WHAP Combined Vocab

Aztecs (Mexica)

Def: established an empire from Tenochtitlan (modern day Mexico City) based on military conquest and the kidnapping of women and seizure land from neighbors

Sig: tempted by its opulence and revolted by its human sacrifice rituals, Spaniard conquistador Hernan Cortes defeated the empire with aid from Aztec enemies

Bhakti Movement

DEF: An immensely popular development in Hinduism in South India and spreading northward, it advocated intense devotion toward a particular deity

SIG: a reforming movement within Hinduism which advocated personal devotion to a deity as the means to achieve moksha, it may have developed as a response to Sufi Islam which also advocated a personal relationship to God to achieve salvation

Buddhism

Def: religion originated in India in the classical but spread to East Asia and Southeast Asia

Sig: as it spread, its core beliefs continued to shape societies in Asia and resulted in multiple branches, such as Theravada in SE Asia and Mahayana in China

Champa Rice

Def: fast growing, drought-resistant rice imported into China from Vietnam

Sig: considered an innovation in agriculture that resulted in increased productive capacity - could be harvested 2x a year, leading to an unprecedented population boom

Dar-al-Islam

Def: Arabic term referring to the "House of Islam"; refers to the lands under Islamic rule

Sig: influenced by Persian administrative techniques and ideas of kingship, language, and literature; Indian mathematics; Greek philosophy and medicine; and Chinese technologies (gunpowder and paper)

Delhi Sultanate

Def: descended from Central Asian nomads, this Islamic empire based in Delhi stretched over large parts of the Indian subcontinent for 320 years (1206-1526)

Sig: the earliest forms of Indo-Islamic architecture emerged as did the greater use of mechanical technology, increased growth rates in India's population and economy, and the emergence of the Hindi-Urdu language, thus demonstrating continuous innovation and diversity

Feudalism

Def: a system in which land, a traditional source of power and legitimacy, was given in exchange for protection; lords lived off the surplus crops of their vassals

Sig: this was the basis for the political and social order of medieval Europe where the local political and military authorities were powerful while a king, if any, had limited authority and power

Filial Piety

Def: In Confucian thought, one of the virtues to be cultivated, a love and respect for one's parents and ancestors.

Sig: A continuity in Chinese culture, it also influenced the traditions of neighboring regions

Footbinding

Def: starting in Song Dynasty China, the practice of binding women's feet to create 3" feet was associated with new ideals of female beauty and eroticism

Sig: became a deep-rooted part of Chinese culture and elite society well into the 20th century and more importantly, it restricted women's movements to the "inner quarters" of the house to satisfy Confucian notions of patriarchy

Grand Canal

Def: connecting Hangzhou in southern China to Chang'an in northern China, this stretched 1,200 miles and was considered an engineering feat without comparison at that time

Sig: made China the most commercialized economy in the world by creating a national economy based on trade

Great Zimbabwe

Def: a powerful state that emerged in Southern Africa due to its wealth in gold and large cattle herds

Sig: despite its interior location and distance from the Swahili states, it's participation in the Indian Ocean Trade through them led to its increasing prominence

Heian Period (794-1185 CE) Japan

Def: Golden Age of Japan, when the Japanese voluntarily adopted the Chinese pattern of centralized government from the Tang Dynasty and oversaw the publishing of one of the greatest works of literature, The Tale of Genji

Sig: in the earlier part of this timeframe, Buddhism also diffused into the country from China when the Japanese were dealing with social upheaval and infighting amongst is many warlords

House of Wisdom

Def: An academic center for research and translation of foreign texts that was established in Baghdad in 830 C.E. by an Abbasid ruler.

Sig: home of ancient and modern learning during the Islamic Golden Age, preserving important works of European and Middle Eastern scholarship during the Dark Ages, which were later transferred back to Europe to kick off the Renaissance era there

Inca Empire

Def: established in modern day Peru through military conquest; spanned 2500 miles north and south along the entire length of the west coast of South America; government consisted of military elites but armies consisted of conquered peoples

Sig: had an advanced system of roads to facilitate communication, comparable to the Roman Empire; use of mit'a (compulsory labor service to the state in lieu of tribute) made the empire oppressive; fell to Spaniards under Francisco Pizarro

Jihad

Def: sometimes called the "sixth pillar of Islam," the primary meaning is to struggle against greed and selfishness towards a God-conscious life

