Unit 2 (Units 3-4) Focus Terms
Focus Terms | Definitions |
Gunpowder Empires | The Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal Empires that established centralized states. |
Suleiman the Great | Leader of the Ottoman Empire who eventually took over the weakened Byzantium Empire. He and the Ottoman Empire then spread out and took over areas stretching out to Northern Africa. |
Ottoman Empire (Sunni) | Seljuk Turks who come from Central Asia and the Steppe Region. After conquering the Byzantium Empire, the Ottoman Empire then spread out and took over areas stretching out to Northern Africa. They established the largest and strongest Navy of the time period. They influenced areas ranging from the Middle East to Northern Africa and Southern Europe. |
Millets | Millets are communities established by the Ottoman Empire that allowed people to run their own local areas using their own religions and governments. |
Janissary Corps | Military leadership of the Ottoman Empire. |
Harem | It was a place where women from local communities through the Devshirme process were kidnapped and taken to the capital of Istanbul. They would then be married to the Sultan. The women were not strictly used for reproducing but rather their daily activities consisted of reading the Quran, raising children, and completing projects. Since these women were representatives of communities, the Harem incorporated people from different communities into the centralized government. |
Devshirme | Is the process of kidnapping young boys and moving them to the capital of Istanbul so that they could grow up Muslim and be put into service. They became leaders in the Janissary Corps of the Ottoman Empire. This caused representatives of each local community to serve in the court of the Sultan (king of the Ottoman Empire), creating a way in which local people have representatives in the central government. |
Safavids | A small Shi’ite empire that was landlocked (entirely surrounded by land) located in the Central Asian and Middle Eastern region. |
Shah Abbas | Leader of the Safavid Empire who forced everyone under his rule to become Shi’ite, causing a small Sufi minority to be oppressed and forced into a minority status. However, he did invite foreign leaders into the country so that they could be his counselors and create competition with local nobles. Shah Abbas wanted to create a sense of national unity around religious identity. |
Delhi Sultanate | A dynasty in India that ruled throughout the time period until Babur conquered it. |
Babur | The person who came from the Central Asian region and attacked and conquered Northern India. |
Mughal Dynasty | The dynasty located in India that was established by Babur and tried to take the different religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam and create a balance between these groups. |
Akbar The Great | A figure that came into power of the Mughal Dynasty and attempted to blend all of the faiths together into the Divine Faith. |
Divine Faith | The belief stated that, in essence, all faiths have the same ideology such as loving your neighbor, god, and community. Akbar the Great wanted to unite these faiths to get rid of problems and conflict that rose from them. |
Jizyah Tax | The Jizyah Tax (tax on Non-Muslims) was removed by Akbar the Great to support his idea of the Divine Faith. He also encouraged religious intermarriage and allowed Hindu priests to be inside of his royal cabinet. |
Aurangzeb | The grandson of Akbar the Great who was Muslim and believed that his grandfather allowed for impurity in the Islamic religion and reverted all of his changes. He brought back the Jizyah Tax, restricted religious intermarriage, prevented Hindus from serving in the royal court and destroyed Hindu temples. This caused a civil war that continued until the British manipulated it to take over India in the 1700s. |
Core Terms | Definitions |
Mayan City States | Mayan City States (1800 BCE - 250 CE) were located in Northern Guatemala and functioned as kingdoms that traded with each other. A big geographic problem that they had was that the land was swampy. In order to fix this, they developed bureaucracies (specialized offices) for management and drained the swamps to provide irrigation and farm maize, beans, squash, and chili peppers. In short, they succeeded by utilizing bureaucracies to assign people jobs such as working on irrigation and building projects. However, it is theorized that the Mayans overfarmed and deforested their environment, creating a famine that led to their collapse. |
Mexica | Group of migrants who founded the city of Tenochtitlan and implemented a complex tributary system. They were a dominant power of the Aztec empire and had a powerful military. |
Azteca | A group of migrants from Northern America who found a place called Lake Texcoco and established an empire that grew and consisted of 120,000 people. Since their main geographical challenge was being located in a desert, they utilized chinampas (Aztec floating gardens) that were huge wooden frames that collected water for crops to grow. They established their capital in the city of Tenochtitlan and created structures such as massive pyramids and temples. In order to organize themselves, they developed an elaborate political system which consisted of the Families, Calpulli, Executive City Council, and (Huey) Tlatcani. This system allowed for local and central rule and created a military that expanded and gained resources through the tributary tax system. They prevented rebellion from conquered tribes by utilizing their religious system that justified their human sacrifices by beliefs in seasons of the harvest: birth, fertility, death, harvesting, and receding. This was crucial and had strengthened their political authority. Political System
