Chapter 14 is about the Economic Transformations within commerce. The first half of the chapter discusses Europeans and the Asian Commerce and Silver and Global Commerce. This chapter deals with the commerce and trade among various nations such as Europe, Asia, India, Portugal, and Spain. The most interesting section discussed was Spain and the Philippines. The Spanish saw that Portugal began to generate wealth from the the Portuguese spice trade, so efforts began to establish a trade connection with Asia.The Spanish ruled in a very peaceful conquest as the islands had no central government they were able to win over many local Catholic Church leaders. The Spanish successfully spread the Catholic faith, which led to some disputations of traditional Filipino culture leading to larger settlements around a church rather than isolated villages. In the south, they resented Spanish rule and the spread of Catholicism, Islam served as an ideology of resistance.
Manila became the focus of Spanish activity located close to the ports of southern China. At times, word spread of mistreatment by the Spanish, resulting in massacres by the Spanish which was very sad to ready about. What caught my attention in this section was the disrespect that the Spanish placed on the Philippines culture. The woman there were highly significant being healers, and midwives but when the Spanish conquered they replaced them with male figures and their ways were disgraced. This was very sad to read about because it was things like this the lead to massacres by the Spanish.
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