IMPERIALISM AND EXPANSION
1400s EUROPE
It’s easy to be amazed that a country so steeped in individual freedoms and inalienable rights could have the rather “checkered” past that is the United States of America. How did we get here and can we get farther away from that past and towards that lofty ideal that all men are indeed created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights? 1400s Europe gives us a path to follow.
During this period much of Europe was reeling from both the Dark Ages (known as a lack of written records except for the Church) and the after-effects of the Bubonic Plague which could be said to have contributed to the collapse of the monarchies. One could say what is to be expected when the centuries old feudal monarchies left a clear class strata that actually made “national currency” a necessity so as to enable a feeling of empowerment for those with and a feeling of hope for those without while also unbalancing the usefulness of capitalism.
This strata led to indentured servitude of nationals and/or neighbors and the importation of “slave-workers” from places where goods could be readily traded for bodies from all over the “civilized” world. This led to further stratification of the populous and setting the stage for an even more cruel stratification in the New World.
1400s AFRICA
By the 1400s, much upheaval and progress occurred in the various regions of Africa, with many upheavals caused by the ultimate “desertification” of the Saharan region which provided much of the beginnings of agricultural trade and additional goods along the same routes.
Slavery was practiced in Africa but most of what was later called chattel slavery was only realized by Rome before and sometime after its fall. Most African slavery would more so be considered what is defined as indentured servitude and was rarely enacted as an economic incentive but payment of debts, spoils of war.
There were also the “policies” of warlords that would “forcibly conscript” young people into local, regional and sometimes even national armies. Even then it was not designed to limit but to create armies for defense and conquest. By the 1500s the repercussions of Columbus’ excursions to the “new world” and colonization begun in earnest by initially the Portuguese who wanted to temper the Arab aspirations to introduce Islam throughout Africa and also find a route to the Indian Ocean. But as the usefulness of “free” labor enabled a smoother transition to the exploration and conquest of the Americas, the African economies and cultures were nearly shattered irreparably as imperialism took hold, plunged the continent into decades of war to prevent colonization and resource exploitation.