AP World Unit 4
Before 1450, the Song Dynasty and Islamic empire innovation advanced technologies like paper-making, navigation tools, and military techniques
This allowed Europe to become the most advanced navigators during the 16th cenutry because of the spread of ideas through Spain and the Silk Roads.
The first maritime technology Europeans used was the maritime compass
Came from China and helped with direction
The second maritime technology was the astrolabe which helped distinguish latitude and longitude
Was first created by the Greeks during the 2nd century, but the Islamic world significantly improved it.
The third maritime technolopgy was the lateem sail, which was triangular-shaped and took the wind on either side
Came from Arab merchants
The fourth maritime technology was astronomical charts that helped distinguish stars and constellations that helped sailors know where they were
Came from Muslims that were building on ancient Greek technology
Its important to know that Europeans ADAPTED technology to gain power
The Europeans did however invent some things like:
The caravel was invented by the Portuguese to be more navigable and more nimble on the water.
Was also equipped with cannons to make it a better fighting ship
The Portuguese also developed the carrick which was able to hold more cargo since they needed to trade to gain power.
The carriks were also used for gun usage which was crucial to gain power in the Indian Ocean trade routes.
The Portuguese was not able to expand as easily meaning they had to expand by the sea, leading to them depending on trade routes like the Saharan and Indian Ocean, as well as spreading Christianity after the victory of the battle with the Muslims on the Iberian Peninsula.
The fluyt, created by the Dutch, was designed for trade and was:
Much cheaper to build
Held more cargo
Needed less crew to manage
This made it so the Dutch took over the power the Portuguese had in the Indian Ocean trade
Europeans before the 1450s were known for looking ways to trade with Asia directly like Spain and Portugal, trade then started to boom when the Spanish conquered the Americas and created the Aztec and Inca civilization to advance trade during the early 1500s.
The Portuguese later found out that the Indian Ocean exchange was far more superior than the Saharan trade, which led to them installing trade ports. (Vasco De Gama was responsible for this)
The Portuguese also traded gunpowder to African leaders in exchange for slaves.
Christopher Columbus had an “amazing” idea to sail West to reach East Asia, which led to them finding out about the Americas
Note that Christopher believed he was in East Asia even though it was the Americas.
When other empires noticed Spain and Portual doing this, they started to expand on maritime expansion due to:
Political Rivarly
Envy
Desire for Wealth
Need for Alternative Routes to Asia
The 3 main regions that did this were:
France, who established themselves in North America as Quebec, but quickly backed off due to rivalries from the natives and from diseases.
England. who was late to the party due to not risking its booming economy for water expansion, until Queen Elizabeth the I decided to start expanding after winning the war with Spain with Spain significantly drop in numbers
John Kat conquered new found lands down to Chesapeake Bay for the English
Queen Eliabeth I commissioned Sir Walter Raleigh to lead the expedition on the Americas, which started the first English colony known as Virginia in 1607 with establishing a town known as “Jamestown”
The Dutch began to expand after getting independence from Spain in 1576, and conquered the Indian Ocean exchange from Portugal in the early 1600s.
They also sponsored Henry Hudson to start a colony in the New World known as New Amsterdam.
The Columbian exchange was the exchange of plants, disease, food, and animals between the Eastern and Western hemispheres
Occured when Columbus found two new continents in 1492.
Disease was heavily being transferred between Europe and the New World due to not being exposed to the new infections
Things like malaria, measles, and smallpox were spreading which killed around half of the population in the New World
A rumor is that the Europeans intentionally did this to make it easier to conquer
Food wise, Europeans brought over food like sugar, wheat, grapes, and bananas in which the Americans slowly adapted.
Indigenous foods like pumpkin, corn, and turkey were transferred to Europe (mostly amish foods were transferred to Europe).
Later, Europeans would grow cash crops to gain wealth when colonizing the Americas, and would be harvestable on massive plantations from coerced labor.
For animal trade, Europeans brought domesticated animals like pigs, sheep, and cattle.
Because there were no predators for those animals, the population grew rapidly which produced a new era for ranching.
However, problems like erosion started coming up from over-population
A new animal that was brought to the new world was the horse, which improved efficiency in buffalo hunting and increased military to fight other tribes
Slaved labor started rising, mainly the Portuguese, who imported slaves to work for sugar cane and tobacco
This was known as the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
The Trans-Atlantic Slave trade held about 10-12 million slaves during 1550-1880s
Around 90% of slaves were imported from Brazil and the Carribeans, while around 5% was from the USA.
Europeans were also known for deforestation and the depletion of the soil, as well as less water supply and pollution in order to migrate to the Americas.
Mercantilism is the belief of profitable trading
Tokugawa Japan during the 1600s used violence and exiled all Christian missionaries in fear of Japan not being unified (from the Tokugawa family).
Later, the whole maritime trade in China shut down, especially after the bribery of the Portuguese that made China isolated.
The Asante Empire grew filthy rich from the Portuguese however, which later let the Asante Empire expel the British from colonizing
The Kingdom of Kongo also did this and even converted to Christianity to continute gaining wealth.
The spanish used the mit’a system, which came from the incas and was using for their massive silver operations
Chattle slavery was race-based and millions of slaves were shipping from the New World to Old world during the Columbian exchange (vise-versa)
Indentured Servitude was a contract like feudalism
Encomienda System was like feudalism
Hacienda system controlled the exports of food
There was an issue with slavery though as 90% of indigenous people already died from disease, and were constantly escaping due to knowing the land better
Slaves were also horribly treated at all times, with slaves dying from ships due to suffocation
Polygeny is where one man takes several wives
Slave trade was before this time period, with having cultural assimilation and domestic work, particularly enslaved women
Slavery was not about race just yet, until it hit the Americas
The first slave trade in Europe was after the 4th Crusade in 1204, in which italian merchants imported thousands of slaves to Italy, who were either household wives or processing sugar.
