The Early Modern Era

1
1450-1750

• The Early Modern Era

2
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

3
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

4
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

5
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

6

• 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.

7

• 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

8
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

9
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)

10
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

11
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

12
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

13
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

14
Louis XIV 1648-1715

• The Sun King
• Versailles Palace
• Wars to gain natural frontiers for France
• Revocation of Edict of Nantes and persecution of
  Huguenots
• French power declined

15
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/constitutio
  nal monarchy

16
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

17
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

18
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

19

• 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

20
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.

21

• Forest Kingdoms along West Coast were the source
  of most slaves taken to the Americas
• Due to tropical diseases (White Mans Graveyard)
  most European slave traders did not go beyond the
  coast, but purchased slaves from local chieftains
  and leaders.

22

• 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.

23

• 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.

24
The Gunpowder Empires

• Ottomans
• Safavids
• Mughals
• Muslim (Safavids Shia Mughals and Ottomans
  Sunni)
• Weaker than Europeans, under pressure from
  European trade

25
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

26

• 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

27
Safavids

• Dominated Iran
• Less market-oriented than Ottomans, women less
  restricted.
• Defeat by Ottomans at the Battle of Chaldiran
  1514 blocked Safavid, Shia expansion
• Greatest ruler Shah Abbas I
• Safavids in decline under European economic
  pressure by 1700s

28
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.

29
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

30
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)

31

• 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

32
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.

33

• 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