Abstract
The northwestward trend that was emerging in Europe at the end of the Middle Ages was boosted by the discovery of America. Geographical factors contributed to the fact that this discovery was made by Europeans instead of North African or Chinese navigators. Due to the dominance of the Great Corridor, despite the historical advance of Spain and Portugal, the colonization of the American continent ended up benefiting much more northwestern than southern cities of Europe. The opening of the St. Gotthard Pass strengthened the spine of the Great Corridor, and this ultimately benefited Amsterdam and London that became the dominant cities of the merchant core of the rising European economy. Around that core three major territorial states asserted themselves: Spain, France, and Austria. The European colonization of America started in the Caribbean Islands, Mexico, and in Central and South America. Surprisingly, the American Corridor, which ended up dominating the world, emerged north of Mexico.
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Notes
- 1.
The city of Panama was founded on the Pacific Coast in 1519. Francisco Pizarro set sail from Panama in December 1530 for what was to be the conquest of Peru.
- 2.
Vautrin Lud and Jean Basin are also considered by some scholars as the authors of the designation of the new continent as «America».
- 3.
When Columbus returned in 1493, the inhabitants of La Navidad had been killed by Indians. Columbus founded a new settlement, Isabella, some 150 km further east (in present-day Dominican Republic), which was replaced in 1496 by Santo Domingo, located to the south of the island. Santo Domingo is the first permanent European settlement in the Western Hemisphere.
- 4.
Originally, the expression “Indies” referred to both China and India. But, after the discovery of America, it designated also the Americas.
- 5.
Seville is situated some 100 km up the Guadalquivir River.
- 6.
Braudel (1966, Volume 1, 476).
- 7.
Braudel (1974, 268).
- 8.
van der Woude et al. (1990, 10).
- 9.
Redfield and Singer (1954).
- 10.
Renaissance city planning was marked by Michelangelo, and Pope Sixtus V in Rome, and by Leonardo da Vinci, Brunelleschi, and the Medicis in Florence.
- 11.
Hohenberg and Lees (1985, 163).
- 12.
Diamond (1997, 261).
- 13.
Fernand Braudel, La Méditerranée et le monde…, op. cit., 489.
- 14.
Ibid., 189–190.
- 15.
de Vries (1984, 354).
- 16.
A. M. van der Woude, Akira Hayami, and Jan de Vries, op. cit., 11–2.
- 17.
Maddison (2001, 75).
- 18.
Bairoch (1988, 97).
- 19.
Jan de Vries, op. cit., 169–172.
- 20.
Paul M. Hohenberg, and Lynn Hollen Lees, op. cit., 169–170.
- 21.
- 22.
During the Islamic occupation, Toledo was a very prosperous city, which produced woolen and silk textile as well as steel blades thanks to its large Jewish community. From 1355, with the Christian Reconquista, that community suffered several pogroms before being expelled in 1492.
- 23.
Madrid originated as a Moorish Castle town on a small left-bank hilltop partially encircled to the south and west by the Manzanares River, which flows toward the Tagus River. Madrid is located at the center of the Iberian Peninsula.
- 24.
The Italian Mazarin settled in France on January 3, 1640, and he became Prime Minister on December 5, 1642, and Louis XIV’s godfather on April 21, 1643, 24 days before Louis XIII’s death and the accession to the throne of Louis XIV.
- 25.
Tellier (1987).
- 26.
Voltaire built fortresses and waterway systems. He invented the bayonet. He made proposals for the development of New France and proposed radical reforms of the taxation system. As a military engineer, he worked for Louvois.
- 27.
- 28.
Paul Bairoch, op. cit., 388–9.
- 29.
The University of San Marcos founded in Lima was the first in South America; the University of Mexico City was the first in North America.
- 30.
Jared Diamond, op. cit., 210.
- 31.
Ibid., 213.
- 32.
Angus Maddison, op. cit., 233.
- 33.
Morris (1994, p. 305).
- 34.
Potosí’s population declined to about 30,000 by the early eighteenth century.
- 35.
Bogotá was made capital of the vice-royalty of New Granada established in 1739.
- 36.
Anthony Edwin James Morris, op. cit., 71.
- 37.
The Jesuits survived by taking refuge in Frederick II’s Prussia and Catherine II’s Russia.
- 38.
Anthony Edwin James Morris, op. cit., 240.
- 39.
Curtin (1969).
- 40.
Paul Bairoch, op. cit., 385.
- 41.
Cuba remained longest in Spanish hands from 1492 to 1899, that is to say during 407 years.
- 42.
In 1499, Alonso de Ojeda, accompanied by Amerigo Vespucci, explored the coast of Venezuela, naming the country “little Venice” after the huts built on piles above the swampy ground of Maracaibo. Only in 1527 was the coastal city of Coro founded as the first seat of government. In 1550, Venezuela became a captaincy-general, the capital of which was moved in 1576 to Caracas.
- 43.
Paul Bairoch, op. cit., 389–90.
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Tellier, LN. (2019). The Discovery of America and the Return in Strength of the Occident. In: Urban World History. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24842-0_9
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