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