Sig: also means armed struggle against forces of unbelief and evil to establish Muslim rule and defend followers of Islam (the umma) from infidel (non-Muslim) aggression; controversial belief that has been linked to 20th century armed struggles between some Muslims and non-Muslims

Jizya

Def: tax paid by non-Muslims in conquered territories to maintain their own religious practices

Sig: encouraged many conversions to Islam to avoid paying; source of contention between Muslims and their non-Muslim subjects

Mamluk Sultanate

Def: Central Asian nomads (of Turkic lineage) who came as slaves to Egypt but eventually overthrew their masters and built their own Islamic dynasty lasting 300 years

Sig: their military techniques and innovation allowed them to defeat both the Mongols from Asia and the Crusaders from Europe, preventing both groups from conquering Egypt

Manorialism

Def: self-sufficient large estate consisting of fields, meadows, forests, domestic animals, lakes, rivers and serfs bound to the land who did all the agricultural labor

Sig: in the absence of centralized political entities, these served as the residence of the nobles, who were political/military leaders, and the basic system of economy prevalent in Europe during the Middle Ages

Muslim Iberia/Al-Andalus

DEF: a medieval Muslim territory and cultural domain occupying at its peak most of what are today Spain and Portugal

SIG: served as a conduit for innovation and scholarship into Europe, formation of a syncretic culture blending Arabic, Christian and Jewish influences which influenced Spain even after Christians regained control

Neo-Confucianism

Def: Emerged In the late Tang and Song dynasties as Chinese scholars combined Confucian beliefs with Buddhist writings and Doaist principles and reinvigorated the traditional civil service exam process to staff the government bureaucracy

Sig: shows Buddhism's lasting influence on the Chinese sociopolitical structure and throughout East Asia, including its transference to Korea and Japan; this philosophy remained important in China until early 20th century

Seljuk Empire

Def: An empire formed by Turkish and Persian Sunni Muslims, lasting from 1037 to 1194 A.D.

Sig: the fragmentation of the Abbasid Caliphate allowed for the Seljuk and other Turkish peoples to emerge and create powerful new political entities

Serfdom

Def: Institution in which a peasant is attached to a feudal estate

Sig: given that Europe was largely an agricultural society, and with no unifying political power, manor lords were dependent on the production of food by peasants and coerced labor, which were serfs

Sharia

Def: Islamic canonical law based on the teachings of the Koran and the traditions of the Prophet Mohammed; prescribes both religious and secular duties and sometimes retributive penalties for lawbreaking.

Sig: along with the Quran, this emphasized patriarchy, patrilineage, male inheritance, and control of women by male guardians

Song Dynasty (China)

Def: the most significant state to emerge after the fall of the Han, it saw the unprecedented growth and diffusion of technology and another Golden Age of arts and literature

Sig: oversaw the establishment of the best ordered and most commercialized state in the world at that time

Srivijaya Empire

DEF: Hindu/Buddhist state that controlled modern-day Indonesia and much of the Malay Archipelago from the 7th to 12th centuries, heavily trading with India and China while incorporating Buddhist and Chinese political practices into their traditions.

SIG: demonstrated continuity, innovation and diversity with the states from which it gained its major influences, leading to the emergence of a syncretistic new Southeast Asian culture; even after their demise the trade routes they established continued to be used even into the modern era

Sufism

Def: Islamic sect whose members who saw the worldly success of Islam as a distraction and deviation from the pure spirituality of Mohammed's time; focused on a mystical and spiritual union with Allah rather than a strict interpretation of Islam

Sig: succeeded in converting people in India, sub-Saharan Africa, and southeastern Asia between 1000 to 1500 by incorporating local traditions into Islam; considered by the ulama to be almost heretical because of their disregard for orthodoxy in favor of spirituality

Turkic Peoples

Def: various clans and tribes of nomads of common origin who fanned west and south from their central Eurasian steppe homeland of Mongolia and southern Siberia; facilitated the spread of Islam in northern Eurasia after they converted between the 10th and 14th centuries

Sig: became the third largest disseminator of Islam after Arabs and Persians, especially to Anatolia and Northern India; their language, culture, and religion spread widely over much of Inner Asia, becoming integrated in various agrarian civilizations and leading to innovation and diversity

