Global contact, and its violent asymmetries.
11 topics · 10 curated works
No prior grounding assumed.
Journal of Christopher Columbus (During His First Voyage, 1492–93)
Christopher Columbus · 1492
Columbus's own shipboard log of the 1492 crossing records the moment European and American peoples became aware of each other, and shows his growing…
+3 more at this level
Assumes you know the vocabulary.
England's Treasure by Forraign Trade
Thomas Mun · 1664
Argues a nation's wealth is measured by running a trade surplus, and that a temporary outflow of silver to buy raw materials cheaply can still leave…
+2 more at this level
Primary sources and full treatments.
The Commentaries of the Great Afonso Dalboquerque, Second Viceroy of India
Afonso de Albuquerque · 1557
Compiled by his son from Albuquerque's own papers, this account shows the Portuguese Estado da Índia was built through fortified trading posts and…
+2 more at this level
10 works
Christopher Columbus
Columbus's own shipboard log of the 1492 crossing records the moment European and American peoples became aware of each other, and shows his growing willingness to mislead his crew about the distance sailed.
link failing as of 17 Sept 2026Bartolome de las Casas
A Spanish friar's eyewitness account of the killing and enslavement of indigenous peoples across the conquered Americas, written as an appeal to the Spanish crown to end the abuses of the encomienda system.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Olaudah Equiano
A first-hand account of enslavement, the Middle Passage and self-purchase, written to argue the abolitionist case from evidence its readers could not dismiss as second-hand.
about 5.5 hours to readlink checked 17 Sept 2026Solomon Northup
A free Black man's account of being kidnapped and enslaved on Louisiana cotton plantations documents, in granular detail, the quota system and violence that extracted plantation labour.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Thomas Mun
Argues a nation's wealth is measured by running a trade surplus, and that a temporary outflow of silver to buy raw materials cheaply can still leave a country richer overall — the foundational statement of mercantilist doctrine.
link checked 17 Sept 2026William Bradford
The Plymouth colony's own governor recounts its founding and near-collapse, arguing the colony's survival depended on abandoning collective farming for individually assigned plots.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Alfred W. Crosby
Argues that the exchange of crops, animals and diseases set in motion by 1492 reshaped the biology of both hemispheres more profoundly than any political or military event of the period.
Afonso de Albuquerque
Compiled by his son from Albuquerque's own papers, this account shows the Portuguese Estado da Índia was built through fortified trading posts and naval control of chokepoints rather than territorial conquest.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Richard Hakluyt
A vast compilation of English voyage accounts, assembled to make the case for England building its own overseas trading empire at a time when Spain and Portugal already had one.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Dennis O. Flynn & Arturo Giráldez
Argues that genuinely global trade began in 1571 with the founding of Manila, when Spanish American silver started flowing directly to China in exchange for goods.
link checked 17 Sept 2026