xxxiv 1750 to 1900 Trade competition led not only to new kinds of exchanges and rivalries between equals but also created opportunities for exploitation of newly encountered populations Europeans famously tried to fool America’s Indian tribes by trading trinkets for valuable land and other resources Not all Natives were losers in these exchanges Such manufactured items as knives and firearms helped tribal groups defend themselves against settler attacks and enhanced their advantages in inter-tribal warfare A booming trade in alcoholic beverages, however, proved especially dangerous to American Indians, causing disease and social disruption and often giving whites an advantage in trade negotiations and treaties Slave trading between Africa and the Americas continued to decimate West African populations while enriching some African kings and traders with guns, textiles, and other manufactured goods At least 15 percent of approximately million kidnapped African men, women, and children died during the so-called Middle Passage, reduced to cargo in crowded, filthy ships that carried them across the Atlantic Ocean into slavery Most were destined for Brazilian and Caribbean sugar plantations where life was brutal and short Portugal, the Netherlands, and Britain competed for slave-trading dominance; after 1713, Britain became the world’s top merchant of slavery The African slave trade remained legal in the United States until 1809 In 1853 Brazil became the last New World nation to end slave importation As European nations carved out New World spheres, colonists dispatched there from home countries soon found themselves faced with both trade opportunities and restrictions The so-called triangular trade—actually an overlapping series of trade routes connecting Europe, Africa, and the Americas—enriched both colonials and the native lands they had left For example, the New England colonies became a center of shipbuilding and also sold fish, lumber, and grain to sugar plantations Another trading triangle linked Britain, India, and China Western demand for Chinese goods, notably porcelain, silks, and tea, and the lack of European goods desired by Chinese consumers, eventually led British entrepreneurs to grow poppy and refine it to opium in British-controlled India The opium was traded to China, where it fed a growing population of addicts The problem this trade created would lead to war between Britain and China and to growing British and European domination of the failing Qing Empire Growing British port cities like Bristol and Liverpool, as well as colonial New York and Boston, were awash in formerly exotic and expensive goods, such as tea, silk, and china tableware, once available only to the very wealthiest people But a series of British Navigation Acts, including the 1750 Iron Act, prohibited Americans from buying goods from other nations or making locally goods that British merchants could more profitably sell them At the end of the Seven Years’/French and Indian War in 1763, British colonists in North America became restless when Britain significantly tightened policies that limited internal trade with Indian tribes and with other colonies and nations Rules that required Americans to buy most products from British companies, while forbidding local manufacturing initiatives, were central issues leading up to the American Revolution Even after independence was won, the right to trade freely continued to cause conflict between the new nation and Britain and France, eventually becoming a major cause of the War of 1812 More Resources In the 19th century the rapidly industrializing nations of Europe and America aggressively sought new raw materials, markets, and trading opportunities around the world Venetians, Portuguese, Dutch, and British had traditionally traded with the countries of the Pacific rim Trade-driven imperial ventures intensified and also attracted the United States, which by 1848 had expanded to the Pacific Ocean’s eastern shore U.S whaling ships regularly plied the Pacific and required refueling stations in places like Hawaii In 1853 and 1854 U.S naval vessels under the command of Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Edo (Tokyo) Bay using both diplomacy and a display of military might to persuade the Japanese to open their isolationist society to the trading nations Japan’s embrace of industrial development and its participation in world trade were major results of this initiative Despite the U.S Monroe Doctrine’s dreams of dominating the Western Hemisphere, Latin American nations developed strong trade ties to many European powers Throughout the 19th