Unit 3 - Maritime Empires Topic 1 PDF

The Age of Exploration 1. The Columbian Exchange 2. Establishing Empires 3. Slavery, Labor, and Caste 4. Trade and Economics 5. Impact on Religion and Culture Courses of European Exploration: - Portuguese began exploring in the early 1400s. By the 1450s they had conquered, or...

The Age of Exploration 1. The Columbian Exchange 2. Establishing Empires 3. Slavery, Labor, and Caste 4. Trade and Economics 5. Impact on Religion and Culture Courses of European Exploration: - Portuguese began exploring in the early 1400s. By the 1450s they had conquered, or established trade with, lands along the west coast of Africa. Between 1450-1500, they utilized new technologies to sail longer distances. - The success of the Portuguese inspired other kingdoms to sponsor similar programs. Especially inspires Portugal's neighbors on the Iberian Peninsula- Spain. - GLORY - Constantinople, which is the crossroads of global trade, had fallen under Ottoman rule in 1453, and new technologies emerged such as caravels and carracks which enabled more successful travel and trade across the world’s ocean. - This Sparks Europeans to think about new ways to reach China and India, and once there, enables them to trade more efficiently. - GOLD - Religious passion (fervor) (Catholic) and disputes about religion present opportunities for religious expansion or escape from religious persecution - Pious kings and persecuted people see an opportunity in exploration - GOD Portugal goes South and East: - 1488 Bartolomeu Dias rounded trip of Africa (Cape of good Hope aka Cape of Storms) - 1498 Vasco de Gama first European link to Asia via ocean rise of East India Companies - Alfonso de Albuquerque, conquest of Goa and Malacca, combat Islam, spread Christianity, control spice trade - Pedro Cabral, sails to Brazil in 1500 Spain goes west… - Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella wanted to gain an advantage over the Portuguese - They were incredibly zealous Catholics who had successfully completed the “Reconquista” of Spain in the early 1490s. - To gain this advantage they hired a Genoese sailor named Christopher Columbus who wanted to sail west across the Atlantic to reach China/ India. - Columbus sailed in 1492 and “discovered” the Americas.  - In the coming decades: - Cortes conquered the Aztec (1519) - Pizarro conquered the Inca (1533) - Other conquistadors explore other parts of the Americas extending Spanish rule - New Spain was established and stretched from South America to the South West United States. Home to extensive mining operations and plantations. - Ferdinand Magellan circumnavigates the world in 1521 (well, his crew did) - Spain takes control of the Philippines and its main city, Manila - Provides a link from the Americas to China - Soon, Spanish silver from South America will flood Asian Markets through Manila, particularly in Ming China. The Pope divides the Earth between the two: - Treaty of Tordesillas, 1494 - Line of demarcation for Spain and Portugal. - Because Portugal had established claims and relationships in Afro-Eurasia already, they were granted control of Africa and South/Southeast Asia. - Spain is granted control of the Americas, the extent of which was unknown at the time. The French: - Inspired by Spanish success and the opportunity to spread Catholicism to new populations, the French launch an exploration program in the 1530’s. - In 1534, Fragtnce sent navigator Jacques Cartier to claim northern North America in the name of France (named it new France) - Additional explorers include Giovanni Verrazano and Samuel de Champlain and later explorers such as La Salle claimed the Great Lakes and Ohio/Mississippi Rivers for France - Founded Quebec in 1608 - Most of the French that come are either Jesuit missionaries or fur traders - Later, established Saint-Domingue, richest colony in Caribbean due to sugar production. The English: - Unlike the other European kingdoms/ empires, England is Protestant for most of this period. - Their exploration efforts, then, are in part inspired by the desire to stop Catholicism. - They also start late due to domestic chaos in the 1500s. English/British Exploration and Empire: - Sir Francis Drake explores and serves as a “privateer” for Queen Elizabeth I in the 1580s. - Sir Walter Raleigh establishes the First English colony (Roanoke) but this fails. - John Smith and the privately-financed Virginia Company established Jamestown in 1607. - 13 American colonies and Caribbean colonies - Jamaica and Bahamas - Trading posts in the Indian Ocean. - British East India Company formed in 1600 - Trading posts at Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta - English & Dutch slowly oust Portuguese - Royal African Company (1670) created to establish trade and grow influence in Africa. - Though they were slower to initiate exploration due to immense domestic conflicts in the 1500s, by 1750 the British Empire was the largest of all. The Dutch want a piece of the action too! - After gaining their independence from Spain in 1581, the Netherlands established an exploration program to support their new country. - United East India Company (VOC Dutch East India Company) was created in 1602. - Had faster, cheaper, and more powerful ships (fluyts) than the Portuguese. - Conquered Portuguese ports in the Indian Ocean and established themselves as a major player in global trade and politics. - The Dutch also sponsored exploration of North America in search of a faster route to India/China - Brief colony in Manhattan and Upstate New York (New Netherlands), fur trade - Henry Hudson - Lost to English in 1664 Topic 2: Columbian Exchange How Americans Respond to European Arrival - American empires and people groups, isolated as they were from all of the cross-cultural exchanges of Afro-Eurasia, found themselves largely unable to do anything to stop the advance - They have no gunpowder weapons, no ships, no advanced metal armor, etc. - Some of the tribute states of the Aztecs, who for centuries had been oppressed by the Aztec emperors, allied themselves with the Spanish in hopes that this would bring them a brighter future.  - In North America, certain Native groups (namely the Iroquois of New York and the Algonquians of Canada) successfully ally themselves with the French and the Dutch as partners in the fur trade. - But the vast majority of indigenous Americans will be conquered, captured, and killed by the arriving Europeans who possess critical advantages in technology as well as the invisible advantage in the diseases which accompanied them on their journeys. What is the Columbian Exchange? - Beginning in 1492 when Columbus connects Afro-Eurasia to the Americas, the Columbian Exchange is: - The transfer of goods, people, microbes, and ideas between Afro-Eurasia and the Americas/Caribbean - “The intercontinental transfer of plants, animals, knowledge, and technology” - The effects of this new exchange change the world forever - New networks of exchange were established that never disappeared - Rapid cultural change occurred on both sides of the Atlantic - Certain political entities and people groups increase in power dramatically while others, like the Aztec and Incan Empires, are crushed and cease to exist - Massive epidemics of disease (The Great Dying) ravage populations and lead to immense social dysfunction - Some of these effects are short-term, others are long-term and depending on your point of view, lead to different conclusions about the costs/benefits of the Columbian Exchange Topic 3: Slavery, Labor, and Caste in Maritime Empires Continuities and Changes to Slavery - Slavery is nothing new to world history - In the period 1200-1450, the trade in slaves was a critical component to the Trans-Saharan trade network and the Indian Ocean trade network. - It was also fundamental to the political, economic, and social structures of localized kingdoms and states - Slavery existed in the Americas too, with the Aztec and Inca making heavy use of salves in construction projects, military conquests, and religious ceremony - In the early-modern period we saw land-empires make use of slaves within their militaries and within their societies at-large (as domestic servants, members of harems, etc.) - Indeed, for much of pre-modern and early-modern history, the primary slave traders in the world were Arabs and Muslims  - But, like most other things, the nature of slavery and enslavement changed following 1453’s conquest of Constantinople and 1492’s discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus - The creation of a new trading system–The Atlantic Trading System– and the actions of the Europeans who controlled it, are primarily to blame for the changes which will occur The Atlantic System - Despite discovering and making contact with Africa, they could not sufficiently infiltrate Africa due to stronger African militaries and Europeans’ lack of immunity to tropical African diseases. - So the emergent trade system featured Europeans trading/sailing back and forth across the Atlantic. - Following the establishment of colonies in the Americas, European kingdoms/empires developed trade systems that connected these colonies back to Europe. - During the periods 1450-1750, there is a division noted between the first Atlantic System (1490s-1650s) and the Second Atlantic System (1650s…) - The First Atlantic system was dominated by the Atlantic and Portugese, while the Second Atlantic system was dominated by the British and French (with some involvement of the Spanish and Portuguese - Regardless of the precise time period, there are notable features of the new Atlantic System of trade: - Europeans desired labor intensive crops (tobacco, sugarcane, cotton, and rice) and raw materials like silver and gold from the Americas. - Europeans could not provide sufficient labor of their own people to do the work needed - Europeans depended on enslaved of otherwise forced laborers to obtain the crops/raw materials form the Americas Demand for Slave Labor in the Americas - Mining Operations - The Spanish initially conquered and claimed lands in the Americas because of their mineral wealth and mineral production would account for 90% of New Spain’s exports in the 16th and 17th centuries - The lands of Mexico (claimed from the Aztec in the 1520s) had abundant gold deposits. - The lands of the Andes (claimed from the Inca in the 1530s) were the richest deposits of silver in the world - Silver mining was made more effective by the process of dry amalgamation of silver with mercury (1557) - Work in these mines was labor intensive and dangerous; the Spanish preferred not to do it themselves - Plantation-Based Agriculture  - The Portuguese were more focused on agriculture, particularly the cultivation of sugarcane (a crop they brought to the Americas) - Sugarcane was introduced to Europe via Asia in the medieval period and was cultivated in the Mediterranean as a cash crop - The Portuguese had established sugarcane plantations in te Eastern Atlantic in the early 1400s (The Azores, Madeira, Soa Tome), The Caribbean and South America provided superior climate and that plantation agriculture complex takes root. - From 1450-1750 