1. How did participation in European maritime trade affect the growth and influence of African states like the Asante Empire and Kingdom of Kongo?

2. What evidence shows cultural exchange between European traders and African societies like Benin?

1. Why did Japan restrict foreign contact and trade beginning in the late 16th century?

2. How did Japan's policy of isolation affect its relationship with European traders and the rest of the world?

1. What measures did the Ming Dynasty take to limit foreign trade and outside influence after Zheng He's voyages?

2. How did Ming policies reflect a broader pattern of conservatism and rejection of Mongol influence?

1. How did the British East India Company expand from coastal trading posts to controlling much of the Indian subcontinent?

2. What role did sepoys and local political tensions play in British expansion in India?

1. How did British trading posts function as nodes in a global trade network, and what was their significance for globalization?

1. How did the Treaty of Tordesillas divide the Americas between Spain and Portugal?

2. What was the significance of Spanish conquests in Mexico and Peru, and how did they establish colonial control?

3. Why was St. Augustine significant in Spanish colonization of North America?

1. How did British alliances with the Iroquois affect French interests in North America?

2. What caused the Iroquois to shift their alliance from the French to the British, and what were the consequences?

1. What advantages did the Portuguese have in the Indian Ocean trade, and how did they use military force to establish control?

1. What was the encomienda system and how did it provide Spanish colonizers access to resources in the Americas?

2. How did the hacienda system develop and what labor systems did it employ?

1. Why did silver mining become more profitable than gold mining in Spanish colonies, and where were the major mining centers?

2. How did Spain transform the Incan mit'a system into a coerced labor system for silver mining?

1. What was mercantilism and how did Spanish colonies in the Americas fit into this economic system?

2. How did silver wealth from the Americas strengthen the Spanish economy and military?

1. Why did European diseases make indigenous people unsuitable as a permanent labor force in the Americas?

2. Why were European indentured servants not ideal workers for plantation owners in the Americas?

3. What factors converged to make Africa the primary target for European slave raids after 1450?

1. How did plantation owners in North America recruit and use indentured servants, and what were the limitations of this system?

1. How did African leaders participate in the slave trade, and what were King Afonso of Kongo's concerns about it?

2. What were barracoons and what role did they play in the Atlantic slave trade?

1. What was the Middle Passage and what conditions did enslaved Africans endure during this journey?

2. What percentage of enslaved Africans died during the Atlantic crossing, and what does this reveal about the brutality of the trade?

1. How did the Atlantic slave trade affect population demographics in both Africa and the Americas?

2. What social and family structures were disrupted by slavery, and how did this affect African societies?

3. How did the mixing of ethnic groups through slavery create new cultural and demographic groups in the Americas?

1. How did the Indian Ocean slave trade differ from the Atlantic slave trade in terms of routes, destinations, and treatment of enslaved people?

2. What opportunities and rights did enslaved people in the Indian Ocean trade have that differed from those in the Atlantic trade?