Chapter 14 (pp. 669-687)

Ch. 14 (pg. 669-687)

Chapter 14 focuses completely on the economic transformations taking place within these modernizing nations. These pages dealt with the commerce and trade among various nations such as Europe, Asia, India, Portugal, and Spain, but what caught my attention was the interaction between Spain, the Philippines, and China. The fact the Spain established colonial rule in the Philippines as an attempt to compete with Portugal's trading relationship with the East shows the little value that ruling countries placed on countries they considered to be less than their own. The women in the Philippines were in highly significant and revered positions as healers, ritual specialists, and midwives but as the Spanish spread Catholicism, not only were these women pushed out and replaced by male Spanish priests, but their ceremonial tools were often deliberately disgraced and defiled. This just once again shows the disrespect shown to cultures that were considered to be more "primitive". Due to the rising prosperity of the Philippines, thousands of Japanese and Chinese traders and artisans set up shop, but due to the Chinese resisting conversion, they received hostility and discrimination from that Spanish that resulted in the revolts and massacres that killed of nearly the entire Chinese population.