2. Economic and political effects of
global commerce
• Transoceanic trade affected mercantile
groups as well as nations, their rulers, and
their people
• Increasing economic ties drew more
markets into global trade
3. Economic and political effects of
global commerce
• Economic integration weakened some
rulers while strengthening others
• Interruptions of trade could destabilize
economies and political systems
4. Economic and political effects of
global commerce
• Extracting wealth: Mercantilism
– Lucrative mining ventures in Spanish and
Portuguese New World colonies led other
European powers to seek similar
opportunities in the seventeenth century
5. Economic and political effects of
global commerce
• Extracting wealth: Mercantilism
– Latecomers did not find mineral wealth but
instead used the fertile land to raise cash
crops
• Crops included sugarcane, tobacco, indigo, and
rice
• Negotiated with Indians to establish a fur trade
6. Economic and political effects of
global commerce
• Extracting wealth: Mercantilism
– Sugar transformed the European diet
– These adventures in the Americas led
Europeans to create a new economic
philosophy—“mercantilism”
– Presumed the world’s wealth was fixed and that
one country’s wealth came at another’s expense
7. Economic and political effects of
global commerce
• Extracting wealth: Mercantilism
– These adventures in the Americas led
Europeans to create a new economic
philosophy—“mercantilism” (cont’d)
– Assumed that colonies existed to generate wealth
for the motherland
– Colonies were forbidden to trade with the
motherland’s competitors
8. New colonies in the Americas
• Holland’s trading colonies
– In 1621, formed the Dutch West India
Company to promote commerce in the
Atlantic Ocean and promote participation in
the slave trade
– The Dutch East India Company's colony on
the North American Hudson River initiated a
thriving fur trade with the Iroquois Indian
Confederation
9. New colonies in the Americas
• Holland’s trading colonies
– Never established an elaborate colonial
presence in the Americas, but were able to
profit from an extensive carrying trade across
the Atlantic Ocean
• Dutch were often referred to as “universal carriers”
10. New colonies in the Americas
• France’s fur-trading empire
– French explored the St. Lawrence River valley
and the Great Lakes
– In the early seventeenth century, Samuel de
Champlain founded the colony of New France
in the St. Lawrence River valley
• With relatively few settlers, they established a
thriving fur trade with Native Americans
11. New colonies in the Americas
• France’s fur-trading empire
– French dependent on Indians for knowledge,
promoted a cultural sharing
– This cooperative, not conquering, form of
colonization was unique
12. New colonies in the Americas
• England’s landed empire
– Unlike the French, England’s colonists
established expansive agrarian settlements
along the Atlantic seaboard of North America
• Relations with Indians more confrontational
– Protestant dissenters colonized New England
• Fought brutal wars with Indians in the 1630s and
1670s
13. New colonies in the Americas
• England’s landed empire
– Farther south, the Virginia Company fostered
the growth of a tobacco colony in the
Chesapeake Bay
• English settlers battled and ultimately displaced
Indians for most of the century
– Colonizing style based on land ownership
14. New colonies in the Americas
• The plantation complex in the Caribbean
– The Portuguese sugarcane plantation model
was extended into the English and French
possessions in the Caribbean
– Because of the earlier decimation of the
Indian population, African slaves made up the
vast majority of the islands' population
15. New colonies in the Americas
• The plantation complex in the Caribbean
– Sugar was a “killing” crop
• It flourished in hot and humid climates that fostered
diseases to which even Africans had no natural
immunities
• European plantation owners rarely lived on their
plantations, leaving managers to run them
– Managers tended to work slaves to death
16. New colonies in the Americas
• The plantation complex in the Caribbean
– Sugar was a “killing” crop (cont’d)
– Sugar production included planting, harvesting, and
manufacturing
– Rarely were slaves afforded proper housing and nutrition
– The average life expectancy for a slave who survived the
Atlantic passage was three years
17. New colonies in the Americas
• The plantation complex in the Caribbean
– Sugar was a “killing” crop (cont’d)
• Slaves resisted as they could
– Few incidents of armed insurrection
– More common form of resistance was flight
» Slaves founded sanctuary “maroon” communities in
the island highlands
– Most common form of resistance was subterfuge in daily
work
18. New colonies in the Americas
• The plantation complex in the Caribbean
– Sugar was a “killing” crop (cont’d)
• No single colonial power dominated the Caribbean
plantation complex
– The wealthiest colony was the French Saint-Domingue
20. The slave trade and Africa
• During the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, two Africans for one European
migrated to the Americas
– Depopulated and destabilized much of Africa
• Capturing and shipping slaves
– Europeans grafted onto an existing slave
system
– Roughly 12 million slaves were shipped to
Atlantic ports from the 1440s to 1867
22. The slave trade and Africa
• Capturing and shipping slaves
– African-controlled commercial networks
responsible for the capture and transportation
of slaves to the African coastal entrepôts
• In the Bight of Biafra, European slavers employed
the traditional African practice of “pawnship”
– A trader's pawns (often family members) were held until
the promised delivery of slaves was secured
– If deal not completed, pawns were sold into slavery as a
replacement
– These deals were enforced by a secret male society
called "Ekpe"
23. The slave trade and Africa
• Capturing and shipping slaves
– Slaves were treated horribly
• Most died before leaving Africa
– Left for long periods in filthy holding camps
– Held in port, on slave vessels, for extended periods
• Slavery’s gender imbalance
– Gender-ratio imbalances seen in Africa and
