AP World History - Maritime Empires
European Exploration: Causes
Adoption and Innovation of Maritime Technology
Europe was initially a relatively weak power.
They adopted technologies from Greek, Islamic, and Asian worlds:
Magnetic Compass: From China, crucial for navigation.
Astrolabe: From ancient Greece and the Arab world, used to determine latitude.
Latine Sail: From Arab merchants, allowed sailing against the wind.
European innovations:
Shipbuilding:
Example: Portuguese Caravel – smaller, faster than other ships (like Chinese junks).
Caravels could navigate rivers and shallow coastal areas, and were equipped with cannons.
Understanding of wind patterns in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
Growth of State Power
European monarchs centralized power, diminishing the influence of the nobility.
Monarchs began to control economic decisions, especially in interregional trade.
Demand for Asian spices increased in Europe.
Land-based empires controlled trade routes, leading to high prices for goods.
European states wanted to find sea-based routes to Asia to trade independently.
Economic Causes
Mercantilism
State-driven economic system. The world's wealth was viewed as finite.
Goal: Maximize the amount of wealth (gold and silver).
Favorable balance of trade: Export more than import to hoard precious metals.
Colonies existed to enrich imperial powers by creating closed markets for exports.
Joint Stock Company
Limited liability business funded by private investors, chartered by the state.
Investors only risked their investment (limited liability).
States relied on merchants for expansion, and merchants relied on states for monopolies.
States that used joint stock companies prospered (e.g. Dutch East India Company - VOC).
Dutch East India Company (VOC):
Chartered in 1602, with a monopoly on Indian Ocean trade.
The Dutch dominated the Indian Ocean, increasing their influence and the wealth of investors.
Rivalries among European states led to attacks on each other's trading ports and ships in the Indian Ocean.
Rise of Sea-Based Empires
Portugal
Prince Henry the Navigator promoted exploration of the African coast.
Initial interest in West African gold trade then shifted to the Indian Ocean.
Established a trading post empire, controlling trade through “factories” (trading posts).
Used fast, cannon- equipped ships like the Caravel.
Spain
Sponsored Columbus to find a western route to the spice trade.
Columbus landed in the Americas instead.
Spanish voyages led to colonization in the New World and the Transatlantic trade.
Established a colonial base in the Philippines, using tribute and coerced labor.
France
Sponsored westward expeditions to find a North Atlantic sea route to Asia.
Established presence in Canada, profiting from the fur trade.
Their American empire was trade focused, similar to the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean.
England
Queen Elizabeth I sponsored exploration into the Americas.
The first colony was established on Roanoke Island, later Jamestown.
Sought influence in the Indian Ocean to gain India as the prize but lacked the naval power to take over from the Mughals.
The Dutch
Gained independence from Spain and became a prosperous state.
Challenged Spanish and Portuguese control of the Indian Ocean trade.
While colonizing in the Americas, their control of the Indian Ocean and spice trade primarily increased their power.
Columbian Exchange
Transfer of diseases, food, plants, and animals between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.
Environmental phenomenon, not to be confused with trade systems like the triangular trade.
Disease
Afro-Eurasians had developed immunities through contact over millennia, but indigenous Americans had not.
Smallpox and measles devastated indigenous populations in the Americas.
Malaria was introduced through disease vectors like mosquitoes.
Indigenous populations were decimated, referred to as the “Great Dying”.
Food and Plants
Europeans brought wheat, olives, and grapes to the Americas.
Rice, bananas, and sugar were introduced from Africa and Asia.
American crops like maize and potatoes were introduced to Europe, Africa, and Asia, leading to population growth after 1700.
Enslaved Africans introduced foods such as okra and rice.
Demand for American crops in Europe led to the establishment of cash crop plantations.
Cash cropping: growing crops (usually a single crop) for export.
Example: Sugarcane in the Caribbean.
Animals
Europeans introduced pigs, sheep, and cattle to the Americas.
The horse was the most consequential animal, used for agriculture and hunting.
Resistance to European Expansion
Asian States
Tokugawa Japan initially welcomed European trade, especially for gunpowder weapons.
However, Christian missionaries were expelled, and Christianity was suppressed due to fears of undermining Japan's unification.
Japan almost completely isolated itself from European commerce, maintaining trade only with the Dutch.
Local Level
The Fronde occurred in France after the newly adopted political doctrine of absolutism led to increased taxation.
The French nobility led peasant rebellions that lasted for six years but were eventually crushed.
Enslaved People
Maroon societies were communities of runaway slaves in the Caribbean and Brazil.
In Jamaica, colonial troops fought against Maroon societies, but the free blacks, led by Queen Nanny, rebelled and signed a treaty in 1738, recognizing the freedom of the community.
Growth of African States
Expansion of maritime trading networks fostered the growth of some African states through participation in global economic linkages.
Asante Empire (West Africa)
Provided goods like gold, ivory, and enslaved people to European traders.
Expanded their military and consolidated political power.
