World Contacts Before Columbus

What was the Afro-Eurasian trading world before Columbus?

Indian Ocean Trading World

The center of pre-Columbian world trade.

Indian Ocean Trading World

Indian Ocean Trading World

• A “rich commercial world in which mutual self-interest had largely limited violence and attempts to monopolize trade.” (McKay, et al., 9/e, p. 485)

• Medieval China had the most advanced economy in the world.

Africa

Africa – Kingdom of Mali

Mansa Musa (14th c.)

A mosque in Timbuktu

Africa – Legend of Prester John

Prester John enthroned on a map of East Africa, in an atlas prepared by the Portuguese for Queen Mary of

England, 1558.

Prester John’s kingdom in what is now Ethiopia, map issued in Antwerp, 1570s.

The Middle East: Ottoman & Persian Empires

Ottoman Expansion

• 1453 – captured Constantinople = end of Byzantine empire• 1526 – defeat of Hungary• 1529 – siege on Vienna

• control of luxury trade with the East

• support for Crusades brought land & trading privileges

• Goods:o Eastern luxury goods:

spices, silks, carpetso Balkan slaveso Euro. products: wool,

metal, textiles

Venice and Genoa