the Americas
• European traders preferred males, and African
sellers desired women as domestic workers
24. The slave trade and Africa
• Slavery’s gender imbalance
– Gender imbalance in the New World meant
little reproduction and a need for continued
slave purchases to increase labor force
– Polygyny reinforced in Africa because of
gender-ratio imbalance
– Dahomean women asserted more power and
authority because of their numbers
• Queen mother, or kpojito, was one of the most
powerful political forces in Dahomean court
25. The slave trade and Africa
• Africa’s new slave-supplying polities
– African slavery practices led to changes
• Centralized polities
• Shifted control of wealth from families with large
herds or land to families of urban slavers
– The Kongo Kingdom
• Feuding to control the slave trade resulted in a
century of civil war after 1665
• Key to success was the presence of firearms and
gunpowder
26. The slave trade and Africa
• Africa’s new slave-supplying polities
– The Kongo Kingdom (cont’d)
• Some leaders resisted European presence and
demand for slaves
– Queen Nzinga held off Portuguese with diplomacy as
well as guerilla warfare
– Christian visionary Dona Beatriz Kimpa tried to end the
civil wars and reunify the kingdom
27. The slave trade and Africa
• Africa’s new slave-supplying polities
– Oyo, Asante, and other groups
• Slave trade helped some merchants and warlords
to consolidate and extend political power
• Certain mercantile groups in central and West
Africa grew wealthier, especially the Asante
– Asante state displaced local political organizations
– Long-distance trade networks fostered the growth of
strong state systems
– Access to gold allowed them to acquire firearms
28. The slave trade and Africa
• Africa’s new slave-supplying polities
– Oyo, Asante, and other groups (cont’d)
• Oyo Empire gained power through its army
– Linked commercial networks in tropical rain forests to the
savanna areas to the north in West Africa
– Although the slave trade enriched and
empowered some Africans, it cost Africa
dearly
• The Atlantic commercial system shifted wealth
from the countryside to urban areas
• Many areas suffered severe population loss
29. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• Europeans not as dominant in Asian trade
networks; yet by 1750 parts of Asia were
beginning to feel the power of the growing
European military and economy
• The Dutch in Southeast Asia
30. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• The Dutch in Southeast Asia
- Chartered the Dutch East India Company
(VOC) in 1602 to challenge the Portuguese
and Spanish influence in the Indian Ocean
system
• Because of Amsterdam’s financial strength, the
VOC was able to raise more capital than any of its
European competitors
31. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• The Dutch in Southeast Asia
• VOC goal was to achieve trade monopolies
- In the 1620s, seized the Javanese city of Jakarta
(renamed Batavia) and the nutmeg-producing islands
known as Banda to monopolize the nutmeg trade
- Capture the cities of Melaka and Banten in an effort to
control the entire spice trade in Southeast Asia
- Chinese and English merchants continued to compete
with the VOC, so it never achieved the monopoly it
sought
32. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• The Dutch in Southeast Asia
• Since there was no demand for European
products, the VOC became involved in inter-Asian
trade such as sending textiles from India or
copper from Japan to markets in Southeast Asia
• Old cosmopolitan Asian cities were eclipsed by
new European outposts
33. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• Transformations in Islam
- The Safavid Empire
• Foundered in the eighteenth century for several
reasons
- Weak rulers allowed chaos to emerge
- Afghan warriors attacked and invaded the empire
34. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• Transformations in Islam
- The Ottoman Empire
• Slowing of territorial expansion in the seventeenth
century concerned intellectuals who believed the
empire was in decline
• A succession of weak rulers created a sense of
crisis
35. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• Transformations in Islam
- The Ottoman Empire (cont’d)
• The inflow of American silver into Ottoman
commercial networks destabilized the empire
- Merchants increasingly defied commercial regulations
and traded commodities such as wheat, copper, and
wool to Europeans for silver
- Trade in silver reduced the amount of goods available in
the Ottoman Empire
37. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• Transformations in Islam
- The Ottoman Empire (cont’d)
- Trade in silver reduced the amount of goods available in
the Ottoman Empire
- Illegal trade did not enrich the imperial coffers; the
government resorted to deficit spending
- Deficits, shortages, and the inflow of silver sparked
inflation
Breakaway regimes emerged
38. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• Transformations in Islam
- The Mamluks in Ottoman Egypt
• Biggest threat to Ottoman Empire was from the
Mamluks in Egypt
• Egypt wealthiest region of empire
• Mamluks were military men who had ruled Egypt
for Ottomans, gained great strength
39. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• Transformations in Islam
- The Ottoman's Koprulu reforms
• Financial reforms
• Instigated by the Koprulu family, who controlled
the office of grand vizier
• Arrested financial difficulties in the middle of the
seventeenth century
40. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• Transformations in Islam
- The Ottoman's Koprulu reforms (cont’d)
• Led to renewed zeal against European Christians,
threatened central Europe
- By the end of the seventeenth century, the Ottomans
had lost Hungary and talk of decline began again
41. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• Transformations in Islam
- The Mughal Empire
• Continued to expand its territory in the Indian
subcontinent
• By the end of the seventeenth century, the
dynasty found it increasingly difficult to rule
effectively over such a large and diverse realm
42. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• Transformations in Islam
- The Mughal Empire (cont’d)
• Encouraged foreign commerce, but never opted
to become a naval power or expand its territory
overseas
- In the seventeenth century, the empire prospered as
European demand for Indian products, especially cotton
textiles, increased dramatically
- Imported silver fueled economic growth
43. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• Transformations in Islam
- Local autonomy in Mughal India
• Under Aurangzeb (1658–1707), the Mughals
fought to expand their territory in southern India,
which drained the treasury
- Faced fierce resistance
- Aurangzeb raised taxes and imposed additional taxes
on non-Muslims
44. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• Transformations in Islam
- Local autonomy in Mughal India (cont’d)
• After Aurangzeb’s death a war of succession
broke out
- Widespread revolts against central authority
- Many regions achieved their independence or
autonomy
45. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• Transformations in Islam
- Local autonomy in Mughal India (cont’d)
• Private commercial enterprise
- Local rulers welcomed European traders
- The trading and banking empire Jagat Seth showed
how local wealth undercut imperial authority
- On local levels India prospered and traded in the
international economy
46. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• From Ming to Qing in China
- Increased prosperity led to the splintering of
central control in Ming China during the
seventeenth century
• Merchants defied commercial regulations, robbing
the government of the profits of long-distance
trade
48. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• From Ming to Qing in China
- Administrative problems
• Quality of Ming leadership declined in the
sixteenth century
• Zhu Yijun, the Wanli emperor (1573–1620),
avoided governing for years
• He and other emperors had little impact on the
vast bureaucracy
49. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• From Ming to Qing in China
- Economic problems
• Pirates, officially labeled Japanese but quite often
Chinese, constantly raided coastal ports
• Silver caused numerous problems
- In times of influx, it caused inflation
- In times of shortages, peasants scrambled to acquire
silver to pay their taxes; this dislocation often led to
revolts
50. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• From Ming to Qing in China
- Economic problems (cont’d)
- An overall silver shortage in the 1630s and 1640s led to
an economic slowdown and, correspondingly, to higher
taxes
- The collapse of Ming authority
• Economic problems hamstrung the government’s
ability to cope with natural disasters and food
shortages in the early sixteenth century
51. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• From Ming to Qing in China
- The collapse of Ming authority (cont’d)
• Several formidable rebellions appeared
- One led by Li Zicheng captured Beijing and ended the
Ming dynasty in 1644
- The Qing dynasty asserts control
• Beneficiaries of the Ming collapse were the
Manchu
52. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• From Ming to Qing in China
- The Qing dynasty asserts control (cont’d)
• The Manchu formed the Qing (Pure) dynasty
• By the end of the seventeenth century, it had
begun an impressive economic and territorial
expansion
53. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• From Ming to Qing in China
- The Qing dynasty asserts control (cont’d)
• Flexibility and respect for local traditions allowed
for early success
- The Qing continued to rule under Confucian principles
- Newly acquired territories in Tibet and Mongolia
retained their local administrative institutions
54. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• From Ming to Qing in China
- Expansion and trade under the Qing
• The Qing still carefully regulated long-distance
trade
- The Qing revival reinforced the Chinese
sense of cultural superiority
55. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• Tokugawa Japan
- Japan tended to deal with external pressures
better than its Asian counterparts
- Unification of Japan
• In the sixteenth century, Japan was racked by civil
war among various feudal warlords, or daimyo
57. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• Tokugawa Japan
- Unification of Japan (cont’d)
• At the end of the century, Toyotomi Hideyoshi
emerged as the most powerful warlord
• On Hideyoshi’s death, another daimyo, Tokugawa
Ieyasu, attained power
- In 1603, took the title of shogun (military ruler in the
emperor’s name) and passed it to his son
58. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• Tokugawa Japan
- Unification of Japan (cont’d)
• The Tokugawa moved the administrative capital
to Edo (modern-day Tokyo)
• Under Tokugawa, villages paid taxes to daimyo,
who transferred resources to the shogun
- Peace brought prosperity as farmers became more
productive and the government improved the
infrastructure
• Population doubled in the seventeenth century
59. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• Tokugawa Japan
- Foreign affairs and foreigners
• The Tokugawa banned Christianity and expelled
all missionaries
• The Tokugawa limited trade to Dutch merchants,
who were allowed to remain at a small island near
Nagasaki and unload just one ship per year
60. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• Tokugawa Japan
- Foreign affairs and foreigners (cont’d)
• The Tokugawa did not completely isolate Japan
- Trade flourished between China and Japan
- The shoguns gathered reports and publications from
Chinese and Dutch emissaries
- Much of the periphery of the empire escaped close
supervision
61. Asia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
• Tokugawa Japan
- Foreign affairs and foreigners (cont’d)
• The regime tried to create buffer zones between
Japan and other powers
- Ryūkyūs in the south
- Ezo in the north
• This carefully regulated interaction helped build
the dynasty by limiting domestic upheavals
brought on by greater contact, as in the cases of
Ming China and Mughal India
62. Transformations in Europe