Bananas in Africa

DEF: brought into Madagascar (and from there the rest of Africa) by the Malays of southeast Asia

Sig: this helped increase the population of Africa to 17 million due to its nutritional value; this diffusion was a result of the Malays traveling on the Indian Ocean Trade routes

Banking Houses

Def: before this time period, there weren't many places to store money or exchange foreign currencies until the emergence of this commercial technology that allowed the lending of money, use of checks, and also let people store their money for safety

Sig: played a big role in increasing Islamic and European trade, including luxury goods

Bills of Exchange

Def: a written order to a person requiring the person to make a specified payment to the signatory or to a named payee; a promissory note

Sig: allowed for the growth of interregional trade by providing buyers and sellers over long distances with assurance that they would be paid for their investments

Bubonic Plague

Def: plague that killed a 1/3 - 1/2 of the population of Europe in the middle ages but also significantly affected Afro-Eurasia with mass deaths at various times over two thousand years

Sig: most significant disease to spread through trade routes until the 20th century; known as the Black Death in Europe after it weakened Europe socially and economically and spelled the end of serfdom in Western Europe

Camel Saddle

Def: An invention which gives camel riders more stability on the animal and its invention and basic idea traveled along the Trans-Saharan Caravan Trade Route

SIG: allowed for trade to extend into Africa from Asia by making it possible for traders to comfortably travel over the dry Sahara desert for long periods of time

Caravanserai

Def: inn or rest station for merchants traveling alone or caravans

Sig: allowed merchants of luxury goods to travel for trade more extensively, because of the added security of a place to rest, which allowed for the growth of inter-regional trade

Chinggis Khan

Def: founder of the Mongol empire and quintessential nomadic steppe warrior/military genius; name means "universal ruler"

Sig: united thousands of fractious tribes and clans across Eurasia to create a single confederation in 1206 that overran China, Persia, Abbasid Caliphate, Russia and parts of Eastern Europe over the next few decades

Compass and Astrolabe

DEF: instruments that allowed travelers to determine direction and latitude, respectively

Sig: innovations that significantly increased trade of both luxury and mass market products on the Indian Ocean

Diasporic Communities

DEF: merchant communities on the Indian Ocean that introduced their own cultures into local cultures and were themselves influenced by local cultures

SIG: a significant effect of the growth of the Indian Ocean Trade Network, that saw the spread of Islam to east Africa and Southeast Asia, and Buddhism from India to Southeast Asia, as well as Chinese merchants to Southeast Asia, leading to the emergence of syncretic cultures in these places

Gunpowder

Def: Chinese invention of explosive powder that was in use during the Tang dynasty but utilized as a weapon by the Song

Sig: reached Europe by 1258 in large part due to the Mongols; ultimately played a key role in European conquest of the Americas

Ibn Battuta

Def: 14th century Muslim scholar and traveler from Morocco (North Africa) who traversed all of the Dar al Islam (from West Africa to India) on the trade routes; most celebrated Muslim traveler of the postclassical world

Sig: he promoted the proper observance of Islam wherever he went, such as modesty of dress in West Africa and the islands of SE Asia; was highly critical of the syncretic nature of Islam in places like India and West Africa

Indian Ocean Trade Network

Def: with the benefit of the monsoon winds, this boasted the largest volume of goods traded (esp. bulk items) amongst the largest number of people, with the interaction of the most diverse selection of cultures

Sig: this trade route was not controlled by any particular state or empire and open to all for participation until the Europeans arrived

Junks

Def: oceangoing ships built in China during the Song Dynasty (capacity: 2700+ people) that utilized a magnetic compass, stern-mounted rudder, and gunpowder-propelled rockets

Sig: helped to intensify and advance Chinese trade and tributary relationships further afield

Khubilai Khan

Def: grandson of (and greatest successor to) Chingghis Khan and overlord of all the Khannates across Eurasia; Yuan emperor in China who improved infrastructure, lowered taxes, promoted culture (including Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism), and supported peasant agriculture

Sig: completed the conquest of all of China, thus reuniting it for the first time since the Tang Dynasty; established what has become the modern capital of Beijing

Mali Empire

DEF: The kingdom in West Africa that followed the Kingdom of Ghana

SIG: its wealth was also based on trans-Saharan trade; it also encouraged the spread of Islam brought into Africa by merchants and adopted by the elite and upper class people

