Module 3: Colonization and Economic Expansion

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the world’s great oceans effectively became highways as European explorers, merchants, and laborers proved willing to journey greater distances than they had in the past and traveled to new destinations in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. New economic systems propelled exploration, communication, interaction, exchange, and—in many tragic cases—exploitation. This module explores these expanded networks and their impacts, including the transformations experienced by communities in Asia, Africa, and the Americas that had once had little or no contact with one another. This module examines how some groups embraced the newcomers as trading partners or political allies, gaining access to new goods and sometimes profiting for a time, while others resisted the newcomers, often at great cost to themselves.

(Credit: "A map of North America : with the European settlements & whatever else is remarkable in ye West Indies, from the latest and best observations," Richard William Seale, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)

1. Explain the motivations behind European settlements in North America
2. Explain how climate, economics, and geography affected the founding and growth of colonial settlements
3. Analyze Indigenous responses to European colonization in the Americas
4. Explain how the Seven Years’ War established a new balance of power in Europe
5. Explain the evolution of economic theories from mercantilism to capitalism

To achieve these objectives: 

1. Read the Module 3 Introduction.
   
2. Read Chapter 3 in Western Civilization II.
   
3. Complete the assessments and discussion questions.
   

**This module could contain a midpoint check for the final project. This may include a proposal, a building block to the project, or a portion of the project.

Module Pressbooks Resources and Activities