The World at 1500 PDF

As the world approached the 1500s, old institutions and polities gave way to new structures. The decline of the Mongol Empire, which had controlled much of Eurasia for centuries, and the rise of the Islamic Ottoman Empire changed the course of human history. The newly dominant Ottomans began disrupt...

As the world approached the 1500s, old institutions and polities gave way to new structures. The decline of the Mongol Empire, which had controlled much of Eurasia for centuries, and the rise of the Islamic Ottoman Empire changed the course of human history. The newly dominant Ottomans began disrupting trade, especially the lucrative spice routes to Asia. In response, Europeans increasingly turned to maritime exploration to find new routes to Asia. In 1492, Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean, initiating a five-century interchange between the Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe. This "Columbian Exchange" circulated people, diseases, plants, goods and ideas throughout the world. Europe in 1500 was comprised of numerous highly competitive states, many of which still exist today (although their borders and compositions have altered with time). European political and religious leaders during this period sought not merely to expand their kingdoms but to solidify power within their borders. A hierarchical society for most European polities, the monarch was the most powerful person in the realm. The monarch ruled over a class of nobles, people who acted as not only extensions of a monarch's power but also a check upon it. Nobles and monarchs were special people who had their own rules, had the right to wear certain clothes, and owned most of the land and wealth. Most nobles were expected to serve the monarch, including providing military service when required. Below the nobility were a class of merchants, traders, artisans and craftsmen, some of which could be rather wealthy. Peasants who worked the land of nobles formed the lowest rung of the European social order. Regardless of whether they were sharecroppers who shared their produce with local nobles or serfs tied directly to the land, peasants had little to no freedom of movement. FEUDAL SOCIETY IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE The chronic instability of Europe's stratified and hierarchical social classes often fostered disunity, violence and even rebellion. Monarchs struggled against their nobility for control over the levers of power. One of the most successful in this regard would be the long-ruling self-proclaimed Sun King Louis XIV (r. 1643-1715) of France, who successfully controlled and managed his nobility. In contrast, in the 15th century, a bloody conflict between two houses of the Plantagenet dynasty (the Lancastrians and Yorks) turned into a civil war that tore England apart. The civil war would last until 1485 when Henry Tudor (r. 1485-1509), a scion of the House of Lancastrian, won the throne of England at the Battle of Bosworth Field.  Early modern monarchs struggled to control not just the minds and bodies but also the souls of their subjects. For most Europeans, the "Church" referred to the Catholic Church seated in Rome. A pillar of European society, the Church's wealth, power and influence often rivaled that of the monarchs and emperors. For centuries, monarchs attempted to gain religious autonomy from Rome and to find ways to divert religious taxes into their own coffers. Following a split from the Catholic Church in the fourth century, the Eastern Orthodox Church became the dominant religion, not merely in Central Europe but also parts of Africa and the Middle East. The Feudal Society in Medieval Europe  Intense competition on the continent inspired European monarchs to look outside their borders and the known world for ways to tap into the riches of Africa and Asia. The merging of new maritime technologies and a desire to find new trade routes led to a period of naval expansion, which would change the world not only for Europeans but also for the people they encountered. In the 14th century, new powerful states emerged in territories formerly controlled by the Mongol Empire. Many of these states adopted Islam, a faith that originated in the early seventh century in Arabia. By the early to mid1500s, the Ottomans (1299-1922) had already established themselves as a dominant power centered around Anatolia, the Persian Safavid Empire (1501-1736) was just beginning, and so too was the Mughal Empire (1526-1857) in India. During this period Egyptian Mamluks (manumitted slave soldiers) spread Islamic theology across North Africa. The Mamluks were great patrons of the arts, and the splendor of their architecture is still evident today. By the 1600s, Islam had become the dominant religion across much of Eurasia, India, the Middle East, and North Africa. To understand the rise of the Ottomans, we need to examine the expansion of Turkic tribes westward into Central Asia from the 600s to the 1100s. The rise of the Mongol Empire checked this expansion until the mid-14th century when the Mongols, no longer the force they once were, began retreating from Persia and Central Asia. With the decline of the Mongols, new regimes including the Ottomans, the Safavids and the Mughals would emerge. Because of their use of muzzle-loading firearms, the three empires are sometimes referred to as the (Islamic) Gunpower Empires.  