apwh unit 4

• all right let's review everything you need to know about unit 4 for AP World History which is all about Maritime Empires from 1450 to 1750 and the juicy developments there un to appertaining
• Causes of European expansion during this period

  • Technological
  • Political
  • Economic
• Technological causes


  • European adoption of Maritime technologies from classical Greek, Islamic and Asian world (e.g. magnetic compass, astrolabe, lateen sail)
  • European innovations in shipbuilding (e.g. Portuguese Caravel)
  • Improved understanding of regional wind patterns
• Political causes


  • Growth of state power and centralization of power in European monarchs
  • Monarchs played a significant role in economic decisions, including finding sea-based trade routes to Asia
• Economic causes


  • Mercantilism - state-driven economic system that aimed to maintain a favorable balance of trade
  • Joint stock companies - limited liability businesses funded by private investors, chartered by the state
• Main European maritime empires

  • Portugal
  • Spain
  • France
  • England
  • Netherlands
• Portuguese maritime expansion


  1. Established trading post empire around coast of Africa and Indian Ocean

  2. Used fast ships like Caravels and Carracks loaded with cannons
• Spanish maritime expansion


  1. Sponsored Christopher Columbus to find western route to Asia

  2. Established colonial control in the Americas

  3. Set up base of operations in the Philippines
• French maritime expansion


  1. Sponsored westward expeditions to find North Atlantic sea route to Asia

  2. Established presence in Canada and fur trade
• English maritime expansion


  1. Commissioned Sir Walter Raleigh to establish first colony in Virginia

  2. Established trading posts along Indian coast, later transformed into colonial rule
• Dutch maritime expansion


  1. Gained independence from Spain

  2. Dutch East India Company (VOC) challenged Spanish and Portuguese control of Indian Ocean trade
• Colombian Exchange


  Transfer of new diseases, food plants and animals between Eastern and Western hemispheres
• Diseases transferred in the Colombian Exchange

  • Smallpox
  • Measles
  • Malaria
• Foods and crops transferred in the Colombian Exchange

  • European crops (wheat, olives, grapes)
  • African and Asian crops (rice, bananas, sugar)
  • American crops (maize, potatoes)
• Animals transferred in the Colombian Exchange

  • Pigs
  • Sheep
  • Cattle
  • Horses
• The Colombian Exchange led to a population explosion after 1700
• Examples of resistance to European maritime expansion

  • Resistance from Asian states (e.g. Tokugawa Japan)
  • Resistance from within European states (e.g. Fronde rebellion in France)
  • Resistance from enslaved populations (e.g. Maroon societies in Caribbean and Brazil)
• Resistance in Tokugawa Japan

  1. Shogun initially open to trade for gunpowder weapons

  2. Suppressed Christianity and foreign Western influence
• Fronde rebellion in France

  1. Nobility rebelled against absolutism and new taxes to finance imperial expansion

  2. Rebellion crushed, monarchy increased in power
• Maroon societies in Caribbean and Brazil

  1. Free communities of runaway enslaved Africans

  2. Fought against colonial authorities to maintain their freedom
• The Growing Power of the monarchy got all kinds of fed up and led peasants and spontaneous rebellions that lasted for 6 years but in the end this resistance was crushed and bonus the monarchy increased in power even more
• In most European colonies in the Americas enslaved Africans were forced to labor on plantations but also in most of those colonies small pockets of free blacks existed which were mainly made up of runaway slaves and these were known as maroon societies
• Imperial authorities were not fond of these maroon communities and sought to crush them but the free blacks led by a fiery woman called Queen Nanny rebelled and fought back and so in a surprising turn of events the colonial militia could not find a way to win this battle and so they signed a treaty in 1738 recognizing the freedom of this community of Imperial resistance
• The expansion of Maritime trading networks also fostered the growth of some African States who participated in them thus connecting these states to the global economic linkages these networks represented
• Assante Empire


  They were able to provide highly desired Goods that European Traders were after things like gold and ivory and enslaved people and that economic partnership made the Assante so rich
• Kingdom of the Congo


  They made strong diplomatic ties with the Portuguese and provided them with things like gold and copper and again enslaved people and the king converted to Christianity in order to facilitate trade with Christian states
• Despite growing European dominance on the sea, Overland routes like the Silk Roads were still almost entirely controlled by various Asian land-based Powers most notably Ming China and then the Ching after it and the Ottoman Empire
• Peasant and Artisan labor continued and even intensified in many regions as demand for food and consumer goods increased as a result of multiplying trade connections
• The opening of the Atlantic system of trade was completely new thanks to Columbus and it was the movement of goods, wealth and laborers between the eastern and western hemispheres that made Europeans stupid rich and Powerful
• Sugar


  King of the goods in the Atlantic system, Colonial plantations in the Caribbean specialized in the growth of sugar cane which was exported across the Atlantic to satisfy Europeans growing demand
• Silver


  King of the wealth in the Atlantic system, the Spanish when they weren't busy decimating entire indigenous populations with their nasty germs got busy mining Silver in the Americas which was then transferred back to the Royal coffers
• The massive changes that occurred in the opening of the Atlantic system was maintained by the global flow of silver and trade monopolies granted by states to joint stock companies
• The Mitas system developed by the Inca Empire was continued by the Spanish for their silver mining operations
• Chattel slavery


  A kind of slavery in which the purchaser has total ownership over the enslaved person, it was race-based and hereditary
• Over the course of about 350 years over 12.5 million Africans were sold to plantation owners in the Americas as part of the transatlantic slave trade
• The racial component of the Atlantic slave system meant that slavery became identified with Blackness and that provided the justification for the brutality of Slavery
• The transatlantic slave trade led to a profound gender imbalance in West African States, the changing of family structure with the rise of polygyny, and the cultural synthesis that occurred in the Americas with the emergence of Creole languages
• Indentured servitude


  An arrangement in which a laborer would sign a contract that bound them to a particular work for a period of time, usually seven years, and then at the end of the contract they could go free
• Encomienda system


  The Spanish used this system to divide indigenous Americans among Spanish settlers who were then forced to provide labor for the Spanish in exchange for food and protection
• Hacienda system


  Indigenous laborers were forced to work on the fields of large plantations known as haciendas, amounting to a situation not much different than slavery