AP World Unit 3: Land Based Empires (1450-1750)

• Land based empire - empire whose power comes from territorial holdings

  • They were expanding during the period between 1450-1750

👑 Legitimizing and consolidating power

• Rulers must legitimize and consolidate power

• Legitimize power - Methods the ruler used to tell their subjects who is in charge

• Consolidate power - Ways a ruler takes power from other groups and gives it to himself

• Ways rulers administered their empire

  • Bureaucracy - government officials who make sure the rules are enforced

    • Larger empires = larger bureaucracies

  • Military Expansion

    • Elite military professionals, gunpowder weapons 🔫

  • Religion

    • European monarchs had divine right to rule

    • Aztecs used human sacrifice

      • Let everyone attending the ritual know who was in charge

  • Art

    • Qing dynasty emperor Kangxi displayed portraits of himself around the Imperial city which were meant to convince people that he was the emperor

    • Qing are ethnically Manchu, not ethnically Chinese, they were “outsiders“

    • Showed himself with traditional Confucian values which appealed to his Chinese subjects to accept his rule

  • Architecture

    • Palace of Versailles built for Louis the 14th and was huge

      • Helped consolidate power by making French nobility live there

    • Inca Sun Temple built by Inca rulers that claimed to be descendants of Gods

      • Contained lots of gold statues

• Financing empires

  • Zamindar system (Mughal empire)

    • Collect tax revenue

    • Mughals were Islamic while most of the South Asian popuation was Hindu (people like it when their rulers are like them)

    • So Mughals employed local land owners (Zamindars) to collected taxes on behalf of the Emperor

    • Helped consolidate power

  • Tax Farming (Ottoman Empire)

    • System to collect taxes

    • The right to tax subjects was given to the highest bidder, and the winner would be authorized to tax certain groups which enriched themselves by collecting more than legally required

    • Helped give the empire a reliable source of income which came at the beginning of every year due to the bidding war

    • The winner of the bidding war wasn’t payed by the empire and instead got extra money from the general population

  • Tribute Lists (Aztec Empire)

    • Aztecs forced regions they conquered to pay tributes on the list the Aztecs send

  • These systems helped to further state power and expansion

👳 Ottoman Empire

• Greatly expanded their empire through gunpowder weapons

• Conquered Constantinople (fall of Byzantine Empire) and renamed to Istanbul

• Devshirme system - System where Ottomans staffed their imperial bureaucracy with highly trained individuals, most of whom were enslaved

• When conquering the Balkans, they enslaved Christian boys

  • Christian boys learned the language and were sent to Istanbul for Islamic education

  • Were turned into soldiers (Janissaries) and some got more education and were given jobs in the bureaucracy

    • Janissaries formed the core of the Ottoman standing army

• Beefed with the Safavids because they practiced Shia Islam while Ottomans practiced Sunni Islam

  • Also fought many wars over control of various parts of the Middle East during the sixteenth century

• Sultan Selim - leader of Ottomans

• Ottomans were actually religiously tolerant of non-Muslims and allowed them to practice their own religions

🕌 Safavid Empire

• Expanded their empire through gunpowder weapons (just like the Ottomans)

  • Shah Abbas expanded their military including adoption of gunpowder weapons

• Established an enslaved army of converted Christians (just like the Ottomans)

• Around Iran

• Established largest branch of Shia Islam (Mughals and Ottomans adhered to Sunni Islam)

  • Sunni believe that the successor to the prophet Muhammad should be elected by the people while Shia believed the successor should be from the Prophet Muhammad’s family

  • Art and architecture reflected this identity

  • Shah Ismail declared that the Safavid Empire would adhere to Shia Islam which put them at odds with Sunni Muslim empires in the area

  • he took drastic measures such as executing Sunni Muslims in his empire, further dividing the two branches of Islam and causing more political division

• Exchanged with European trading post empires in the next unit, expanding the geographic scope of Persian trading activities

  • shows the continuity of continued use of the Indian Ocean trade network

🌸 Mughal Empire

• Wiped out Delhi Sultanate

• Ruled by Muslims (different from their Hindu subjects)

• Expanded through gunpowder weapons too! lmao

• Akbar - leader who expanded the empire further, grandfather from previous emperor Aurangzeb

  • Was tolerant of other religions

• Became very prosperous because of religious tolerance and Akbar’s good administration

• Both the Ottomans and the Mughals were of Turkic descent

• They were still very powerful from the period 1550-1650 due to their participation in the Indian Ocean Trade network

• Fell in 1857 due to British imperialism

Safavid-Mughal War

• Mughals were Sunni while Safavids were Shia

• War started from border disputes

• War ended without significant developments

🫖 Qing Dynasty

• Replaced the Ming Dynasty

• Ruled by Manchu (not ethnically Han Chinese like their subjects)

• Top positions were held by Manchu, not Han Chinese people in order to consolidate power

• Expanded military and borders through GUNPOWDER!!!!

• The last imperial Chinese Dynasty

🛐 Belief Systems

• Christianity, Islam, Syncretism

• Can support imperial power or challenge it

Christianity

• Christianity split into Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Church in 1054

• By 1500, catholic church had lots of power and money

  • Also had many corrupt practices

    • Indulgences - buy your way to forgiveness of sins

    • Simony - selling high church positions

    • Martin Luther - catholic Monk that denounced the church with 95 theses criticizing the corrupt practices

      • Church called him a heretic and excommunicated him

      • The printing press helped his work spread around more compared to other reformers

      • Brought about the protestant reformation (change)

• Catholic reformation (aka Counter reformation)

  • Church realizes these corrupt practices and launches their own reformation

  • Council of Trent gathered to get rid of corrupt practices such as nepotism and absenteeism

    • Catholics reaffirmed their ancient doctrines such as

      • Salvation by faith and works, nature of biblical authority (continuity)

      • Also reaffirmed that Martin Luther is a heretic

      • Made the split between Catholics and Protestants permanent

• Rulers across Europe either remained Catholic or imposed Protestantism upon the people their ruled

  • Religious division caused political division which caused religious wars until 1648

Islam

• Safavid (Shia) and Ottomans (Sunni) did not like each other due to their different Islamic practice

• Their political rivalry caused the split of Shia and Sunni Islam to intensify

• Sufism - Mystical movement within Islam that seeks to find divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience of God

• Caliph is the head of Islam, meaning their can only be one

  • Ottomans and Mughals could not both be caliphs

Hinduism & Sikhism

• Muslims held power in the Mughal empire but majority of citizens were Hindu

• Bhakti movement - Hindu movement in the 7th century that emphasized mystical experience and union with one of Hinduism’s gods

  • Blended with Sufism from Islam because they shared beliefs

• Hinduism blended with Islam to form Sikhism (syncretic religion)

  • Held on to significant doctrines (continuity) of both systems such as a cycle of reincarnation and belief in one god (Islam)

  • Discarded caste system (Hindu) and gender hierarchies (Islam) (change)

The Enlightenment

• The Enlightenment challenged the absolute authority of monarchs and the notion that their power came from God

📒 Topics (treat like FRQs)

Insert table and copy a standard tested from the AP Unit 3 pdf