OSMAN I The Ottomans derived their name from Osman (r. 1299-1326), a Turkic leader that had important victories over other warlords and eventually the declining Byzantine Empire. By 1352, the Ottomans were the chief power in the Balkans. In 1453, during the reign of Sultan Mehmed II (r. 1451-1481), Ottoman armies conquered the Byzantine capital of Constantinople. Renamed Istanbul, the city became the center of a sprawling and culturally dynamic Islamic empire that Asian, Middle Eastern, Northeastern and European leaders viewed with envy and fear. SUNNI AND SHIA ISLAM Today Sunnis account for 85-90% of all Muslims, with the rest identifying as Shias. Both Sunnis and Shias read the Quran, fast during Ramadan, make pilgrimages to Mecca, pray multiple times a day and practice charity toward the poor. The schism between Sunnis and Shia began over the issue of who should succeed the Prophet Muhammad (570-632) as head of the Muslim faith. Those later labeled as Sunni asserted that their "caliph" or leader should be selected based on leadership skills. At the same time, those who argued that caliphs ought to be a member of the Prophet's family became the forebearers of Shiism. They initially supported Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law Ali's (600-661) claim to become caliph. However, Shias were vastly outnumbered by Sunnis who backed Muhammad's friend and long-time companion, Abu Bakr (573-634). In time Umar (583/584-644) and then Uthman (573/576- 656) succeeded Abu Bakr. Both caliphs pursued policies that centralized religious power which further contributed to the growing political turmoil. Both Umar and Uthman were murdered, which paved the way for Ali to become the fourth caliph. He too met a violent end in 661. Such strife led to the creation of two branches of Islam that would, over the subsequent centuries, develop distinctive political and religious traditions. From 300-1450, a variety of complex political systems, social structures and cultural groups emerged on the African continent. As agricultural populations grew and trade in high-value commodities increased, new states rose to prominence. Over time the introduction of Islam to the region by Arab merchants became important for the development of madrasas, literacy and state bureaucracies. The opening of the transSaharan trade integrated Africa into the Mediterranean world, Europe and the Middle East. The emergence of the new trade-oriented Swahili city-states along the East African coast represented an important example of these changes. By the 1640s, the coastal people of West Africa, previously on the margins of the trans-Saharan trade routes, became central players in the newly forming transatlantic trade. They founded powerful states, including the Oyo Empire during the 17th and 18th centuries, the Kingdom of Dahomey during the 17th through the 19th century, and the Asante Kingdom, 18th through the early 20th century. In Central Africa, local rulers rebuilt old trade roads and created new ones to meet the ever-increasing demands of European and Arab merchants for more slaves. This altered the political sphere as older polities, such as the Kingdom of Kongo (14th -18th centuries), struggled to adapt to changing circumstances. Although Kongolese rulers initially profited from contact with the Portuguese, soon Afro-Portuguese merchants found ways to circumvent the kingdom's monopoly over coastal trade by relocating to remote areas (such as Luanda) beyond the reach of royal officials. Increasingly dependent on trade with the Portuguese, the Kingdom of Kongo declined as an independent state. The creation of new competitors located in the central portion of the southern savanna belt in Central Africa, such as the Luba (16th through 19th centuries) and Lunda Empires (17th through 19th centuries), put further pressure on the Kingdom of Kongo. KINGDOM OF KONGO From the 1380s to the 1960s, the Kingdom of Kongo represented one of the most influential monarchies in West Central Africa. Located north of the Malebo Pool of the lower Congo River, the Kingdom profited from fertile soils, abundant rainfall, and the presence of valuable iron and copper deposits. Beginning in the late 1300s, the Bakongo people living south of the Congo River unified into a single kingdom with a capital at Mbanza Kongo, from which the Manikongo (king of the Kingdom of Kongo) ruled. When the Portuguese arrived in 1483, the Manikongos of Kongo saw an immediate material advantage in establishing diplomatic and trade relations with the new arrivals. In the short term, participation in the Atlantic trade gave Kongo a competitive edge over Kongo's landlocked neighbors such as the Tyo. The religion of the Portuguese (Catholic Christianity) appealed to the kings of Kongo, who hoped that conversion to the new faith would give