Do note that the slave trade was for pleasure and not necessities.
The way Europeans actually got slaves was from other African tribes who conquered tribes in exchange for wealth and goods.
Slaves were mainly viewed as a economic commodity like cattle, not as human.
Slave labor often consistent of grueling work like carrying 80 pounds of manure over your head for fertilizing sugar cane, as well as working 48 hours in one session due to sugar cane being able to go sour or stale very fast.
Many injuries were caught, like in sugar processing factories, where it became so bad that overseers (slave owners) kept hatchets in their hand for amputation.
This is why the average life expectancy of a slave during this time was 23.
The US and the British however treated their slaves way better than other regions which led to a massive birth of new slaves, hence why the US had the most.
Slave owners took advantage of this however, and treated their slaves so good to gain more wealth by selling their children or making their children work once born.
The term “slave’ is always constantly misused however, like in songs or important historical events like the stamp tax and how Americans though they were slaves if they would pay it.
Religion was also important for slavery, as Christians viewed it as a sin, while Muslims viewed them as useful, like how the Muslims used Africans and called them zanges
Joint stock companies were a state-merchant relationship, where the state depended on the merchants to trade and share ideas, with the merchants relying on being funded by the state and investors.
The Spanish conquered the new World with their main goal mining for gold and silver
They used indigenous people instead of slaves due to how dangerous the labor was as well as inexperienced with high altitudes.
However, the Spanish made it so silver lost ¾ of its value in the span of 60 years due to not adding tax rates
After Phillip took over in the 1550s, the Dutch had a revolution due to being protestant and believing they did not know how to do economics, which caused the Spanish Armanda in 1588.
After the Spanish Armanda led by Queen Elizabeth I, there was a big boom of wealth and pride.
Despite winning, the Spanish had to pay huge amounts of taxes, to the point where a mountain of silver couldn’t cover it.
Silver was the main decline for other empires too, the Ming empire changed its tax system during the 16th century to being paid in silver, which hurt the economy due to mass production of silver
Eventually, because of silver, China started to decline as being the top consumer producer in the 19th century
After this decline, they relied on Japan to give them more silver but even that did not work.
The Fronce took place in France, where Louis XIV practiced absolutism to gain and consolidate as much power as possible
The problem was that he started many wars which caused the tax rate to go up for civilians, as well as the French nobility having their power threatened from the monarchy
Sadly, the revolution had been crushed after 6 years and the monarchy gained even more power
The Queen Ana Nzinga ruled over the cities of Matamba and Ndongo in the sub-saharan and was growing concern over the Portuguese.
From this concern, she allied with the Dutch and the Kongo to fight back in which she won
The Pueblo revolt was about the indigenous people suffering abuse from Spanish missionaries in which they were forced into coerced labor.
From this, they formed a leader named Popeye and killed many Spanish missionaries and leaders in 1680
This worked for about 10 years, until the Spanish came back and took over power again in 1690
In Russia during 1774, a lot of Russians noticed runaway serfs called cossacks, and were considered skillful fighters.
Later, they started a rebellion known as the Pugachev Rebellion, and attacked the system of serfdom under Catherine the Great
Sadly, they lost in which Catherine the Great put even more punishment and labor to prevent another uprising
The Mughal Empire had a rebellion from Hindu warriors known as marathas, in which the marathas fought believing their beliefs were being invaded
Luckily, the Hindu won and took over the Mughal Empire and established the Maratha Empire
During the Atlantic Slave trade, sometimes slaves would successfully run away and become a free black, which set up a maroon society which mainly happened in the caribbean and brazil under Queen Nanny
Since the maroon societies knew their land better, they would be able to win fights more
Because of this, a treaty was signed in 1738 which recognized the freedom of maroon communities
The Stono Rebellion in 1739 was when 20 enslaved people went to the Stono river into a warehouse and killed white workers, and put their heads on the steps outside.
They later killed many white people after this while chanting the word “liberty”
This rebellion increased to 100 people until eventually being stopped by the military
The Metacom’s War was from 1675 to 1678, where English colonists would try many different ways to control Native American lands
One way they did this was by drunkening them and cheating them in bargains.
It ended when the Wampanoag people subdued to the English
Some Native Americans sided with the English like in Mohegan an`d Pequot
The Gloucester County Rebellion was the first known slave revolt in the United States that started in 1663.
They simply wanted freedom from the governor, but got ambushed and arrested.
A revolt happened in 1688 when James II gave anti-protestant speeches which made the English furious
Ultimately, William of Orange took over England when James fled to France.
This was called the Glorious Revolution.
Peasants were able to get into serfdom through birth or through bankruptcy (losing money).
Peasants and serfs still had power if they had skillful military knowledge, and were known as cossacks which helped Russia expand and gave protection.
After the reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula in 1492, Jews were exceeded from the Roman Empire due to Christianity now gaining so much power.
Jews also got expelled from Portugal after the new marriage with the crown
However, the Ottoman Empire welcomed the Jews which later let Jews run the Ottoman Court and contributed to the social and economic environment
They were required to pay the tax though
The Spanish Casta system in the Americas was a hierarchy system created from Spaniards
Peninsulares were people who were born on the peninsula
Creoles were european descendants but were born in the new world
Mestizoes were people of european and indigenous ethnicity
Mulattoes were people of euorpean and african ethnicity
Native Americans
African Slaves
Before this, the indigenous had many cultural groups, but the casta system removed that freedom.
The Russian Boyars were aristocratic land owners in Russia and had great power
However, the king wanted absolute power and exiled the power of the boyards and made people work directly under the state
The Ottoman Timars were a payment to aristocratic families from the state in exchange for service like mliltary