Rebellions and Unrest in Russia, South Asia, and the Spanish Empire

Serfdom benefitted the landlords because it provided free labor regulated by the landlords.
Serfs were tied to the land and were not permitted to move.
They were economically enslaved; their landlords could buy and sell them and administer punishments.
Village communes, called mirs, also controlled even the small landholders among the peasants.

Cossacks, skilled fighters, lived southwest of Moscow near the Black Sea on the grassy, treeless steppes.
Many Cossacks were runaway serfs influenced by the nomadic descendants of the Mongols.
They were sometimes at odds with the central, autocratic government of the tsars but could be hired as mercenaries.
The Cossacks were important in Russia's expansion to the Ural Mountains and Siberia.
Yemelyan Pugachev, a Cossack, led a peasant rebellion against Catherine the Great in 1774.
Catherine had given the nobility power over the serfs in exchange for political loyalty.
Pugachev falsely claimed to be Catherine's murdered husband, Peter III, and gathered a following of discontented peasants and Cossacks.
The rebellion controlled the territory between the Volga River and the Urals for a time.
The Russian army captured and executed Pugachev within a year.
The Pugachev Rebellion caused Catherine to increase her oppression of the peasants to maintain the support of the nobles.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Mughal Empire controlled much of India and Pakistan.
The Mughals centralized government, spread Persian art and culture, and promoted Islam.
Much of the population remained Hindu.
The Maratha, a Hindu warrior group, fought the Mughals from 1680-1707 and created the Hindu Maratha Empire.
It lasted until 1818, effectively ending Mughal rule in India.

The Pueblo Revolt occurred in 1680 against the Spanish in what is now New Mexico.
The Pueblo and Apache, indigenous groups, fought against forced religious conversions.
The indigenous people killed about 400 Spaniards, drove the rest out, and destroyed churches.
The Spanish reconquered the area in 1692.

In 1643, four-year-old Louis XIV inherited the French crown.
His mother Anne and Cardinal Jules Mazarin ruled in his place until he came of age.
Mazarin increased taxes to pay for recent wars.