Some maps to learn about international trade in the 17th century

Here you have some maps to study the evolution of trade during the Modern Era:

- This map includes the traditional trade routes controlled by Portugal and the Hispanic Monarchy (the spice route to Asia and the precious metals route to America) until the 17th century and also the triangular trade route. You can observe the main products exchanged in these routes: 

Source: http://www.classzone.com/cz/books/ms_wh_survey/resources/images/chapter_maps/wh18_worldtrade.jpg

This is an interactive map about triangular that includes an oral explanation about the rise of cities as a consequence of trade. The map is focused in North America's trade. That's why it doesn't include the products exchanged between Europe and Africa. Click on the map to play the animation: 

Source: http://glencoe.com/sites/common_assets/socialstudies/in_motion_10/tav/TAV_039.swf

And this one also includes an oral explanation that you can follow reading the text below. Click on the image and later Play : 

Source: http://www.prenhall.com/faragher6/map4.3/

And finally, here you have a report about the slave trade. The route the slaves followed was called Middle Passage: 

http://clio.missouristate.edu/lwburt/HST620/Images121/MiddlePassage1.html

Some interactive maps about triangular and slave trade

Source: http://apushistorycase.wikispaces.com/How+Slavery+began

Here you have the links to some interactive maps I´ve found to learn more about international trade and slave trade: 

- A simplified map of triangular trade: 

http://wps.prenhall.com/wps/media/objects/2311/2366757/map4_2.dcr

- A more detailed map of triangular trade: 

http://www.eduplace.com/kids/socsci/books/applications/imaps/maps/g5s_u3/index.html

- Triangular trade routes: this map includes an exercise to make sure that you´ve understood the products exchanged between every continent and the others: 

http://phschool.com/atschool/worldhistory/interactive_maps/WH07Y00488x.swf

- African slave trade: on this map you can see where the black slaves came from mainly and what their main destinations in the Americas were: 

http://wps.prenhall.com/wps/media/objects/2311/2366757/map4_1.dcr

- Slave trade of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: on this map you can see the territories in the Americas with the highest percentage of slaves: 

http://wps.prenhall.com/wps/media/objects/2310/2366341/InteractiveMaps/imap/IMap_ch04_02.dcr

Source: http://hansengeorge.blogspot.com.es/2011/09/triangular-trademiddle-passage.html

Some data about the colonization of the Indies and slavery

Smallpox epidemics, Codex Florentinus

Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Florentinoviruela.JPG?uselang=es

As we have studied today, the contact between the Europeans and the peoples of the Americas was catastrophic for the last ones. Although there was a number of natives who died fighting against the conquerors, most of them died from diseases transmitted by the Europeans. The Indies were "virgin soil" for many European diseases, which became lethal for the native Americans. Estimates calculate a demographic loss from 70 to 90 % of the total population of the continent. The population of the Americas didn´t recover until 1800, three centuries after the beginning of the conquest, but including the Europeans who had migrated to the Indies and the slaves forced to leave Africa. The impact was such that the natives were not the majority of the American population any more. 

Advertisement of a slave auction in Virginia, British colony in North America, in 1769

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Slave_Auction_Ad.jpg

When the natives started dying, the Europeans replaced them by black slaves brought from Africa forcedly. Around 12 million slaves crossed the Atlantic Ocean to work in the plantations and mines owned by the Europeans and their descendants.Many of them died during the voyage (25%). Slavery started in the Castilian and Portuguese colonies in 1502, became an important part of triangular trade and it didn´t finish until the end of the 19th century: in the USA slavery was abolished after the Civil War (1861-1865). Spain definitively abolished slavery in its colonies of the Caribbean Sea between 1873 (Puerto Rico) and 1880 (Cuba). 

Figures have been extracted from the book LIVI BACCI, Massimo, Los estragos de la conquista. Quebranto y declive de los indios de América, Editorial Crítica, Barcelona, 2006. (English version: Conquest: the destruction of the American Indios, Polity, 2008).

More information about the Columbian exchange and demographic catastrophe for the native Americans:

http://www.dhr.history.vt.edu/modules/us/mod01_pop/context.html

http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/nattrans/ntecoindian/essays/columbianb.htm

Some important figures in the abolition campaign in the United Kingdom: 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/

Interactive map about slavery: 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/map/index.shtml