Chapter 15 Part 1

This first part of chapter 15 would explain to the readers of the Indian trade and about what countries participated and how they participated. Portugal was one of the countries that was mentioned and the way that Portugal participated was quite different than the way that the rest of the countries did. Portugal took advantage of the fact that no one that they were up against was much of a threat with the type of military that they all had so Portugal used this to their advantage. They decided to use power and intimidation to get the merchandise they wanted and needed because they did not have the money to get what they were after. For example, since they did not have much money, they taxed the merchandise that they had from 6-10% that only merchants have to pay. Their reasoning for this extra pay was that if they paid this money, they would receive protection. Spain was also mentioned in this chapter as trying to take control over the Philippines. Spain wanted to gain control of the Philippines because it would've given them easier access to Asia during the trade and because since there weren't many people in the Philippines, there wasn't much military power either, so that made the Philippines an easier target than any other country Spain could've taken over. There were many countries involved in the Indian trade, and they were all different and the same in many ways. One way of how they were all the same was that they all wanted to participate because there was more to gain than to lose. And also how they were all violent in one way or another. A way that was different was that they all had different types of government which obviously would make them clash and bang heads when they would cross one another.