Global interactions in the early modern age (1400-1800)

Chapter 1: European States and Overseas Empires

1. The formation of states in Europe

Expansion of state power from the 1400s to the 1700s

- Subjugation of the church and the nobility

o Wars between Catholics and Protestants between 1560 and 1640. At the end, the ruler of
the state determined the religion of the realm, controlling also the church and its clergy
o Restriction of the traditional independence of the aristocracy
- Innovation in armies and navies
o Military revolution
 Fortifications, firepower and troop size (Louis XIV in 1713, 650 000 soldiers)
o this required enormous amount of capital
 taxation and debt financing through a sizable bureaucracy

Distinctive character of state formation in Europe: cluster of independent powers that competed and
fought with one another, rather than a single regime. This situation made European powers effective and
aggressive in empire building overseas.

Mercantilism

- Alliance between business and government

- Development of the productive capacities of overseas colonies to support a country’s economic
growth

2. Maritime Empires in Asia

European empire building took root in

- Indian Ocean
o Objective: control the trade in spices and luxury items
o Portuguese and Spanish fortified trading posts in the 1500s. Dutch, English and French in
the 1600s and 1700s
- Atlantic Ocean
o Objective: produce profitable commodity crops as sugar, cotton and tobacco
o Land-based strategy through European settlers and African slaves

Distance from the homeland:

- Enormous amount of ships

o Europeans as main carriers of global interactions: food, diseases, migration

At the beginning the goal was to find a quicker, all-water route to trading centers in Asia

- Portuguese exploration of the West African coast

 o African gold and ivory
o Construction of resistant and versatile vessels (caravels)
- Circumnavigation of Africa (Vasco da Gama)
o Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) divided the new lands between Spain and Portugal
- Conquest of various posts (Goa, Melaka, Hormuz) thanks to the military advantage
o State-run enterprise, called Estado da India

1600s, Dutch competitors managed to control commerce and spice production

- East India Company (VOC), exclusive right to conduct trade in Asia

- 2 reason for success
o Ruthless economic efficiency, company profits above all
o Use of military force to maintain monopoly of trade. Big investments in naval firepower
 Massacres against local populations
 Dutch fleets did not allow ships to pass that did not carry purchased permission
forms

1700s, English and French in India, at the time ruled by Mughal emperors in the north and regional chiefs in
the south

- Fortified settlements against the Dutch

- Agreements with Mughal officials and alliances with local Indian governors
- Colonies in Australian, New Zealand and Pacific
- Mid-1700s, weakening of Mughal authority led to the English conquest of India in 1757

3. Maritime Empires in the Atlantic

Land-based colonial regimes throughout the Atlantic world

Portuguese: Madeira, Azores, Gulf of Guinea, Kongo

- Enter into gold trade and to purchase slaves

o First in Kongo and after permanent colony in Angola

Dutch: Cape town, European settler colony

African coastal societies in most cases had formidable military capability that kept European intruders at
bay, together with the lack of immunity to the disease environment took a tool on soldiers

Spain: mission west to discover a new route to Asia, but instead Columbus found America in 1492

- Control land and labor, coercing local population to work intensively

o Massacres due to oppression and diseases
o Missions to Mexico (Aztec) and Peru (Inca)
 Birth of the largest European territorial empire in the early modern world
 Viceroyalties in Peru and New Spain (from the US to Venezuela)
o Search of gold, fertile land and a passage to Asia

Portuguese colonization of Brazil began in 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral

- Cultivation of sugarcane and wood

Dutch, French and English concentrated in the North of the American continent
French: resemblance with the European mercantile empires in Asia; acquire furs from American tribes

- 1663, Louis XIV put the empire under direct royal control. It began to attract settlers.

English

- Jamestown, 1607. Enormous amount of migrants form Great Britain. They came from all ranks of
society
o Religious migrants, relatively dense European settlement
 13, independent from one another, yet subject to the monarchy and to Parliament

Increasing conflict on the high seas and in the colonial territories in the 1700s

- Violence with indigenous peoples and between colonial powers

o French more collaborative relationship with American peoples, despite hostilities with the
Iroquois
o English more hostile
- Native peoples sought to use the Seven Years’ War to their advantage, but after the victory of
England, they were destroyed in the process of colonization (quest for land, precious metals and
other valued resources).
- Sovereign rights over lands of native American societies were not recognized by European powers.
o Even if the division between American nations played a role in the establishment of
permanent European settlements

Chapter 2: Asian States and Territorial Empires

Political centralization was also a major feature of Asian societies in the early modern period

1. Ming and Qing China

China had a long history of centralized rule.

