the concepts that led the revolutions to ruin the Atlantic empires and rebuild new …show more content…
“With the Atlantic World expanding and cultivation of various crops booming, there became a great demand for manual laborers” stated by Jasmine Franklin (Meaning and Significance). Slaves were captives in Africa and during the middle passage and enslaved Africans on plantations and in cities. African leaders and traders invaded and took Africans from other provinces and cultural groups. Yet the Africans united with European traders to sell them into the Atlantic slave trade. Native American empires and leaders joined with European war groups to make war against others. They went after more dominant native alliances, states, and empires. “ The Indian slave trade was of central importance from the Carolina coast to the Mississippi Valley for nearly fifty years, linking southern lives and creating a whirlwind of violence and profit-making” argues Alan Gallay (The Indian Slave Trade). In most slave societies in America a free man of color would serve as a soldier to defend that society from the competing European empires. Also, they would serve as soldiers to defend those who form a greater threat in the slave revolts. In Spanish American domains Hispanic Africans and blacks oversaw the work of reliable Indian laborers. Unlike Western Europeans the West Africans and Native Americans seldom noticed themselves in a manner we would today call a racial or ethnic identity. Africans and Indians many