Heimler U4
Uploaded by
Thomas Edward PatrickHeimler U4
Uploaded by
Thomas Edward Patrick4.
1 Technology in Sea-Based Empires
● Adopted maritime technology
○ Magnetic compass: developed in China, direction
○ Astrolabe: latitude and longitude
○ Lateen sail: triangular sail, takes wind
○ Astronomical charts: diagrams of stars and constellations
● Europeans didn’t invent these technologies, they adopted them from other cultures.
○ Merchant activity through major trade routes
○ Pax Mongolica
● Innovations by Europeans
○ Portuguese caravel
■ Differed from “bigger is better”
■ Much more nimble, more navigable
■ Cannons
○ Portuguese carrack
■ Larger boat for cargo
■ Carrying guns
○ Dutch fluyt
■ Would dethrone Portugal in Indian Ocean trade
4.2 Causes of European Exploration
● Maritime exploration was state-sponsored.
● Population rebound from Black Death
● Spices from Southeast and East Asia
● Because as goods got transported, they became more expensive – Europeans wanted
to find alternative routes; they looked to the sea
● Portugal
○ No way to expand by the sea
○ Prince Henry the Navigator
■ Technology, such as compass, astrolabe, caravel
■ Economic motivations (trans-Saharan gold)
■ Religious motivations
● Christianity following conquering of Reconquista
● Henry believed in Prester John (East)
○ Connecting East and West Christianity
○ Trading post empire around Africa and Indian Ocean
■ Self-sufficient trading posts
○ Vasdo de Gama discovered Indian Ocean Trade.
■ Guns of caravels
● Spain
○ Columbus, Ferdinand, and Isabella
● Causes for exploration
○ France – westward passage to Indian Ocean; established themselves in North
America as Fur trade
○ England – late; defeated Spanish, colonies
4.3 Columbian Exchange!
4.4 Sea-Based Empires Established
● God, gold, glory
● Portugal was not interested in participating peacefully – they were interested in control
by force.
○ Trading posts
● Spain
○ Philippines
○ Established full-blown colonies
● Dutch
○ Disposed the Portuguese
● Britain
○ Transformed trading posts in India into empires
● Continuity in trade
○ Asian traders continued to trade there
○ Merchants like the Gujaratis in the Mughal Empire sought to make use of the
Indian Ocean Trade even while Europeans tried to dominate it
● Tokugawa Shogunate
○ Lots of Japanese converted to Christianity
○ Expelled all Christian missionaries from Japan
● Ming Dynasty
○ Zheng He caused maritime trade in Indian Ocean to be processed throughout
China.
○ Did not work, isolationist tactics
● African States
○ Asante Empire: gold, ivory, enslaved laborers
■ Trading partner with British and Portuguese
■ Enabled to expand military and consolidate power
○ Kingdom of the Kongo
■ Portuguese trading partner
● Mita System: European system that made subjects do state projects for a part of the
year
○ Existing because of Inca
○ Silver mining
● Continuity
○ African Slave Trade
○ Cultural Assimilation
○ Domestic work: African slaves became domestic servants with high demand for
enslaved person.
○ Slaves held power: can hold significant military or political positions
● Change
○ Agricultural work
■ Males were purchased ⅔ of the time – impacted demographics
○ Trans-Atlantic trade larger
4.5 Economics of Empire
● Joint stock companies helped the state expand influence.
● Mercantilist state grants monopolies to joint stock companies.
● British, French, and Dutch did joint-stock companies
● Portugal and Spain were mainly funding their trade and imperial ventures through the
state
○ Waning influence
● Change:
○ Atlantic System
○ Sugarcane
○ Silver was King
■ Bolivia
○ Coerced labor
■ Indigenous labor, indentured servants
■ Enslaved Africans
● Effects of silver
○ Satisfied Chinese demand for silver
■ Developed commercialization of economy
○ Increased profits
■ Silk, porcelain, and steel transferred across the Atlantic system resulting
in more profits
● Continuity
○ Regional markets across Afro-Eurasia continued to flourish
○ Asian land routes: Silk road entirely controlled by Ming and Qing dynasties
○ Peasant and artisan labor
■ Peasants were subsistence farmers → demand → increased
production for outside markets
● Effects of African slave trade
○ Gender imbalance
■ Men due to tough labor
○ Polygyny: men marrying more than one woman
○ Cultural synthesis
● Belief systems
4.6 Challenges to State Power
● Fronde in France
○ Louis XIV was an absolutist: he consolidated power for himself
■ Appetite for endless wars and expansion
■ Several new edicts were passed that increased taxation among French
subjects and so the French nobility, whose power had been under threat,
led peasants in rebellions known as the Fronde
○ Resistance crushed, monarch power only increased
● Queen Ana Nzinga’s resistance
○ Relentless encroachment of Portuguese
○ Allied with the Dutch to fight Portuguese
● Pueblo revolt
● Because of the relentless efforts of European states to expand their empire and
consolidate power under themselves, the various groups that suffered the effects of that
expansion resisted, sometimes successfully/unsuccessfully
● Resistance from the Enslaved
○ Maroon societies in Caribbean and Brazil
■ Vast majority of enslaved in Caribbean and Brazil
■ Located deep in the interior, fortified by natural mountains – colonial
militia could not find them.
○ Stono Rebellion of 1739
■ South Carolina
4.7 Changing Social Hierarchies
● Responses to ethnic diversity
○ Treatment of Jews by Spain and Portugal
■ Reconquista: century-long mission to rid the Iberian Peninsula of
Muslims; completed by Spain, reestablishing Christianity
■ Jews were the only religious group in the way of Christianity.
■ Spain expelled Jews from their kingdom.
■ Jews fled to Portugal → Portugal expelled Jews
○ Treatment of Jews by Ottoman Empire
■ Tolerant
■ Political, economic, cultural contributions by Jews
■ “Relative tolerance”
■ Jizya: tax paid by non-Muslims enforced upon Jews
● Although the Qing dynasty (Manchu) took some pains to adopt Chinese cultural
elements, including Confucianism, they made a sharp division between ethnic Manchu
and Han people in their empire
○ Barred Han from positions
○ Queue: hair humiliation for ethnic Han
● Mughal Empire: tolerance
○ Refused to implement Jizya
○ Construction of places of worship for other religions
● Rise of new elites
○ Casta system
● Struggle of Existing Elites
○ Russian boyars:
■ Peter the Great removed boyars, or land-owning aristocrats
■ Abolished boyars
○ Ottoman timars:
■ Land grants made to an aristocratic class in payment for military service
■ Sultans took over timars
