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What facilitated European oceanic expansion?
Challenges like the Atlantic's complex currents and prevailing winds forced Europeans mariners to innovate, fostering the creation of highly maneuverable European ships.
Advanced mapmaking, navigation techniques, and ship designs, built upon earlier models, facilitated Atlantic exploration, enabling Europeans to traverse vast distances with greater efficiency.
Economic Motivations for European Expansion
European elites sought access to lucrative Eurasian commerce, feeling marginalized in the Indian Ocean trading network dominated by China, India, and Muslim states.
The discovery of the Americas promised vast resources, including precious metals and agricultural wealth, so all of the competing states sought to gain access to those resources, that would be inaccessible to their Asian neighbors.
The merchant class aimed to establish direct trade links with Asia to maximize profits and reduce dependence on middlemen, incentivizing exploration and colonization.
Political motivations for European Expansion:
Rivalries among European states and a desire to bypass the Ottoman Empire motivated expansion efforts motivated aggressive expansion efforts.
European states and trading companies effectively mobilized state resources and private enterprise to finance and support colonial ventures.
Cultural motivations for European Expansion
Missionaries saw colonization as an opportunity to spread Christianity to indigenous populations, driven by religious zeal and the desire for converts.
Advantages of European Empires
Technological Superiority:
European innovations in mapmaking, navigation, sailing techniques, ship design, ironworking, gunpowder weapons, and horses gave them advantages over indigenous peoples in the Americas.
Diseases:
European germs and diseases, to which Native Americans had no immunity, decimated indigenous populations.
Diseases often spread in advance of European arrival, contributing to the rapid decline of native societies and allowing Europeans to outnumber local populations within a few decades in certain regions.
Role of Alliances and Disease in Conquest
Spanish conquistadors led by Hernan Cortes allied with various subject peoples of the Aztec Empire and Inca elite during the attack on Tenochtitlan, welcomed as liberators.
Diseases introduced by Europeans, such as smallpox, measles, and influenza, caused widespread devastation among Native American populations.
Impact of Great Dying
Contact with European and African diseases led to catastrophic mortality rates among Native American populations, with some regions losing up to 90 percent of their people within a few decades. This would force some crazy
Impact of Little Ice Age
Brought unusually cool temperatures, especially in the Northern Hemisphere, impacting weather patterns and agricultural productivity worldwide. Poor agriculture exacerbated the challenges faced by the indigenous already devastated by disease.
The General Crisis
The near-record cold winters experienced in much of China, Europe, and North America in the mid-seventeenth century, sparked by the Little Ice Age; extreme weather conditions led to famines, uprisings, and wars.
The collapse of the Ming dynasty in China, constant warfare in Europe, and civil war in Mughal India occurred within this context.
The Columbian Exchange: Creation
The Great Dying, coupled with the effects of the Little Ice Age, created a significant labor shortage in the Americas, leading to a new influx of immigrant Europeans and enslaved Africans.
The Columbian Exchange: Crops and animals
American Corn and potatoes significantly boosted population numbers in Europe, while corn also became an essential food staple in China and Africa.
The introduction of horses transformed Native American societies, particularly in the North American West, where bison hunting from horseback became prevalent.
Mercantilism: Definition
Mercantilism was an economic theory that governments should prioritize exports and accumulate bullion: precious metals like silver and gold to serve their countries' economic interests.
Conquest in Spanish America
The Spanish conquest of the Aztec and Inca empires in the early sixteenth century provided Spain with unprecedented access to the most wealthy, urbanized, and densely populated regions of the Western Hemisphere.
Economics in Spanish America:
The economic structure of colonial society was primarily built on two pillars: commercial agriculture and mining, particularly silver and gold mining.
Large rural estates, often worked by coerced indigenous labor through the encomienda and hacienda systems, produced cash crops such as sugar, cacao, and tobacco for export.
Mining in Potosí relied heavily on indigenous labor to extract precious metals for export to Spain.
Spanish Social Order:
Spanish to establish themselves as a landed aristocracy, controlling vast estates and wielding significant influence over colonial governance. Despite their minority status in terms of population, Spanish settlers enjoyed privileges and sought to assert their autonomy from the Spanish Crown.
Casta System:
The rigid social hierarchy of colonial Spanish America:
Those of pure Spanish descent (Peninsulares, then Creoles) at the top, followed by various mixed-race groups such as mestizos (Spanish and indigenous mix), mulattoes (Spanish and African mix). Each casta category had its own set of privileges and limitations.
What made the colonies in Brazil and the Caribbean distinct:
Economic Foundation: These regions, governed by European powers like Portugal, Spain, Britain, France, and the Netherlands, lacked the advanced civilizations of Mexico and Peru but thrived on sugar production for export.
