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Origins of World Agriculture
Agriculture arose independently at several locations across the world, beginning about 12,000 years ago. The first crops and livestock were domesticated in six rather diffuse areas including the Near East, China, Southeast Asia, and Africa...
Article
The Dutch Discovery of Australia
17th-century Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC) navigators were the first Europeans to set foot on Australian soil. Although there is a strong theory that the Portuguese explorer, Cristóvão de Mendonça (1475-1532...
Article
Slavery in Plantation Agriculture
The first plantations in the Americas of sugar cane, cocoa, tobacco, and cotton were maintained and harvested by African slaves controlled by European masters. When African slavery was largely abolished in the mid-1800s, the center of plantation...
Definition
Matthew Flinders
Matthew Flinders (1774-1814) was an English navigator and hydrographer. He was the first person to map the coastal outline of Australia in 1801-1803, following his circumnavigation of the 7.692 million square kilometres (2.96 million square...
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Inca Food & Agriculture
The Inca empire controlled four climate zones and, consequently, their agricultural produce was diverse. Ancient Andean people were largely vegetarian, supplementing their diet with camelid meat and seafood if they could. The Incas developed...
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Sugar & the Rise of the Plantation System
From a humble beginning as a sweet treat grown in gardens, sugar cane cultivation became an economic powerhouse, and the growing demand for sugar stimulated the colonization of the New World by European powers, brought slavery to the forefront...
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The Gold Trade of Ancient & Medieval West Africa
West Africa was one of the world's greatest producers of gold in the Middle Ages. Trade in the metal went back to antiquity but when the camel caravans of the Sahara linked North Africa to the savannah interior, the trade really took off...
Article
The Portuguese Colonization of São Tomé and Principe
São Tomé and Principe are islands located in the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa. They were uninhabited before being colonised by the Portuguese from 1486. So involved were they with the slave trade, they became known as the Slave Islands where...
Definition
Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan, or Fernão de Magalhães (c. 1480-1521), was a Portuguese mariner whose expedition was the first to circumnavigate the globe in 1519-22 in the service of Spain. Magellan was killed on the voyage in what is today the Philippines...
Definition
Kingdom of Kongo
The Kingdom of Kongo (14-19th century CE) was located on the western coast of central Africa in modern-day DR of Congo and Angola. Prospering on the regional trade of copper, ivory, and slaves along the Congo River, the kingdom's wealth was...