- Ming and Qing managed to extend their imperial reach across central Asia
o Emperor: intermediary between divine realm and human existence
- Based on Confucianism: philosophical foundation for Chinese governance
o Bureaucracy (Mandarins) administered all practical functions of government (except
military affairs)
o Meritocracy: only well-schooled administrators could carry out the responsibilities of
government and act in the best interests of society
 This enabled the government to navigate in periods of political turmoil
 Ex: end of Ming dynasty in mid-1600s and Qing empire

China is a land-based empire, even if in the past it promoted an overseas empire in the Indian Ocean

- Zheng He explorations (1371-1433)

o Thousands of voyages that occupied different ports in the China sea and Indian Ocean with
a system of tributes. It ended because of the growing menace of piracy and hostility by the
mandarins of trade. Trade was at best a necessary evil.

The attacks of nomadic Mongols and Turkish in the north and the west pushed Chinese emperors towards
land-expansion and the build of the Great Wall.

- Two theaters of operation:

 o South, against Ming loyalists
o Western frontier, against Mongol Khans and Russian push. Extermination of Tibet Mongol
population, then pursuing a policy of mass migration from the 17th to the 18th century.

2. Romanov Russia

Russia developed around Muscovy

- Central government that paralleled European patterns of state formation, yet the rise of the
empire resembled China’s model
o First through strategic marriages, diplomatic alliances and battlefield conquests

Ivan IV the Terrible (mid-1500s)

- Expanded into Novgorod, Lithuania, Astrakhan and Kazan, waging wars even with the nobility
o At his death, rivalry between nobles created a dynastic crisis that resulted with the
Romanov success

Romanov

- Absolute monarchy
o Common interests with the boyar nobles
 Formidable army and control of middle class and peasantry
 Boyars as a body to serve the state rather than defend its own separate territorial
and political interests
- Tax burden mainly on non-elites
o Serfdom abolished only in 1861

Peter I the Great

- Promotion of European fashions and European educational and military reforms

o St Petersburg

Expansion

- Ukraine, Baltic states, Poland and Northern Black Sea district, supporting Orthodox Christians in the
Balkans
- Push East: Urals, Volga, Siberia. Cossacks military expeditions
o Collision with the interest of Qing emperors in the Amur basin
o The idea was to make Siberia a commodity-producing region to serve Russian ambitions in
northern and eastern Europe
 Mainly in the harvest of furs, that served as tributes
 Similar to the plantation complex in the Atlantic
3. Safavid Iran

Ismail Safavi, descent from Safi al-Din, asserting its divinity

- Military victories in Azerbaijan, Armenia and Khorasan

o Shi’ite religion of the empire in order to gain loyalty of Iranian elites
 Political legitimacy relied heavily on the theocratic assertions of shahs
- Military defeat in 1514, setback by Ottoman empire
o Halt to the westward expansion of the empire
o Undermined the confidence in the spiritual powers of Ismail and future shahs
 - Long time to develop a state structure
o Shah Abbas I: reduction of political influence and military presence of the Qizilbash
 Dividing the empire in provinces and appointing agents loyal to the government
 Creation of professional army
 Harsh and violent rule, most of the time armies engaged in military conglicts
 Persecution of Sunni and non-Muslims

1700s, the empire ceased to exist

- Russia and Mughal India emerged, putting pressure on the borders

- Safavid rulers weak and inattentive to governmental affairs
- Religious elites condemned technological and intellectual innovation

4. Mughal India

Mughal dynasty ruled over almost all of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and parts of Afghanistan

