Transcript Ch. 14 Notes - Ms. Cabrera

Empires and Encounters
1450 C.E. – 1750 C.E.
Key Concept and Focus Questions
Key Concept 4.1 - Globalizing Networks of Communication and Exchange
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Describe the degree of global ‘interconnection’ after 1500 CE compared to before 1500.
How did the global trade network after 1500 CE affect the pre-existing regional trade networks?
What technical developments made transoceanic European travel & trade possible?
What were the major notable transoceanic voyages between 1450-1750 CE?
Where did Zheng He and the Chinese Treasure Fleets travel?
Why did Portugal begin longer maritime voyages ca. 1430 CE?
What effect did Columbus’ travels have on Europeans?
What originally motivated Europeans to travel across the northern Atlantic?
How did the new global connections affect the peoples of Oceania and Polynesia?
What new financial and monetary means made new scale(s) of trade possible?
Describe European merchants overall trade role c. 1450-1750.
What role did silver play in facilitating a truly global scale of trade?
What new mercantilist financial means developed to facilitate global trade?
What were the economic and social effects of the Atlantic trading system?
What were the unintentional biological effects of the Columbian Exchange?
What foods were transferred to new geographic regions as part of the Columbian Exchange, and what were
labor systems made this transfer possible?
What plants/animals were deliberately transferred across the Atlantic as part of the Columbian Exchange?
How did settlers’ action affect the Americas environmentally?
How did the Columbian Exchange affect the spread of religions?
Where did the “universal” religions of Buddhism, Christianity & Islam spread?
How did the Columbian Exchange affect religion(s)?
How did the arts fare during this period?
Key Concept and Focus Questions
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Key Concept 4.2 - New Forms of Social Organization and Modes of Production
How did agriculture’s role change between 1450-1750?
What pre-requisite conditions made these changes possible?
How did labor systems develop between 1450-1750?
How was peasant labor affected between 1450-1750?
How did slavery within Africa compare to the pre-1450 era?
How did the Atlantic slave trade affect both African societies and the economy of the
Americas?
How did labor systems develop in the colonial Americas?
How did the post-1450 economic order affect the social, economic, and political elites?
How did pre-existing political and economic elites react to these changes?
How were gender and family structures affected to these changes?
How did societies in the Americas reflect the post-1450 economic order?
Key Concept and Focus Questions
Key Concept - 4.3 State Consolidation and Imperial Expansion
• How did empires attempt to administer the new widespread nature of their territories?
• How did the role of Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe develop in this new world-wide
political order?
• How did the people of various empires react to their government’s methods?
• How did political rulers legitimize and consolidate their rule?
• What role did religion play in legitimizing political rule?
• How were ethnic and religious minorities treated in various empires?
• How did rulers make sure that their governmental were well run?
• How did rulers finance their territorial expansion?
• What was the relationship between imperialism and military technology?
• How did Europeans go about creating new global empires and trade networks?
• How did pre-existing land-based empires and new empires during this era compare to
previous era’s empires?
• What obstacles to empire-building did empires confront, and how did they respond to these
challenges?
The Mughal Empire:
Among the most
magnificent of the early
modern empires was that
of the Mughals in India. In
this painting by an
unknown Mughal artist,
the seventeenth-century
emperor Shah Jahan is
holding a durbar, or
ceremonial assembly, in
the audience hall of his
palace. The overall
material splendor of the
setting shows the immense
wealth of the court, while
the halo around Shah
Jahan’s head indicates the
special spiritual grace of
enlightenment associated
with emperors.