Marco Polo

Def: Italian merchant who traveled from Italy to China during Mongol rule and stayed at the court of Yuan emperor Kublai Khan for years; stories of his travels on the Silk Roads and the Indian Ocean Trade Network were accumulated in a book and rapidly circulated throughout Europe

Sig: introduced readers to the rich world of the Chinese and their customs, advanced technologies and luxury products; inspired Columbus and others to find a passage to the East

Mongol Khanates

Def: New imperial states that arose after Genghis Khan and his descendants brought about the demise of existing post-classical empires; these became the Khanates of Chaghati, Golden Horde, the Great Khan and Il-khanate of Persia.

Sig: They drew in new peoples into their economies and trade networks and guaranteed a time of peace and security, allowing Silk Roads trading to reach its peak

Monsoon Winds

Def: The seasonal wind of the Indian Ocean and southern Asia, blowing from the southwest in summer and from the northeast in winter (aka rainy season).

Sig: advanced environmental knowledge of phenomenons such as these allowed for expanded trade on the Indian Ocean

Sacking of Baghdad (1258)

Def: destroyed by the Mongols with the massacre of more than 200,000 people

Sig: marked the final end of the crumbling Islamic Abbasid caliphate

Samarkand

Def: one of the most influential cities and trading centers on the Silk Roads and a cultural center for Islam in central Asia

Sig: its growth was an effect of increased volume of trade, wealth and security on the Silk Roads

Sultanate of Melacca

DEF: a small fishing village that eventually became a kingdom after the arrival of a Hindu prince from nearby Srivijaya

Sig: it controlled the Malaccan straits and in essence the sea trade route between India and China, which allowed it to become very rich and experience a Golden Age

Swahili City-States of East Africa

DEF: with the arrival of Arab merchants, the Africans in this area began to trade on the Indian Ocean trade network

Sig: Indian Ocean trade allowed for the flourishing of these states while also helping to create a syncretic culture combining Arabic and Bantu

The Crusades (1095-1291)

Def: a series of 5 holy wars declared by the Catholic Pope in which Crusaders (warriors wearing crosses) fought to take back the Holy Land (Palestine and Jerusalem) from the Muslims

Sig: along with transfer of Greco-Islamic medical knowledge, luxurious eastern goods and technology diffused to Europe, generating a pressing need for Europeans to find a way to trade directly with the East instead of going through Muslim intermediaries

The Silk Roads

Def: the world's most extensive network of land exchange until the 15-16th century, which brought great wealth and power to those who controlled it

Sig: facilitated the exchange of goods, ideas and disease across long distances and it promoted the growth of powerful new trading cities.

Timbuktu

Def: located near the Niger River and one of the wealthiest cities in West Africa due to its location in the Trans-Saharan trade routes

Sig: with the conversion of the Mali emperor to Islam in the mid-1330s, it became a leading cultural, intellectual, and religious center in Africa; declined with the increase in European trading posts along the coast of West Africa

Trans-Saharan Trade Networks

Def: rose in prominence when the camel was introduced from Arabia, on which salt, gold, slaves and ivory from the south were exchanged for cloth, horses, olives and manufactured goods from the north

Sig: connected the wealth of sub-Saharan Africa with Eurasia and facilitated the spread of Islam into Africa

Zheng He

Def: Muslim eunuch and Chinese admiral who commanded an extensive naval fleet of junks on seven exploratory voyages as far as Eastern Africa to establish tributary relationships between 1405 and 1433 (during the Ming dynasty)

Sig: demonstrated China's ability to be a military, political, and economic power in the Indian Ocean

Absolutism

Def: the political theory that monarchs have complete control over their subjects by divine right

Sig: this theory allowed many monarchs across Europe and Asia to consolidate their power at a time of remarkable change to their societies and to handle the religious diversity of their many subjects

Ana Nzinga

Def: 17th century Angolan queen who fought internal and neighboring enemies by partnering with the Portuguese and then partnering with the Dutch to unsuccessfully stop the Portuguese from taking over her country

Sig: resistance to European expansion by a powerful female African monarch who took over a neighboring country (Matamba) and established it as a trading power and the gateway to the Central African interior while stirring rebellions against the Portuguese who had taken over her native Ndongo homeland

