Topic 4.4 Flashcards
Maritime Empires Link Regions (28 cards)
What was indentured servitude?
Arrangements through which servants contracted to work for a specified period of years in exchange for passage
What was Chattel Slavery?
A system in which individuals were considered as property to be bought and sold
What did the growth of plantations increase?
The growth of the plantation economy increased the demand for enslaved Africans in the Americas, leading to significant demographic, social, and cultural changes
What nations established trading posts along the African coast?
- First, Portuguese and then other European traders set up trading posts along Africa’s coasts
- Some local rulers traded enslaved people to the Europeans in exchange for gunpowder and cannons, giving these coastal governments a military advantage when battling neighboring villages
How did maritime trading networks aid the Assante Empire and the Kingdom of Kongo?
- Portuguese explorers, traders, and missionaries made in roads into the Kongo and Benin kingdoms
- Benin artisans incorporated images of the European ‘intruder’ into their carvings and sculptures
- The expansion of maritime trading networks supported the growth of some African states, including the Asante Empire and the Kingdom of the Kongo.
- The participation in trade led to an increase in their influence.
How did De Gama impact the Swahili City states in 1498?
- Vasco de Gama invaded the Swahili city states of East Africa, most of which were thriving commercial centers in the Indian Ocean trade.
- They took over trade in Kilwa, Mombasa, and other city-states by sending heavily armed ships and building fortresses
- This takeover threw the religion into a devastating decline
How did Japan respond to European expansion?
- Japan had tolerated the first Portuguese and Dutch traders and missionaries
- Many converted to Christianity, yet some destroyed Buddhist shrines
- In response, in 1587, the Japanese government banned Christian worship services.
- They persecuted Christians and limited foreign influences
- During this time they became completely isolated from everyone
How receptive was China to European expansion under the Ming Dynasty?
- The Ming Dynasty tried to limit outside influence on China by restricting trade
- They began reconstructing the Great Wall
- The Ming reemphasized the importance of Confucianism and reinvigorated the traditional exam system
- Many of the limits on trade were eventually reversed, and China resumed its important role in global trade
What 3 nations competed for trade and control in India?
- The British East India Company
- Portugal
- France
What did the East India Company do in India?
- Established small forts on the coasts that focus solely on making a profit through trade
- Took advantage of the tensions between Muslims and Hindus in India and began to increase its political power through treaties with local rulers.
- Intervened in India politically and militarily to such an extent that it controlled much of the subcontinent
Who helped the EIC in India?
The Sepoys who were highly trained Indian private forces trained by the Europeans
Where else did the British establish trade posts?
- In West Africa, where the Asante Empire
Describe the Aztec and Incan Empires before European influence?
- Each included 10 million to 15 million people
Describe the Decline of the Aztec and Incan Empires?
- Both empires collapsed when attacked by Spanish forces
- Aztecs were attacked by Cortes and was replaced by New Spain
- Incas were attacked by Francisco Pizzaro and they captured their ruler
What was the impact of the Treaty of Tordesillas?
- Spain and Portugal divided the Americas between them
- Spain reserved all lands to the west of a meridian that went through eastern South America
- Portugal reserved all lands east of this line
What drove the French out of North America?
The French and Indian War (7 Years War)
- The British settlers began to form ties with the powerful Iroquois who had been in conflict with the French for years
- The British hoped that the Iroquois could frustrate French trade interests
- The Iroquois began to realize that the British posed more of a threat than the French
- They signed a treaty with France known as the Great Peace of Montreal in 1701
- In the same war, they drove the French out of Canada
What other European nation used its superior military to take over control of the Indian Ocean Trade Network?
- The Portuguese
- Used their military superiority to take control of trade, creating a string of armed trading posts along the trade routes of the Indian Ocean
Describe the search for wealth by Columbus in Hispaniola?
- On his first voyage, he was convinced that gold was plentiful on Hispaniola, the name he gave the island now occupied by Haiti and the Dominican Republic
- But gold was scarce in the Caribbean
- Desiring to return home with something valuable
- Columbus and his crew kidnapped Tainos, indigenous peoples, and took them, enslaved, to Spain.
What was the Spanish encomienda system?
Was a coercive labor system to gain access to gold and other resources of the Americas.
- Encomenderos, or landowners, compelled indigenous people to work for them in exchange for food and shelter, as landowners required of serfs in Europe’s manorial system.
What was the Spanish hacienda system?
This arose when landowners developed agriculture on their lands -> wheat, fruit, vegetables, and sugar
- They coerced labor to work the fields
- This made the Spanish colonies unlike British colonies
What metal yielded riches to the Spanish?
Silver
How did the Spanish change the Mit’a System?
Young men were required to devote a certain amount of labor to public works projects, not a coerced labor system
Under Spanish mercantilism, what was the main purpose of the American colonies?
- The silver trade not only made individual Spanish prospectors wealthy, it also strengthened the Spanish economy.
- In the case of Spain, the main purpose of the colonies in the Americas was to supply as much gold and silver as possible
- Much of the silver made it to the British crown
Why were Africans a target for slave raids by Europeans after 1450?
- Europeans sought fortunes in gold, silver, and sugar
- Land was plentiful, but labor to make the land profitable was scarce
- They forced indigenous people to do the hard labor of mining and farming, but European diseases wiped out large portions of these coerced laborers
