Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-fvjsw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-12T12:06:38.840Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Two Expansion Systems in the Atlantic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2010

P.C. Emmer
P.C. Emmer
Affiliation:
University of Leiden
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It was Charles Boxer who has characterized the struggle between the Portuguese and the Dutch about their respective positions in world trade as the First Global War. In summing up the results at around 1650 Boxer contended that the Portuguese had won in the New World, that the Dutch had won in Asia, while the two countries had reached a stalemate in Africa.

This conclusion is correct only within the political domain. In fighting the Portuguese and the Spanish, the Dutch, together with the British and the French, did not reach economic the limits of their expansion because of Iberian resistance, but because of the general demographic and economic constraints on overseas expansion at the time. These limitations allowed for the creation of two expansion systems, each with its own sphere of influence in the Atlantic. The Iberian system covered the South Atlantic and the Northwest European system the Middle and North Atlantic. Both systems had a similar structure and incorporated European ports providing European and Asian trade goods, trading posts in Africa and plantation areas and settlement colonies in the New World.

Information

Type
Two Systems of European Expansion; a Tribute to George Winius
Information
Itinerario , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , March 1991, pp. 21 - 27
Copyright
Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Notes

1 Boxer, C.R., The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 1415–1825 (Harmondsworth 1973) 112.Google Scholar

2 Knaap, G.J., Kruidnagelen en christenen; de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie en de bevolking van Ambon, 1656–1696 (Utrecht 1987);Google ScholarArasaratnam, S., ‘De VOC in Ceylon en Coromandel in de 17deen 18deeeuw’, in: Meilink-Roelofsz, M.A.P. ed., De VOC in Azië(Bussum 1976) 14–64Google Scholar.

3 In the Atlantic, winds and currents created two shipping circuits: the South Atlantic circuit and the Middle and North Atlantic system. The physical difficulties of crossing from one into the other explain the protected position of Portuguese and Brazilian shipping in the South Atlantic. Steele, Ian K., TheEnglish Atlantic, 1675–1740;Google ScholarAn Explanation of Communication and Community (New York and Oxford 1986) 3–93 and Miller, Joseph C., Way of Death;Google ScholarNortheast Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730–1830 (London 1988) 318–324 and 603Google Scholar.

4 Emmer, P.C., ‘The West India Company, 1621–1791: Dutch or Atlantic’ in: Blussé, L. and Gaastra, F. eds., Companies and Trade; Essays on Overseas Trading Companies during the Ancien Regime (The Hague 1981) 87–90.Google Scholar

5 A discussion of the economy of Latin America in: Bath, B.H. Slicher van, ‘Feodalismo y capitalismo en America Latina’, Boletin de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe 17 (1974) 21–41.Google Scholar

6 Wallerstein, Immanuel, The Modem World System II. Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World Economy, 1600–1700 (New York 1980) 147–149 (Latin America) and 167–175 (Caribbean).Google Scholar

7 Bath, B.H. Slicher van, Bevolking en economie in Nieuw Spanje, ca. 1570–1800 (Amsterdam 1981) 13–81.Google Scholar

8 Andrews, Kenneth R., The Spanish Caribbean; Trade and Plunder, 1530–1630 (New Haven and London 1978) 221–223.Google Scholar

9 Fraginals, Manuel Moreno, Pons, Frank Moya and Engerman, Stanley L. eds., Between Slavery and Free Labour; The Spanish-Speaking Caribbean in the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore and London 1985) xiv.Google Scholar

10 McCuster, John J. and Menard, Russell R., The Economy of British America, 1607–1789 (Chapel Hill and London 1985) 295–308.Google Scholar

11 Liss, Peggy L., Atlantic Empires; The Network of Trade and Revolution, 1713–1826 (Baltimore and London 1983) 75–104.Google ScholarLang, James, Portuguese Brazil; the King's Plantation (New York 1979) 31–34, 87, 104 and 110. In addition to their disability to fully exploit the possibilities of their non-European empire, the Portuguese were equally unable to manage their own imports and exports within EuropeGoogle Scholar.

12 Bridenbaugh, C. and R., No Peace Beyond the Line; The English in the Caribbean, 1624–1690 (London 1972).Google Scholar

13 Watts, David, The West Indies; Patterns of Development, Culture and Environmental Change since 1492 (Cambridge 1987) 183.Google Scholar

14 Emmer, , ‘The West India Company’, 91,92 (on Dutch emigration). In a general periodization of Dutch overseas trade: Jonathan, J. Israel, Dutch Primacy in World Trade, 1585–1740 (Oxford 1989) 197–358 the turn-around is dated in 1672.Google Scholar

15 Winius, George D., Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415–1500 (Oxford 1977) 418–422.Google Scholar