Absence of Mineral Wealth: Unlike Mexico and Peru, Brazil and the Caribbean initially lacked substantial mineral wealth, prompting a focus on agricultural commodities like sugar.
Distinctness of British settlers
Unlike the Catholic and Authoritarian Spanish, British settlers came from a society marked by rapid change, including conflicts between Catholics and Protestants, the rise of merchant capitalism, and the emergence of a new parliamentary authority that balanced the king.
Sugar colonies in the Caribbean and Brazil had a more diverse population, whereas British settlers were dominant in %
Differences of the role of Christianity between colonies
In Latin America, Catholicism served as a tool of colonial control, with missionaries and church authorities actively involved in the conversion and assimilation of indigenous peoples, whereas in North America, religious diversity and Puritan dissent led to the establishment of colonies based on religious freedom.
The Catholic Church in Latin America wielded considerable power and influence, while in North America, the separation of church and state allowed for greater autonomy and religious expression among settlers.
How were the organization and class structures of settler communities different from those of sugar colonies?
Both settler communities and sugar colonies were organized around agricultural production, with settlers primarily engaged in small-scale farming and sugar colonies focused on large-scale plantation agriculture.
Settler colonies were egalitarian and were dominated by Europeans, with fewer indigenous and African individuals, whereas sugar colonies had a more diverse population, including enslaved Africans, indigenous peoples, and mestizos.
Russian Empire: Motives for Expansion
Security: Pastoral peoples from Central Asia frequently raided their agricultural Russian neighbors and sold captives into slavery.
Additionally, economic opportunities drove Russian expansion eastward, primarily in the fur trade. The "soft gold" of fur-bearing animals, especially in Siberia, was in high demand on the world market during the Little Ice Age.
Russian Empire Building
Russian military strength, based on modern weaponry adapted from their Mongol conquerors, and centralized state organization, facilitated conquest of the steppes and Siberia.
Indigenous resistance was common, yet Russian forces eventually asserted control over the steppes and Siberia.
Russian Governance
Native populations required to swear allegiance to the tsar and pay tribute, known as yasak, often in the Similar to the Americas, conquest accompanied by diseases such as smallpox and measles, particularly affecting remote Siberian regions with little immunity.
Transformation of Russia
Unlike Spanish America, Russian conversion efforts less intense, with state tolerance for religious diversity demonstrated by Empress Catherine the Great's policies toward Muslims.
Pastoralists faced pressure to abandon nomadic ways, including fees and permissions to cross agricultural lands.
Initiatives by Peter the Great and Catherine the Great to westernize Russia included administrative reforms, military modernization, and the establishment of new educational systems.
How was Russia organized for continuous war?
The vastness of the Russian Empire, bordering almost all major agrarian civilizations of outer Eurasia, necessitated a highly militarized state, geared for continuous warfare to maintain its extensive territories.
The need to govern such a large and diverse empire also reinforced its autocratic nature; only a strong monarchy could effectively unite and manage its vast domains and varied peoples.
Ming Dynasty: Exploration
After Yongle consolidated power in China, the Ming refurbished their large navy and sponsored massive expeditions, led by Zheng He, to reinforce Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean and dominate trade.
Countries in India and Southeast Asia were enrolled in the tribute system.
Confucian officials ended commerce, believing that China was a self-sufficient.
Qing Dynasty: Governance
The Manchus established and expanded their rule through military conquest. Similar to the Mongol Empire, Qing leader Nuhaci created an army of banner units
Qing integrated Mongol aristocrats, Muslim officials, and Buddhist leaders into the governance structure to administer the region effectively.
Qing Dynasty: Continuity and Change
The Qing adopted elements of traditional Chinese culture. using the Ming Confucian civil service exam system to vet officials.
However, they wanted to preserve their own ethnic and cultural identity. They barred the Chinese from traveling to Manchuria and forced the men to adopt the braid (queue)
Qing Dynasty: Revenue
The primary source of tax revenue was the land tax, which was levied according to the amount of land a person owned and its productivity. This tax was traditionally paid in grain (mainly rice or wheat), which was then stored in state granaries or sold for silver. By the 1700s, it was dominantly silver.
How did the expansion of Russia and Qing transform Central Asia?
The expansion and policies of the Russian and Qing empires contributed to the decline of nomadic pastoralism, which dominated Central Asia prior.
Redirected Eurasian commerce from land-based routes like the Silk Road to oceanic trade, impacting local economies and social structures.
Qing Dynasty: Culture
Showed considerable respect for the cultures of Mongolian, Tibetan, and Muslim regions, avoiding forced assimilation and preserving local traditions and religious practices.
