State Building, Expansion, and Conflict 1450-1750

Expansion and overtaking increased during this time period. The creation of gunpowder, cannon, and gunships helped build new fortresses and fortified cities capable of defending against gunpowder artillery

• Statecraft: Old and New Techniques of Technology
• Nation-states emerged
• Political and Administrative centralization became more sophisticated and led to a higher degree of state consolidation and efficiency. Features of a modern government became more common
• State-building techniques included architectural displays, and religious authority
• Many states depended on bureaucratic elites
• Some governments started a parliamentary systems
• The nations of Europe started to create empires
• Empire-Building- The Age Of Exploration and Colonization
• The nations of Europe started to explore, discover and mapped major oceans and landmasses
• Europe eventually became the planet’s dominant civilization
• Many parts of the world remained under European control
• Motivation and Capabilities
• Europe’s primary motivation for exploration was economic
• Europe wanted direct access to goods such as silk and spices
• Europe explored further using the astrolabe, compass, and the sternpost rudder
• Europeans were developing stable sailing ships
• Europeans depended on gunpowder weaponry for faster and easier colonization
• Europeans invented galleons and gunships for greater firepower quantity
• The Iberian Wave: Portugal and Spain
• The first European nations to systematically explore the wider Atlantic world were Portugal and Spain, on the Iberian peninsula
• Around 1410 Prince Henry the Navigator started Portugal’s exploration efforts
• Portugal reached the southern tip of Africa and named it the Cape of Good Hope because it was an important step to India
• The Italian captain Christopher Columbus started his voyage in 1492
• The lines of demarcation declared which parts of the New World would be given to Portugal, and which to Spain
• Portugal and Spain formed maritime empires in the New World
  • maritime empires: which overseas colonies were fully under their control
• Mainlands fell into the hands of conquistadors: generals who bought huge parts of North and South America under Spanish control
• Conquests were completed due to military advantages such as horses and gunpowder weapons
• Spain’s and Portugal’s successes in the Columbian Exchange were measles and smallpox. The diseases killed indigenous Americans in massive numbers
• Mining was important to Spanish and Portuguese explorers
• They collected cash crops from plantation monoculture, the most important being sugarcane
• New Spain was ruled by a viceroyalty: “in place of the king”
• Colonial economic activity was run by the House Of Trade
• Spanish and Portugal colonization led to coerced labor
• The Spanish wanted to enslave American natives by the encomienda system but the system was deemed inhumane by the Catholic clergy
• Instead they used the mitt’s system, and relied heavily on African slaves, which led to the rapid rise of the Atlantic slave trade
• Thee Northern Wave: The French, Dutch and English
• Other European nations began to explore and colonize, France, the Dutch Republic, and England
• They wanted to use a Northeast or Northwest Passage to ex[;pre
• They discovered rich fishing and whaling grounds
• In 1620, France created the Company of New France in North America
• France and England had the French and Indian Wars in which England took Canada from France
• This led to the Seven Years’ War
• Dutch explorers disrupted Spanish trade and attached their ports
• Dutch created the Dutch East India Company
• In 1670, England created the Hudson’s Bay Company which intruded into Canada and French colonies
• The English relied on coerced labor, indentured servitude, and The Atlantic Slave Trade for labor
• In 1600, England created the British East India Company to manage economic and military relations with Southeast Asia
• Russia in Siberia and America
• The Russian government set the Bering Expedition to explore the waters separating Siberia from North America
• The fur trade stimulated the Russian settlement
• Native Siberians were subjected to the coerced-labor system known as yasak: paying tribute and hunting fur bearing animals for Russians
• Major States and Empires

Europe had become the world’s most powerful region

• Europe
• Most parts of Europe became nation-states and were politically and administratively centralized
• Europe followed two forms of monarchy: absolutism and parliamentarism
• Absolutism followed the divine right: monarchs reign by the will of God
• Serfdom eventually disappeared from Europe, except for Russia
• Parliamentarism: The ruler governed with a lawmaking body appointed by the aristocracy or elected by some or all of the people
• The Middle East
• Ottoman and Safavid states are gunpowder empires because of their ,assert of weaponry and effective use of it
• Ruled by the circle of justice ideology
• Devised the devshirme system: recruiting civil servants and elite troops
• Used a musketeer infantry system known as janissaries: ensalving sons of Christian families and placing them in positions of civil servitude
• Used the millet system: sorted and administered non-Muslims according to religious categories
• Unbelievers paid jizya, or tax
• Africa
• A long term European presence was established
• Effects of the Atlantic slave trade were still being endured
• West Africa had the most powerful states
• The Ashanti kingdom leaders sold gold and slaves to Europeans in exchange for gunpowder and muskets
• Omani arabs stood upto Portuguese rule in East Africa
• East Asia
• Zheng He led global exploration
• Influx of silver led to inflation and economic breakdown
• Agricultural yields decreased, soil worsened, population grew, and famines occurred regularly
• The new Qing dynasty emerged
• China sold high amounts of tea, silk and porcelain but allowed few imports due to the policy of trade protection
• Rulers came to power from the mandate of heaven
• Japan was ruled by shoguns, but the emperor took control
• Japan was reunified by warlords and harsh social stratification
• Japan continued to follow the Confucian ideology
• South Asia
• The Mughal Empire was established in India
• It was considered a gunpowder empire
• The economy thrived due to a cotton trade
• Akbar The Great bought the peak of the Mughal Empire
• He attempted to outlaw sati
• His grandson Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal
• Bombay, now Mumbai was ceded to the British East India Company
• The Americas
• Both continents fell under European control
• War and State Rivalries
• Eurasian states experienced military revolution: nations fully incorporated gunpowder weaponry into their way of war
• Europe was separated under Catholic-Protestant religious wars
• Ottoman-European conflict
• 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Turks