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Inca | Located in South America in the Indian Mountains and had an environmental challenge of altitude and rugged terrain. The Incas originated from Moche, Chavin, Waru, and Tiwanaku. They succeeded by creating an incentive for the emperor to expand and assimilate people by force. To prevent rebellion, they established the Mita system which required people to work on projects in exchange for guaranteed food, protection, and shelter. They also utilized bureaucracies such as Quipos for recording food and had a religious system that justified sacrifice to continue the cycle of harvest. |
Chaco and Cliff Dwellings | Cliff cities show how Mesa Verde civilization adapted to environmental challenges and how they utilized hierarchies and government-created projects in order to survive. Crops such as squash, beans, and maize within these cliff cities show that they had a population of around 1000 people. The Chaco society developed kivas which were round circular areas where families congregated, showing how they emphasised community in order to organize society and succeed. |
Mesa Verde | Located in Northern America and its main environmental challenge was its desert, which had scarce resources. They organized themselves with hierarchies and promoted a sense of community with things such as kivas that congregated families. It is assumed that they collapsed because the environment of the desert was not able to support the Mesa Verde civilization’s growing population, which led to famine and eventually cannibalism. |
Cahokia | A group of Native Americans located in St. Louis, Missouri. They succeeded by utilizing the rivers near them for agriculture and exchanging with other tribes, making them a center of trade. They are known for their mounds, which were used for religious purposes and as burial sites for elites. This shows that they were hierarchical and used a religious system to manage society. However, they declined due to floods and droughts, causing a shortage of food. |
Core Terms | Definitions |
Treaty of Verdun | Boundaries of decentralized European nation states established by King Charlemagne. |
3 Popes Crisis | A controversy where three popes (Clement VII, Alexander V, and Urban VI) were elected at the same time that weakened the Catholic Church. |
Investiture Crisis | A period where kings appointed bishops, threatening the Pope’s central power. Although the pope was able to regain his power, people began questioning the pope’s authority. |
Protestant Reformation | An attack on the Catholic Church that came from Martin Luther, Jean Calvin, and Henry VIII. This successfully broke regions away from Catholic authority, which gave kings and princes the opportunity to declare their independence based upon a national religion of Catholicism or Protestantism. |
Martin Luther | A German priest who challenged the Catholic Church’s authority and initiated the Protestant Reformation. |
Jean Calvin | A French theologian who influenced Protestantism and was an important figure in the Protestant Reformation. |
Sola Fide | A latin term meaning “faith alone,” which is a central belief in Protestantism and represents the break from the Catholic Church. |
Sola Scriptura | Latin for “by scripture alone,” representing challenge to Catholic authority. |
Predestination | A belief that stated that everyone’s fates were determined by God which conflicted with the belief in free will, representing the religious shifts that Protestantism brought in Europe. |
Yuan Dynasty and Marco Polo (include navigational technologies like compass and astrolabe) | Marco Polo heavily motivated European exploration by bringing back navigational tools from the Yuan Dynasty such as the astrolabe, compass, rudder, dhow, and lateen sail. Europeans wanted to travel due to the Gunpowder Empires threatening their rule and internal struggle between European states. |
Christopher Columbus | An Italian explorer who was funded by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to find a route to China to gain wealth. |
Bartholomew Diaz | An explorer who sailed to South Africa and found the Cape of Good Hope but was forced to turn around back to Europe. |
Vasco De Gama | Another explorer who followed Bartholomew’s path but found a route to India around South Africa. This allowed Portugal to deploy military force in the Indian Ocean trade route to control it. |
Atlantic Trade Route | A trade route founded by Christopher Columbus that was thought to lead west to China and India more quickly. However, this led to the founding of two new continents for Europeans, North and South America. |
Ferdinand and Isabella and Reconquista | The Reconquista, led by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, was a period of military campaigns where Europeans sought to conquer and kick out Muslims from Spain to gain control over it. |
Montezuma and Myth of Quetzalcoatl | A narrative where Montezuma, the emperor of the Aztecs, thought that the Spanish were the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl who was there to save the Aztecs. |
Hernan Cortez and conquering of Aztecs | Hernan Cortez was able to conquer the Aztecs by taking advantage of Montezuma’s peace to kill his bodyguards and hold him captive. He also sent out spies to ally with neighboring tribes in order to defeat the Aztecs. After taking them over, the Spanish enslaved conquered tribes and Aztecs to mine silver. This is known as the Encomienda system, which brought up a debate in Spain whether if slavery that they conducted was justified or not. |
Francisco Pizarro and Conquering of Incas | After Pizarro conquered the Incas, they used the Mita system against the Incas and used them to create Spanish projects. |
Treaty of Tordesillas | A treaty that was signed in 1494 and was an agreement between Spain and Portugal to split their newly discovered land. Everything in the west was Spain and everything in the east was Portugal. |
Treaty of Augsburg | A treaty that was signed in response to religious wars and stated that each country chooses their own religion, establishing National Sovereignty. |
Columbian Trade | The transfer of goods and culture between the Americas and Europe and Africa. While improving Europe by introducing new crops, it weakened indigenous tribes with disease and colonization. |
Core Terms | Definitions |
Maritime | Sea travel or sea trade |
