2. Philip In 1555 Charles V abdicated in favor his son Philip and retired to the remote Spanish monastery of Juste. In 1580 Philip acquired a claim to the kingdom of Portugal and with it the now sprawling Portuguese overseas empire. In 1560’s Spanish forces seized what are now called Philippines in Philip’s honor
3. Slavery All empires in history up to the beginning of the nineteenth century were slave-owning societies Slaves came from all over the Greek and roman worlds, from Syria, Egypt, Dacia, Moesia, Germany, Gaul, and Britain In medieval Europe, slaves were employed predominantly as agricultural laborers, and they supplemented a largely peasant workforce Indentured peasants were easier to control than slaves and were generally more productive
4. Slavery August 8, 1444, when the first cargo of 235 Africans, taken from what is now Senegal, were put ashore at the Portuguese port of Lagos The slave trade had been endemic within Africa for centuries, but the European increased the demand, and by doing so encouraged African slavers to devastate whole areas and effectively exterminate entire peoples in the African hinterland The European demand for effectively transformed what had been a local commercial practices into the greatest forced migration in human history