A WORLD
OF
EMPIRES
1450-1750 CE
Six Things to Remember
• Americas included in world trade for the
first time
• Improvements in shipping and gunpowder
technology continued
• Populations in transition
• New social structures based on race and
gender
• Traditional beliefs threatened in Europe
but reinforced in China
• Empires both land-based and cross oceanic
The Bookends
• 1450—Beginning of European Atlantic
empires
• 1450—Beginning of global trade
• 1492—End of Islam in Western Europe
• 1433—End of Chinese treasure ship
expeditions
• 1750—Beginning of industrialization
• 1750—Western Hemisphere colonization
peaks
Americas—1300-1800
• Rise of Incas
• Continued rise of Aztecs
• Conquest – arrival of Spanish in
Western Hemisphere
• Population impacts: disease,
racial intermingling, war
• Columbian Exchange
• Colonial societies
Inca Empire—1438-1525
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Highly centralized government
Diverse ethnic groups
Extensive irrigation
State religion/ancestor cult
Rope suspension bridges
Metallurgy – copper and bronze
No use of wheel
Roads for tax, labor, and courier system
Aztec Empire—1325-1520
• Tenochtitlan “Foundation of Heaven”
• By 1519, metropolis of 150,000
• 5 square miles
• Island location
• Tribute empire based on agriculture
• State control of market –
redistributes all goods
Changes in Trade, Technology
and Global Interactions
• Exploration
• God, Glory, and Gold?
• Commodities
• Cartography
• Empire Building
Age of Exploration
• European exploration
Why then?
Why?
Who and where?
• End of Ming Treasure / Tribute
Voyages
Zheng He
Commodities
Commodities
• African slave
trade
Notice the
primary
destinations
Commodities
• Coffee beans used first
in Yemen and then later
in Europe and Americas
• European used chocolate
technology from Aztecs in 17th
Century
Cartographic Changes
Empire Building
• How do empires rise and expand?
• What factors at this time will
help empires maintain themselves
and expand their borders?
• Consider the impact and nature
of interaction with others…
Africa
• Characteristics:
• Stateless societies-organized around
kinship, often larger than states
• Large centralized states
• Increased unity came from linguistic
base–Bantu, Christianity and Islam, as
well as indigenous beliefs
• Trade–markets, international
commerce, taxed trade of
unprocessed goods
African Empires
• Oyo
• Benin
• Kongo
• Asante
Songhay—1340-1591
• Initially farmers, herders, and
fishers
• Foreign merchant community in Gao
(gold)
• Powerful cavalry forces, expansive
empire (1492)
• Fusion of Islamic and
indigenous traditions
Ming China—1368-1644
• Mongols are gone—similar to Russia
• Became more traditional not like
Russia
• Naval expeditions then isolationist
• $ wasn’t worth it
• Nomads were bigger threat
• Collected tribute
• Cash crops, like cotton
Qing China—1644-1911
• Pastoral nomads, Manchus, from north
• Manchus had highest positions
• Kept civil-service exams for promotion
• Traded with Europeans at off mainland
islands and closely supervised at Canton
• Missionaries expelled
• Patriarchal
• Expanded tribute colonies—Taiwan,
Mongolia, Tibet, Vietnam, Burma & Nepal
Tokugawa Japan—1600-1853
• Cultural borrowing from China
• Emergence of warrior class and
increasing civil wars
• Encounter with Portuguese-1543
• “Isolation” from West; rise of
Tokugawas
• Tokugawa elite followed development
in West
Rise of Gunpowder Empires
 Political developments loom larger
this period
 Sea-based: Portuguese, Spanish,
Dutch, English
 Land-based: Ottoman,
Safavid, and Mughal
 These are major empires/political
units/social system
Ottoman—1281-1914
• 1350’s – Initial
Ottoman invasion
of Europe
• 1453 – Ottoman
capture of
Constantinople
• 1683 – Ottoman
siege of Vienna
Safavid Persia—1334-1722
• Founded by militant Sufis
• Broke away from Ottoman Empire,
creating schism among Muslims
• Adopted Shi’a Islam
• Theocracy
Mughal India—1556-1739
• Empire based on military strength
• Akbar the Great–-combined beliefs
into new religion to unite Hindu and
Muslim subjects: Din-I-Ilahi
• Indian textile trade–value to
Europeans
• Patron of the arts—
Shah Jahan
Empires: Russia
• Mongol occupation stalled
Russian unification and
development
• Increasing absolutist rule and
territorial expansion by 16th
Century – Ivan the Terrible
• Role of Russian Orthodox
Church
• Peter the Great accelerated
westernization process
Portugal
• Search for maritime route
to Asia
• Naval school
• Advanced naval
technology: caravels,
astrolabe and compass
Portugal
• Established fortresses along the
Gold Coast – sugar plantations and
African slave labor
• Indian Ocean trade and Da Gama:
Malindi, Sofala and Kilwa, Calicut
and Goa, and later Macao
• Atlantic trade with conquest of
Brazil – sugar plantation
Brazil: Plantation colony
• Portuguese due to
Treaty of Tordesillas
1494
• African slave labor
used to support plantation complex
(sugar)
• Largest producer of sugar in world
first half of 17th C.