- Early Mughal elites were Turkish and Persian

Mughals demanded obedience and loyalty from their Muslim subject

- Yet, only small minority: most were Hindu

o Their claims were based on their lineage as universal conquerors
o Only in the mid-1600s, Islam exercised a much greater force
 Conservative Muslim clerics considered tolerance as blasphemous and complained
about it
 Emperors adopted a much more orthodox Muslim stance and this contributed to
the weakening of the empire in the early 1700s

Centralized political authority became a priority only in the mid-1500s

- Bureaucratic state accountable solely to the emperor

o Sunni Muslims, Hindus and Shi’ites on merit-based qualities
o At the provincial level, it was managed by nobles who received their posts and revenues
through imperial patronage

Fractious religious policy and the imperial overreach into southern India contributed to the deterioration of
the empire

- Succession disputes led to civil discord and war

5. The Ottoman Empire

Settled on the eastern fringes of Byzantine territory in the late 1200s. Early principal figure: Osman

- Conquest of areas in eastern Europe in the 1300s and overthrowing the Byzantine emperor in 1453,
it expanded in North Africa, Arabia, Anatolia, Mesopotamia and Persian Gulf in the 1500s
o It remained intact until 1923
o Their advantage consisted in the Turkish cavalry brigades
o Conquest of Constantinople, renamed Istanbul

The Ottoman Empire presented themselves as the guardians of Islamic orthodoxy throughout the world
 - Several sources of political legitimacy

Effective military power and strong state structure

- They did not, as a general rule, coerce non-Muslims into converting

- They used slaves, taken from Christian populations in the Balkans
o Janissaries First-class education, convert to Islam and then served in the Ottoman army or
civil administration
 Most skilled fighting force in western Asia and eastern Europe

2 types of governors

- Turkish military personnel

- Non-noble, salaried official who was appointed by the Sultan

Justice:

- Mixed system of Shari’a and Turkish legal codes

Informal politics

- Women had a critical place at court

o Dozens of children who competed to the throne through intrigues and murders

The power was centralized especially during the reign of Suleyman I (1520-1566), when the Janissaries in
the military and in the state gained the upper hand.

Muslim government permitted religious minorities to exist even if they had to pay a special tax, the jizya. It
also allowed Christians and Jews to organize themselves into semi-independent communities

- Reason why the Balkans are such a mess

o Delicate coexistence between Jews, Christians and Muslims

Maximum expansion: Hungary, Moldavia, Transylvania and Romania

1570, standstill because of Lepanto battle won by the Hapsburgs

1700, Safavid presence required extensive Ottoman resources to hold the borders

- Underpaid Janissaries abandoned their allegiance to sultan and state for wives, lands and additional
incomes
- Bureaucracy collapsed

6. An Age of Empire Building in Asia

Empire building was a natural outgrowth of state formation and led to four critical processes of interaction

- Long-distance trade
- Migration
- Biological exchange
- Spread of knowledge
 Chapter 3: International Markets and Global Exchange Networks
Trading products has been such a profitable economic activity that countelss merchants have been willing
to travel long distances

- Silk roads from Mediterranean to the South China Sea.

From the 1400s to the 1700s, large portions of sub-Saharan Africa, America, and Oceania became absorbed
into commercial transactions that sent American silver to Asia, American sugar to Europe, west African
slaves to America, Siberian and Canadian furs to Europe and China, spices and muskets.

Early modern trade did not constitute a comprehensive economic system. The volume of this global trade is
minimum, if compared with today’s standard. But still, large scale exchanges of material culture and
geopolitical implications.

Characteristics of Long-distance trade

Longstanding networks

The most intense commercial zone in the world was in the Indian Ocean basin

- Macau, Guangzhou, Melaka, Calicut and Goa

o High degree of political and economic autonomy
o Merchants timed their voyages according to the prevailing winds during the course of the
yearly circuit

Central Asia: trade became much more tenuous as warring Turkish nomadic tribes and bandits threatened
the security of the travel, but Russia still experienced vigorous commercial activity

Europe: 2 distinct circuits

- Southern flow, north Italian merchants (Venice maintained a virtual monopoly)

o Purchase of items then sold in urban areas
- Northern flow
o Commodities: grain, wool
o Hanseatic league

Africa:

- North, trans-Saharan caravan traffic

- South, Swahili cities to Great Zimbabwe
o Gold, ivory and slaves traded in the coastal cities
- Central sub-Sahara
o Kongo Kingdom, slaves, gold and agricultural products

Americas

- Between Central America and Mexico

o Trade from South Western US to Andes
By 1400, transcontinental trade had led to increasing integration of large portions of Africa, Asia and
Europe.

