Portuguese Colonization Of Africa During The 16th And 16th...

The Portuguese conquests in Africa in the 15th and 16th century has expanded our knowledge of the world around us and was extremely important to Portuguese operations. What made this truly remarkable was the sheer scale of the land that they had taken, as it was twenty-three times bigger than Portugal itself but the importance of trade was the most distinguishing feature in Portuguese colonial cities as the Portuguese created a huge trade complex to centralise their African trade, and the sheer scale of operations identified the focus on the trading possibilities of African colonial cities. Another feature of the Portuguese colonial cities in Africa was the importance of religion and spreading the Christian faith across the globe, just like the Spanish in South America. However, trade should be considered the most important feature of these colonial cities as it provided the Portuguese with the necessary commodities needed to become a major power in Europe and allowed the Portuguese to gain a foothold in the New World through these resources. Firstly, the economic features of the Portuguese influence in Africa was essential to the Portuguese as it allowed them to access different parts of the world and were able to acquire new commodities that were in demand, especially gold, textiles and salt. These were decisive commodities amongst European nations, and masses of these products signified mass wealth and power in the world as well as Europe. The West African Trade was ofShow MoreRelatedImpact Of Colonia On Indian Ocean And The Trans Atlantic Trading Systems848 Words   |  4 PagesEuropean traders in the Indian Ocean and trans-Atlantic trade systems. 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