Local religious leaders, such as the Dalai Lama in Tibet, were allowed to remain in place, and men were not forced to wear the queue.
Mughal Empire: Background
The Mughal Empire claimed descent from the Mongol conquerors Chinggis Khan and Timur. Within the empire, Muslims were the majority as the ruling dynasty, but were a minority among the majority who were Hindus.
Mughal Empire: Governance under Akbar
Akbar's administration allowed for greater freedom of faith within the Empire for Hindus → the removal of the jizya tax, which historically burdened non-Muslim subjects → supported the construction of Hindu temples alongside Islamic mosques, palaces, and forts
Mughal Empire: Governance under Aurangzeb
Reimposed the jizya tax and a stricter reinforcement of Islamic law, sparking tensions between Hindus and Muslims → weakened Mughal consolidation of power significantly, setting it up for British easy access.
Mughal Empire: Revenue Systems
Zamindari system was a method of tax collection where zamindars (elite landowners) were given the authority to tax peasants and forward a percentage to the imperial Mughal treasury.
The British Empire would likewise use this system to funnel the wealth into the British govt. at the cost of peasantry.
Women in the Ottoman Empire
Elite women experienced seclusion and veiling, contrasting with their historically open association with men and political influence. This period saw an increase in slave women from the Caucasus and the Sudan, and women were often excluded from official counts in imperial censuses.
Ottoman Empire: Administration
Devshirme system: Boys from Christian communities were taken by the Ottoman state to serve in the military and government. They could do civil administration or serve as Janissaries (elite military units)
Sultans claimed the title of caliph → leader of Islam. Alongside the sultans, religious scholars, called ulama, played a significant role in running the state.
Ottoman Empire: Tax Farming
The tax farming system (iltizam) involved the leasing of tax collection rights to private individuals or groups, auctioning the rights to collect taxes in specific regions to the highest bidder, who was known as a "mültezim."
Ottoman Empire: Timar System
Timar System: Landholders collected taxes from the peasants working the land, using the revenue to maintain their cavalry units and equipment, while remitting a portion back to the states, declined as the empire relied on paid Janissaries more.
What drove European involvement in the world of Asian commerce?
Europeans sought direct access to Asian spices like pepper, cinnamon, and cloves, which were in high demand. They desired wealth and materials.
They also wanted to bypass the Ottoman Empire blocking off and taxing the Mediterranean.
Why was Europe just beginning to participate in global commerce during the sixteenth century?
Europe's population and economies were recovering from the Black Death, leading to increased demand for goods and new markets.
The rise of stronger national monarchies, capable of organizing large-scale voyages and exploiting new territories, played a crucial role in Europe's expansion.
Portuguese Empire: Expansion
They capitalized on their military advantage with ships equipped with cannons
Portugal established fortified bases in strategic locations including Mombasa, Hormuz, Goa, Malacca, and Macao, often through force.
Portuguese Empire: Maintained and Developed
They introduced a pass system (cartaz) for merchant vessels and imposed duties on cargoes, attempting to monopolize the spice trade and block existing trade routes, though they never fully controlled the spice trade to Europe.
How much did the Portuguese Empire dominate?
The Portuguese monopolized to a certain extent by forcing merchant vessels to buy a cartaz and pay duties, but they never fully controlled the spice trade, managing to dominate only about half of it to Europe.
Their crude and unattractive trade goods in Asian markets limited their economic competitiveness.
Spain and the Philippines: Religion and Commerce
Spanish colonial methods included relocating people into concentrated Christian communities, and implementing tribute, taxes, missionary effort, and forced labor.
Manila evolved into a prosperous trade city thanks to its proximity to the Spice Islands and China
Dutch East India Company: Details
Dominated spice islands in SE Asia
Engaged in aggressive tactics to monopolize spice production, involving the seizure of small spice-producing islands and forcing producers to sell only to the Dutch.
British East India Company: Details
Unable to employ "trade by warfare" due to the powerful presence of the Mughal Empire, the British sought permissions for trade rather than conquest.
Centered on cotton textiles
British navy kicked out the Portuguese presence in the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf.
Transitioned to colonial rule when Mughal rule weakened.
Example of how East India Companies changed societies they encountered.
In the Banda Islands, the Dutch eradicated or enslaved the local population, replacing them with Dutch planters and Asian slaves. This led to significant demographic changes and the displacement of indigenous ppl.
Changes from Tokugawa Shogunate:
Christianity was violently suppressed, including the execution of missionaries and Japanese converts
Implemented policies to close Japan off from European commerce, except for the Dutch, who were allowed limited trade
How did Asian authority persist in the face of intrusion?
