State Building, Expansion, and Conflict, 1450-1750 Flashcards
Nation-states
● Political units with relatively fixd borders
● A sense of national unity
● Populations were large
● Homogeneous in terms of language and ethnicity
Political and administrative centralization
● Became more sophisticated
● led to a higher degree of state organization and efficiency
● Features of modern government (bureaucracies, admiralties, general staffs, treasures, and state banks) were more commonplace
● Rulers devised more reliable and more efficient means to collect taxes and conscript soldiers
● Allowed European monarchs to abandon medieval feudalism
State-building techniques
● Included impressive displays of arhitecture and art
● Regimes contineud to rely on religious concepts to legitimate their authority
- Putting ethnic nad religious groups firmly under their control but kept them economically productive
Bureaucratic elites
● Staff administrations htat were growing larger and more modern
Caravel
● Nimble, three-masted ship used extensively by Portuguese
● Able to carry lots of weight
- Put cannons on the ships
Iberian peninsula
● Portugal and Spain
Prince Henry the Navigator
● Encouraged Portugal’s exploring efforts
● Created a school to train navigaotrs and collect knowledge
Bartholomeu Diaz
● Reached the southern tip of Africa in 1488
● The rulers of Portugal named the Cape of Good Hope
- Recognizing this as an important step on the way to India
Vasco da Gama
● FIrst European to reach India by sea
Christopher Columbus
● Proposed to sail west to reach the Far East
● Reached the Caribbean in October 1492
Lines of demarcation
● Spain and Portugal agreed to in 1493-1494
● The pope gave jurisdiction over most of SouthAmerica and all of North America to the Spanish while the Portuguese recieved Brazail and Africa in 1529
Ferdinand Magellan
● A Portuguese mariner sailing on behalf of Spain
● Leader of the first-ever circumnavigation of the globe
Trading-post empire
● Established by Portuguese
● Many outposts along the trading route
Maritime empires
● Overseas colonies fully under their control
● Established in the New World
- Portugal moved into Brazil
- Spain built up power in the Caribbean, using islands such as Cuba, Puerto Rico and Hispaniola
Conquistadors
● Generals who brought huge parts of North and South America under Spanish control
Juan Ponce de Leon
● Florida fell to him in 1513
Hernan Cortes
● From 1519 to 1521, he waged an effective and brutal camaign against the Aztecs, and the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan became the headquarters for all of New Spain
● Mesoamerica nad most of what is now the US Southwest fell to the Spanish
Francisco Pizarro
● Destroyed the mightly Incan empire
Mining
● Especially for silver near Mexico City and at Potosi
Plantation monoculture
● With sugarcane the most prized and most labor-intensive cash crop
Viceroyalty
● New Spain was placed under government control in 1535
● “In place of the king”
House of Trade
● All colonial economic activity was run by the House of Trade in Seville
Coerced labor
● A direct economic consequence of Spanish and Portuguese colonization in the New World
● Encomienda, mit’a system and slaves
Encomienda system
● Spanish attempted to enslave American natives
● Worked badly and was judged to oinhumane by Catholic clergy
● Abolished in the 1540s
Mit’a system
● Form of coerced labor used previously by the Incas
● Took by Spanish in the Andes
Atlantic slave trade
● New WOrld rely increasingly on the importation of slaves from Africa
● Rapid rise of the trade well into the 1800s
Northeast Passage
● Along Russia’s northern coast
Northwest Passage
● Through Canada’s northern waters
● Might provide an alternatie route to Asia
Jacques Cartier
● Started French coonial presence in North America
● He charted the St. Lawrence River
Samuel Champlain
● Founded the first cities in Canada, Quebec in 1608
Company of New France
● Created by the French colonical presence in North America
● Include Quebec and later Louisiana territory that include Great Lakes and Mississippi basin
Fur trade
● Highest priority in French colonies
● Many French colonists were excellent hunters, trappers, and woodesmen (voyageurs)
Sea beggars
● Dutch mariners
● Sought to disrupt Spanish trade anad to attack Spanish-contrlled ports worldwide
- They did the same to the Portuguese
Dutch East India Company
● Administered Dutch operations in Indonesia
● A joint-stock enterprise founded in 1602
Dutch West India Company
● Established in 1621
● Oversee the Netherlands’ Caribbean colonies
● Controlled the New York region, which they hired Henry hudson to explore in 1609
● Dutch settlers purchased hte island of Manhattan in 1624 and named it New Amsterdam
- It grew into a thriving commercial center under the leadership of Peter Stuyvesant
- Later became New York under the English
John Cabot
● Attempted to find a Northwest Passage to Asia through Canada’s Arctic waters
Sea dogs
● English pirates
● Gained much knowledge about global navigation from their conflicts with the Spanish and Portuguese
Francis Drake
● First Englishman to sail around the world, during a voyage whose main purpose was to raid Spanish ships and ports
Jamestown, Virginia
● First successful settlement
● Founded in 1607 and led by John Smith
Mayflower Pilgrims
● Landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620 and Puritans also founded hte Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1628
William Penn
● Quaker
● Founded Pennsylvannia, home to New World’s largest city, Philadlphia
Hudson’s Bay Company
● Incorporated in 1670
● Began to intrude into Canada and other French colonies for the purpose fo sugarcane, timber, corn, potatoes, and tobacca
Indentured servitude
● Many coloniests paid for their passage throught this
● In exchange, they have to work under a master for a number of years
British East India Company
● Manage economic and later military relations with South and Southeast Asia
● The English gained a presence in northwestern Indian by 1608 and would eventually take over more of hte subcontinent
● They seized hte key port of Melaka from the Dutch in 1795
Land empire
● Empire on land
● Ex) Russia established one in Siberia during the 1500s and 1600s
- Extended to reach North America
Bering Expedition
● A Scientific venture organized by the Russian government
● Surveyed hte waters separating Siberia from North America
● Russian missionaries and hunters then moved into the Aleutian Islands and Alaska
Russian-American Company
● The Russians established a colony in Alaska in the late 1700s
● Moved down the Pacific coast, uilding fortresses as far south as northern California
● The fur trade stimulated Russian settlement
● They sold all their American possessions, including Alaska, to the US in 1867
Yasak
● Coerced-labor system that Native Siberians were subjected to
● Required them to pay tribute and hunt fur bearing animals for hte Russians
Absolutism
● The monarch was theoretically all-powerful, with no institutions or legal restrictions limiting his or her authority
● Typically justified by the doctrine of divine right
Diving right to rule
● The monarch reigns by the will of God
● Justifies absolutism
Louis XIV
● Absolute monarch of France
● the Sun King ruled from 1661 to 1715
● Centralized his bureaucracy and broke hte power of stubborn aristocrats by shifting administrative power from traditionally powerful families (nobility fo the sword) to civil servants that he himself ennobled (nobility of the robe)
● TUrned Paris and built Versailles–impressive centers of power
● Built the largest army and navy
● Persecuted Protestants
Peter the Great
● Westernized RUssia in the late 1600s and early 1700s
● FOrced his nobles to serve the state according to a strict Table of Ranks
● Serfdom remianed in place much longer
Frederick the Great
● Prussia
● An exceptionally skilled general who made his kingdom vastly more efficient during the mid-1700s but also more autocratic
● Censorship and restrictions on social mobility
Parliamentarism
● The ruler governed in conjunction with some kind of lawmaking body appointed by the aristocracy, elected by some or all of the people, or some combination of both
● The Dutch
● City-state of Venice
● England
Stadholder
● Executive official in Netherlands
● Shared power with States General
States General
● A large council in Netherlands