1450-1750

The Early Modern Era

The Europeans Begin To Catch Up

• Recovery from the calamitous 14th century• Technology received from Muslims, Asia• European access to and knowledge of

metallurgy• European desire for Eastern products

The Military Revolution

• Gunpowder introduced during early 1400s• New weaponry required greater training:• Close order drill, leading to• Professional, permanent armies, requiring• Taxation by the new nation-states• Bureaucracies to collect and spend taxes• Centralized, powerful governments

European sea exploration

• 1300s: Clinker type ships replaced by Caravel types

• Compass, astrolabe introduced to Europe by Arabs, originally Chinese inventions

• 1400s: Cannon added to ships

European Competition

• Economic: European capitalism intensely competitive

• Political: Many European nation-states (China, India, Ottomans unified empires)

• Social/Ideological: Christianity (Catholic and Protestant) encouraged competition. European nuclear family did also

• Spain and Portugal first European nations to explore (aftereffect of Reconquista)

• Portugal reaches Cape of Good Hope, then India by 1498.

• Spain makes 1492 “discovery” of America• Line of Demarcation divides world

between Spain and Portugal, gives Brazil to Portugal.

• Northern European nations outstripped Spain and Portugal by late 1500s due to development of narrow-beamed ships, which were more seaworthy than the broad-beamed ships used by the Spanish and Portuguese.

• Joint stock companies formed to finance exploration, colonization: Dutch East Indian Company, British East India Company

Mercantilism

• Mercantile Capitalism encouraged colonization.

• Countries practicing mercantilism wished to limit imports, increase exports

• Colonies were needed as sources of raw materials, markets for finished goods

• Colonies were to be exploited to enrich the mother country

Columbian Exchange

• Exchange of peoples, plants, animals, and diseases between Old and New Worlds after 1492

• Corn and Potatoes enrich European diets, lead to population growth

• European diseases create Native American holocaust

• European animals (horses, cows) brought to Americas (see chart in packet)

Europe 1450-1750

• Renaissance, Scientific Revolution lead to new interest in world and exploration

• American gold and silver leads to Price Revolution (inflation) and instability.

• Protestant Reformation led by Luther and Calvin splits Christianity, increases competition among Europeans

Spain

• Enriched by American gold and silver Century of Gold 1550-1650

• Absolute Monarchy, strongly Catholic• Conflict with Netherlands and England • Declined due to inflation, wars, lack of

middle class

Holland

• Gained independence from Spain• Officially Calvinist Protestant, but tolerant

of all religions• Wealthy banking and trade center• Migrations of persecuted religious

minorities from all over Europe

France

• 1500s Civil War between Catholics and Huguenots (Protestants)

• 1589 Henry IV issued Edict of Nantes guaranteeing Huguenot freedom of worship: Politique

• 1600s Cardinal Richelieu maintained Politique, intervened on side of Protestants in Thirty Years War

Louis XIV 1648-1715

The Sun KingVersailles PalaceWars to gain natural frontiers for FranceRevocation of Edict of Nantes and

persecution of HuguenotsFrench power declined

England

1600s Stuart Kings try to establish Absolute Monarchy

1642-1649 English Civil War results in beheading of King Charles, end of Monarchy for 11 years

1688 Glorious Revolution established Parliamentary supremacy, parliamentary/constitutional monarchy

Enlightenment

• 1700s, begins in France. Philosophes like Voltaire call for use of reason, liberty, religious toleration, democratic government.

• Inspiration for American Revolution and subsequent revolutions

• Enlightened Despots were absolute monarchs who accepted some Enlightenment principles

Russia

• Landlocked, isolated after Mongol conquest

• Some trade with Europe under Tsars Ivan III and Ivan IV.

• Modernization and Westernization under Peter the Great 1682-1725 and Catherine the Great 1762-1796.

• Most Russians still serfs, Tsars absolute monarchs

Latin America

• Spanish and Portuguese conquests 1492-1550• Encomienda system encouraged exploitation of

Native Americans• Mining (Potosi) and plantation agriculture (sugar)

dominate economy• Silver in demand for trade with China• European diseases decimate Native Americans.