Spain
• Inquisition
• Reconquista ended with
fall of Granada (1492)
• Columbus’ voyage
• Cortez in Mexico and Pizarro in Peru
• Took over existing tributary empires:
labor, silver, gold, and foodstuffs
• Demographic impact: disease, death,
and mestizos
England
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Limited/constitutional monarchy
Tudors
Stuarts
Civil War
Commonwealth
Glorious Revolution
Bill of Rights
• Enlightenment ideas
• Colonies in Americas
France
• Absolute Monarchy
King Louis XIV
“ I am the State”
Versailles
• Mercantilism
• Territorial expansion in
Europe and colonies in
Saint Domingue (Haiti)
and New France
(Quebec)
Dutch
• Dutch East India Company
• 1660—employed 12,000 people with 257
ships
• Sought monopolies and large profits
• North America (fur trade-Hudson
River, New Amsterdam)
• Caribbean islands for plantations
• Capetown, South Africa – way station
• Southeast Asia – spice trade
(nutmeg, cloves and pepper)
Changing Beliefs
• Reformation
• Neo-Confucianism
• Missionaries:
Christianity, Islam,
Buddhism
Cultural and Intellectual
Development
• Renaissance
• Scientific Revolution
• Enlightenment
Comparisons
Be able to compare the following:
• Imperial systems: European
monarchy vs. a land-based Asian
empire
• Coercive labor systems
• Empire building in Asia, Africa
and Europe
• Russia’s interaction with the
West compared to others
Conclusions
• What are the major themes that
seem apparent?
• What global processes are in
action?
Trade
• Trade extended through all parts of
the world
• Europe finally gains access to Asian
trade routes and attempts to control
them through choke points- fail
• Europe uses American raw materialsespecially silver-to trade with Asia
• Columbian Exchange
Technology
• Spread of shipping technology to
Europe as a result of the Crusades
and experiments by Prince Henry the
Navigator
• Improvements in gunpowder
technology- muskets and cannons
Demography
• Disease killed millions of native Americans
• Africans were forcibly transported to New
World for work in plantation agriculture
• Populations grew as new calorie-rich foods
were brought from New World
• Populations migrated to harsher climates
as food crops became available
• Populations migrated from the Old World
to the New World
Social and Gender Structures
• Americas- Castas system
• Muslim areas (Ottomans, Mughals)
Women in the harems wielded
considerable power behind the scenes
• China- power struggle between the
Eunuchs and the Scholar Gentry
Cultural and Intellectual Expressions
• Europe- Renaissance and
Reformation reduces the power of
the Catholic Church and challenges
old beliefs
• China ends contact with the outside
world as neo-Confucianism
dominates
Structure and Function of State
• Empire remains predominant political
structure
• Coercive tribute system
• European states, such as Spain and
Portugal but also France, England and the
Dutch, perfect overseas empires by
claiming territory in Western Hemisphere
• Qing, Russia, Mughals, Ottomans, and
Safavids are powerful land-based empires
Trade- Can’t live without it!
• Global trade is THE thing this time period!
• Core-periphery theory:
• Core states are manufacturing states
• Periphery states provide raw materials
• Semi-periphery supply both
• Three core zones:
• China
• India
• West
Changes and Continuities
• Change: The Americas are added to world
trade network
• Change: Europe becomes a Maritime area
• Continuity: Trade is really important
• Continuity: Religions continue to adapt to
new times, but very important
• Continuity: Diffusion of ideas and
diseases as people come into contact with
each other
A WORLD
OF
EMPIRES
1450-1750 CE