• Expansion and dynastic change in Russia
– Russian Empire became the world's largest-
ever state
– Muscovy becomes the Russian Empire
• After 1480, the Muscovy state expanded rapidly
across north central and northeast Eurasia
• Expanded trade networks helped consolidate a
powerful political order
• Named Russian Empire by Peter the Great around
1700
64. Transformations in Europe
• Expansion and dynastic change in Russia
– Muscovy becomes the Russian Empire
(cont’d)
• Expansion into the steppes eliminated attacks from
descendants of the Mongols
• Trade enhanced government coffers
– Internal feuding plagued the regime in the
sixteenth century
65. Transformations in Europe
• Expansion and dynastic change in Russia
– In 1613, the crown passed to the Romanov
dynasty, which retained control into the
twentieth century
• Absolutist government and serfdom
– Romanovs centered as much power as
possible in their own hands
– Nobles forced to serve as bureaucrats
66. Transformations in Europe
• Absolutist government and serfdom
– Peasants became the serfs of nobles to
sustain the crown and the nobility’s wealth
• Imperial expansion and migration
– Three factors key to empire building
• Conquest of Siberia
• Incorporation of Ukraine
67. Transformations in Europe
• Imperial expansion and migration
– Three factors key to empire building (cont’d)
• Victory in war with Sweden
– Achieved by Peter the Great
– Followed Swedish-style bureaucracy
– After rule of Peter the Great, Russia
continued to expand
68. Transformations in Europe
• Imperial expansion and migration
– Thousands of Russian natives immigrated into Siberia
in the eighteenth century, helping Russia consolidate
an empire that stretched from the Baltic to the Pacific
• Economic and political fluctuations in western
Europe
– Economy of Europe continued to grow, but it was
affected by developments throughout the world and
the Thirty Years’ War.
69. Transformations in Europe
• Economic and political fluctuations in Western
Europe
– The Thirty Years’ War
• War between Protestant princes and the Habsburg Catholic
emperor for religious predominance in central Europe
• Struggle for continental control between Catholic powers,
namely the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs and the French
• Dutch sought independence from Spain so they could trade
and worship as they liked
70. Transformations in Europe
• Economic and political fluctuations in
Western Europe
– The Thirty Years’ War
• Cost was the lives of civilians and mercenary
soldiers
• Ended with the Treaty of Westphalia signed in
1648
• Transformed war making in Europe
– Enhanced the powers of larger, centralized states
71. Transformations in Europe
• Economic and political fluctuations in
Western Europe
– The Thirty Years’ War (cont’d)
– Army became more professional
– Weapons more standardized and efficient
– War cost more and led to public debt
• Western European economies
– Financing wars depended on taxing peasants
72. Transformations in Europe
• Western European economies
– Commercial expansion led to rising merchant
class willing to invest in new endeavors
– Some countries, such as Spain, lost ground
because of rising military costs
– Dutch mercantile class used advantages in
shipbuilding and financial practices to prosper
73. Transformations in Europe
• Western European economies
– England and France emerged as commercial
powerhouses in the seventeenth century
• State set policies that promoted national business
and drove out competition
– Navigation acts
74. Transformations in Europe
• Western European economies
– Economic development not limited to port
towns
• Reforms and improvements in agriculture spurred
food production
• England’s agriculture became more commercial
with “enclosure movement”
75. Transformations in Europe
• Dynastic monarchies: France and England
– European monarchs tried to centralize
authority during the seventeenth century
– The French Bourbon dynasty strived toward
“absolute” rule, where the kings answered
only to God
• Versailles symbolized their goal, as it served as a
place where the nobility came to seek the benefits
from the king and where the king could thus keep
watch over the nobility
76. Transformations in Europe
• Dynastic monarchies: France and England
– The French Bourbon dynasty strived toward
“absolute” rule, where the kings answered
only to God (cont’d)
• Other dynasties—the Habsburgs and the
Romanovs, for example—tried to emulate the
Bourbons
• No dynasty achieved “absolute” power despite
their efforts
77. Transformations in Europe
• Dynastic monarchies: France and England
– England differed from France in that it allowed
women to rule in their own right
• Parliament remained important because monarchs
needed commoners to raise funds
78. Transformations in Europe
• Dynastic monarchies: France and England
– In England, the Stuart dynasty’s efforts to
achieve absolute power provoked civil war
with Parliament
• With the Glorious Revolution of 1688–1689, the
Stuart kings agreed to rule in conjunction with
Parliament, providing England’s nobility and
merchant classes a permanent voice in public
affairs
79. Transformations in Europe
• Dynastic monarchies: France and England
– These political struggles stimulated political
writing such as Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan
and John Locke’s Two Treatises of Civil
Government
80. Transformations in Europe
• Mercantilist wars
– The ascendance of new powers such as
France and England intensified commercial
rivalries
• In the eighteenth century, new mercantilist wars to
control sea lanes and colonies emerged
• European powers accordingly built large navies
81. Transformations in Europe
• Mercantilist wars
– The ascendance of new powers such as
France and England intensified commercial
rivalries (cont’d)
• These wars culminated in the Seven Years’ War
(1756–1763), the first world conflict
– Fought in Europe, the Americas, and India
– The British Empire was the clear winner with the most
lucrative overseas empire
83. Conclusion
• Economic integration between 1500 and1650
unsettled the world. More and more people were
drawn into long-distance commercial networks.