European Empires in the Americas
The European Advantage
• Geography and winds: Europe had a decided
advantage for access to the Americas as it was a
short trip across the Atlantic and the winds were
steady and favorable, unlike the shifting monsoon
winds of the Indian Ocean
• European marginality, land-hunger, and social
drives: European weaknesses, such as being on
the margins of the trade networks, being
relatively poor, and needing more land to feed
the population recovering from the Black Death
all served as push factors to drive Europeans
overseas and toward the Americas
• Almost all social groups had some reason to favor
expansion: The poor and the elites wanted to
gain land wealth, merchants wanted markets and
imports, the church wanted to spread the faith,
knights wanted glory, and everyone wanted gold
• Western European empires were unique because
they began thanks to maritime expansion
European Empires in the Americas
The European Advantage
• Organization and technology: The near-constant,
interstate rivalry manifested itself in competition
on the seas
• These conflicts ensured that the states and
trading companies had the organization to take
on the project of overseas expansion
• Europeans built upon technology gained from
contact with the Muslim world to create an
increasingly efficient fleet of ships
• Local allies: Europeans also found local allies,
such as the Aztecs and the Inca, who were eager
to fight against empires
• The Spanish were often aided by poor natives
who sought powerful alies to gain an advantage
against their enemies
• Germs: The single greatest advantage was one
the Europeans did not understand but carried
with them wherever they went: a whole host of
infectious diseases
European Colonial
Empires in the Americas:
By the beginning of the
eighteenth century,
European powers had laid
claim to most of the
Western Hemisphere. Their
wars and rivalries during
that century led to an
expansion of Spanish and
English claims, at the
expense of the French.
European Empires in the Americas
The Great Dying
• 60–80 million people without immunities:
Estimates are that the New World had a
population of between 60 and 80 million people
• As they had been isolated from the diseased, rich
Old World for thousands of years, they had not
developed immunities to both serious epidemic
diseases and what were common endemic illness
in Afro-Eurasia
• Old-World diseases: Illnesses such as smallpox,
measles, typhus, influenza, malaria, and yellow
fever wreaked havoc in the Americas, exacting a
terrible toll
• Demographic collapse: In some places, 90
percent of the population died
• Central Mexico went from a population of 10 to
20 million to 1 million in 150 years
• It was not until the late seventeenth century that
the population began to recover but in only some
places
• This mass death open up the continents for
European conquerors and their African slaves
Disease and Death among the Aztecs: Smallpox, which accompanied the Spanish to the Americas,
devastated native populations. This image, drawn by an Aztec artist and contained in the sixteenth-century
Florentine Codex, illustrates the impact of the disease in Mesoamerica.
European Empires in the Americas
The Columbian Exchange
• People brought germs, plants, and animals: The
Europeans who came to the Americas not only
brought themselves and their germs but also
animals and plants
• Horses and pigs played an important role in the
post-Columbian development of the Americas
• Corn and potatoes to Europe, Africa, and Asia:
The two most significant food crops to come from
the Americas were corn (maize) and potatoes
• Corn became a common staple throughout the
Old World, but especially Africa
• Potatoes, likewise, had their greatest impact in
Europe (especially Ireland) but the sweet potato
was also very popular in China
• Indeed, American crops such as potatoes, corn,
and peanuts spread throughout China and made
up 20 percent of their agricultural produce by the
early twentieth century
• American tobacco and chocolate, Chinese tea,
and Arab coffee: As a truly global exchange
developed, people began to consume a variety of
stimulants from around the world
• Tobacco, for example, became popular in Europe
and China
European Empires in the Americas
The Columbian Exchange
• Silver, slaves, and sugar: Global networks
transported commodities such as silver from the
Potosí mine in the Andes, human beings from
Africa, and sugar increasingly from the Caribbean
• New producers and transporters could become
fabulously wealthy in this process
• Europe’s prevailing economic theory was known
as mercantilism
• According to this theory, national prosperity was
accumulated by encouraging exports and
accumulating bullion (precious metals such as
silver and gold)
• Europe the biggest winner: Europe was the
biggest winner in the Columbian Exchange, seen
both in the wealth it extracted from the New
World and its demographic growth
• Thanks to the Columbian Exchange, the
previously poor and marginal Europe could enter
into trade and competition with the historically
more powerful and wealthy Asian societies
Plants and Animals of the
Columbian Exchange: This
eighteenth-century Preuvian
painting illustrates two of the
many biological species that
crossed that Atlantic. Cattle
from Europe flourished in the
Americas, while cassava (also
known as manioc), shown in
the bottom of the picture,
was native to South America
but spread widely in Asia, and
especially in Africa, where its
edible root provided a major
source of carbohydrates.