Portuguese Area of Trade | Portugal expanded in East Asia and Brazil. In these, they established trading routes and posts to facilitate trade. |
Spanish Silver Trade | Spain would exploit silver to purchase goods from Northern Europe and China while wealthy citizens also bought the resource within, which inflated the Spanish economy and caused them to lose investment power for their military. This also caused a massive outflow of Spanish gold to other countries. |
Dutch East India Tea Company (VOC) | The Dutch had a banking and investment system that allowed them to run the Netherlands like a large business. They were able to develop their own state and invest in companies, especially the Dutch East India Tea Company. This company established trade out to India and Southeast Asia. However, their mistake was that the system’s power was misunderstood for its time. |
Mercantilism | A type of economy where a country’s colonies get natural resources (Ex. timber) for the mother country to create finished products (Ex. ships). Then, the mother country will sell its finished product to the colonies and to foreign countries. This allowed Britain and France to invest in their militaries to get more colonies so that they could acquire more resources to produce more products. They also attempted to use this system in North America. The main purpose was to create a balance in which you have more exports and less imports. More exports meant that you were able to invest more money and less imports meant that you would not strengthen foreign countries. |
Ohio River Valley Trade | The Ohio River Valley had fertile land and widespread trade of fur. This made the Mississippi River the primary area of trade and transportation that Britain and France sought to control. |
Fur Trade | Fur traders could transport the trade south to the Gulf of Mexico and into the Atlantic Ocean for transatlantic trade. |
Zheng He | An Islamic Chinese explorer who took 300 ships with 10,000 men and explored India, the Middle East and Eastern Africa. However, his voyages were put to an end because Ming China wanted to reserve money to prevent bankrupting the economy and to protect against northern invaders. |
Ming Dynasty | Limited European influence in trade to just a few ports because they feared external influences. |
Tokugawa Dynasty | The Tokugawa Dynasty feared outside influence since they had been invaded twice by the previous dynasty and the Yuan Dynasty, who were stopped by typhoons. To prevent future invasions, they limited European influence by restricting them to only a few ports. |
Encomiendas | A slave labor system where Spanish colonists controlled groups of indigenous people. This was used by the Spanish in Mexico to exploit silver. |
Headright System | A system in which people who settled in colonies would pay for indentured servants who would have to work for seven years to gain freedom and land. However, this created a problem of less land as more indentured servants came. |
Indentured Servants | People who agreed to work for a certain amount of years to move and settle into new land. |
Core Terms | Definitions |
Centralized States | Empires whose authority is set together in a central area that manages large areas of conquered land. However, there was a problem of figuring out how to manage minority groups. |
Pueblo and Pope Rebellion | The Pueblo were a group of people who were put in encomiendas after the conquering of the Aztecs. In reaction to the oppression from the Spaniards, there was a leader amongst the Pueblo named Pope who led the natives to use violent force to kick out the Spaniards by promising them that the gods would reward them. However, it is theorized that the natives deposed Pope since there was a drought. Also, the French posed a threat to the Spaniards and the Natives, which caused the Spaniards to eventually move back. |
Fronde | The Fronde was a sort of revolution that took place in France that was a response to a minister, Mazarin, implementing a lot of taxes to fight against Spain. The nobles were frustrated at this centralized power and they rebelled by working in the system to limit the power of Mazarin. |
Cossack Revolts | Taking place in Russia, Russia was trying to assimilate numerous people like farming and nomadic groups. However, there was a group called the Cossacks who refused assimilation by fighting back. They were eventually forced into the Russian Empire. |
Marathas and Mughals | In India, Aurangzeb tried to impose Islam and conquer everything in India. In response to this, the Marathas, a confederation of different kingdoms, joined together to resist Aurangzeb from conquering them. This allowed them to maintain their independence in the south. |
Ana Nzinga | An African woman who fought against the Portuguese by using their own tricks (Ex. using a servant as a chair in response to the Portuguese to demonstrate power). She also utilized alliances with other Europeans like the Dutch to hold off the Portuguese. She represents fighting within the system in reaction to the expansion of centralized states. |
Metacom (King Philip’s War) | In North America, King Philip (Metacom) led a confederation of natives including the Wampanoags, the Nipmucs and the Narrangansetts in a war against the English who also allied with other native tribes. This was caused since the natives believed King Philip’s brother was poisoned by the English and were not happy about the colonists encroaching on their lands, which stopped the English’s expansion for 50 years. However, King Philip was eventually captured and killed and the English were able to expand into the Ohio River Valley. |
Maroon Societies | Groups of African slaves located in the Caribbean and Florida who would escape to Native-American regions to hide from the rule of dominant empires. However, they were eventually found since the dominant empires would expand and conquer these areas. |
Mercantilism and Slavery | Mercantilism caused African slavery where Africans were being enslaved over three different continents and racially defined as being property, which made it harder for them to escape. |