European Empires in the Americas
What were some motives the Europeans had to conquer to the Americas?
They were closer, wanted to find resources, commoners wanted a chance at wealth and fame, and missionaries wanted to expand Christianity to other places.
What was Spanish America's main economy?
Commercial agriculture and gold/silver mining
How did Russia conquer eastward and westward?
Conquered eastward by using weapons to "encourage" Native people to join their empire
Conquered westward due to military rivalries with Poland, Ukraine, and Baltic region
How did the Ottoman Empire expand?
In the Middle East, they took over the Christian capital Constantinople and made it their own capital.
In southeastern Europe (the Balkans), the local people welcomed them due to being better than their former rulers.
What was the role of Mestizos (multi-racial people) in the social hierarchy?
They were put into castes based on their exact heritage.
The men would work as artisans, clerks, and low-level officials for bureaucracies and churches. The women made clothes, cigars, or worked in shops.
What was the Great Dying?
When the Indigenous people of the Americas lost 90% of their population due to disease from Afro-Eurasia such as influenza, malaria, small pox, and measles.
What was Spanish America's social order?
Spanish males were politically and economically dominant, Spanish women were in charge of continuing male legacy, Mestizos (multiracial people), then Indigenous people were the main labor force but in very small cases able to move up.
What was Peter the Great's mission?
To Westernize Russia through education, administration, and military.
How did the Ottoman Empire rule and encounter Christians?
The Turks used the system devshirme which required taking young Christian boys into the service of state and made anyone under the empire pay taxes.
European Christians feared the Ottomans but also featured them in Renaissance paintings.
How were women treated in the Ottoman Empire?
Women became less free than their past, nomadic ways and were veiled. Royal women were able to hold their own sultanate in politics and aided the men. They also had property rights and legal rights.
What were the effects of the Little Ice Age?
The General Crisis which included famines, epidemics, uprisings, and wars happening in the Afro-Eurasia area. The Americas experienced drought and disease carrying mosquitoes.
Where was sugar discovered and benefited from it?
Portugal, Spain, England, France, and the Netherlands benefited from finding sugar in Brazil and islands in the Caribbean.
What civilizations influenced Russia?
(HINT ASIAN CIVILIZATIONS)
China, India, Persia, and the Ottoman Empire influenced Russia due to being surrounded by them.
What is the historical significance of the Safavid empire?
The Safavid forced the Shia version of Islam as their official religion and got into many wars versus other empires who followed the Sunni version of Islam.
What crops were exchanged in the Colombian Exchange?
The Americas received wheat, barley, sugar cane, grapes, rice, beans, watermelons, sesame, yams, and okra from Afro-Europe.
The Eastern Hemisphere received corn, potatoes, cassava, corn peanuts, sweet potato, tobacco, and chocolate.
Who did the work in sugar production?
How did the Ming Dynasty restore China after the Mongols?
By bringing back Confucianism and government, making people pay taxes in coins, and restoring plant life so trade boomed.
How did the Mughal Empire start and fall?
Made by a Central Asian warrior group and claimed descent from Chinggis Khan.
The Hindu Martha Confederacy fought the empire over their religious polices. They won but with a broken empire, the British was able to invade.
What types of rights did Emperor Akbar allow the Hindus do?
Supported the building of Hindu temple, allowed them to be political-military elite, gave women rights, removed the jiyza taz, and allowed some elite to have political power.
How were the Europeans able to colonize the Americas?
Trading companies, borrowed technology from Asia, ships, and alliances between the locals. Also germs.
How was British America different from Latin America?
British America used local government to operate under a royal charter, had a larger population of colonizers, didn't recognize the different multi-racial groups, and grew crops on plantations.
How did the Qing Dynasty rule expanded China?
They ruled them with a Court of Colonial Affairs and still let them keep their own religions and cultures.
How did the Songhay Empire start and fall?
Lasted from 1460s-1590s and came after the Mali and Ghana empires.
Ended in 1591 when a Moroccan sultanate used gunpowder weapons to take over trade routes. Empire was two involved in their own conflicts over religion that they didn't see the war coming.
When was Islam introduced to the Songhay Empire?
After 1000 ce by North African merchants and Sufi religious teachers.