Comparing Colonial Societies in the
Americas
In the Lands of the Aztecs and the Incas
• Encomienda, repartimiento, and hacienda:
These were a series of Spanish colonial legal
systems for controlling land and labor
• In the first, Spanish settlers were given control
over a community and allowed to extract wealth
and labor as they saw fit
• As this system led to blatant abuses, the second
system was under more direct government
supervision, but still abusive
• In the third system, Spaniards built large estates
and paid peons low wages to work for them
• The colonial economy of the Spanish Empire was
based on commercial agriculture and mining
• Creoles and peninsulares: “Purity of blood”:
Pure-blooded Spanish were very concerned
about their undiluted blood, but they also saw
distinctions among themselves
• Those born in the colonies were inferior to those
from the Iberian peninsula, yet both were
superior to mixed race, indigenous, and African
individuals
• Spanish men jealously guarded their women
from mixed race, indigenous, and African men
who might dilute the community’s blood and
tarnish their honor
Comparing Colonial Societies in the
Americas
In the Lands of the Aztecs and the Incas
• Mestizo and castas: These mixed-race individuals
were divided into numerous groups (castas)
based on their percentage of Spanish, Indian, and
African blood
• As there were very few Spanish women, most
Spanish men took mestiza wives, indicating an
obvious gender double standard
• Indians: The indigenous population suffered from
both the Great Dying and from the exploitative
colonial regime
• Many surviving Indian women sought refuge in
mixed or Spanish marriages to protect their
children from colonial abuses
• Native Americans who converted to Catholicism
often blended their old customs into Catholic
practices
Racial Mixing in Colonial
Mexico: This eighteenthcentury painting by the
famous Zapotec artist Miguel
Cabrera shows a Spanish
man, a mestiza woman, and
their child, who was labeled
as castiza. By the twentieth
century, such mixed-race
people represented the
majority of the population of
Mexico, and cultural blending
had become a central feature
of the country’s identity.
Four Racial Groups, taken from a
series of paintings by the
eighteenth-century Mexican
artist Andres de Islas, illustrates
the racial mixing that took place
in the Spanish empire and some
of the new vocabulary invented
to describe it. Top left: The
offspring of a Spaniard and
Indian is a mestizo. Right: A
Spaniard and a mestiza produce
a castizo. Bottom left: The child
of an Indian and a mestiza is a
coyote. Right: And the child of an
Indian man and African woman is
a chino.
Comparing Colonial Societies in the
Americas
Colonies of Sugar
• Portuguese Brazil’s monopoly (1570–1670):
After learning about sugar from Arabs in the
Mediterranean, the Portuguese pioneered sugar
production in Brazil and enjoyed a century-long
monopoly until the British, Dutch, and French got
involved in the Caribbean
• Labor intensive and an international mass
market: Sugar production and refining was
extremely labor intensive and required a type of
organization similar to the industrial factories yet
to come
• Labor demands could not be met by the local
population after the Great Dying, so slaves were
imported from Africa
• Large-scale importation of new slaves continued
into the nineteenth century to meet the demand
for labor
• The commodity was consumed by a mass market
over seas, making the plantation complex an
important development in world history
Comparing Colonial Societies in the
Americas
Colonies of Sugar
• African slaves and mulattoes: Some 80 percent
of the Africans taken to the New World went to
sugar plantations in Brazil and the Caribbean
• These colonies maintained large populations that
were born in Africa and recently enslaved, in
contrast to North America where most slaves
were born in the New World
• Brazil had a large population of mixed-race
individuals with African lineages, known as
mulattoes
• Rather than the clear racial divisions of North
America (white, red, and black), Brazil had
numerous categories of mixed races with
differing levels of social status
Plantation Life in the Caribbean: This painting from 1823 shows the use of slave labor on a plantation in
Antigua, a British-ruled island in the Caribbean. Notice the overseer with a whip supervising the tilling and
planting of the field.
