AP Syllabus focus: ‘Economic disputes over trade routes and resources created rivalries and sometimes armed conflict between states in the early modern period.’
Economic competition became a central driver of interstate rivalry from 1450 to 1750. As states pursued wealth through overseas commerce, disputes over routes, ports, and resources escalated into repeated diplomatic crises and wars.
Core idea: trade competition becomes geopolitical conflict
Early modern states treated long-distance commerce as a strategic asset.
The Selden Map (early 17th century) is a Chinese merchant map centered on the South China Sea, with route-lines and compass bearings linking major ports across East and Southeast Asia. The mapped sea-lanes illustrate how commercial geography created strategic “corridors” that states and trading companies sought to protect, tax, or monopolize. Used in study notes, it helps students visualize why maritime access could become a cause of rivalry and conflict. Source
Because trade routes and resource zones were limited and profitable, states increasingly used naval power and warfare to reshape access.
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FAQ
They provided legal procedures for condemning captured ships as “lawful prizes,” turning seizures into a regulated revenue stream.
This incentivised raiding and pressured neutral merchants to avoid certain routes, amplifying commercial disruption beyond battlefields.
Insurance spread risk from ship loss, while credit kept merchants liquid when voyages were delayed or captured.
Together, they helped states and merchants endure prolonged disruption rather than immediately suing for peace.
Convoys concentrated protection, reducing losses to privateers and enemy fleets.
However, they also created bottlenecks, slowed commerce, and could redirect trade to fewer, heavily guarded routes.
Smuggling supplied embargoed goods, maintained cash flow, and undermined state policies.
It also provoked harsher enforcement and retaliation at sea, worsening diplomatic tensions tied to commerce.
They offered repair, resupply, and control over passing shipping, functioning like toll gates for commerce.
Holding them could raise rivals’ costs dramatically, so disputes over them escalated quickly into military action.