• These networks fostered further European
colonization in the Americas and an explosion in
the Atlantic slave trade, with diverse
repercussions in Africa.
84. Conclusion
• In Afro-Eurasia, economic integration challenged
the legitimacy of the Ottoman and Mughal
Empires while contributing to the downfall of the
Ming dynasty in China.
• Newer powers in England, Russia, and Japan
were able to use this process to further
consolidate and/or expand their power. But even
in these new regimes, the pace of change was
often unsettling.
85. WORLDS TOGETHER,
WORLDS APART
by
Robert Tignor, Jeremy Adelman, Stephen Aron,
Peter Brown, Benjamin Elman, Stephen Kotkin,
Xinru Liu, Suzanne Marchand, Holly Pittman,
Gyan Prakash, Brent Shaw and Michael Tsin.
Norton Art Slides
THIRD EDITION
86. Norton Art Slides
• Chapter 13
Worlds Entangled
1600–1750
Robert Tignor, Jeremy Adelman, Stephen Aron,
Peter Brown, Benjamin Elman, Stephen Kotkin,
Xinru Liu, Suzanne Marchand, Holly Pittman,
Gyan Prakash, Brent Shaw and Michael Tsin.
121. W. W. Norton & Company
Independent and Employee-Owned
WORLDS TOGETHER,
WORLDS APART
THIRD EDITION
This concludes the
Norton Art Slides for Chapter 13
by
Robert Tignor, Jeremy Adelman, Stephen Aron,
Peter Brown, Benjamin Elman, Stephen Kotkin,
Xinru Liu, Suzanne Marchand, Holly Pittman,
Gyan Prakash, Brent Shaw and Michael Tsin.
Editor's Notes
From 1600 to 1750, trade continued to expand, tying all areas of the globe together. Demands for silver, sugar, spices, silks, cotton, and porcelain drove trade so that products from each major global region could be found virtually everywhere else. Silver allowed economies to become commercialized and began to strengthen the hand of European trade. Europeans began forcibly moving Africans into new places and expanded their colonial reach. Competition led to bitter conflicts, challenging the preeminence of Afro-Eurasia’s great centralized empires.
Economic and Political Effects of Global Commerce
Rising economic integration had far-reaching impact on rulers and common people alike. Shortages or surpluses of key goods greatly affected prices across the globe, which could affect fortunes. Tremendous fortunes, in turn, provided funding for larger armies and ambitious ventures, but they could also divide merchant interests from those of their monarchs. Some states—England, France, Holland, Japan—became stronger because of trade. Others—the Mughals, the Ming, the Ottomans, the Safavids—became increasingly destabilized by it.
EXTRACTING WEALTH: MERCANTILISM
Gold and silver production in Spanish and Portuguese colonies stimulated other European powers to seek colonies of their own. Few found gold, but many found wealth in the New World’s fertile lands by building plantations or harvesting furs. Sugar production soared, transforming European diets and economies. Viewing the world through mercantilist eyes, Europeans saw colonies strictly as sources of revenue and competed with one another for control. Charter companies represented the close ties between merchants and governments, as economics and politics became closely intertwined.
New Colonies in the Americas
England, France, and Holland all began to establish colonies in the Americas, competing with each other and with Spain and Portugal.
HOLLAND’S TRADING COLONIES
The Dutch began as transporters of cargo for other nations, but eventually sought their own route to Asia via a “northwest passage” around the north end of the Americas. Exploration by Henry Hudson found no passage, but some settlers established themselves on the river and began engaging in trade with the Iroquois. Others profited by pirating Spanish shipping. Still others formed the Dutch West India Company and established a presence in the Caribbean. Although they failed as colonists in the Americas, the Dutch did succeed as businesspeople and transporters, carrying goods and slaves and underwriting ventures. Their greatest successes, however, were to be found in Asia.
FRANCE’S FUR-TRADING EMPIRE
French interest in a northern passage took them up the St. Lawrence River to the Great Lakes. There, French missionaries attempted to convert Amerindians to Catholicism, while settlers interacted with them as fur traders. Beaver skins harvested by Amerindians and bought by the French cemented links between both groups and led to close ties rarely found between Europeans and Amerindians. Marital relations between French and Amerindians gave rise to mixed-blood métis, who brokered between the two peoples.
ENGLAND’S LANDED EMPIRE
Dislike of the English cemented close alliances between the French and the Amerindians. English settlers’ hunger for land displaced Amerindians from the land, leading to friction and conflict. In New England, Puritan demands for land contributed to vicious wars in the 1630s and 1670s. Virginia witnessed much of the same, especially after tobacco began to produce great profits and the desire for land increased. With time, Europeans and Africans began to outnumber Amerindians, pushing the latter to the west as more and more land was taken over. Unlike the French, who intermingled and intermarried with the Amerindians, the English maintained their distance. As they pushed Indians to the west, arriving Europeans and Africans began to transform the Atlantic seaboard.
