Monday, May 26, 2025

The Myth of Tordesillas

One myth this map reinforces is that these two were global superpowers of the era.

Instead they were relatively impoverished small nations in a relatively impoverished section of western Europe.

 


This was an age of political and economic innovation and around 1494 the most expansive and successful empires in these respects were operating elsewhere: the Ottomans, the Russians even, but most of all the Aztec and Inca plus two in Africa we hardly ever hear about: Mwene Mutapa in the east and the empire of Muhammad Touré in the Niger valley.

The Ming were nicely consolidated as well.

What distinguishes the Iberians is their sudden and startling global reach, but this exploration was very much needs driven. 

The Portuguese, for instance, were welcomed into the wealthy commercial system of the Indian Ocean at first because they brought extra shipping capacity and were rather desperate and cheap, and it was thought at the time that this would ultimately benefit everyone. The Indian Ocean was a lucrative and predictable, self-contained system. Nobody had much incentive to push out beyond. 

Only later did it become apparent that the newcomers would use their superior ship-borne firepower in order to establish a kind of protection racket.

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