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