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Early Modern Era:
The British and the Russian Empires
Packet #18
In this packet you will cover the Americas:
The British in the New World
The Emerging Russian Empire
The Armada:
 1588: The Catholic King Philip launched an armada against his sister-in-law and
Queen of England, the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I.
 The island nation of England defeated its rival. This launched the beginning of the
British rule of the high seas.
Changes in Great Britain
 The society of Great Britain was rapidly changing. King Henry VIII had founded the
Church of England. Queen Elizabeth, the second child born to Henry, eventually
assumed the throne of the Protestant state (there was a brief interlude in which
Elizabeth’s half sister, Mary, reverted the kingdom back to Catholicism—she
persecuted Protestants and was given the name Bloody Mary).
o Unlike the Spaniards, the British did not seek to make mass conversion or
proselytize.
o Unlike the Spanish, the British did not bring over the feudal hierarchy into
the new world. The rise of a representative body called Parliament was
already established to check the powers of the king and the cloth industry
and other manufacturers began to emerge as a powerful merchant classanother blow to the established feudal order.
 Thus, for over a century, Britain saw the rise of many tensions as a result of the
Protestant Reformation.
 Britain saw the rise of a growing merchant class. Textile industries started to make
waves in Britain.
 While the Spanish developed a strong bureaucratic system of governors, treasurers
etc., this was not the case in the British colonies.
 The British colonies developed traditions of local self-government.
o Britain did not impose an elaborate bureaucracy like the Spanish
o A British civil war in the seventeenth century distracted the British
government from involvement in the colonies.
Please look up and define the following as they relate to the economy of the British
colonies in North America:
Joint Stock Company
Charter
Mercantilism
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A distinct colony:
 A distinctive type of colonial society to emerge was the settler colony in North
America. Because the British were the last of the European powers to establish a
colonial presence in the Americas, a full century after Spain, they found that they got
the crumbs of the New World-leftovers
 Although they brought the British culture to the shores of the New World, many of
them also brought distinctly non-British customs as they wee escaping European
society. While the Spanish and Portuguese sought to recreate their homeland
society, many settlers from Britain (Puritans, Quakers etc.), sought escape.
 The easy availability of land, the climate and geography of North America and the
outsider status of many British settlers made it even more difficult to follow the
Spanish colonial pattern of sharp class hierarchy, large rural estates, and dependent
laborers.
 Other differences also emerged.
o The church and colonial state were not intimately linked in British colonies
like in Latin America.
o The Protestant emphasis on reading the Bible made literacy higher in North
America.
o Unlike the Spanish colonies, the British colonies developed a history of selfrule.
Page 416-417: What is the GREAT IRONY about British rule in the Americas:
Slaves:
 In addition to the sugar plantations that were in the Caribbean and Brazil, the
British southern colonies also had an extensive slave culture.
 Tobacco, cotton, rice, and indigo were major crops, but the social outcomes of these
plantations were quite different from the Latin American experience.
 It’s important to note that WOMEN and FAMILIES came to the New World in North
America. Whereas in South America, mostly men came to conquer and find riches.
For this reason, there was less racial mixing between slaves and white men. They
were also not willing to recognize the children of such a union.
 A sharp racial system with black Africans, red Natives, and white Europeans evolved
in North America. The Spanish and the Portuguese recognized mixed races more
readily.
 It is also said that slavery was less harsh in North America than in the sugar
colonies.
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Any person with any black ancestry in the North American colonies was considered
black.
In South America, it was more based on appearance. A lighter skinned person might
experience less prejudice than a darker skinned individual.
On the flip side, more slaves were set free in South America.
By 1750, slaves in the U.S. had become self-reproducing in ultimately the slave
population was all born in the U.S. In Latin America, slave importation continued
well into the nineteenth century. Brazilian slave owners calculated the life of a
slave at an average of 7 years. THAT is ASTOUNDING.
British Colonies
Spanish Colonies
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The Emerging Russian State:
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Would become the world’s largest state
RUSSIA WAS EMERGING FROM CENTURIES OF MONGOL RULE
The emerging state began in Moscow. The first Russian ruler to be formally crowned
as "tsar of all Russia" was Ivan IV in 1547. He was king.
It was on the Eastern fringe of Christendom
Becomes an empire in the Modern Era
Expanded EAST through tundra
Expanded through Eastern Europe—Poles, Germans, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Baltic
people so it is multi-ethnic!
While western European peoples were building maritime empires, Russians were
laying the foundations for a vast land empire that embraced most of northern
Eurasia. This round of expansion began in the mid sixteenth century, as Russian
forces took over several Mongol khanates in central Asia.
