Global Migration

Global Migration

Kevin Hilton

The most important causes of modern global migration are the prospect of more political power, and “the gap”. The most significant consequences of modern global migration are economic prosperity and the acquisition of new land/resources.

One of the most significant causes of modern globalization is the prospect of gaining more political power. In the 1400's people were becoming more and more obsessed with finding a better trading route to Asia, particularly the Europeans. The water seems to be the only viable passage, considering the Italian city-states are in the midst of a civil war. Venice ends up winning that war, and are now a very strong power, becoming the last intermediary before goods travel into Europe from Asia. From 1405-1433, the Ming Dynasty sponsored 7 naval expeditions in order to establish Chinese presence, as well as impose empirical control over the entire Indian ocean. They placed Zheng He in charge of all expeditions, visiting places such as Shwahili, Thailand, and eventually the southern tip of Africa. By the seventh voyage, powers have been disrupted in China and they do not believe the expeditions to be of great importance anymore. They are more interested at this point with land expedition, not sea. This gives the Europeans more leeway to discover new land. In 1492, the Spanish kicked the Muslims out of lower spain (Iberia). Now the Spanish have the resources to allow people like Christopher Columbus to sail away to find an alternate route to Asia. Portugal, being the neighbor of Spain, then needed to settle the dispute of exploring grounds. The Pope proposed to settle the matter by what was known as the Treaty of Tordesillas, in 1495. This treaty offered a dividing line just west of the Cape Verde islands. Everything East of the line belonged to Portugal, while everything west belonged to Spain. Portugal was obviously favored, because no one had ever seen much land west of than line anyway, forcing...