Kingdom of the Congo (Southern Africa)
Made diplomatic ties with the Portuguese and provided goods like gold, copper, and enslaved people.
The king of the Congo converted to Christianity to facilitate trade with Christian states.
Change and Continuity in Networks of Exchange
Indian Ocean Network
Change: Entrance of European states and their power grabs.
Continuity:
Middle Eastern, South Asian, East Asian, and Southeast Asian merchants continued to use the network.
European entrants increased profits for many merchants.
Long-established merchants like the Gujaratis continued to make use of the Indian Ocean trade.
The Gujarati increased the power and wealth of the Mughal Empire through their ongoing participation in the Indian Ocean trade.
The Portuguese never achieved full domination in the Indian Ocean because of the continued power of groups such as the Gujarati.
Overland Routes
* Overland routes like the Silk Road were still almost entirely controlled by various Asian land-based powers, most notably Ming China and then the Qing after it and the Ottoman Empire as well.Peasant and Artisan Labor
Peasant and artisan labor continued and even intensified in many regions as demand for food and consumer goods increased as a result of multiplying trade connections.
Example: As the demand for cotton increased throughout Europe, Peasant Farmers in South Asia increased their production for export and in many cases increased their standard of living. And the same was true of silk production in China.
Atlantic System of Trade
Change: Opening of the Atlantic system of trade was completely new.
Goods: Sugar was king and colonial plantations in the Caribbean specialized in the growth of sugarcane, which was exported across the Atlantic to satisfy Europeans growing demand for that sweet treat.
Wealth: Silver was king and the Spanish when they weren't busy decimating entire indigenous populations with their nasty germs, got busy mining silver in The Americas, which was then transferred back to the royal coffers
Silver was used to purchase luxury items from China.
The Atlantic system was maintained by the global flow of silver and trade monopolies granted by states to join stock companies.
Changes in Labor Systems
The Americas
Economies established in the Americas by Europeans were largely based on agriculture and mining.
Europeans made use of both existing labor systems and introduced new.
One example of an existing labor system that was continued during this period was the Mita system. Although to be clear, the Mayta system of the Spanish was not an exact copy of the Inca version.
New Labor Systems
Chattel Slavery
The purchaser had total ownership over the enslaved person.
Race-based and hereditary.
Enslavement was not race-based, but in those networks enslaved people often assimilated into the cultures where they were.
Because of the main economic engine of imperial empires in The Americas was difficult agricultural work and mining, Europeans purchased male slaves two to one, which significantly impacted the demographics of various African states.
The size of the Transatlantic slave trade involved over 12,500,000 Africans
In the Americas, slavery became identified with blackness as justification for the brutality of slavery.
Social Effects of the Growth of the African Slave Trade
Profound gender imbalance, especially in West African states
Changing of family structure like polygyny.
Cultural synthesis that occurred in The Americas.
Example: the growing emergence of Creole languages in places like The Caribbean and Brazil
Creole is a mixed languages from European and African languages
Indentured Servitude
A laborer would sign a contract that bound them to a particular work for a period of time, usually seven years
See this form of labor, especially in the British colonies in which lower class workers in Great Britain signed indentures in order to finance their journey across the sea to the New World.
Encomienda System
The Spanish used this system to divide indigenous Americans among Spanish settlers who were then forced to labor for the Spanish in exchange for food and protection
Hacienda
Indigenous laborers were the indigenous population
Change of Belief Systems
Christianity and the Americas:
States sent Catholic missionaries in order to convert the indigenous people.
Religion became a significant justification for the conquest of the Americas.
Indigenous groups outwardly adopted Christianity but privately continued to practice their own religious beliefs.
Effect of all this was religious syncretism that resulted in a blending of some Christian beliefs and practices with indigenous beliefs practices.
Vogt Dunn was a new faith that resulted from the blending of African animus beliefs with Christian doctrines and practices in The Americas.
Changing Social Hierarchies
States responded to ethnic and religious diversity.
Treatment of Jews
Spain expelled the Jews
Ottoman Emperor opened his empire to the displaced Jews who then integrated and thrived.
Rise of new political elites.
The casta system
Essentially, this system organized colonial society into a series of ranks based on race and ancestry
What level a person landed at really depended on how much Spanish blood they had running through their veins
Prior to the imposing of the casta system, native peoples were part of a wide variety of linguistic and cultural groups, but the casta system erased much of that cultural complexity and ordered their society by the standards of a small minority of Spanish elite.
Transition From the Ming to the Qing Dynasty
The Qing was established by non Chinese folks, namely the Manchu, and in doing so, they reserved all the best bureaucratic positions in the empire for ethnically Manchu people to the exclusion of ethnically Han people.
Existing elites in various states.
With the increasing power of monarchs, this influence began to wane.
Like, for example, let's consider the Russian boyars who made up the aristocratic land owning class in Russia, and they exerted great power in the administration of the empire for centuries. But when the absolutist Peter the Great rose power in Russia, he wanted to take all the power he could from those boyars and keep it for himself.