- Africa
Baguirmi and the slave trade
The sultanate of Baguirmi, Islamic from the sixteenth century, supplied large numbers of captives to the trans-Saharan slave trade alongside skins, ivory and cotton.
Era: Baguirmi, Wadai and the Saharan trade
Sources: Sultanate of Bagirmi · Wikipedia
- Europe
Founding of the East India Company
A royal charter created the East India Company for trade with Asia; over the following centuries it grew into an instrument of conquest that brought much of India under British control.
Era: Tudors, the Reformation, and the first empire
Sources: East India Company · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- South America
A cacao-and-slave economy
Coastal plantations growing cacao, worked by enslaved Africans, enrich a creole planter elite, the mantuanos, and shape colonial society.
Era: Colonial Venezuela and the Captaincy General
Sources: Venezuela: A Country Study · U.S. Library of Congress, Federal Research Division, Venezuela · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Europe
The Danish trade monopoly
The Danish crown confined all Icelandic trade to a small group of licensed Danish merchants, depressing prices and returns and impoverishing the island for nearly two centuries.
Era: Under Norway and Denmark: Reformation, Monopoly and Famine
Sources: Iceland: History · Encyclopaedia Britannica, History of Iceland, 1840s to the Second World War · nordics.info (Aarhus University)
- Europe
Founding of the VOC
The Dutch East India Company is chartered as the world's first publicly traded joint-stock company, with a monopoly on Dutch trade in Asia and powers to wage war and govern.
Era: The Golden Age: Trade, the VOC, Art and Empire
Sources: Dutch East India Company (VOC) · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Asia
Dhaka becomes the Mughal capital of Bengal
The Mughal governor establishes Dhaka as the capital of the Bengal subah, and the city grows into a hub of administration, military power and the global muslin trade.
Era: Mughal Bengal and the Wealth of the Delta
Sources: History of Bangladesh · Encyclopædia Britannica
- South America
- Europe
Hohenems debts open the way
The counts of Hohenems, who held Vaduz and Schellenberg, fell into heavy debt, leaving the small Rhine territories available for sale to a buyer rich enough to redeem them.
Era: The Lordships of the Rhine and the Distant House of Liechtenstein
Sources: Liechtenstein: History (Alpine, Principality, Sovereignty) · Encyclopaedia Britannica, How the Principality of Liechtenstein came into being · Swiss National Museum (Blog)
- Africa
Loango becomes a hub of the Atlantic trade
The Loango coast, with markets at Loango Bay, Malemba and Cabinda, grew into a major export point for ivory, copper and enslaved people; Vili middlemen linked interior caravan networks to European ships offshore.
Era: Loango ports and the Atlantic slave trade
Sources: Kingdom of Loango · Encyclopædia Britannica, Kingdom of Loango · Wikipedia, Vili people · Wikipedia
- Africa
The Maravi Empire at its peak
In the seventeenth century the confederacy administered a broad domain reaching across parts of modern Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia, trading ivory and iron with Portuguese and Swahili merchants on the coast.
Era: The Maravi Confederacy
Sources: Maravi Confederacy · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Maravi · Wikipedia, The Kingdom of Maravi · Africa Defense Forum (ADF) Magazine
- Europe
Courland's overseas colonies
Under Duke Jacob Kettler the Duchy of Courland founded short-lived colonies on the Gambia River and on Tobago, a striking commercial venture by a small Baltic state before its decline.
Era: Poland, Sweden, Courland and the Russian Empire
Sources: The struggle for neutrality: an examination of the Duchy of Courland in the Baltic and Atlantic, 1642-1698 · Journal of Early Modern History (Taylor & Francis)
- South America
The sugar-slavery economy
Dutch Suriname becomes a plantation colony worked by enslaved Africans under exceptionally harsh conditions, with Paramaribo as its capital and port.
Era: Plantation Colony and the Maroons
Sources: Suriname: History · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Historic Inner City of Paramaribo · UNESCO World Heritage Centre
- Africa
Île Sainte-Marie pirate haven
The northeastern island becomes a major base on the pirate 'Round'; legend later names it the site of Libertalia.
Era: Coastal Kingdoms & the Pirate Coast
Sources: Ile Sainte-Marie, Madagascar · Golden Age of Piracy
- Africa
Sennar at its height
The Funj capital flourishes as one of the major trading cities of the African interior, dealing in gold, ivory and enslaved people.
Era: Islam, Sennar and Darfur
Sources: Funj Sultanate · Wikipedia
- South America
Gold rush in Minas Gerais
The discovery of gold in the interior sets off a vast rush, founding towns such as Ouro Preto and shifting the colony's centre southward.
Era: Portuguese Colony: Sugar, Slavery, and Gold
Sources: Historic Town of Ouro Preto · UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Brazil · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Europe
Purchase of the lordship of Schellenberg
Prince Johann Adam Andreas I bought the lordship of Schellenberg from the indebted Hohenems, the first of the two acquisitions that would form the principality; the prince did not attend the homage ceremony in person.
Era: Bought and Founded: The Imperial Principality of 1719
Sources: The History of the Princely House of Liechtenstein · Fürstenhaus von Liechtenstein (official Princely House), How the Principality of Liechtenstein came into being · Swiss National Museum (Blog), Liechtenstein: History (Alpine, Principality, Sovereignty) · Encyclopaedia Britannica
Economy & TradeThe 17th century
Economy & Trade in the 17th century
Every event in the Terralore archive tagged economy and trade — trade, currency, industry and resources, narrowed to the 17th century — 16 of them, drawn from 15 nations, running from 1600 to 1699. Each entry keeps the sources it was verified against and links back to the chronicle it came from.
- Events
- 16
- Nations
- 15
- Earliest
- 1600
- Latest
- 1699
- Europe
- 6
- Africa
- 5
- South America
- 4
- Asia
- 1
Every entry below is the same record, with the same sources, as the one on its nation’s chronicle.