Major Asian powers like Qing China and Tokugawa Japan maintained their political sovereignty by either limiting European trade to specific ports under strict regulations or by adopting policies that minimized European influence.
China had the Canton System, while Japan allowed limited Dutch trade in Nagasaki.
China and the Silver Trade
Qing China’s demand for silver was at the center of this global commerce. In the 1570s, Qing authorities required their large population to pay taxes in silver, consolidating various taxes into a single silver tax.
Philippines’ Role in Silver Trade
Acted as the hub for transferring silver from the Americas to Asia.
Manila received annual shipments of silver from Bolivia → shipped across the Pacific to the Philippines → first direct and sustained trade link between the Americas and Asia.
Silver Trade: Mining in Potosi
Had a stark social contrast between the wealthy European elite, who lived in luxury with access to goods from Europe and Asia, and the Native miners who endured extremely harsh working conditions.
Impact of Silver in Spain
The influx of silver from Latin America significantly enriched the Spain, enabling more military pursuits in Europe and the Americas.
The silver did not lead to long term economic growth but rather caused inflation, which outpaced real economic development.
Impact of Silver in Japan
The Tokugawa shoguns used profits from silver mining to consolidate power, defeating rival lords.
Developed a successful market economy with ties to agriculture and industry. Implemented environmental conservation measures.
Market econ laid the groundwork for the Meiji Restoration later on
Fur Trade: Role of Natives
Played a crucial role as the primary suppliers of furs, trading them to Europeans in exchange for goods like guns, blankets, and alcohol.
Heightened inter-tribal competition due to economic stakes.
European diseases killed many.
Alliance drew them into European conflicts
Impact of Transatlantic Slave Trade on African Societies
Led to the destabilization and weakening of some communities while simultaneously strengthening and enriching the local elites who engaged in and profited from the trade.
Transatlantic Slave Trade in the Americas
African Diaspora: African slaves significantly altered the demographic landscape of the Americas, especially in the colonial regions where Indigenous had lower roles.
Demand from plantation economies where cash crops like sugar, tobacco, and cotton were cultivated.
African state-building during Transatlantic Slave Trade
The slave trade facilitated state-building efforts in some African regions. For example, the Kingdom of Dahomey used the profits from the slave trade to fund military expansions and centralized royal control, heavily relying on annual slave raids for income.
Innovation that facilitated the spread of Protestantism
The invention of the printing press was crucial in disseminating Luther’s writings and Protestant ideas rapidly across Europe, facilitating the spread of Reformation thinking beyond Germany.
The Catholic Counter Reformation
In response to the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church initiated the Counter-Reformation, highlighted by the Council of Trent (1545–1563), which addressed issues of corruption while still reaffirming Catholicism.
Protestant Reformation Influence on European Thought
Over time, the critical approach to authority encouraged by the Reformation influenced secular thought. It contributed to the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment, where questioning established truths and seeking evidence-based conclusions became valued.
Example of Resistance to Christianity in Latin America
Taki Onqoy: a religious revival moment in central Peru in the 1560s whose members preached the imminent destruction of Christianity and of the Europeans in favor of a renewed Andean golden age.
Examples of Syncretism in Latin America:
In the Mexican adaptation of Christianity, local rituals often incorporated elements of Christian practice, such as the use of wax candles in traditional ceremonies.
China and the Jesuits
Jesuits had minimal influence, and were only in the imperial court due to their expertise on technology and math.
Confucianism and Buddhism were well-established religions too, negating significant Christian influence.
Wahhabi Movemen
Ibn Abd al-Wahhab argued that the difficulties faced by the Islamic world, such as the weakening of the Ottoman Empire, were due to deviations from the pure faith of early Islam.
destruction of tombs+shrines considered idolatrous, the banning of books on logic, etc.
Strict adherence to Sharia; Islamic law.
Wang Yangming’s Teachings
Wang Yangming proposed that intuitive moral knowledge was inherent in all people, suggesting that virtuous life could be achieved through introspection and moral contemplation without extensive classical education.
Kaozheng Movement
Emerged in late Ming and continued into the Qing era, focusing on "research based on evidence" and emphasizing verification and precision in various fields such as agriculture, medicine, and historical scholarship.
Role of universities in facilitating scientific revolution
The autonomous nature of universities negated the threat of direct persecution by religious or political authorities, enabling intellectual freedom essential for scientific advancement. This push towards thinking about the world in a secular way was crucial for the Scientific Revolution to advance.
Scientific Revolution: Effects
Scientific findings challenged the absolute authority of the Church over knowledge and truth, leading to a decrease in its influence on intellectual life and the beginning of the true secularization of European society, as with the Protestant Reformation.
This way of reason was applied to society in the Enlightenment
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