Period 4 Key Concept Review
Technological innovations helped to make transoceanic connections possible.
What allowed for the change in the trade patterns?
Afro-Eurasian domesticated animals such as horses, pigs or cattle were brought by Europeans to the Americas.
What animals were transferred across the Atlantic as part of the Columbian Exchange?
The unintentional transfer of vermin, including mosquitoes or rats.
What unintentional vermin entered the Americas as a result of the Columbian Exchange?
Imperial expansion relied on the increased use of gunpowder, cannons and armed trade to establish large empires in both hemispheres.
What was the relationship between imperial expansion and military technology?
Resulted in the construction of a global trading-post empire
What was the result of the increase in travel and trade between Portugal and Africa?
Restructured new ethnic, racial and gender hierarchies.
What was the result of the new political and social elite changes?
European merchants' role in Asian trade was characterized mostly by transporting goods from one Asian country to another market in Asia or the Indian Ocean region.
Describe European merchants overall role in world trade c. 1450-1750.
The interconnection of the Eastern and Western Hemispheres made possible by transoceanic voyaging marked a key transformation of this period. Changing patterns of long-distance trade included the global circulation of some commodities and the formation of new regional markets and financial centers.
Describe the degree of global 'interconnection' after 1500 CE compared to before 1500.
Europeans established new trading post empires in Africa and Asia which proved profitable for the rulers and merchants involved in new global trade networks, but also affected the power of states in interior West and Central Africa.
How did Europeans go about creating new global empires and trade networks?
Although the world's productive systems continued to be heavily centered on agricultural production throughout this period, major changes occurred in agricultural labor, the systems and locations of manufacturing, gender and social structures, and environmental processes.
How did agriculture's role change between 1450- 1750?
Around the world, empires and states of varying sizes pursued strategies of centralization, including more efficient taxation systems that placed strains on peasant producers, sometimes prompting local rebellions. Rulers used public displays of art and architecture to legitimize state power. African states shared certain characteristics with larger Eurasian empires. In the Americas, European empires moved more quickly to settlement and territorial control responding to local demographic and commercial conditions. In Africa and the greater Indian Ocean, nascent European empires consisted mainly of interconnected trading posts and enclaves.
How did empires attempt to administer the new widespread nature of their territories?
Adapting to the Little Ice Age, farmers increased agricultural productivity by introducing new crops and using new methods in crop and- field rotation.
How did farmers adapt to the Little Ice Age?
Traditional peasant agriculture increased and changed, plantations expanded, and demand for labor increased. These changes both fed and responded to growing global demand for raw materials and finished products.
How did labor systems develop between 1450- 1750?
Colonial economies in the Americas depended on a range of coerced labor such as chattel slavery, indentured servitude, encomienda and hacienda systems, or the Spanish adaptation of the Inca mit'a.
How did labor systems develop in the colonial Americas?
European states established new maritime empires in the Americas, including the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French and British.
How did new empires during this era compare to previous era's empires?
Rulers continued to use religious ideas, such as European notions of divine right, Safavid use of Shiism, Mexica or Aztec practice of human sacrifice, Songhay promotion of Islam, Chinese emperors' public performance of of Confucian rituals art, and monumental architecture such as Ottoman miniature painting, Qing imperial portraits, Mughal mausolea and mosques, such as the Taj Mahal European palaces, such as Versailles to legitimize their rule.
How did political rulers use religion, art, and architecture to legitimize and consolidate their rule?
Land empires expanded dramatically in size, including the Manchus, Mughals, Ottomans and Russians.
How did pre-existing land based empires during this era compare to previous era's empires?
The power of existing political and economic elites such as the zamindars in the Mughal Empire, nobility in Europe or daimyo in Japan fluctuated as they confronted new challenges to their ability to affect the policies of the increasingly powerful monarchs and leaders.
How did pre-existing political and economic elites react to these changes?
As funding increased, literacy expanded.
