Political Transformations: Empires and Encounters 1450-1750 (Chapter 13)

Flashcards covering the vocabulary and key terms from the lecture notes on political transformations and empires between 1450-1750. Terms cover European empires, Asian empires, and the Russian empire.

The Great Dying

This refers to the demographic collapse of Native American societies due to contact with Europeans, who brought diseases like smallpox, measles, typhus, and influenza, to which the native populations had no immunity.

Little Ice Age

A period of unusually cool temperatures that spanned much of the early modern period, prominently in the Northern Hemisphere, impacting food production and exacerbating societal stresses.

Columbian Exchange

The large-scale exchange of plants, animals, diseases, and technologies between the Americas and the rest of the world, following Columbus's voyages.

Creoles

Spanish settlers born in the Americas.

Peninsulares

Spaniards born in Spain.

Mestizo

A person of mixed Spanish and indigenous descent.

Mulattoes

The product of Portuguese and African unions.

Plantation Complex

Agricultural system based on African slavery, that extended beyond the Caribbean and Brazil to encompass the southern colonies of British North America.

Settler Colonies

Colonies such as New England, New York, and Pennsylvania distinctive because the British were the last of the European powers to establish a colonial presence in the Americas.

Yasak

An oath of allegiance by which native peoples swore eternal submission to the grand tsar.

Qing Dynasty

The ruling dynasty of China from 1644 to 1912, which was of Manchurian origin and expanded China's territory.

Akbar

Most famous emperor of Mughal India.

Aurangzeb

Mughal emperor who reversed Akbar's policy of accommodation and sought to impose Islamic supremacy.

Ottoman Empire

An empire, which at it's peak encompassed a vast diversity of people and straddled Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Constantinople

City that was seized in 1453, later renamed Istanbul, and became the capital of the Ottoman Empire.

Devshirme

Process through which Ottoman authorities siphoned off thousands of young boys from Christian families into the service of the state.