Units 4-6

• New and updated Maritime technology

  • It facilitated trans-Oceanic trade and the development of sea-based Empires
• Technology borrowed and updated by Europeans

  • Astrolabe
  • Magnetic compass
  • Lateen sail
• Ship design innovations


  • Caravel (Portuguese)
  • Fluit (Dutch)
• State-sponsored exploration


  Exploration led by European states
• Reasons for state-sponsored exploration

  • Wealth building
  • Spreading Christianity
  • Competition with other states
• Mercantilism


  Dominant economic system of many European states, based on the idea of a limited amount of wealth in the world
• Portuguese trading post Empire

  • Small strategically located trading posts around the African coast and Indian Ocean
  • Goal was to monopolize the spice trade
• Spanish exploration


  • Christopher Columbus sailed west across the Atlantic seeking a new water route to Asia
  • Landed in the Caribbean, not Asia
• Columbian Exchange


  Transfer of animals, plants, foods, and diseases between Europe/Afro-Eurasia and the Americas
• Items transferred in the Columbian Exchange

  • Crops from Americas to Europe (maize)
  • Crops from Europe to Americas (wheat, rice)
  • Animals from Europe to Americas (cattle, pigs, horses)
  • Diseases from Europe to Americas (smallpox, measles, malaria)
• Portuguese colonization of Brazil

  • Focus on cash crops like sugarcane
  • Used coerced indigenous and then enslaved African labor
• Spanish colonization of the Americas

  • Quickly conquered the Aztec and Inca Empires, which had been weakened by disease
  • Established colonies and plundered the Americas for gold and silver
• The Treaty of Tordesillas divided the Americas between Portugal and Spain
• Spain realized they needed to maintain the colonies to keep the wealth flowing, not just plunder
• Spaniards came in, destroyed Tenochtitlan, and built their own capital Mexico City
• Portugal is in Brazil and Spanish begin their conquest of South and Central America
• Spain and Portugal go to the Pope and work out the Treaty of Tordesillas, dividing the Americas
• Encomienda system


  Coercive labor system where Spanish compelled indigenous people to work on plantations
• Hacienda system


  Later system where laborers were paid very low wages and had high debts
• Spanish transformed the Inca mita system into a system of coerced labor, compelling villages to send young men to work in dangerous silver mines
• Colonization was driven by the economic system of mercantilism, where colonies enriched the homeland through mineral wealth and cash cropping
• Joint stock companies


  Groups of individuals invested capital in limited liability companies
• The Moroccan conflict with the Songhay Empire led to the Moroccans invading and eventually crumbling the Songhay Empire
• Triangular Trade


  Manufactured goods traded from Europe to West Africa, enslaved people transported to the Americas, raw materials like sugar and molasses traded back to Europe
• The African slave trade was a huge part of the Atlantic trade system
• Syncretism


  Blending of indigenous religions in the Americas with Christianity of the Spanish and Portuguese
• The Maratha Rebellion brought an end to the Mughal Empire in India
• The Pueblo Revolt in Spanish colonies in North America saw the Pueblo and Apache Indians rise up and kill hundreds of Spaniards
• Casta system


  Spanish colonial social hierarchy organized based on ancestry and race, with Spaniards born in Spain at the top and African and Native Americans at the bottom
• The Qing Dynasty retained some distinctively Chinese institutions like the civil service examination, but had strict policies against the native Han population
• Enlightenment


  European movement that shifted the focus of knowledge from belief to empirical data and observation
• Natural rights


  Idea from John Locke
• Social contract


  Idea from Rousseau
• The women's suffrage movement and abolitionism were reform movements that arose from Enlightenment ideas
• Nationalism


  People's sense of belonging to each other based on common language, religion, customs, territory, and "us vs them" mentality
• The American Revolution was inspired by Enlightenment ideas and growing nationalism due to British colonial policies
• The American Revolution inspired the French and Haitian Revolutions, as well as Latin American independence movements
• The American Revolution happened and the Americans beat the British, leading to the creation of the United States of America
• The American Revolution inspired the French and Haitian revolutions, as well as other Latin American independence movements
• These revolutions were inspired by both nationalism and Enlightenment thought