plantation/cash crop agriculture dominates the American and requires slave labor to be productive and profitable - Caribbean and South America--Sugar, Cocoa, Coffee - North America-- Tobacco, rice, Indigo, Cotton Forced Labor of Native Peoples - The European’s superior weapons, and a worldview that made Europeans believe that the Native peoples were not good for anything beyond servanthood, led to the mass enslavement of indigenous Americans - Beginning with Columbus’ arrival on Hispaniola, the Spanish (as well as the Portuguese) employed native people to build their cities, farm their plantations, and do their mining - Initially, they used force and threats of force to secure a workforce; eventually, the conscription of labor became more systematized and the Spanish would mimic the policies established by the Aztec and Inca to conscript indigenous workers - Following the example of the Incan mita system, the Spanish established the repartimiento - In this system 5-10% of all indigenous people would be required to provide labor in mines or in fields - Workers were only to be conscripted for a short time and paid - 2 weeks in the fields, 5 weeks in mines, 3-4x per year - In reality, workers were conscripted, abused, worked to the death, and not paid and by 1609, each district was supposed to provide 25% of the population for labor The Emergence of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade - As resistance by Native Americans grew, and as their populations were decimated by disease, Europeans in North America needed a new source for their labor. The African Kingdoms on the other side of the Atlantic System seemed to offer a solution - The African Kingdoms wanted European goods, weapons, metal products, alcohol, cotton, cloth, luxury goods.  - In exchange they would provide captured Africans (from other conquered peoples, or victims of kidnapping raids). - The Portuguese were the first to purchase enslaved laborers from West Africa and transport them to the Americas - The first voyage took place in 1526, ending in the sugar colony of Brazil - Other European countries soon followed - All of the maritime empires participated in this trade - This Brutal Trade had a “slow start” - During the First Atlantic System (1490s-1650s), only 20% of the total number of enslaved people were brought to the Americas - The Second Atlantic System saw a tremendous increase as the British, French, and Dutch engaged in the trade to fuel their growing empires in the Caribbean and elsewhere. Topic 4: Maintaining Control of Maritime Empires Mercantilism - Economic policy promoted within European empires within the 16th,17th,18th centuries - Overall, this policy theory of Mercantilism serves to justify the accusation on colonies, as well as how the “mother country” obtained and utilized resources from the distant parts of their empire. - Countries should export more than they import - Countries should obtain all of the raw materials they need for their exporting from the colonies - The Mother Country should focus on improving the raw materials and exporting them for gold and silver - EXAMPLES: - BRITAIN GROWING TOBACCO IN THEIR COLONIES, AND TRANSFORMING THEM TO LONDON TO EXPORT FOR GOLD AND SILVER, GAINING A PROFIT - FRENCH GROW SUGAR CANE AND TURN IT INTO RUM AND GET GOLD AND SILVER FOR THE RUM - OBTAINING OF GOLD AND SILVER WAS THE ULTIMATE GOAL OF THE ECONOMIC POLICY - IF YOU HAD IT, YOUR RIVALS DONT HAVE IT - IF YOU HAD IT YOU COULD EXPAND MORE, GAIN MORE, AND FLOURISH MORE IN THIS SYSTEM - All of the Maritime Empires utilized this theory of economics to shape their global interactions in this time. They do, however, vary in exactly how they practiced it. Managing Maritime Empires Required High Levels of Control - In the period 1450-1750, maritime empires move from being highly decentralized political organizations (trading post empires) to being highly centralized and controlled by the “mother country” - As the profitability of them increased, more and more control was placed over the lands and people of them. - Physical Control - Official military presence and activity increases - New France (Canada) was militarized in 1608, Britain established naval bases throughout the Carribean and Indian Ocean regions - Beginning in the 1700’s, British infantry troops occupied forts in North America and sought to win land from Native American peoples - Companies like the VOC and EIC are armed and equipped fro was and conquest - The Dutch East India COmpany conquered Malacca and the islands of Indonesia in the mid-17th century - By 1757 the EIC had effectively conquered India and most of the former Mughal Empire fell to the British (though the monarchy ruled less directly than the Company) - Political and Legal Control - Empires create strict laws to enforce mercantilism - France’s “Colbertism” envisioned the entire colonial and national economy as an extension of the monarch’s personal wealth/budget - France’s Colbertism envisioned the entire colonial and national economy as an extension of the monarch’s personal wealth/ budget - The Monarch had total control, then, over all economic decisions for the entire empire.. Just one component of growing absolutism in France and Europe - Britain's Navigation Acts (1660s->) made it illegal for British colonies to trade or do business with anyone who wasn’t Brittan. - Royal governors and government offices are established - New Spain administered as a “viceroyalty” with “viceroys” serving as quasi-kings. - British colonies in North America become “royal colonies” (New York, Virginia) - Strict codes are employed to protect