THE PLANTATION COMPLEX IN THE CARIBBEAN
In the Caribbean, the sugar plantations based on slave labor dominated, especially on English- and French-controlled islands. Given sugar’s enormous profits, competition between the powers was fierce. The industry was lethal, however, requiring continuous supplies of new slaves to replace those who died. Plantation managers worked malnourished slaves to death in the disease-ridden tropics under horrifying living conditions. Slaves worked six days a week from dawn to dusk at backbreaking work, which accelerated during harvest time. Life expectancy on a plantation was three years. Some slaves resisted, occasionally through violence, to the point that governments had to negotiate or ban the slave trade. Slaves that could simply ran away to communities in the mountains or interior, where they established alternate societies to slavery. Even more resisted in quieter ways. The English founded extremely lucrative sugar plantations on Jamaica, while the French seized half of Saint Domingue (present-day Haiti). With time Europeans became increasingly entrenched in the Americas and wealthier for the experience.
The Slave Trade and Africa
More Africans arrived in the Americas than Europeans, greatly enriching the latter while decimating the African communities of the former.
CAPTURING AND SHIPPING SLAVES
Europeans got their slaves from ancient African slaving networks. Some slaves went north or east to Muslim or Hindu shippers, who took them to Indian Ocean ports. As the demand for slaves in the Americas rose, however, more and more slaves were sent to Africa’s west coast. Some 12.5 million slaves survived to arrive in Atlantic ports between 1525 and 1867. Many millions more perished on the journey or even before departing Africa. In the interior, most slaves were captured by Africans operating secret societies, such as Ekpe. Ekpe ensured that slave capturers fulfilled their quotas and built networks extending deep into inner Africa. Once captured, slaves were transported to slave ports along the African coast. Here, many died of hunger and disease, waiting until a ship’s hold was filled. Once the ships set sail, diseases often spread, leading to mortality rates of 20 percent or so.
SLAVERY’S GENDER IMBALANCE
About two-thirds of African slaves were men, disrupting sex ratios in Africa and the Americas. With reproduction among their slaves limited, slave owners in the Americas had to consistently depend on new arrivals to replenish the labor pool. In Africa, great plantations of female slaves became the norm. In some cases, such as Dahomey in West Africa, women asserted power because of their large numbers.
AFRICA’S NEW SLAVE-SUPPLYING POLITIES
The slave trade profoundly altered African development. Regional leaders fought over control of the slave trade, since African slavers and merchants who captured and sold slaves to European buyers profited greatly. For everyone else in Africa, the slave trade left terrible destruction.
The Kongo Kingdom
In Kongo, local leaders clashed over control of the slaves trade. Civil war raged for more than 100 years, and losing warriors were sold into the slave trade. Some leaders in the Kongo—such as Queen Nzinga—tried to limit the number of slaves sold from the region and took up arms to fight against European slave traders.
Oyo, Asante, and Other Groups
Slaving peoples, enriched by the trade, bought more weapons and established their own plantations, served by enslaved women. The Asante used locally acquired gold to purchase weapons and dominate their neighbors before establishing a centralized state comprising almost all of present-day Ghana. Borders emerged. Roads led out of the capital in all directions to bring slaves back for trading. Based on the savanna, the Oyo people and their king employed large cavalry forces to engage the forest peoples and capture whole villages. These ethnicities profited and gained goods from the outside, while other Africans suffered terribly. Port cities harbored most wealth, while the interior became impoverished and stripped of its rural population.
Asia in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
In much of Asia, European influence remained marginal. Nevertheless, parts of Asia, as in India and Southeast Asia, gradually fell to European colonial control.
THE DUTCH IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
Determined to monopolize the spice trade of Southeast Asia, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) adopted aggressive policies against rivals. The VOC raised huge sums of capital—ten times that of the English East India Company—and quickly began to deepen Dutch influence in Southeast Asia. Under Jan Pieterszoon Coen, the Dutch razed Jakarta and built a fortress as a base. Later, Coen’s forces liquidated the population of the Banda nutmeg islands before moving on to other targets. By 1670, Dutch ruthlessness had given them control of the Melakan spice trade. The Dutch also engaged in less violent enterprises, transporting Asian goods in legitimate transactions to provide bullion needed in the China trade. The new Dutch presence greatly diminished the role of the old cosmopolitan trading hubs of the Southeast Asian trading network. Now European-controlled outposts became dominant.
TRANSFORMATIONS IN ISLAM
The Islamic empires better resisted European trade incursions but did encounter internal disruptions.
The Safavid Empire
Suffering from weak leadership, Safavid unity began to disintegrate, opening cracks in the regime. The empire eventually collapsed under the double blow of external invasion, occurring when Afghan warriors sacked the capital in 1722 and internal rebellion wracked the government in 1773.
The Ottoman Empire
Ottoman successes began to reverse after Suleiman when the Habsburgs stopped Ottoman expansion in the west. Reversals and population pressures prompted many to note that the empire was in decline. Poor leadership also hurt. Global economic integration and increased supplies of money made it easier for Europeans to illegally purchase Ottoman goods with silver and avoid paying taxes. Increasingly impoverished, sultans borrowing from merchants found it more difficult to restrict their illegal activities. Abundant silver but fewer goods meant inflation, which greatly pressured artisans and peasants, who rebelled in protest. Economics became hopelessly out of balance. Parts of the empire also began to show greater independence from Ottoman rule.
