Historical Context and the Rise of European Expansion

Sangaralingam Ramesh ()
Additional contact information
Sangaralingam Ramesh: University College London

Chapter 3 in The Political Economy of the Indigenous Peoples of the World, Volume I, 2026, pp 103-177 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This chapter reconstructs European expansion as an ideological and institutional project—rather than a purely exploratory one—built on religious legitimation, mercantilist ambition, capitalist transformation, and state violence. It foregrounds the theological scaffolding of conquest, including Papal Bulls such as Inter Caetera (1493) and the Doctrine of Discovery, and shows how missionary infrastructures operated as tools of conversion and economic integration (e.g., Jesuit reducciones; residential schools as later analogues). Economically, the chapter links colonial extraction to the emergence of global capitalism: silver from Zacatecas and Potosí, coerced labour systems, and the rise of joint-stock companies and early finance. It contrasts Marxist accounts of “primitive accumulation” with neoclassical narratives that naturalize markets and obscure coercion. Through comparative examples (including the Philippines’ polo y servicios), it demonstrates how Indigenous peoples were subordinated and incorporated into imperial political economies.

Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-032-24041-5_3

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783032240415

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-24041-5_3

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().