African slave trade provides forced labor

• Bartolome de las Casas vs Juan Gimes de Sepulveda debate on Native Americans

• Race based society: Peninsulares, creoles, mestizoes, mulattos, Native American and African slaves

Africa and the Slave Trade

• Africa a heterogeneous, multicultural area with many societies and empires.

• Mali under Mansa Musa (1300s) one of the strongest African states

• Europeans arrived in Africa in 1400s with Portuguese voyages down west coast

• Europeans saw Africans as equals until the “discovery” of the Americas caused demand for forced labor.

• Forest Kingdoms along West Coast were the source of most slaves taken to the Americas

• Due to tropical diseases (White Man’s Graveyard) most European slave traders did not go beyond the coast, but purchased slaves from local chieftains and leaders.

• Slaves taken to the Americas were part of the Triangle (Atlantic) trade between the Americas, Europe, and Africa. Manufactured goods,weapons,alcohol were traded for slaves.

• High mortality among slave population required constant supply of new slaves.

• North American British colonies only area where slaves had a natural increase in population.

• Slave trade continued until the 1800s, responsible for long term population decline in West Africa, importation of African customs, foods to the Americas

• European settlers began to colonize South Africa (temperate climate) in the 1500s. Portuguese, Dutch (Boers), and English.

The Gunpowder Empires

• Ottomans• Safavids• Mughals• Muslim (Safavids Shi’a Mughals and

Ottomans Sunni)• Weaker than Europeans, under pressure

from European trade

Ottomans

• Turkic tribe entered Middle East after Mongol collapse

• “conquest over commerce” more interested in military power than economic power

• 1453 captured Constantinople, ended Byzantine Empire. Eventually ruled Middle East, Southeastern Europe

• Janissaries: slave soldiers who led Ottoman armies

• Strongest Sultan: Suleiman the Magnificent (the Lawgiver) died 1566

• 1571 Battle of Lepanto marks beginning of Ottoman decline

• Ottoman Empire lasted until World War I

Safavids

• Dominated Iran• Less market-oriented than Ottomans,

women less restricted.• Defeat by Ottomans at the Battle of

Chaldiran 1514 blocked Safavid, Shi’a expansion

• Greatest ruler Shah Abbas I• Safavids in decline under European

economic pressure by 1700s

Mughals

• Descendants of Mongols, began to conquer India under Shah Babur the Tiger

• Greatest ruler: Akbar the Great, who created the Din-i-Illahi as a universal religion

• Mughals came under increasing European (British) influence in 1700s.

Asia 1450-1750

• Asia home of well organized, prosperous societies Europeans were at first unable to penetrate, dominate as they were the Americas.

• Portuguese first Europeans to sail to Asia, followed by Spanish, Dutch, French, English

• Missionaries as well as merchants spread European influence

Ming Dynasty China 1368-1644

• Drove out Mongols• Native Chinese dynasty• Sent out 7 voyages under Admiral Zheng He

before banning overseas travel and trade in 1431

• Experienced great prosperity, Commercial Revolution, new foods through Columbian Exchange. Continued to trade with Europeans (regulated by Chinese government)

• 1640s: intensification of the Little Ice Age creates problems throughout Northern Hemisphere: English Civil War, Thirty Years War, and weakness for Ming Dynasty.

• 1644: Ming overthrown by Manchu invaders, who establish the Qing Dynasty

Japan

• 1400s-1500s period of Civil War. Europeans began arriving 1543 (nanbanjin) .

• European missionaries introduce Christianity which is very attractive to Japanese (Francis Xavier)

• European traders create thriving trade. Japanese curious and interested in West.

• 1598: Japan unified under Tokugawa Ieyasu, who established Tokugawa Shogunate.

• Suspicious of Europeans, who were limited to Dutch access to Nagasaki by early 1600s.

• Christianity persecuted, banned• Japan begins period of national seclusion until

1868. Urbanization, Confucian influence