These acquisitions resulted in Russian control over the Volga River and offered
opportunities for trade with the Ottoman Empire, Iran, and even India through the
Caspian Sea.
Moscow traded with Indian merchants. In the eighteenth century, Russian forces
extended their presence in the Caspian Sea region by absorbing much of the
Caucasus, a vibrant multi-ethnic region embracing the modern day states of Georgia,
Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
Look at the map at the right. CIRCLE
the Caspian and Baltic Seas, and
Moscow
Motivations:
Encounters in Siberia:
 Russia made extensive
acquisitions in Siberia in
northeastern Eurasia.
 The frozen tundra and dense
forests of Siberia posed
formidable challenges, but
explorers and merchants made
their way into the region in a
quest for fur. Throughout the
early modern ear, fur was a lucrative
commodity that lured Russians eastward, just
as North American fur attracted the interest of
English, French, and Dutch merchants.
 Russian expansion in northeastern Eurasia
began in 1581. The nomadic people of Siberia
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were still adjusting to the void left behind after the Mongol empire collapsed.
ReasonSECURITY—fear of pastoral people like the Mongols
Opportunity  EAST—fur bearing animals, whose pelts were in great demand on
the world market across Siberia. The called it “soft gold.”
The course of creating the Russian empire took 300 years from 1500 to 1800.
Native Siberians
 Siberia was home to about twenty-six major ethnic groups that lived by hunting,
trapping, fishing, or herding reindeer.
 These indigenous peoples varied widely in language and religion, and they
responded in different ways to the arrival of Russian adventurers
who sought to exact tribute from them by coercing them to
supply pelts on the regular basis.
 Some groups readily accepted iron tools, woven cloth, flour, tea,
and liquor for the skins of fur bearing animals such as otter, lynx,
marten, artic fox, sleek sable, and yasak 
 Others resisted.
 There were some revolts against the encroaching Russian state. At the hands of
Russian violent oppression and repression, one group known as the Yakut people of
Lena, would experience a depletion of their population by 70%.
 Although resistance was frequent,
especially from nomadic peoples, in the
long run Russian military might, based on
modern weaponry, brought both the
steppes and Siberia under Russian control.
 The Russian state called the people
of Siberia small people.
 Who settled Siberia: The settlers who
established a Russian presence in Siberia
included social misfits, convicted criminals,
and prisoners of war. Despite the region’s harsh terrain, Russian migrants gradually
filtered into Siberia and altered its demographic complexion. Small agricultural
settlements grew up near many trading
posts.
 Some peasants fled to settlements east of
the Ural Mountains for better working
conditions.
o CIRCLE THEM!
 Over time, trading posts in Siberia
became Russian towns. By 1763 some
420,000 Russians lived in Siberia, nearly
double the number of indigenous
inhabitants. In the nineteenth century,
large numbers of additional migrants
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moved east to mine Siberian gold, silver, copper, and iron, and the Russian state was
well on the way toward consolidating its control over the region.
The most profoundly transforming feature of the Russian Empire was the influx of
Russian settlers, whose numbers by the end of the eighteenth century overwhelmed
native peoples. This gave the lands a Russian distinct character. By the 19th century,
native Siberians listed as 14% of the population.
Another demographic factor was that some people in Siberian had not built up
immunities due to lack of exposure to European diseases. They, like the natives of
the New World, experienced horrible disease.
Many natives were Russified, adopting the Russian language and some converting to
Christianity, even as their traditional way of life-hunting and herding-were much
disrupted. The Russian Empire represented the final triumph of an agrarian
civilization over the hunting societies of Siberian and the steppes.
The Role of Orthodox Christianity:
 As a way to protect the fur industry, government sponsored missionaries sought to
convert Siberian peoples to Orthodox Christianity and bring them into Russian
society, but they had little success. Few Siberians expressed an interest in
Christianity, and those few came mostly from the ranks of criminals, abandoned
hostages, slaves, and others who had little status.
 Tax breaks, exemptions form paying tribute, and the promise of land or cash
provided incentives for conversion. Muslims were forced to resettle.
 Once indigenous peoples converted to Christianity, they were exempt from
obligations to provide fur tributes, so the Russian government
 Whereas the goal of the Spaniards was to convert, the prime goal of the Russians was
to obtain fur.
 Many indigenous peoples of Siberia continued to practice their inherited religions
guided by native shamans while others sought to convert.
Page 420-421 How did the creation of an empire transform Russia?
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A diverse empire:
Vocabulary
Spanish Armada
Queen Elizabeth
Joint Stock
Company
Royal Charter
Mercantilism
Siberia
Soft Gold
Yasak
Small People
Definition
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British Colonies:
SOCIAL
POLITICAL
Economic
Environmental
Social
Political
Economic
Environmental
The Russian Empire