How did public literacy as well as literary forms of expression develop during this period?
Rulers used tribute collection and tax farming to generate revenue for territorial expansion.
How did rulers finance their territorial expansion?
Recruitment and use of bureaucratic elites, as well as the development of military professionals such as the Ottoman devshirme, Chinese examination system or salaried samurai, became more common among rulers who wanted to maintain centralized control over their populations and resources.
How did rulers make sure that their governments were well run?
European colonization and introduction of European agriculture and settlements practices in the Americas often affected the physical environment through deforestation and soil depletion.
How did settlers' action affect the Americas environmentally?
Slavery in Africa continued both the traditional incorporation of slaves into households and the export of slaves to the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean.
How did slavery within Africa compare to the pre- 1450 era?
As merchants' profits increased and governments collected more taxes, funding for the visual and performing arts.
How did the arts fare during this period?
In the context of the new global circulation of goods, there was an intensification of all existing regional trade networks that brought prosperity and economic disruption to the merchants and governments.
How did the global trade network after 1500 CE affect the pre-existing regional trade networks? (Indian Ocean, Mediterranean, trans-Saharan, Silk Routes)
Both imperial conquests and widening global economic opportunities contributed to the formation of new political and economic elites. such as the Manchus in China, Creole elites in Spanish America, European gentry or urban commercial entrepreneurs in all major port cities in the world
How did the post-1450 economic order restructure the social, economic, and political elites?
The increase in interactions between newly connected hemispheres and intensification of connections within hemispheres expanded the spread and reform of existing religions and created syncretic belief systems and practices.
How did the practice of religions develop in this era?
Peasant labor intensified in many regions such as the development of frontier settlements in Russian Siberia, cotton textile production in India or silk textile production in China.
How was peasant labor affected between 1450- 1750?
States treated different ethnic and religious groups in ways that both utilized their economic contributions while limiting their ability to challenge the authority of the state such as the Ottoman treatment of non-Muslim subjects, Manchu policies toward Chinese or the Spanish creation of a separate "República de Indios," Spanish and Portuguese creation of new racial classifications in the Americas including mestizo, mulatto, creole.
How were ethnic and religious minorities treated in various empires?
Some notable gender and family restructuring occurred including the demographic changes in Africa that resulted from the slave trades such as dependence of European men on Southeast Asian women for conducting trade in that region or the smaller size of European families.
How were gender and family structures affected to these changes?
Economic growth also depended on new forms of manufacturing and new commercial patterns, especially in long-distance trade.
On what did the economic growth depend?
Portuguese development of maritime technology and navigational skills led to increased travel to and trade with West Africa.
What allowed Portugal begin longer maritime voyages ca. 1430 CE?
The growth of the plantation economy increased the demand for slaves in the Americas.
What caused the Atlantic slave trade to expand so dramatically?
Spanish sponsorship of the first Columbian and subsequent voyages across the Atlantic and Pacific dramatically increased European interest in transoceanic travel and trade.
What effect did Columbus' travels have on Europeans?
The Columbian Exchange led to new ways of humans interacting with their environments. New forms of coerced and semi-coerced labor emerged in Europe, Africa, and the Americas, and affected ethnic and racial classifications and gender roles.
What effect did the Columbian exchange have on labor organization?
Populations in Afro-Eurasia benefitted nutritionally from the increased diversity of American food crops.
What effects did American food crops have on the diet of Afro-Eurasians?
American foods such as potatoes, maize or manioc became staple crops in various parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Cash crops such as sugar or tobacco.
What foods were transferred to new geographic regions as part of the Columbian Exchange?
The political rivalry between the Ottomans and Safavids intensified the split between Sunni and Shi'a.
What intensified the division within the Islamic religion?
Crops were grown primarily on plantations with coerced labor and were exported mostly to Europe and the Middle East in this period.
What labor systems made the transfer possible?
