3. What effect the ownership of parts of our country by Europeans had on
our history and institutions before 1776.

%2. European Trade with the East; the Old Routes.%--For two hundred
years before North and South America were known to exist, a splendid
trade had been going on between Europe and the East Indies. Ships loaded
with metals, woods, and pitch went from European seaports to Alexandria
and Constantinople, and brought back silks and cashmeres, muslins,
dyewoods, spices, perfumes, ivory, precious stones, and pearls. This
trade in course of time had come to be controlled by the two Italian
cities of Venice and Genoa. The merchants of Genoa sent their ships to
Constantinople and the ports of the Black Sea, where they took on board
the rich fabrics and spices which by boats and by caravans had come up
the valley of the Euphrates and the Tigris from the Persian Gulf. The
men of Venice, on the other hand, sent their vessels to Alexandria, and
carried on their trade with the East through the Red Sea.

[Illustration: Routes to India]

%3. New Routes wanted.%--Splendid as this trade was, however, it was
doomed to destruction. Slowly, but surely, the Turks thrust themselves
across the caravan routes, cutting off one by one the great feeders of
the Oriental trade, till, with the capture of Constantinople in 1453,
they destroyed the commercial career of Genoa. As their power was
spreading rapidly over Syria and toward Egypt, the prosperity of Venice,
in turn, was threatened. The day seemed near when all trade between the
Indies and Europe would be ended, and men began to ask if it were not
possible to find an ocean route to Asia.