Empires of the Early Modern Era

The Emergence of a New World Order

1450-1750

Agenda

Mongol Essay wrap-up

Aztec vs Inca Essay?

European Empires discussion

Learning Targets

Explain what’s new about the empires of the modern era.

Explain the forces of change in Europe that are driving the new empires.

Compare the nature of European colonies around the world.

A Short History of Empire

Why do empires exist?

Compare the different styles of empire building:

Collected city-states (Greece and Mesopotamia and Maya)

Live and let live (Persia and Rome)

Full Assimilation (Islam(sorta), China)

What’s new about these empires?

Overseas colonies

Gunpowder

New religious and cultural conflicts within empires

New motivations for empire building

The New European Empires

Why Europe?

Predictable Atlantic wind patterns made seafaring travel pretty easy

Motivation

Intense and age-old rivalries

Wanted to bypass the Ottoman Empire when trading

Desire for wealth and technology

The Renaissance

Inferiority complex

The Protestant Reformation

What helped the Europeans?

New seafaring technology Faster boats, better navigation, more guns

Organization The dominance of the merchant class

Social mobility

Divisions within American groups

Guns, germs, horses, and steel

Diseases Plague, smallpox, etc.

Early Explorations

1. Islam & the Spice Trade Malacca

2. A New Player Europe

Nicolo, Maffeo, & Marco Polo, 1271

Expansion becomes a state enterprise monarchs had the authority & the resources.

Better seaworthy ships.

3. Chinese Admiral Zheng He & the Ming “Treasure Fleet”

New Maritime Technology

Astrolabe

Mariners

Compass

Better

Maps

Sextant

New Weapons

Portuguese Exploration

1. Exploring the west coast of Africa.

2. Sponsored by Prince Henry “the Navigator”

3. Bartolomeo Dias, 1487.

4. Vasco da Gama, 1498.

Calicut.

5. Admiral Alfonso de Albuquerque (Goa, 1510; Malacca, 1511).

Other Voyages of Exploration

Ferdinand Magellan Circumnavigates the Globe (early 16thc)

Atlantic Explorations

The “Columbian Exchange” Squash Avocado Peppers Sweet Potatoes

Turkey Pumpkin Tobacco Quinine

Cocoa Pineapple Cassava POTATO

Peanut TOMATO Vanilla MAIZE

Syphilis

Olive COFFEE BEAN Banana Rice

Onion Turnip Honeybee Barley

Grape Peach SUGAR CANE Oats

Citrus Fruits Pear Wheat HORSE

Cattle Sheep Pigs Smallpox

Flu Typhus Measles Malaria

Diptheria Whooping Cough

Trinkets

Liquor

GUNS

Cycle of Conquest & Colonization

Explorers

OfficialEuropeanColony!

New Colonial Empires

It’s the European nations on the Atlantic coast

Portugal starts exploration

Spain competes for shortcuts to Asia

Britain and France try to catch up

The Netherlands gets in on this as well, just in a smaller way

Spain

What makes Spain Spain? Reconquista

New religious identity

New economic needs

What do they want?

Money

Power

Glory for God

Fernando Cortez

The First Spanish Conquests:The Aztecs

Montezuma II

vs.

Mexico Surrenders to Cortez

The Death of Montezuma II

Francisco Pizarro

The First Spanish Conquests:The Incas

Atahualpa

vs.

Treasuresfrom the Americas!

Administration of the Spanish Empire in the New World

1. Encomienda or forced labor.

2. Council of the Indies.

Viceroy.

New Spain and Peru.

3. Papal agreement.

The Colonial Class System

PeninsularesCreoles

Mestizos Mulattos

Native Indians Black Slaves

The Influence of the Colonial Catholic Church

Guadalajara Cathedral

Our Lady of Guadalupe

Spanish Mission

Portugal

Less of a religious motive than Spain

The “original” European explorers

Portugal’s motivation is almost exclusively financial

Focused mainly on the Indian Ocean, the colony in Brazil was an accident.

Slaves Working in a Brazilian Sugar Mill

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

The Slave Trade

1. Existed in Africa before the coming of the Europeans.

2. Portuguese replaced European slaves with Africans.

Sugar cane & sugar plantations.

First boatload of African slaves brought by the Spanish in 1518.

275,000 enslaved Africans exportedto other countries.

3. Between 16c & 19c, about 10 million Africans shipped to the Americas.

The Colonial difference.

While still Catholic and rather religious, missionaries had less support from the Portuguese crown, and less overall impact.

While Spain exploited the whole territory, the Portuguese presence was primarily coastal.

The Americas were the whole of the Spanish empire, while Portugal remained focused on its Asian interests.

France

Coming out of the Hundred Years’ War, the King of France was the most powerful monarch in Europe. Beat the British.

French kings had wrestled power away from the French nobility

French kings had even managed to check the power of the Pope “Other” schism

France

France began by looking for a northern passage to Asia.

Like Spain, the French believed in mercantilism Kings had total control over New France

Who could go

Economic control

Even religious restrictions

New France just had less than New Spain Mostly furs

England

England had just lost the Hundred Years’ War, and was giving up on the dream of conquering Europe itself

English kings were relatively weak Magna Carta (1215)

Parliament

More or less “pwned” by the Pope

The Protestant Reformation and its political turmoil created a greater degree of change in England than in other European empires (except the HRE)

English colonies

Jamestown (Virginia) Founded privately, with the crown’s permission

Filled by those leaving England in search of economic opportunity Small farmers

Plantations of cash crops

The Massachusetts Bay Colony Founded privately

Settled by Calvinist pilgrims seeking a new religious home Why does Calvinism matter?

European Colonies

New Colonial Empires

New Colonial Rivalries

1494-Spain and Portugal both claim the new world for themselves.

Turn to the Pope to settle it

The treaty of Tordesillas divides the world

– Line of Demarcation

The Line of Demarcation

Territorial skirmishes

Competition causes England to fund “privateers” to raid Spanish Galleons leaving the Caribbean

Leads to a big fight between the English navy and the Spanish Armada

Over the 16th and 17th centuries, rivals stole some Spanish holdings

England- Jamaica, Guyana, Bahamas, VI

France- Haiti, Fr. Guiana

Netherlands- Suriname

The Seven Years’ War

1756- Rivalries between England and France blow up.

They fight in India, Africa, the Caribbean, and here.

For 7 years, British troops, colonists, and Indian allies fight against French troops, colonists, and their Indian allies.

1763- Treaty of Paris

Grants France benefits in Europe and Africa

Grants England India, Canada, and the northwest territory.