Module 2Empires and Encounters

1450–1750

European Empires in the Americas• Maritime Expansion

• Spaniards in Caribbean, then on to Aztec and Inca empires• Portuguese in Brazil• British, French, and Dutch colonies in North America• Europeans controlled most of the Americas by the mid-nineteenth century

• The European Advantage– geography: European Atlantic states were well positioned

– need: Chinese and Indians didn’t have much incentive to go beyond Indian Ocean markets

– marginality: Europeans were aware of their precarious position in Eurasian commerce and wanted to change it

– Rivalry: interstate rivalry drove rulers to compete

– Merchants: growing merchant class in Europe

– Wealth and status: opportunities for impoverished nobles

– Religion: Christianity’s crusading zeal + persecuted minorities

– European states and trading companies mobilized resources well• seafaring technology

• iron, gunpowder weapons, and horses

European Empires in the Americas• The Great Dying: demographic collapse of Native Americans

– pre-Columbian Western Hemisphere had population of 60 million–80 million– no immunity to Old World diseases– Europeans brought European and African diseases– mortality rate of up to 90 percent among Native American populations– native population nearly vanished in the Caribbean– Central Mexico: population dropped from 10/20 million to around 1 million by 1650– similar mortality in North America

• The Columbian Exchange– massive native mortality created a labor shortage in the Americas– migrant Europeans and African slaves created entirely new societies– American food crops (e.g., corn, potatoes and cassava) spread widely worldwide– potatoes especially allowed enormous population growth– corn and sweet potatoes were important in China and Africa– exchange with the Americas reshaped the world economy– importation of millions of African slaves to the Americas– network of communication, migration, trade, transfer of plants and animals– (including microbes) is called “the Columbian exchange”– the Atlantic world connected four continents: Europeans got most of the rewards

Comparing Colonial Societies in the Americas• Europeans established wholly new societies.

– all were shaped by mercantilism—theory that governments should encourage exports and accumulate bullion to serve their countries

– colonies should provide closed markets for the mother country’s manufactured goods

• In the Lands of the Aztecs and the Incas– the most wealthy, urbanized, and populous regions of the Western Hemisphere

– within a century, the Spaniards established major cities, universities, and a religious and bureaucratic infrastructure

– economic basis : commercial agriculture and mining (gold and silver)

– rise of a distinctive social order replicated some of the Spanish class hierarchy

– accommodated Indians, Africans, and racially mixed people

– Spaniards were at the top, wanted a large measure of self government from Spanish Crown

– emergence of mestizo (mixed-race) population

– gross abuse and exploitation of the Indians

– more racial fluidity than in North America

• Colonies of Sugar: in high demand in Europe– lowland Brazil and the Caribbean developed a different society: export based economy

– Arabs introduced large-scale sugar production to the Mediterranean

– Europeans transferred it to Atlantic islands (Canaries, Azores, Madeira) and Americas

– Portuguese on Brazilian coast dominated the world sugar market 1570–1670

– British, French, and Dutch in the Caribbean broke the Portuguese

– Sugar transforms Brazil and Caribbean: “the first modern industry”

– The Plantation complex spreads to southern parts of North America (ie. South Carolina)

Comparing Colonial Societies in the Americas• Europeans Settler Colonies in North America

– different sort of colonial society emerged in British colonies of NewEngland, New York, and Pennsylvania

– British got the unpromising lands in N. America but British society was changing more rapidly

– many British colonists were trying to escape elements of European society

– British settlers were more numerous; by 1750, they outnumbered Spaniards in New

– World by five to one

– by 1776, 90 percent of population of North American colonies was European

– Indians were killed off by disease and military policy

– small-scale farming didn’t need slaves

– England was mostly Protestant; didn’t proselytize like the Catholics

– British colonies developed traditions of local self-government

– Britain didn’t impose an elaborate bureaucracy like Spain

– British civil war (seventeenth century distracted government from involvement in the colonies

– North America gradually became dominant, more developed than South America

The Steppes and Siberia: The Making of a Russian Empire• Experiencing the Russian Empire

– conquest was made possible by modern weapons and organization– conquest brought devastating epidemics, especially in remote areas of Siberia—– locals had no immunity to smallpox and measles– pressure to convert to Christianity– large-scale settlement of Russians in the new lands, where they outnumbered the– native population (e.g., in Siberia)– discouragement of pastoralism, nomadic lifestyle/ many natives were Russified

• Russians and Empire– with imperial expansion, Russians became a smaller proportion of population– rich agricultural lands, furs, and minerals help make Russia a great power by 18thC– became an Asian power as well as a European one– long-term Russian identity problem: expansion made Russia a very militarized state– reinforced autocracy– colonization experience was different from the Americas– conquest of territories with which Russia had long interacted– conquest took place at the same time as development of the Russian state– the Russian Empire remained intact until 1991

Asian Empires• Making China an Empire

– Qing dynasty (1644–1912) launched enormous imperial expansion to the north & west– nomads of the north and west were very familiar to the Chinese– 80-year-long Chinese conquest (1680– 1760) motivated by security fears– China evolved into a Central Asian empire

• conquered territory was ruled separately from rest of China through Court of Colonial Affairs

• considerable use of local elites to govern

• officials often imitated Chinese ways but government did not try to assimilate conquered peoples

• little Chinese settlement in the conquered regions

– Russian and Chinese rule impoverished Central Asia, turned it into a backward region

• Muslims and Hindus in the Mughal Empire– Mughals united much of India between 1526 and 1707– Mughal Empire’s most important divide was religious– Emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605) attempted accommodation of the Hindu majority

• brought many Hindus into the political-military elite

• imposed a policy of toleration

• abolished payment of jizya by non- Muslims

• created a state cult that stressed loyalty to the emperor

Asian Empires• Muslims, Christians, and the Ottoman Empire

• the Ottoman Empire was the Islamic world’s most important empire in the early modern period

• long conflict (1534–1639) between Sunni Ottomans and Shia Safavids

• the Ottoman Empire was the site of a significant cross-cultural encounter

• in Anatolia, most of the conquered Christians converted to Islam

• in the Balkans, Christian subjects mostly remained Christian, many Christians welcomed Ottoman conquest

• Ottoman taxed less and were less oppressive

• Christian churches received considerable autonomy

• Balkan elites were accepted among the Ottoman elite without conversion

• Jewish refugees from Spain had more opportunities in the Ottoman Empire

• devshirme: tribute of boys paid by Christian Balkan communities

• boys were converted to Islam, trained to serve the state

• the devshirme was a means of upward social mobility

• 7. the Ottoman state threatened Christendom

Reflections: Countering Eurocentrism . . . or Reflecting It?

• Western European empires still receive more discussion space because they were different and more significant than the others

• they were something wholly new in human history• they had a much greater impact on the people they incorporated

Considering the Evidence

• Documents: State Building in the Early Modern Era

• Visual Sources: The Conquest of Mexico Through Aztec Eyes

Chapter 14 Empires and Encounters

1450–1750• Map 14.1 European Colonial Empires in the Americas (p. 627)• Map 14.2 The Russian Empire (p. 640)• Map 14.3 The Ottoman Empire (p. 647)• SPOTMAP: China’s Qing Dynasty Empire (p. 644)• SPOTMAP: The Mughal Empire (p. 645)• Visual Source 14.1 Disaster Foretold (p. 665)• Visual Source 14.2 Moctezuma and Cortés (p. 666)• Visual Source 14.3 The Massacre of the Nobles (p. 668)• Visual Source 14.4 The Spanish Retreat from Tenochtitlán (p. 669)• Visual Source 14.5 Smallpox: Disease and Defeat (p. 670)