Asante Kingdom

Def: kingdom that emerged in the 1700s in present-day Ghana

Sig: it's activity in the Atlantic slave trade led to its growth and influence

Atlantic Trading System

Def: A triangle trading system on which Africa depended on goods, the Americas depended on slaves, and Europe depended on cash crops

Sig: brought about the dominance of Northern European countries in global trade and as the masters of the American colonies

Boyars

Def: traditional Russian landholding aristocrats

Sig: their power would increasingly decrease as the Russian tsars adopted European traditions and increased their own autocratic powers

Caravel

Def: small oceangoing ships invented by the Portuguese in the 15th century which allowed them access to coastal waters and to explore upriver

Sig: Allowed for the discovery and swift colonization of the Americas and elsewhere by Western European nations

Carrack

Def: an innovative large merchant ship of a kind operating in European waters in the 14th to the 17th century

Sig: was the model for the galleons used by the Spanish to haul new world wealth to Europe while defending themselves with cannons

Cartography

Def: the art and science of map-making and superimposing political, cultural, or other non-geographical divisions such as national borders on maps

Sig: new techniques such as the Mercator projection allowed for a better understanding of land layout and led to increasing global exploration in the 16th-18th centuries

Casta System

Def: a hierarchical system of race classification created by Spanish elites in Hispanic America and the Philippines during the 17-18th centuries

Sig: Was used for social control and determined a person's importance in society, thereby impacting every aspect of life, including economic status and taxation

Catholic (Counter) Reformation

Def: a direct response by the Catholic Church to the Protestant Reformation by attempting to reform the church to stop spread of Protestant ideas and win back converts

Sig: new religious orders to gain conversions were founded, who were dedicated to the reaffirmed doctrines of the Catholic Church, which saw only minor reforms

Chattel Slavery

Def: the owning of human beings as property to be bought, sold, given, and inherited which came to rise as part of the Triangular Trade

Sig: Enabled the increase of the plantation system and racial tensions

Columbian Exchange

Def: global exchange between the New and Old Worlds of plants, food, animals, people and diseases

Sig: killed off the majority of the native populations in the Americas through disease and the food products exchanged increased global population while some of them led to the forced migration of many people, especially from Africa

Creoles

Def: any white person of European descent (usually Spanish or French) born in the West Indies or certain parts of the Americas

Sig: considered socially inferior to European-born residents of the colonies, peninsulares, as they received more land and power in the colonies

Devshirme

Def: a system developed by the Ottoman Empire which took non-Muslim children as an alternative tax to have them trained as Janissaries (soldiers trained to protect and serve the sultan) or to serve in the government

Sig: system was utilized by Ottoman emperors to maintain centralized control over their culturally diverse populations

Encomienda System

Def: a labor system that forced Native Americans to labor on land, typically originally given to conquistadors, as a cheap labor source

Sig: harsh treatment led to Native Americans dying, leading to the increased importation of slaves from Africa

Hacienda System

Def: large mostly self-sufficient profit-making estates (primarily agricultural plantations)

Sig: tying the Native Americans into a peonage system of service (even as they called them 'free wage earners') led to many revolts even as the system endured into the late 20th century

Indentured Servitude

Def: a system of coerced labor in which people from Europe promised to work for a certain amount of time in the New World in exchange for their paid passage there

Sig: developed due to a demand for cheap labor in North America but lasted for a short period of time, especially in the south, as plantation owners began looking for a cheaper supply of labor by the early 17th century- African slaves

Joint-Stock Companies

Def: a profitable commercial venture that enabled exploration by bringing together many investors and merchants in order to minimize the risks and costs of the investment (i.e. the Dutch East India Company and the British East India Company)

Sig: a significant element of mercantilism and operated with their own military - brought raw materials, resources, and wealth back to the mother country, dramatically increasing European power around the world

Kingdom of Kongo

Def: Kingdom dominating small states along the Congo River that maintained effective, centralized government and a royal currency until the seventeenth century

Sig: grew as a result of its participation in the Atlantic slave trade but also challenged the Portuguese by pushing for the slave trade to be subjected to/limited by Kongolese laws

Lateen Sail

Def: Triangular sail that was developed in Indian Ocean trade that allowed a ship to sail against the wind

Sig: a European technological development that was influenced by cross-cultural interactions with the Islamic and Asian world

