Unit 9: The Encounter, Colonization, and the New Transatlantic Economy
Enduring Understanding
During the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, growing European nation-states expanded their economies, armed forces, and bureaucratic governing institutions. Their new found powers enabled them to exert control over lands far away from their own. In many cases, exploitation of peoples from the Americas and Africa enabled this development and expansion. Europeans' quest for increased economic and political power brought colonization, infectious disease, and the trans-Atlantic slave trade to the Western Hemisphere, which fundamentally changed its people and environment.
Essential Questions
How did Europeans' colonization of the Western Hemisphere impact its people and environment?
How and why did the trans-Atlantic slave trade develop?
What drove the sugar trade and how was it able to develop into a major economic event?
Unit 9: The Encounter, Colonization, and the New Transatlantic Economy
Enduring Understanding
During the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, growing European nation-states expanded their economies, armed forces, and bureaucratic governing institutions. Their new found powers enabled them to exert control over lands far away from their own. In many cases, exploitation of peoples from the Americas and Africa enabled this development and expansion. Europeans' quest for increased economic and political power brought colonization, infectious disease, and the trans-Atlantic slave trade to the Western Hemisphere, which fundamentally changed its people and environment.
Essential Questions
How did Europeans' colonization of the Western Hemisphere impact its people and environment?
How and why did the trans-Atlantic slave trade develop?
What drove the sugar trade and how was it able to develop into a major economic event?
Key Vocabulary
Christianization
Colonialism
Columbian Exchange
Conquistador
Mercantilism
Triangular Trade
Documents & Sources