Comparing Colonial Societies in the
Americas
Settler Colonies in North America
• British get the leftovers: As Spain and Portugal
were wealthier and seized more colonies first,
the British were left with the “dregs” of the
Americas
• New England seemed under-productive and
lacked wealthy mines
• British society in transition: British society was
changing at the time with intense disputes
between kings and nobles, civil war, and a rising
merchant class
• Catholic–Protestant conflicts encouraged large
numbers of dissenting religious groups to leave
for the freedom of the colonies
• British colonists sought to escape rather than recreate European traditions in the Americas
• Class equality with gender inequality: In the
New England colonies, they established familyrun small farms, unlike the hereditary land
estates of Old England or the large haciendas and
plantations to the south
• British North America was dominated by smallscale independent farmers working their land
• While the intense social stratification of Europe
was not imported to New England, the
conservative Protestant communities were
extremely patriarchal and restricted women’s
rights
Comparing Colonial Societies in the
Americas
Settler Colonies in North America
• Pure settler societies with little racial mixing:
These were colonies of settlement with few
surviving indigenous people and few African
slaves
• As British women came in large numbers, the
white population was self-replicating and there
was little mixing of the races
• British North America experienced the least
racial mixing and was the least willing to
recognize the offspring of interracial unions
• Protestantism and weak royal control: Unlike the
Catholic colonies to the south, the Protestants
had much less interest in converting the native
people, but they did encourage literacy amongst
the white population
• Protestants tended to encourage literacy so
people could read the Bible
• Also in contrast to the Spanish colonies, there
was no strong royal bureaucracy
• Rather, there were trading companies, wealthy
sponsors, and self-governing communities
The Steppes and Siberia: The Making of
a Russian Empire
Experiencing the Russian Empire
• Russia expanded beginning in the sixteenth
century to secure its borders from attack
• Conquest and yasak: After the Russian state used
its military to conquer an area, the local
population would be forced to pay yasak or
tribute
• In Siberia, this would be in the form of “soft
gold” or furs, the region’s main export at the
time
• Settlers put pressure on pastoralists: As Russian
settlers moved in, they spread their language and
religion and also disrupted the pastoralists’ way
of life
• Soon the local population became dependent on
the Russian merchants for alcohol, sugar, grain,
and other imports
• Epidemic diseases impacted the previously
isolated local population as happened in the
Americas
The Russian Empire: From its beginnings as a small principality under Mongol control, Moscow became the
center of a vast Russian Empire during the early modern era.
A Cossack Jail: In the vanguard of Russian expansion across Siberia were the Cossacks, bands of fiercely
independent warriors consisting of peasants who had escaped serdom as well as criminals and other
adventurers. This seventeenth-century jail was part of an early Cossack settlement on the Kamchatka
Peninsula at the easternmost end of Siberia. It illustrated Russian wooden architecture..
The Steppes and Siberia: The Making of
a Russian Empire
Russians and Empire
• Russia becomes multiethnic: By conquering a
variety of peoples in the west, south, and east,
Russia had numerous different ethnicities and
religions to its holdings
• Wealth of empire: The empire brought in great
wealth from furs to agricultural produce to trade
with the Far East
• Peter the Great (r. 1689–1725) and the West: In
the West, Russia competed with other states and
empires and annexed lands as far west as Poland
and in the south parts of the Ottoman Empire
• Despite numerous victories, the contact with the
West showed some of Russia’s backwardness
• Tsar Peter the Great decided that he had to
reform Russia and pull it into the future by a
process of Westernization, including shaving
beards and building ships in the Baltic
• Contact with China and Islam: While a European
empire, Russia was also an Asian empire that had
contact with China and an increasing Muslim
population
• What kind of empire?: Russia built a massive
collection of territories by annexing its neighbors
by force
• Russia was quite authoritative and their
expansion occurred at the same time that their
distinctive state was taking shape
Asian Empires
Making China an Empire
• Qing expansion in the West (1680-1760): The
Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) was a foreign Manchu
regime headed by conquerors form the north
• While the were resented by many ethnic Chinese,
they did try to use Confucianism to justify their
rule
• For security purposes, they engaged in an eightdecade campaign in Tibet, Xinjiang, and Mongolia
• Colonial?: Was this colonial expansion? In many
was it was comparable to European overseas
colonial rule as an ethnically distinct group
conquered another group at a great distance
• However, the empire was built for security
purposes and not economic goals or settlement
• Indeed, few ethnic Chinese ventured into the
“Wild West” and these regions (central Asia)
maintained their traditional culture and lifestyle
• Economic downturn in Central Asia: As the Qing
expanded west and Russia expanded east,
Central Asia, once home to the nomadic
pastoralists and the cosmopolitan merchant cities
of the Silk Roads, soon found itself to be a
neglected backwater on the periphery of two
great landed empires
• Nomadic people no longer enjoyed political
independence and economic prosperity
• The rise in maritime trade only made matters
worse
China’s Qing Dynasty Empire.