them the same power which Portuguese rulers held over their subjects. After all, Catholic Christianity justified the rule of kings over their subjects, helping to legitimize and centralize the power of such monarchs. Furthermore, Catholicism was readily compatible with traditional Kongo spiritual beliefs. For instance, the Creator God of Christianity appeared similar to the Creator God of ancient Bantu belief. Catholic Christianity also had a group of holy individuals, the saints, who had died and gone to heaven and could be prayed to for help in this life. This concept again mirrored Kongolese beliefs in a sky God whose spirits could likewise be invoked to intervene in the lives of mortals. In the early 1500s, the rulers of Kongo, particularly Afonso I, grasped the advantages of literacy and the possibilities of literate education. They aimed to strengthen and build a more effective administrative apparatus that would provide better communications both with Europe and among their own provinces. By the mid-16th century, Kongo scribes were literate in Portuguese and Latin and, by the later 16th century, in the KiKongo language. The contact with the Portuguese provided a commercial basis and a new set of ideas supportive of royal legitimacy and authority, helping Kongo become the most powerful kingdom of the region. Cities arose at the critical points of political authority and commercial connections. Mbanza Kongo, already a city in the 1480s, became a still larger city with more than 50,000 inhabitants. Provincial capitals developed into good-sized cities. Enslaved people, especially those captured in war, helped build these expanding urban centers. Significant growth in upper-class wealth took place, intensifying social stratification. Such wealth encouraged Kongo to become increasingly involved in the slave trade. In the 16th century, Kongo began to export nominally free people as well as slaves to the Americas, specifically to Brazil. Although Kongo continued to be an independent power through the 18th century, new factors began undercutting its autonomy. In the 1570s, the Portuguese set up a colony along the coast, opposite Luanda Island, which dominated the production and supply of nzimbu shells (used as currency). Portuguese merchants also set up regular trade relations with local kingdoms to the south, drawing them away from the sphere of Kongo influence. The Atlantic trade also began to attract other European merchants to the coast by the late 1500s, most notably the Dutch. In the 1630s and the 1640s, Dutch traders offered new direct outlets for goods from the Lower Congo region. These new routes cut the Kongo kingdom off from lucrative trade connections in the interior. In 1665, Dutch forces and their African allies defeated a Kongolese expedition at the Battle of Mbwila. The kingdom then entered a period of civil war as powerful factions sought to install their own candidates as king. Having lost most of its power by the early 18th century, the Kingdom of Kongo existed largely in name only. By the 16th century, European mercantile companies started to establish permanent trading posts along the West, Central and Southern African coasts. Until the partition of Africa in the 19th century, most European involvement in African affairs remained confined to these coastal regions and relied heavily on African middlemen and collaborators. Even African nations such as Mali and Kongo that bore the brunt of European occupation prior to the 1800s were transformed rather than outright destroyed by the new power dynamics brought about by overseas trade. When European powers annexed these regions into their colonial empires during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many pre-1800 institutions continued to exist, albeit under a different jurisdiction and with a different kind of sovereignty. The arrival of the Europeans in the New World led not only to the exchange of crops and commodities but also the imposition of European economics, habits and values on indigenous populations. Enslaved Africans were also imported to many regions of the Americas, which led to the creation of creole cultures. Whereas Spain created colonial societies on the ruins of the Aztec (1428--1521) and Maya Empires (1511--1697), Portuguese settlers moved into areas that comprise much of modern-day Brazil. Profiting from forced labor, both Portugal and Spain shipped large quantities of gold and silver back to Europe. Exposure to diseases brought from Europe, coupled with overwork in the encomienda system, caused massive population declines among indigenous peoples over the course of the 16th and 17th centuries. In North America, European exploration led to the establishment of settler colonialism, the appropriation of Native American/First Nations lands and eventually, the decimation, marginalization and displacement of Native Americans. During the colonial period (from the early 17th century until the formation of the United States), Spain, France, England, the Netherlands and Russia sent out expeditions to claim North American territory. ENCOMIENDA SYSTEM The arrival of