The new global circulation of goods was facilitated by royal chartered European monopoly companies who took silver from Spanish colonies in the Americas to purchase Asian goods for the Atlantic markets
What new financial and monetary means made new scale(s) of trade possible?
Influenced by mercantilism, joint-stock companies were new methods used by European rulers to control their domestic and colonial economies and by European merchants to compete against each other in global trade.
What new mercantilist financial means developed to facilitate global trade?
Vodun developed in Caribbean in the context of interactions between Christianity and African religions; Sikhism developed in South Asia in the context of interactions between Hinduism and Islam
What new syncretic religions formed with the increased global connectedness?
Competition over trade routes such as Omani-European rivalry in the Indian Ocean and piracy in the Caribbean, state rivalries such as the Thirty Years War or the Ottoman-Safavid conflict, and local resistance such as food riots, Samurai revolts, and peasant uprisings all provided significant challenges to state consolidation and expansion.
What obstacles to empire building did empires confront, and how did they respond to these challenges?
Northern Atlantic crossings for fishing and settlements continued and spurred European searches for multiple routes to Asia.
What originally motivated Europeans to travel across the northern Atlantic?
Afro-Eurasian fruit trees, grains, sugar, and were brought by Europeans to the Americas while other foods such as okra or rice were brought by African slaves.
What plants were transferred across the Atlantic as part of the Columbian Exchange?
regional markets continued to flourish in Afro-Eurasia using established commercial practices and new transoceanic shipping services developed by European merchants.
What previously established scale(s) of trade continued?
Empires expanded and conquered new peoples around the world, but they often had difficulties incorporating culturally, ethnically and religiously diverse subjects and administrating widely dispersed territories.
What problems did empires face as they expanded their territorial control?
Commercialization and the creation of a global economy were intimately connected to new global circulation of silver from the Americas.
What role did silver play in facilitating a truly global scale of trade?
European technological developments in cartography and navigation included the production of new tools, innovations in ship designs (such as caravels, carrack, fluyt) and an improved understanding of global wind and currents patterns, all of which made transoceanic travel and trade possible.
What technical developments made transoceanic European travel and trade possible?
Political and economic centers within regions shifted, and merchants' social status tended to rise in various states. Demographic growth- even in areas such as the Americas, where disease had ravaged the population-was restored by the 18th century and surged in many regions, especially with the introduction of American food crops throughout the Eastern Hemisphere.
What were the changes to gender and social organizations?
The Atlantic system involved the movement of goods, wealth, and free and unfree laborers, and the mixing of African, American and European cultures and peoples.
What were the economic and social effects of the Atlantic trading system?
Changes in African and global trading patterns strengthened some West and Central African states—especially on the coast, led to the rise of new states and contributed to the decline of states on both the coast and in the interior.
What were the effects of the global trading patterns on West and Central Africa?
Increased transregional and global trade networks facilitated the spread of religion and other elements of culture as well as the migration of large numbers of people. Germs carried to the Americas ravaged the indigenous peoples, while the global exchange of crops and animals altered agriculture, diets and populations around the planet
What were the overall effects of this change in global interconnectedness?
European colonization of the Americas led to the spread of diseases including smallpox, measles and influenza that were endemic in the Eastern Hemisphere among Amerindian populations.
What were the unintentional biological effects of the Columbian Exchange?
Remarkable new transoceanic maritime reconnaissance occurred in this period.
What were the voyages between 1450-1750 CE?
The continuing importance of Sufi practices contributed to the further spread of Islam in Afro-Eurasia as believers adapted Islam to local cultural practices; the practice of Christianity continued to spread throughout the world and was increasingly diversified by the process of diffusion and the Reformation; While the practice of Buddhism declined in South Asia and island Southeast Asia, different sects of Buddhism and Buddhist practices spread in Northeast Asia and mainland Southeast Asia.)
Where did the "universal" religions of Buddhism, Christianity & Islam spread?
Originally developed in the classical, Islamic and Asian worlds.
Where did those developments originate?
