World History Since 1500: Ways of World - Study Guide | GHIST 102, Study notes of World History

Download World History Since 1500: Ways of World - Study Guide | GHIST 102 and more Study notes World History in PDF only on Docsity! Chapter 14 Outline I. Opening Vignette A. Around the end of the twentieth century, reactions to the empire building of the early modern period remain varied. 1. Uighur attempts to win independence from China 2. Native American protests against 500th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in America B. Early modern European colonies were massively significant. 1. Russians also constructed a major empire 2. Qing dynasty China doubled in size 3. Mughal Empire of India pulled together Hindus and Muslims 4. Ottoman Empire reestablished some of the older political unity of the Islamic heartland C. The empires of the early modern era show a new stage in globalization. II. European Empires in the Americas A. Western European empires were marked by maritime expansion. 1. Spaniards in Caribbean, then on to Aztec and Inca empires 2. Portuguese in Brazil 3. British, French, and Dutch colonies in North America 4. Europeans controlled most of the Americas by the mid-nineteenth century B. The European Advantage 1. geography: European Atlantic states were well positioned for involvement in the Americas 2. need: Chinese and Indians had such rich markets in the Indian Ocean that there wasn’t much incentive to go beyond 3. marginality: Europeans were aware of their marginal position in Eurasian commerce and wanted to change it 4. rivalry: interstate rivalry drove rulers to compete 5. merchants: growing merchant class wanted direct access to Asian wealth 6. wealth and status: colonies were an opportunity for impoverished nobles and commoners 7. religion: a. crusading zeal b. persecuted minorities looking for more freedom 8. European states and trading companies mobilized resources well a. seafaring technology b. iron, gunpowder weapons, and horses gave Europeans an initial advantage over people in the Americas 9. Rivalries within the Americas provided allies for European invaders C. The Great Dying—the demographic collapse of Native American societies 1. pre-Columbian Western Hemisphere had a population of perhaps 60 million–80 million 2. no immunity to Old World diseases 3. Europeans brought European and African diseases a. mortality rate of up to 90 percent among Native American populations b. native population nearly vanished in the Caribbean c. Central Mexico : population dropped from 10 million–20 million to around 1 million by 1650 d. similar mortality in North America D. The Columbian Exchange 1. massive native mortality created a labor shortage in the Americas 2. migrant Europeans and African slaves created entirely new societies 3. American food crops (e.g., corn, potatoes, and cassava) spread widely in the Eastern Hemisphere a. potatoes especially allowed enormous population growth b. corn and sweet potatoes were important in China and Africa 4. exchange with the Americas reshaped the world economy a. importation of millions of African slaves to the Americas b. new and lasting link among Africa, Europe, and the Americas 5. network of communication, migration, trade, transfer of plants and animals (including microbes) is called “the Columbian exchange” a. the Atlantic world connected four continents b. Western Europeans got most of the rewards III. Comparing Colonial Societies in the Americas A. Europeans did not just conquer and govern established societies: they created wholly new societies. 1. all were shaped by mercantilism—theory that governments should encourage exports and accumulate bullion to serve their countries 2. colonies should provide closed markets for the mother country’s manufactured goods 3. but colonies differed widely, depending on native cultures and the sorts of economy that were established 4. mercantilist thinking thus fueled the European wars and colonial rivalries around the world in the early modern era B. In the Lands of the Aztecs and the Incas 1. Spanish conquest of the Aztec and Inca empires (early sixteenth century) a. the most wealthy, urbanized, and populous regions of the Western Hemisphere b. within a century, the Spaniards established major cities, universities, and a religious and bureaucratic infrastructure 2. economic basis of the colonial society was commercial agriculture and mining (gold and silver) 3. rise of a distinctive social order a. replicated some of the Spanish class hierarchy b. accommodated Indians, Africans, and racially mixed people c. Spaniards were at the top, increasingly wanted a large measure of self-government from the Spanish Crown d. emergence of mestizo (mixed-race) population e. gross abuse and exploitation of the Indians f. more racial fluidity than in North America C. Colonies of Sugar 1. lowland Brazil and the Caribbean developed a different society a. regions had not been home to great civilizations and didn’t have great mineral wealth until the 1690s b. but sugar was in high demand in Europe c. these colonies produced almost solely for export 2. Arabs introduced large-scale sugar production to the Mediterranean a. Europeans transferred it to Atlantic islands and Americas b. Portuguese on Brazilian coast dominated the world sugar market 1570–1670 c. then British, French, and Dutch in the Caribbean broke the Portuguese monopoly 3. sugar transformed Brazil and the Caribbean a. production was labor intensive, worked best on large scale b. can be called the first modern industry c. had always been produced with massive use of slave labor d. Indians of the area were almost totally wiped out or fled e. planters turned to African slaves—at least 80 percent of all African captives enslaved in the Americas ended up in Brazil and the Caribbean 4. much more of Brazilian and Caribbean society was of African descent 5. large mixed-race population provided much of urban skilled workforce and supervisors in sugar industry