the Europeans in the New World resulted in an exchange of goods, ideas and people that scholars later dubbed the "Columbian Exchange." Beginning in the 16th century, Spanish conquistadores expanded into the Caribbean, Mexico and Peru. Following conquest, colonial officials incorporated these areas into the Spanish Empire. Spanish soldiers, priests and administrators forced Iberian Catholic economic institutions, habits and values upon indigenous people. During this time, crown lawyers legally defined the status of Native Americans within the empire to more effectively tax them. To help administer its New World territory, the Spanish crown entrusted conquistadores and other officials with grants of land and Native American slaves known as encomiendas (from the Spanish word encomendar -"to entrust"). The recipients of such grants, the encomederos, would in turn, collect tribute in the form of gold, kind, or forced labor from the Native Americans who lived on the allotted land. Spanish officials demanded that landholders provide military protection to their Native American laborers and make provisions to convert them to Catholicism. However, most encomideros claimed the land they occupied without fulfilling their obligations to either protect or convert their Indian slaves. Developed in part to support the needs of the early mining industry, the encomienda system allowed for the rapid development of areas like the San Luis Potosi silver mines in Bolivia. However, given the brutal human costs of mining and the exhaustion of many mines over the course of the 17th century, Spanish officials began to view the encomienda system as outdated. They instead promoted the hacienda system that resembled early modern European style feudalism. Under the terms of the hacienda system, landowners kept peasants in debt so that they could neither leave the land they were working on nor the landowner who owned the hacienda. Today Asia is generally divided into four different regions: Southeast Asia (mainland Southeast Asia and maritime Southeast Asia), South Asia (Indian subcontinent), East Asia (Far East), Central and West Asia (the Middle East and the Caucasus), and North Asia (Siberia). It shares the continental landmasses of Eurasia, Africa, and North and South America. It is bounded by the Pacific, Indian and Artic Oceans. Nomadic horsemen dominated steppe life, conquering large sections. Russian explorers and settlers began relocating to Asia in the 1600s, a process they would complete by the 19th century. During this same period, the Ottoman Empire expanded throughout Anatolia, the Balkans and Egypt. In the 17th century, the Manchu-led Qing dynasty (1644-1912) conquered China. The Islamic Mughal Empire (1526-1857) and the Hindu Maratha Empire (16th to early 19th century) likewise controlled much of India from the 16th to 18th century. Japan held sway over most of East Asia, parts of Southeast Asia and Oceania until 1945. Over the centuries, the term "Southeast Asia" has meant different things to different people. For instance, Chinese mapmakers referred to the coastal areas of Southeast Asia as Nanyang (literally "the Southern sea"). On the other hand, Arab explorers called the region Zīrbād or  Zīrbādāt ("land below the winds"). Geographers did not refer to Southeast Asia as a geographical and distinct political term until the midtwentieth century. Today experts refer to mainland Southeast Asia (also known as the Indochinese Peninsula), comprising Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Peninsular Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, under the general heading of Southeast Asia. Maritime Southeast Asia consists mainly of the Malay Archipelago, including Brunei, East Malaysia, East Timor, Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore. As in the case of Africa, European explorers, soldiers, merchants and missionaries who voyaged to Asia from the 1500s through the 1800s primarily dealt with coastal areas. For example, Portuguese merchants arrived in the region in the 1500s to dominate the spice trade. However, in the 17th century, the Dutch displaced the Portuguese by establishing trading relations with the Sultans of Java and Sumatra. By the 1800s the British East India Company dominated large sections of India and controlled Hong Kong on the south China coast and Penang and Singapore in Malaysia. Although the bulk of Spain's overseas colonies lay in Central and South America, Madrid still maintained a tight hold over the Philippines. However, unlike the Americas where Europeans quickly imposed their religious and cultural beliefs on native populations, in Southeast Asia Thais, Burmese, Vietnamese and other groups learned European economic techniques but continued to follow Theravada Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism and Islam. In sum, prior to 1500, European wielded little influence over Southeast Asia and even afterward were forced to limit such influence to the relatively small coastal areas. named Siddhartha Guatama taught a form of spiritual asceticism. Enshrined by his followers as the "Buddha" or enlightened