The Mamluks in Ottoman Egypt
When the sultan sent Mamluk military and administrative officers to help raise falling Egyptian tax revenues, the officers simply allied themselves with Egyptian merchants and elites and kept most fiscal revenues for themselves.
The Ottomans’ Koprulu Reforms
The “Koprulu reforms” did allow the Ottomans to briefly raise revenues and regain lost territorial possessions. Enthusiasm for greatness even inspired renewed attacks on Christendom and plans to take Vienna. The attack, however, failed, and the Ottomans were forced to relinquish major European holdings.
The Mughal Empire
While the Ottomans floundered, the Mughals flourished, reaching their peak in the 1600s. Prior to the Mughals, India had no single political authority. Akbar’s successors continued to expand into the reaches of India and, by 1689, even controlled most of the south. Indian Ocean trade proved lucrative but was not pursued overseas. Mughal leaders remained content to tax landowners and let trade come to India—a simple decision given the eagerness of the Europeans. Trade increased wealth, led to the use of silver as the medium of exchange, and provided new crops for Indian peasants. In the south, Marathas resistance consumed military resources and court finances. Eager to keep the south, Sultan Aurangzeb raised peasant taxes while also favoring Muslims over Hindus, thus creating hostility. Economically, Mughal India thrived. New lands came into agrarian production, while India’s textile industry spread among the peasantry. Aurangzeb’s death in 1707 was followed by a war of succession and outrageous taxation practices.
Local Autonomy in Mughal India
Commercial prosperity, however, also strengthened the hand of local and regional magnates seeking ways to strengthen their own hands and assert independence, thus transforming centralized Mughal rule into a loose association of provincial states. Local leaders encouraged ties with Europeans and created Indian trading companies to manage trade with the outsiders. Others ran vast networks that combined trade and tax-farming. As the empire weakened, local leaders began to challenge Mughal authority.
Private Commercial Enterprise
Mughal leaders did not pay much attention to commerce, but local authorities did. Some began to organize trading companies to sell goods to foreign merchants and established long-distance trade networks. Successful merchants gained political influence in the Mughal government.
FROM MING TO QING IN CHINA
Growing wealth among China’s local leaders weakened central control of the Ming as it did the Mughals in India. Still officially banned, overseas trade produced no revenues for the court but greatly enriched local merchants and smugglers. Continued local autonomy, together with economic and social changes, brought down the Ming empire in 1644.
Administrative Problems
Weak emperors plagued the Ming. Being an emperor was difficult, filled with responsibilities that could be monotonous and tiring. For example, the Wanli emperor realized that he had little control over the bureaucracy and refused to play his role as an administrator. He began to ignore his officials and duties and left important work unattended.
Economic Problems
As leadership declined, China’s economy experienced rapid growth and concomitant problems. Attracted by rising opportunities, Japanese pirates plagued the coastal regions. Silver imports stimulated growth and increased revenues but hurt the peasantry, who either suffered from inflation when silver was abundant or struggled to pay taxes when silver was scarce. In protest, peasants rebelled.
The Collapse of Ming Authority
Natural disasters led to crop failure and famine in northern China; peasant outrage increased. Government cutbacks alienated scholarly and military elites whose discontent combined with that of the peasants to create explosive rebellions. One, headed by Li Zicheng, conquered Beijing in 1644. To defeat the rebels, Ming generals invited their northern “barbarian” enemies—the Manchus—into China. The Manchus naturally accepted the invitation, but then refused to leave when their task of destroying Li Zicheng’s army was complete.
The Qing Dynasty Asserts Control
Noting their minority status, the Manchus moved cautiously to consolidate power. They were flexible and implemented policies that the Chinese could accept. Ever adapting, these leaders of the Qing dynasty promoted Confucian ideals and patriarchal values, reformulated traditional social hierarchies, and promoted the family. Outer regions, with their own religious majorities, received their own administrative systems based on local mores. To deepen Qing authority, marriages between Manchu and Han were forbidden, Han officials had to wear Manchu dress, and Han Chinese were required to shave their foreheads and grow a long queue in traditional Manchu fashion, at the risk of losing their heads if they did not comply. As arbiters of public morality, the Qing placed bans on certain activities, but then struggled to enforce them.
Expansion and Trade under the Qing
Economic activity thrived in the eighteenth century. Expansion and tributary relations greatly extended Chinese influence. Merchants fostered trade in Southeast Asia or monopolized European trade by purchasing special government licenses. Quick to keep Europeans in their place, the Qing established the “Canton system” for Europeans exclusively, which prevented them from freely coming into China and kept them under close scrutiny. The most important trade, however, took place within China, largely because of its sheer size and partly because it remained unencumbered by government taxes or oversight. In short, China remained vastly wealthy and stable, despite the dynastic transition of the seventeenth century.