Chinese Conquests in Central Asia: Painted in 1759 by an Italian Jesuit missionary and artist at the Chinese
court, Giuseppe Castiglione, this image portrays Machang, a warrior involved in the westward extension of
the Chinese empire. The painting was commissioned by the emperor to honor Machang’s bravery in battle.
Asian Empires
Muslims and Hindus in the Mughal Empire
• 20 percent Muslim: The ruling dynasty and about
20 percent of the population were Muslim and
most of the population followed a form of
Hinduism
• Akbar (r. 1556–1605): The emperor recognized
the diversity of his realm and made many
accommodations for Hindus
• While he did disapprove of sati and other
religious restrictions on women, his rule was a
time of great tolerance
• He removed the jizya tax on non-Muslims and
sponsored a House of Worship where issues of
faith could be debated amongst scholars of all
religions
• He sponsored a culture that fused a variety of
traditions
• Ahmad Sirhindi (1564–1624): This Muslim
reformer attacked Sufism and the intrusion of
Hindu practices and holidays into the Muslim
community
• He argued for a purified Islam
• Aurangzeb (1658–1707): As emperor, he
overturned many of Akbar’s tolerant policies, reimposed the jizya, destroyed temples, banned
dancing girls, and stopped music at court
• His reign marked a downturn in Hindu–Muslim
relations and provoked bitter reactions from
many Hindus
The Mughal Empire.
Asian Empires
Muslims and Christians in the Ottoman Empire
• “The Sword of Islam”: The Ottoman Sultan
became the most powerful leader in the Islamic
world and combined absolute political, military,
and religious authority
• Decrease in women’s autonomy yet many
rights: While many Turkic women lost their
pastoral freedoms as the Ottomans converted to
Islam and became urbanized, Ottoman law gave
them many rights and protections
• Within the sultan’s court, elite women had great
influence on their men
• New importance of Turkic people in the Islamic
World: The rise of the Ottoman Empire as the
most powerful Islamic state and its control of the
holy cities of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem
made Turks prominent people in the Islamic
world
Asian Empires
Muslims and Christians in the Ottoman Empire
• Balkan, Armenian, and Orthodox Christians:
While the conquest of Anatolia and
Constantinople had eliminated the majority of
the Christian population, there were many
surviving communities in the Balkans (where few
Turks settled) that negotiated arrangements with
the Turks
• The Ottoman conquest of Constantinople
signaled that the Islamic world held the upper
hand against the Christians
• Many Jews also found a place within the tolerant
empire
• Devshirme: This was a special tax on Balkan
Christians whereby they had to turn over young
boys to be raised and educated as elite Ottoman
administrators
• Fear and admiration in the Christian West: While
the Ottomans were tolerant of Christians within
their realm, they launched a series of wars on
Christian Europe
• While Europe feared the Great Turk, they also
admired the power and culture of the empire
The Ottoman Empire: At its high point in the mid-sixteenth century, the Ottoman Empire encompassed a vast
diversity of peoples; straddled Europe, Africa, and Asia; and battled both the Austrian and Safavid empires.
The Ottoman Siege of Vienna, 1683: In this late-seventeenth-century painting by artist Frans Geffels, the last
Ottoman incursion into the Austrian Empire was pushed back with French and Polish help, marking the end of a
serious Muslim threat to Christian Europe.
Reflections: The Centrality of Context in
World History
• Contextual thinking: World history
considers many different topics that require
us to put diverse areas of the world into a
proper context.
• Not all empires are equal: Contextual
thinking allows us to compare the European
empires in the Americas with the Ottomans
and the Asian empires in terms of violence
and impact upon the conquered peoples.