Manchus/Qing Dynasty (1636-1912)

Def: Nomadic people from north of the Great Wall who invaded China and established a dynasty, claiming the "Mandate of Heaven" and adopting the Confucian belief and political administration system

Sig: opened up trade with Europeans and the limitations on the power and freedoms of the ethnic Chinese Han people, as well as intermarriage with them, dramatically increased the power of the dynasty during this time

Maroon societies

Def: from SE USA to Brazil, groups of runaway slaves who gathered in mountainous, forested, or swampy areas and formed their own self-governing communities, raided plantations for supplies, and used guerrilla warfare to defend themselves from slave owners and bounty hunters

Sig: the existence of these continuities remained a continuous example of successful slave resistance to chattel slavery in the Americas

Mercantilism

Def: a new economic theory adopted by many Western European nations with the goal of maintaining a favorable trade balance- whereby a country exports more than it imports - in an effort to accumulate the most bullion (precious metals such as gold and silver)

Sig: Through this process, European rulers expanded and controlled their economies and claimed overseas territories that were required to trade exclusively with their own mother country, thus encouraging competition and a race for conquest among the Western European nations

Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)

Def: saw the restoration of Confucian traditions after Mongol rule, as well as increased economic exchange outside of China and extensive overseas trade through the journeys of Zheng He

Sig: after the date of Emperor Yongle, the dynasty abandoned international exchange and focused solely on internal affairs, allowing the Europeans to explore and dominate the Indian Ocean trade

Mita System

Def: economic system in Incan society where people paid taxes with their labor and what they produced; primarily used in the silver mines in South America

Sig: adopted by the Spanish to use indigenous labor in encomienda - was in evidence in the mining for silver in Potosi

Mughal-Maratha Wars (1680-1707)

Def: aka Maratha War of Independence fought in response to Mughal expansionism over the Indian sub-continent

Sig: the first significant resistance to Mughal rule by a Hindu kingdom, which then encroached on additional Mughal territory while other minor kingdoms elsewhere also began to assert their independence against the Mughals - beginning of the end of Mughal dominance over India and the beginning of British incursion into India

Ottoman Tax Farming

Def: the Ottoman government assigned land to holders who paid fixed annual sums to the empire's central treasury in exchange for use of the property and the right to collect taxes for the empire - they were able to keep a portion of their collections as profit

Sig: The assignment of tax farmers to the land of existing nobles (timars) led to the decline in the power of the timars to influence the Sultan

Ottoman-Safavid Conflict

Def: A century-long conflict from 1534-1639 in which the Sunni Ottomans fought the Shiite Safavids over control of Mesopotamia

Sig: it was a political and religious dispute between two groups descended from Central Asian Turks, it led to emerging Iranian nationalism as a Shi'ite Islamic state struggling against its Sunni neighbors

Plantation Economy

Def: economic system stretching between the Chesapeake Bay and Brazil that produced crops, especially sugar, cotton, and tobacco, using slave labor on large estates

Sig: a significant factor driving the Columbian Exchange and the need for coerced slave labor

Protestant Reformation

Def: followed Martin Luther's publication of the 95 Theses and was a movement to reform the Catholic Church but it resulted in the second major split within Christianity instead

Sig: each side branded the other as heretics and their own religion as the one true faith; led to the creation of new Protestant churches in England and Switzerland AND provided a motive to Catholics to earn more converts in America than the Protestants

Reconquista

Def: The effort by Christian leaders to drive the Muslims and Jews out of Spain, lasting from the 1100s until 1492

Sig: evidence of differential treatment of religious groups in Spain that eventually led to their expulsion but also allowed for the Ottoman Empire to absorb them and their talents to their benefit (Jews were allowed their own self-governance in Ottoman lands)

Salaried Samurai

Def: Under the Tokugawa Shogunate, the importance of these individuals as mercenaries/warriors who reported only to their daimyo declined so they took paid jobs as bureaucrats within the government of the shogunate

Sig: this was an effort by the Tokugawa government to minimize resistance from this warrior class and in effect, break the power hold of the daimyos who they served

Sikhism

Def: a syncretic belief system founded by Guru Nanak in the early 1500s in South Asia which blends elements of Hinduism and Islam into a single faith

Sig: its rejection of the caste system and lesser patriarchal expectations made it appealing to Hindus, women, and merchants; was under attack by the Mughal empire since its inception, leading to longstanding Sikh/Muslim enmity

