Instead, he bumps into the West Indies and comes back with tobacco and stories about a strange glittering metal called gold. The lure of gold brings conquistadors Cortes and Pizarro across the Atlantic in small scurvey-ridden ships, where they tramp through inhospitable jungles and up and down mountain ranges in armor and woolen outfits. The wholesale looting of Central and South America begins. Thousands of years of Mayan and Incan culture are nearly wiped out in about four decades. Adam Smith publishes The Wealth of Nations, which says that free economic rein generally results in greater welfare for all, even though the unintended result is selfish accumulation.
People love the idea that the way to be moral is to be greedy, and business travel picks up.
The fat, slow ships of the British East India Co. dominate the tea trade with India. Later, Americans invent swift clipper ships that cut weeks off the month-long journey and capture part of the lucrative trade. 1804 Richard Trevithick introduces the steam locomotive. It achieved a speed of 5 mph. The Lewis and Clark expedition is under way.