Student's Book – Dec 2009 (5.9mb) - The Curriculum Project

attacked by the Portuguese in 1511. In 1641the Dutch took it over from the Portuguese. Atthe beginning of the 19 th century, the Britishdefeated the Dutch and established firm controlalong the Straits. In 1946, Malacca becamepart of the Malayan Union, which later becameMalaysia.Malacca and Java dominated the tradenetworks from about the 15th century. TheEuropeans later started participating in thistrade. They captured Malacca and tried todominate the spice trade network. Westernimperialism in the Asia Pacific started with theEuropean presence in the spice trade. Europeancompanies started by setting up tradingoutposts in Asia.Map 11: Colonial outposts 1665exercisecomprehension,ordering,inferringdiscussioninferring,applyinginformationA. Make a timeline of the control of the Straits of Malacca.B. Describe the commercial importance of the Straits of Malacca.C. Why did it become such a popular marketplace?D. Why did so many nations compete for control of Malacca?E. What was the importance of Malacca for the Europeans in the 16 th century?A. What does “relatively safe route” mean? Why ‘relatively’? What dangers do youthink the sailors faced in the Straits of Malacca?B. What do you know about monsoon winds? How can they help sailing?exercisecomprehensionHere are four people going on a journey. Read their stories, and complete the chart onthe next page.A. My trip will be long! I don’t hope to come backto Portugal in less than two years. I am also sureit will be very dangerous, with all those piratesand storms! I am looking forward to all thoseadventures!It is unfair that Italy is getting all the profit fromtrade with Asia. Especially trade in all thosespices from the islands in the Pacific Ocean.Italians buy the spices from the Arabs whobuy them from the Indian traders who tradedirectly with the locals. By the time those loadsof cinnamon, nutmeg, pepper, and cloves reachEurope, the price is ten times higher! There mustbe a way to get directly to the islands where theygrow and force the natives to sell them cheaply.Then our ship, and other Portuguese ships, canbring them back home and sell them in Europeat a huge profit. Then our country can reallydevelop! We can build many new modern shipsand travel to all parts of the worldB. I am heading to Malacca from India. I wasinvited by the rulers of Malacca to teach themabout Islam. Malaccan rulers are thinking aboutconverting to our Muslim faith. It will be reallybeneficial to our faith if such an important cityas Malacca joins us. A lot of new mosques willbe built there and Islam will prosper. Malaccanrulers also want to encourage traders from theMuslim world to use Malacca port on theirtravels through Southeast Asia. This will greatlybenefit the city.I will start my trip in July and head northeasttowards the coast of Burma. Then south,along the coast towards the Straits of Malacca.I am looking forward to my trip, but I am veryafraid of pirates. I am going with a trading shipfull of expensive Indian goods for sale, such astextiles and pepper, and there are many piratesattacking ships like that, especially in the Straitsof Malacca.38