forced labor systems - Black Codes in Barbados and Virginia reduced the enslaved people to legally unprotected property. Joint-Stock Companies and State-Run Monopolies - Spain and Portugal maintain heavy royal/political control over colonization, trade, and overall mercantilist policy - The British and the Dutch will place control into the hands of privately operated Joint Stock companies and monopolies - Joint-stock company: a business financed by a group of investors who pool their resources and then split the profits of that business - Monopoly: a business that maintains total control over an entire industry without risk of competition - The Dutch created the Dutch East India Company (VOC) to manage all overseas trade, colonization, etc. - The English create several joint-stock companies (the British East India Company, the Virginia Company) to manage theirs Topic 5: Challenging the Power of the Maritime Empires - Internal Challenges in Europe - Growing discontent with absolute monarchs in Europe leads to power struggles - Louis XIV’s rule is briefly challenged by the Fronde (militarized nobility) in the 1650’s - Britain’s Protestant-controlled Parliament expels Catholic’s king James II in 1688 and invites the Dutch prince William of Orange and his English wife, Mary to rule them in the Glorious Revolution - This unites the British and Dutch intersects and they will stand agaisnt Catholic (French and Spanish) influence through the coming decades - The Anglo-Dutch rivalry is settled and the Dutch will be given control over the spice trade while Britian gains control over lands in India - In Spain, the lack of a male heir to the throne in 1701 - generation of inbreeding within the Spanish Hasburgs left Charles II pysically frail sparks a decade-long struggle for power in Europe (War of Spanish Succession) - Internal Challenges in the Colonies - Resistance by local populations against European control grows - Ex. Metacom’s War in British North America - Ex. Ana Nzinga’s resistance in Africa - Enslaved people begin to resist their worsening conditions - Maroon communities (escaped slaves and native americans) form to resist re-enslavement in the Caribbean and Brazil - The fierce and organized resistance of the Windward Maroons in Jamaica required a treaty to be signed by the British in 1739 - Slave rebellions increased in North America and the Caribbean  - Stono Rebellion in South Carolina (1738) - Colonists resist the orders of distant rulers - Most visible in the British North American colonies where American merchants begin to question if the Crown has their best interests in mind - Individuals begin to seek their own profits rather than the empire (Blackbeard) - Smuggling and piracy emerge as big business opportunities challenged by the Fronde (militarized nobility) in the 1650s Wars, Rivalries, and Conquests - As a result of the expanding networks of trade, new claims of land globally, and pre-existing religious conflicts these empires (as well as the land-based empires from unit 2) come into conflict with one another in this period - Spain fights wars across the world and Europe in this period, particularly before 1650. - 1588 -attempt to invade and conquer Britain with the Spanish Armada (fails) - 1618-1648 - they wage a Thirty Year War in Europe against Protestant nations - In the early 1700s they lose much territory within Europe during the War of Spanish Succession but they maintain a strong Navy that helps them control their empire and trade well enough - Portugal fights with the Dutch and the English throughout the East Africa and South Asia - They consistently lose these battles and lose control of their trading post empire. By 1700, their influence in the Indian Ocean region had completely gone - By the 1600s the Dutch lost control of the New Netherland in present-day New York to the British - England fights pretty much everyone, especially in the 1700s…known as Great Britain formally post 1707 - The British develop the world's strongest Navy in the 18th century and they will use it to gain much land - Most notably, they win control of India as well as much land in North America when they fight against France Two Major European Wars (18th century) - The religious, economic, and political (and sometimes familial), rivalries of European politics lead to 2 massive wars in the 18th century - Queen Anne’s War (1702-1713) - As a result of their allegiances in the War of Spanish Succession (France allied with Spain, England allied with the Austrians) the French and the English will fight each other in North America - Britain is the major victor in this war, claiming Nova Scotia and Newfoundland in Canada  - Native tribes, who had been treated quite well by the French, now come under British control and influence. This is bad news for these peoples, especially the Algonguians - The Seven Years War (1756-1763) - In this war, the British will win unparalleled victories against the allied French/Spanish - They claim Cuba and the Philippines from Spain - All French traders are ousted from India, giving Britain a near monopoly on Indian trade - Senegal (a primary source of enslaved people) is taken from France - The French Caribbean sugar colonies of Martinique and Guadeloupe are taken from France - Canada, the Great Lakes, and Mississippi River region all taken from France These wars dramatically change the balance of power globally as we prepare to enter the “modern” age of world history circa 1750 - Britain is on top of the world and are unified with the Dutch - The French, the Spanish, and the Portuguese are in significant decline