Silver

Def: vital product of the Americas as mined by the Spanish in Mexico and Peru that was increasingly demanded in global exchange

Sig: was the world's first global currency (coins called "pesos de ochos") that united the entire world in trade for the first time

Single-Whip Tax System

Def: due to a shortage of copper coins and falsification of records by local landholders, Ming policy starting in 1522 was to combine land and labor tax into one national tax to be paid in the form of silver

Sig: prototype of the modern taxation system but also increased China's demand for New World and Japanese silver

Sultanate of Oman

Def: a prominent Indian Ocean Trade player located on the Strait of Hormuz in the middle east, all its ports faced the Indian Ocean and it was greatly involved in trade from East Africa to China

Sig: Defeated and occupied by the Portuguese from 1507-1648, it remerged as a Indian Ocean Trade power and ran the slave trade out of East Africa after kicking the Portuguese out and despite of growing European power in the Indian Ocean

Syncretism

Def: the combining of different beliefs, religions and schools of thought into new belief systems, such as Santeria in Cuba and Vodun in Haiti (Catholicism+Native American+West African beliefs)

Sig: these cultural blendings became a central feature of a country's identity, such as in Mexico and Cuba, and also allowed African slaves to secretly thwart the efforts of Spanish missionaries to convert them to Christianity

Tokugawa Shogunate

Def: the unification of Japan in the 1500s under a military government led by the shogun (who had more power than the symbolic emperor he "reported" to) which brought nearly 300 years of peace and stability to the nation while decreasing the power of the landholders and the samurai warriors

Sig: policies of this government included isolationism from trade with Europeans by only giving the Dutch the right to trade with Japan once a year

Trading Post Empire

Def: began by the Portuguese who implemented control over trade routes from West Africa to East Asia by forcing merchant vessels to pay duties at fortified trading sites and buy safe-conduct passes to trade on the routes

Sig: dramatically increased European power in these areas without the need to create land empires

Versailles Palace

Def: royal palace built during the reign of Louis XIV which he used to enforce his power and prestige and limited the power of his nobles by insisting they live in the palace under his watchful eyes

Sig: an example of a monarch using monumental architecture to legitimize his rule

Volta del Mar

Def: a major step in the art/science of navigation perfected by Portuguese navigators in the mid-late 15th century, using the dependable phenomenon of the great permanent wind wheel, the North Atlantic Gyre

Sig: the European sea empires would never have been established had the Europeans not figured out how the trade winds in the Atlantic worked

Wahhabism

Def: named for the teachings of strict Islamist scholar Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab in Saudi Arabia, who believed that non-Quranic practices, such as veneration of Sufi saints or the study of logic, were damaging to authentic Islam

Sig: was a conservative backlash within Islam against more lax practices or way of life (i.e. women's rights dramatically decreased); the Saudi Wahhabis in Arabia became the chief challengers to the Ottoman Empire for the spiritual leadership of Islam and overseeing of Mecca

Zamindar system

Def: this group was the noble ruling class under the Mughals, with most being former Indian princes whose sovereignty became limited and ultimately lost under British rule.

Sig: the aristocrats were responsible for collecting taxes from the peasants living in their large tracts of land while keeping some of the money for themselves

"Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen" (1789)

Def: set forth by the National Assembly in 1789, this revolutionary document that was established during the French Revolution; it described ideals of natural rights, rights of man are universal and the protection of individuals under the law

Sig: further spread Enlightenment ideals and influenced the eventual overthrow of the French monarchy; it influenced the spread of freedom and democracy around the globe into the 19th century, including Haiti

"Letter from Jamaica" (1815)

Def: was a document written by Simon Bolivar in 1815; he explained his thoughts on Spanish power in the time period and the possible future of new states after the results of revolutions against Spain; he called for the support of Europe in the Latin American's struggle for independence against Spain

Sig: heavily influenced by Enlightenment ideals and those revolutionary documents from the American and French Revolutions; Bolivar expressed ideas of equality under the law, democracy, and natural rights of all

Absolutism

Def: the political theory that monarchs have complete control over their subjects by divine right

Sig: this theory allowed many monarchs across Eurasia to consolidate their power at a time of remarkable change to their societies and to handle the religious diversity of their many subjects