The European explorations and discoveries of vast regions in the late-15 th and early-16th

centuries was an important turning point in human history as it led to the ultimate colonization
of many parts of the New World. It established European influence and power in distant regions
but Europe, too, was deeply affected by its contact with the rest of the world. The importance of
the new territories was felt with the coming of bullion in large quantities and gradual familiarity
with new products. The discovery of new regions with immense natural resources introduced to
the Europeans new agricultural products that were rich in food value like potatoes, tomatoes,
cocoa, tobacco, maize, peanuts, vanilla, rubber and kidney beans.

Maize and potato were able to solve to large extent the problem of feeding the European
population. Sweet and white potatoes gave higher nutritional yield per acre than cereals. These
transformed the diet of the Europeans and subsequently of other regions of the world where
they were introduced and consumed. The Portuguese also introduced delicate and coarse
varieties of textiles from Asia. Asian tomato, ginger, rice, and pepper reached the New World,
maize travelled to Africa and corn, quinine, and turkey, were taken from New World to the other
continents. The Spaniards introduced various animals, horses, cattle, sheep, donkeys, goats,
pigs, water buffalo and fowl into the New World.

Asian spices like black pepper, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and mace head became
the important source of state revenue of Portugal. The exchange of products, raw materials and
food from the New World in return for industrial products, proved extremely useful to Europe
and in the long run led to European hegemony over other continents. Scholars have highlighted
the significance of population migration in the spread of various diseases. Many diseases are
believed to have been exported from Europe to Americas such as smallpox, measles, whooping
cough, chickenpox, bubonic plague, malaria, diphtheria and influenza. A historian describes this
as ‘bacteriological warfare’.

However, the most deadly killer of Amerindians was the small pox. It is believed to have
caused demographic losses from a quarter to at least one-third of the population. The creation of
colonial empires resulted in large scale migration of population from Europe to the New World.
Boyd Bowman on the basis of available data estimates that 45,374 persons left Europe between
1493 and 1579. But he accepts that this was probably one-fifth of the actual number of
immigrants. So the number must have been about 226,870 persons. It is argued by some
scholars that countries like Spain were deprived of productive population – due to vast
migration to the New World.

However, the loss was much greater for Africans and the Americans. The Spanish
conquistadores and their men destroyed prosperous and large civilizations like the Aztec and
Incas. It is estimated that almost 70 million people died because of European conquest. It is
aptly said that Columbus was the advance scout of catastrophe for Amerindians. The European
settlers undertook the organization of production in the colonies. They used the indigenous
peoples and the African slaves from primary production in mines and fields. The colonies’ chief
exports were precious metals, hides, cochineal and sugar. Other secondary exports consisted of
forest products and dyewoods.
 In exchange, the inhabitants of the New World received cloth, hardware items, wines,
olive oil, mercury for silver mining, some luxury items, and most important of all, the slaves.
The New World as well as the oriental empires brought huge wealth into the European economy.
The growing demand for certain agricultural products led to the creation of plantation economy.
Large-scale production of cash crops in the colonial possessions was carried out. The Dutch
introduced the art of making rum and molasses to the English and the French West Indies.
Sugar converted into rum and molasses became a part of international commerce and as it
needed huge capital investments, the sugar industry of New England got linked to the money
market of Europe.

It also influenced the coastal bet of the Atlantic Europe, where a large number of sugar
refineries sprang up, particularly on the Atlantic coast of France and England. Tobacco made
worthwhile contributions to the treasuries of the European powers. The cotton plantations in
the West Indies and subsequently in North America helped the textile industry of the European
nations. Sugar, cotton and tobacco became a chief source of profit for the European settlers who
exploited slave labour. The expansion of the plantation economy transformed the commodity
pattern of trade: commodities of mass consumption replaced luxury items. A far reaching
impact of the colonial empire was related to silver imports from the New World.

The entire process of empire building had started with the objective of controlling the
sources of silver and gold and the Spaniards had achieved tremendous success in it. The most
notorious trade practices promoted by the Europeans with devastating consequences were the
trade in African slaves. Earlier slavery existed on a limited scale but the rise of the colonial
empires made it voluminous in which human beings were turned into commodities of the other
regions. Gradually the African slaves replaced the Amerindians, and Jamaica emerged as the
chief centre of slave trade. The African slaves were in great demand in every part of the world
where plantation economy had developed.

The establishment of a colonial empire in the New World resulted in the rapid growth of
slave traffic and the emergence of triangular trade, linking Africa, Europe and the New World.
In response to the demand from the European planters, gold and silvers miners and the towns
of the New World, Africa sent huge consignments of slaves, about 9 lakhs in the 16 th century and
37.5 lakhs in the 17th century and between 70-80 lakhs in the 18 th century. In the long run the
impact of American Empire on Spain was far from beneficial. The Spanish decline is often
associated with her colonial possessions and stemmed from the gross misuse of resources and
false belief that bullion meant wealth and prosperity.

The Spanish economy was backward at the time it started acquiring colonial empires.
Agriculture was not well developed because of large infertile lands and the importance given to
sheep farming. The industrial base was too fragile. As such, Spain could not properly utilize the
riches that came from the New World. To meet the increasing demand of her colonies for food
and manufactured goods, Spain was compelled to arrange cargoes from other countries,
particularly from England, France, and the Flanders. Several countries gained at the expanse of
Spain and received a vast portion of silver bullion by supplying manufactured items of their own
industries.
 The Spanish rulers, indulged in an adventurous foreign policy involving Spain in
numerous wars, ate up not only the Spanish revenues but also the profits of the colonial
enterprises. What began as an exploration and search for new territories beyond Europe
resulted in the acquisition of new lands for commercial and strategic gains. Slavery was
promoted to exploit the potential resources of the new territories to reap higher gains. The most
important result of the colonial empires of the Iberian states was the shift of an economic
balance from the Mediterranean states to the Atlantic countries.