one, his teachings became known as Buddhism. As the Buddha eschewed religious dogma and urged individuals to develop their own methods of meditating and praying, Buddhism flowered throughout Asia in a variety of contrasting styles and traditions. Today Tantric, Northern Mahāyāna, and Southern Hinayana Buddhism represent the three largest groups of Buddhists in the world. Native to Sri Lanka (Ceylon), Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, the Theravada school represents the most conservative branch of Buddhism. Theravadins (Pali; "Way of the Elders") enshrine the teachings of Buddha's followers, maintain a sharp division between monks and ordinary practitioners, and venerate the Buddha as not merely a spiritual leader but the perfect master. The Mahāyāna (Sanskrit for "Greater Vehicle") movement arose in India around the ninth century CE and spread rapidly through Central and East Asia. Central to Mahāyāna ideology is the idea of the bodhisattva, the one who seeks to become a Buddha. Mahāyāna Buddhists believe that everybody can aspire to become a bodhisattva. Bodhisattvas seek to understand the nature of reality through acquiring wisdom (prajna) and actualization through compassion (karuna). Providing an organized monastic movement and large scholastic centers, Mahāyāna Buddhism remains a very popular form of Buddhism. Mahāyāna accepts the primary scriptures and teachings of early Buddhism but also recognizes other texts that are not accepted by Theravada Buddhism, such as the Mahāyāna Sūtras, which emphasizes the history of bodhisattvas. Today cartographers regard China (including Hong Kong and Macau), Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea and Taiwan as part of East Asia. East Asia shares borders with Russia, Southeast Asia and Central Asia. For nearly 300 years, the Ming dynasty provided China with a relatively stable government and economy. The last Han Chinese dynasty to occupy the throne, the Ming came to power in 1368 after having ousted the Mongols, who had ruled China for nearly a century. Ming emperors promoted domestic agricultural production and tried to reduce dependency on foreign trade and merchants. Ming officials capitalized on American crops such as corn, squash, peanuts and beans introduced to Asia by European merchants to greatly increase Chinese crop yields. The Ming dynasty also established regular commercial exchanges with Japan. In the 1400s, Ming fleets led by Admiral Zheng He used sophisticated seamanship and maritime technology to reach Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Arabia and East Africa. Negative encounters with Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch trading enterprises and missionaries led Chinese officials to expel foreigners en masse and prohibit the teaching of western religion. Losing control of the country, the Ming dynasty would be replaced in 1644 by the Qing. The Qing dynasty would, in turn, govern China until 1912. Despite being heavily influenced by Chinese culture and politics, Japan developed its own political, cultural and economic traditions. Although nominally led by an emperor, Japan was actually ruled by daimyos (feudal lords) who competed to control the imperial government. Until the emergence of the Tokugawa dynasty (1603-1868), led by the former dynamo and eventual military dictator (shogun) Tokugawa Ieyasu (1603-1868), Japan had been a fractured and violent state. Borrowing from Chinese precedents, Tokugawa and his successors expelled Christian missionaries and reduced their exposure to European trade and ideas. This isolation would last until the 19th century. Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The region is bounded by the Himalayan mountains to the north and the Indian Ocean in the south. When Europeans traders in the 1500s and 1600s first moved into the region, they faced opposition from the Mughal Empire that dominated Northern India. However, the decline of the Mughals in the 18th century provided an opening for the British Empire, which would eventually gain control over much of the region. This chapter has laid the essential groundwork for our investigation of world history. The following chapters will build upon this information by encouraging readers to broaden their horizons and confront the past from a multitude of perspectives. As we cover more than 500 years of history, we will see that while many aspects of the human experience have radically changed, other areas retain a high degree of continuity. When reading through this text, try to identify trends of continuity and change over time. The next three chapters deal with empires that governed vast lands in Europe, America, Asia, Eurasia and the Middle East. The following three chapters examine revolutions in science and religion, social and cultural revolutions that challenged and toppled existing political orders, and a technological revolution that changed the world. We then examine how various societies dealt with the challenges of modernity and outside encroachment. Our textbook concludes with an investigation of the 20th century and our modern world.