Landmarks:

Chapter 5: Political Transformations

Empires and Encounters

1450-1750

The Early Modern Era

European Empires in the Americas

Western Europe was distinctive due to the fact that the conquered territories lay an ocean away from the imperial heart-land rather than adjacent to it

Columbus voyage in 1492

Conquested the Aztec and Inca empires

The European Advantages

Europeans gained highly productive agricultural lands, drove further into expansion, that ultimately underpinned the long-term growth of the European economy into the 19th and 20th centuries

Motives to expand:

An expansion of Europeans was driven through the enduring rivalries of competing European states

Social Class mobility came from the Americas to make a high place in new growing colonies

Missionaries sought to grow Christendom over the Americas

Gave minorities a chance to start a new life

European innovations:

mapmaking

navigation

sailing techniques

Ship design

Gunpowder weapons

horses

Conquistador Hernan Cortes helped in force of the final attack on the Aztecs capital

Europeans brought diseases that had no inclination or experience with the Native American whom were already settled

Rapid build-up of immigration populations

The Great Dying and the Little Ice Age

Europeans and Americans were Chief on the demographic collapse of native Americans

The Great dying was the time of many Spanish and European infiltrative diseases that went to the Americas and killed about 90% of the Native American population

The Little Ice Age was a period from the 13th to 19th century when unusually cold temperatures spanned much of the early modern period in the Northern Hemisphere

General Crisis was the peaks of the Little Ice Age during the cold winters

Growth in the Sahara desert due to cooler weather and rainfall

Europe experienced drought which killed a lot of their food supply

China suffered a drought from 1637 to 1641

The price of maize / corn rose due to droughts

The Columbian Exchange

• In Homework Chart

Comparing Colonial Societies in the Americas

Mercantilism meant that governments served their countries economic interests best by encouraging exports and accumulating bullion

Colonies of Sugar

Europeans found a very profitable substitute in sugar, which was much in demand in Europe, were is was used as a sweetener, a medicine, a spice, a preservative, and in sculptural forms as a decoration that indicated high status

Brazil dominated the world market for sugar

Sugar utilized massive slave labor to make and produce it at a functionable market level (Atlantic slave trade)

Slave worked in terrible conditions from the heat making sugar, the heat from the sun to harvest sugar, and disease

Gender imbalances were applied because men were “stronger”

Although the imbalance they were treated and given the same punishments as the males

Women mostly worked for other women and did domestic chores in house as well as in the fields

Women were separated from their children at auction

Mulattoes - the product of European - African unions

There was an establish defined racial system

Someone in America whom which was Africa was referred to as black but in Brazil they were more specified by where they actually came from and their heritage to form from which racial group they came from

Racism was very high in European colonies against African features

Settler Colonies in North America

The British settelers sought to bring back much of old European society rather than to recreate it

There was a colonial pattern of sharp class hierarchies, large rural estates, and dependent laborers

Men were favored among women in high positions ( Women were inferior to men in every way )

There were far many more British settler compared to Spanish

Diseases and conquering of the Europeans killed of around 85% of the population of Native Americans

Protest England didn’t really feel the need to spread Christianity onto the Native Americans

Europeans used the excuse of reloign for killing the Native Americans

The British government paid little attention to the internal affairs of the colonies