Unit 3 & 4 SAQ

What it is: Techniques rulers used to prove they deserved to rule.
What happened: European monarchs used religion, art, and political control to justify authority.
Causes: Rising centralization after the Middle Ages; competition between states.
Examples & effects:
- Divine Right of Kings: Rulers claimed God chose them → made rebellion seem like a sin.
- Architecture: Palaces like Versailles showed wealth and dominance → intimidated nobles.
- State-controlled religion: Spain and France used Catholicism to unify people and suppress dissent.
- Bureaucracies: Kings built professional administrations → reduced noble power & increased tax revenue.

What it is: Islamic empires that used gunpowder weapons to rule.
What happened: Leaders tied religion, art, and military power to their legitimacy.
Causes: Spread of gunpowder tech & competition among regional empires.
Examples & effects:
- Ottomans: Sultan used title “Caliph” → religious authority over Muslims.
- Janissaries: Elite military force loyal only to the Sultan → stabilized power.
- Safavids: Shah used Shi’a Islam to unify population → created a distinct identity.
- Mughals: Akbar used religious tolerance + monumental architecture like the Taj Mahal → projected stability.

What it is: Strategies land empires used to grow.
What happened: Empires relied heavily on gunpowder, cavalry, and strong armies.
Causes: Gunpowder tech diffused from China → transformed warfare.
Examples & effects:
- Ottomans: Used cannons to conquer Constantinople (1453) → took control of crucial trade routes.
- Safavids: Expanded using gunpowder armies and forced conversion to Shi’a Islam → created unity but caused conflicts with Sunni Ottomans.
- Mughals: Used gunpowder to conquer diverse Indian kingdoms → created a large centralized empire.
Effects: Larger states, cultural blending, increased taxation, more bureaucracy.

What it is: New tech that made long-distance voyages safer.
What happened: Europeans borrowed Asian inventions and improved them.
Causes: Desire for new trade routes after Ottomans restricted land trade + crusades revived interest in world.
Examples & effects:
- Astrolabe: Measured latitude → helped sailors stay on course.
- Caravel: Small, fast ship developed by the Portuguese → could sail against the wind.
- Lateen sail: Triangular sail from Arabs → allowed tacking.
- Compass (Chinese): More accurate navigation → reduced risk of getting lost.
- Improved cartography: Better maps → safer planning of routes.
Effects: Age of Exploration, European global dominance, colonization, Columbian Exchange.

What it is: Economic system where colonies exist to benefit the mother country.
What happened: European nations tried to accumulate gold and control trade.
Causes: Competition between European states; desire for wealth from colonies.
Characteristics & effects:
- Colonies sent raw materials → sugar, silver, cotton.
- Mother countries exported manufactured goods.
- Navigation Acts: forced colonies to trade only with the mother country.
Effects:
- Massive wealth for Europe.
- Exploitation of colonies.
- Growth of the slave trade to fuel plantation economies.

What it is: Global transfer of plants, animals, diseases.
What happened: Europe, Africa, and the Americas became connected.
Causes: European voyages to the Americas.
Changes & effects:
- Diseases like smallpox wiped out up to 90% of Indigenous populations → demographic collapse.
- New foods to Europe: potatoes, maize → population boom.
- New animals to Americas: horses, pigs, cattle → changed native lifestyles (especially Plains tribes).
- Deforestation for plantations → sugar and tobacco farming increased environmental stress.
- Soil depletion from monoculture plantations.

What it is: How societies changed because of global trade.
What happened: New racial systems and blended cultures formed.
Causes: Atlantic system connected Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
Changes & effects:
- Casta system in Latin America: race-based social hierarchy (European > mixed > African/Indigenous).
- Cultural blending: African religion, music, and food mixed with European and Indigenous traditions.
- Gender ratios changed in Africa: more men enslaved → women took on more leadership roles.
- Europe gained wealth, increasing capitalism and banking.

What it is: Forced movement of ~12 million Africans to the Americas.
What happened: Africans were captured, sold, and shipped across the Middle Passage.
Causes: Need for labor in plantations; Indigenous populations dying from disease.
Impact on Africa (effects):
- Population loss, especially of young men.
- Rise of powerful African kingdoms like Dahomey and Oyo that sold captives for guns.
- Increased warfare between African states trying to capture people to trade.
- Long-term economic underdevelopment because the strongest population was removed.

What it is: Ways Europeans forced people to work.
Systems & what happened:
- Encomienda: Spanish forced Indigenous people to work in mines/fields → major population decline.
- Hacienda: Large estates where Indigenous or mixed-race laborers worked long term.
- Chattel slavery: Africans treated as property → brutal lifelong labor.
- Indentured servitude: Europeans worked for a contract (usually 7 years) in exchange for passage.
Effects: plantation economy, racial hierarchy, rise of cash crops like sugar and tobacco.

What it is: Ways colonized or enslaved people fought back.
Examples & effects:
- Pueblo Revolt (1680): Indigenous people in the Southwest forced Spanish out temporarily.
- Maroon communities: escaped enslaved Africans formed free societies in Jamaica, Brazil, etc.
- Cossack revolts (Russia): fought against centralization under the tsars.
- Stono Rebellion (1739): large slave revolt in South Carolina → stricter slave laws afterward.
Effects:
- Showed that colonized and enslaved people resisted oppression.
- Sometimes weakened colonial control.

Led to harsher restrictions but also fear among European colonizers.