New World Discovery: Trade, Colonialism, and Its Human Cost
This paper examines the far-reaching consequences of European contact with the New World in the fifteenth century, arguing that the humanitarian costs of colonization vastly outweighed its economic benefits. Drawing on Adam Smith's reflections in Wealth of Nations and scholarship on globalization, the paper identifies five groups most affected by the Columbian Exchange — Native Americans, Africans, colonial settlers, global merchants, and Old World Europeans — and traces how each group's occupations and daily lives were transformed. The paper also critiques the contradictions inherent in Enlightenment-era European thought, which simultaneously championed liberty and perpetuated slavery, racism, and misogyny across the Atlantic world.
- Introduction: A Momentous but Costly Discovery: Thesis: New World contact brought injustice alongside progress
- Five Groups Most Affected by New World Contact: Native Americans, Africans, colonists, traders, Europeans impacted
- Occupations and Lifestyles in the Colonies: Slave labor, culture, and colonial life transformed
- White Colonists and the Rise of Capitalism: Wealth, land, gender, and social mobility in colonies
- Native Americans After Contact: Disease, displacement, and collapse of tribal power
- Adam Smith, Globalization, and the New World: Smith's globalization theory tested against colonial history
- European Arrogance and the Limits of Enlightenment Ideals: Contradiction between Enlightenment values and colonial brutality
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper opens with a clear, argumentative thesis — that the benefits of New World contact were eclipsed by inhumane consequences — and returns to it consistently throughout.
- It effectively uses Adam Smith's own words to set up an ironic critique: Smith celebrated globalization's potential for peace and prosperity, yet the paper shows that history refuted his optimism.
- The analysis spans multiple demographic groups, giving the argument breadth and demonstrating awareness of how colonial impacts varied by race, gender, and class.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper uses scholarly sources to support historical claims while also applying critical analysis to those sources. For instance, citing Forman-Barzilai (2008) and Muthu (2008) allows the writer to engage with Adam Smith not merely as a historical figure but as a theorist whose ideas can be tested against the actual record of colonialism — a technique that elevates the argument beyond simple narration.
Structure breakdown
The paper is organized thematically rather than strictly chronologically. It opens with a broad thesis, then moves through five affected groups, then focuses on occupational and lifestyle changes by demographic, and finally situates everything within the intellectual context of Adam Smith's globalization theory. The conclusion returns to the central contradiction — Enlightenment ideals versus colonial brutality — leaving the reader with a pointed evaluative judgment.
Introduction: A Momentous but Costly Discovery
The discovery of the New World by European explorers in the fifteenth century shifted the balance of power throughout the world and left lasting reverberations that remain evident in the twenty-first century. Access to new natural resources altered the nature of world trade and the global market economy, ushering in a new model of capitalist enterprise. Likewise, the discovery of new raw materials set the stage for future technological growth and scientific development. The political tensions between European and non-European powers grew, continuing trends of colonization and imperialism that had persisted throughout human history.
Yet the discovery of the New World also highlighted deep hypocrisies and dichotomies in European thought. While a budding interest in humanitarian ideals emerged during the Age of Enlightenment, there was simultaneously strong support for the transatlantic slave trade and other forms of exploitation. Europe professed greater interest in democratic rule of law, yet permitted the flourishing of racism and misogyny both at home and in its colonies. While critical inquiry blossomed in academic circles, indigenous knowledge was simultaneously ignored and destroyed — knowledge that, had it been heeded, might have benefitted both Old and New Worlds. The discovery of the New World and its attendant new trade routes can certainly be described as momentous and significant, but the benefits of conquest and contact have been eclipsed by the inhumane, unjust, and hypocritical consequences thereof.
Five Groups Most Affected by New World Contact
Few groups were entirely unaffected by the momentous discovery of the New World, but five groups in particular were more affected than others. Native Americans throughout North, Central, and South America, taken collectively, were affected through systematic and incidental genocide. Africans — particularly West Africans — were affected in multiple ways, including through the dismantling of old empires and the creation of a system whereby people were traded like commodities and enslaved as free labor in the New World. The pioneers who colonized the New World were affected as they set forth to build new societies while contending with multiple political, social, and economic challenges. The traders and merchants who fueled the global market economy — whether Arab, Dutch, English, or otherwise — also felt the effects of New World discovery. Finally, Europeans who remained in Old World society altered their way of life in both mundane and profound ways as their political and economic landscape transformed.
Occupations and Lifestyles in the Colonies
The occupations and lifestyles of Europeans and American colonialists changed dramatically over the ensuing centuries. While there is no such thing as a single "average" American working in the colonies, each demographic group can be understood through the general character of life its members experienced. Enslaved people, for example, hailed from multiple parts of West Africa and spoke varied languages. They also worked in different environments depending on whether they were held in the Chesapeake Bay region, the low countries, or on plantations in Brazil. Their occupations and lifestyles shifted depending on local resources and market fluctuations. Plantation culture varied considerably, so that some enslaved people toiled in fields and endured brutal physical violence, while others worked indoors.
As slave culture became entrenched and took on a life of its own, slave narratives, music, and language evolved independently and in creative resistance to the dominant white culture that remained firmly in power across all the colonies and beyond. For this reason, Adam Smith remained "deeply ambivalent" about globalization as it was being carried out by the multinational joint-stock corporations that fueled the new model of global economic power (Muthu, 2008, p. 185). While Smith supported liberalism, he also warned against the consequences that unregulated global trade would bring to both Old and New Worlds.
References
Forman-Barzilai, F. (2008). Adam Smith as a globalization theorist. Critical Review, 14(4), 391–419.
Grolle, J. (2013). The "Columbian Exchange": How discovering the Americas transformed the world. Der Spiegel International. Retrieved from http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-923220.html
London, C. R. (2013). When did globalization start? The Economist, September 23, 2013. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/09/economic-history-1
Muthu, S. (2008). Adam Smith's critique of international trading companies. Political Theory, 36(2), 185–212.
Weber, C. M. (2008). Adam Smith and globalization. Retrieved from http://cameroneconomics.com/smith.pdf
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