TOKUGAWA JAPAN
Despite rising external trading pressures, the Japanese managed to unify under the Tokugawa Shogunate. They also managed to control the foreigners and largely avoid western incursion.
Unification of Japan
Under the leadership of autonomous warlords, or daimyo, Japanese warrior elites called samurai struggled for influence and land, dividing the country’s political authority into smaller domains. Despite the fragmentation, however, a centralized system emerged. Hideyoshi started the process, but it fell to the house of Tokugawa to complete the task. Defeating rival daimyo, Tokugawa Ieyasu assumed the title of shogun, Japan’s top military position, before constructing a new centralized system. He established clear rules of succession, moved the capital to Edo (present day Tokyo), converted samurai from warriors to administrators, and secured adequate resources for his regime. An end of warfare coupled with prosperity tripled the population between 1550 and 1700.
Foreign Affairs and Foreigners
By 1600, Europeans had established considerable presence in Japan as traders and missionaries, but their constant bickering and rivalry disrupted stability. To stem foreign influence, Japanese authorities banned Christianity, leading to violent suppressions and the expulsion of foreign missionaries. Traders, who generally favored Tokugawa rivals in the west, were also restricted; only the Dutch could trade with Japan and only under strict supervision at one port. Thus, while Asian trade continued, European traders were tightly controlled. Russian interest in the north compelled the Tokugawa to take over Ezo (Hokkaido) as a barrier to Russian encroachments, thus providing the Japanese with more territory and a stronger sense of identity.
EXPANSION AND DYNASTIC CHANGE IN RUSSIA
Russia expanded significantly during this era, gaining territory from the Pacific Ocean to the Baltic Sea.
Muscovy Becomes the Russian Empire
Expanding rapidly through territorial expansion and commercial ties, Muscovy eventually became the world’s largest state and began calling itself Russia. For Ivan III, expansion meant security from steppe nomad incursions. Adding marital ties to the last Byzantine emperor also allowed him to claim Russian succession to the Orthodox Church.
Absolutist Government and Serfdom
The Romanovs perfected a centralized system in which the tsar maintained absolute power over virtually everything and everyone, including the nobles. Legally bound to the land and their lords as serfs, peasants lived in primitive communal arrangements.
Imperial Expansion and Migration
Sufficient stability allowed Peter the Great and successors like Catherine the Great to continue expansion eastward and westward toward the Baltic Sea. Peter built a new capital—St. Petersburg—and signed a treaty with the Chinese. Migrations of Slavs into Siberia—serfs migrated there to escape repressive lords, and heretics and political prisoners were banished there—soon shifted the balance between Russians and indigenous peoples. Limited transportation made the going very difficult. Thus, Siberia gained a reputation as both a land of opportunity and a land of imprisonment.
ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL FLUCTUATIONS IN WESTERN EUROPE
In Europe, commercialization led to increasing wealth but also heightened the risk of destabilization. Political and religious rivalries did not help.
The Thirty Years’ War
Religious conflicts continued to rage in Europe. In Germany, Protestant and Catholic competition climaxed in the Thirty Years’ War, which killed millions by 1648. The Thirty Years’ War transformed warfare in Europe. Centralizing states meant bigger armies, professional soldiers, and increased use of firearms, all aimed at winning conclusive campaigns against the enemy. These and the added burden of supply lines required huge military budgets. As war became more expensive, only powerful and wealthy monarchs could win.
Western European Economies
Supporting armies required efficient taxation. Commerce could help, but added a new layer of competition to religious rivalries between European states. Inflation and rising costs of defense hurt Spain. Venice lost trade to new networks and thus declined. The Dutch prospered through shipping and financing of trade, setting an example to others. England and France benefited from monarchical policy that protected local business and eliminated foreign competitors. In the countryside, breakthroughs in agriculture increased food production that could support larger urban populations. Agriculture became commercialized when landowners began producing for the market, thus leading to increased efficiency and productivity.
Dynastic Monarchies: France and England
France employed an absolutist system. Society was represented by the Estates-General, an advisory body comprised of delegates speaking for the clergy, the nobles, and everyone else. The king, however, closed it. He ruled by divine right, and his grace and blessing were bestowed on those whom he favored. Patronage networks ultimately led to the king himself, giving him great power. Possessing all influence, the king dominated other groups who had no formal voice or representation of their interests. In practice, however, the French kings struggled to maintain their alleged “absolute” power. England developed differently because kings and queens needed Parliament for money. Fierce religious struggles led the court to clamp down with a virtual military dictatorship, but James II’s intrigue to make England Catholic led to a revolution that deposed the king. Opinions remained divided over which system was better. Thomas Hobbes supported absolutism, while John Locke advocated natural rights and liberty as represented by Parliament. Eventually, consensus was that the king’s power had to be balanced by Parliament. Thus England’s nobility and merchants continued to enjoy representation in Parliament.
Mercantilist Wars
Another form of conflict arising in Europe was mercantilist war for control of colonies and sea lanes. Restrictions against foreign goods opened the door to smuggling, which became commonplace. Disputed borders led to bloody conflicts in the Caribbean and North America. The Seven Years’ War provides an example of conflicts between European states. Fought mostly outside of Europe—in North America, the Caribbean, and India—it marked the rise of England as the dominant colonial power.