Organization of trade

These networks offered great rewards

- Long-distance trade took a very long time to complete a circuit and carried all sorts of dangers and
uncertainties
o Diseases
o Bandits and pirates
- Transportation costs rose with the increase of risks

Need of alliance between the political state and the economic elite (mercantilism)

- Russia, Ottoman empire

- Safavid and Mughal, middle position
- China: trade as an ever-present source of disorder that needed to be restricted and regulated
o Extended family

Temporary wives proved extremely useful in helping European men develop familiarity with local markets

Other system: commenda, one partner supplied capital while a second carried the labor.

Innovations in the Dutch and English financial systems facilitated the rise of capital.

- Joint stock companies. Directors answered to shareholders about the management and the
profitability of the companies.

Cities formed the spatial environment for exchange between foreign merchants and organization in the
early modern world

- Legal disputes
- Avoid violence by private parties, maintaining protection costs low

Individual merchants, agents, and investors sometimes functioned as independent operators who
partnered with different associates for specific operations.

Trade Diaspora

Doing business in a foreign land necessitated bridging the cultural divide with the host society. This was
facilitated by settlements of foreign residents in a particular district, city or market

- Cultural mediators between merchant groups

o Easing potential hostilities caused by suspicions

Jewish and Armenian migrated around the globe

- Jews: South America, Africa, Italy, eastern Mediterranean, Amsterdam, Ottoman realms
- Armenians: from Central Asia to the Mediterranean sea, Iran and Northern Europe.
Foreign agents in trade settlements reduced protection costs and provided merchant firms information
about conditions in different lands.

The Theatres of Long-Distance Trade

Indian Ocean basin, Eurasian routes, Atlantic

Maritime trade in the Indian Ocean Basin

Expedition of Zheng He in the early 1400s.

- Even with the Ming and Qing prohibitions and restrictions on trade after the mid-1400s, the
expanding markets in east Asia proved a boon to mercantile activity throughout the Indian Ocean.
o Better farming techniques increased both food and commercial crops

European appetite for Asian goods

- Spices and luxury goods

Traditional routs until the Portuguese circumnavigated Africa. Their military superiority permitted them to
use force to control shipping.

Arab, Indian, Indonesian and Chinese mariners found other routes and began to arm themselves.

- Mid-1500s, maritime Indian ocean network settled into a rhythm of commercial prosperity that
lasted for a century for regions in southeast Asia and throughout the early modern period for India,
China and Japan.
- Silver boosted commercial growth
o From Japan and America to China
- Mid-1600s
o Reduction of crop yields
o Economic problems and political crises
o Arrival of the Dutch

The VOC used force to replace their Portuguese rivals and intimidate local rulers to control spice
production.

- Circumventing the need for silver, the VOC enjoyed enormous success
o Disastrous for commerce among Asians
- Thousands of Chinese merchants left China for port cities in southeast Asia where they formed
sizable communities
- Commerce with Mughal India in textiles

At the end of the early modern period:

- Japan and China turned inward

- Dutch military aggression
- India, process of English colonization

Overland Eurasian Networks

Same general patterns as the maritime sector in the early modern period.
 - Trade in many regions complemented the maritime networks and prospered into the mid-1700s

Why?

- Formation of empires friendly to trade

o The deterioration of the Muslim states, combined with expanding European power,
brought a decline in exchange and opened the way for direct western influence in many
parts of Asia

Major commercial sites:

- Baghdad, Aleppo, Alexandria, Istanbul

3 developments in the 1500s allowed for the expansion of trade in the Asian overland networks

- The regimes promoted trade along the traditional caravan routs

o Commercial ethos of Islam
- The early imperial push of Ivan IV into Kazan opened up the Volga River and the Caspian Sea
- New maritime connections between Europe and Russia

Commerce across Asia’s overland networks brought a diverse array of people to buy and sell goods from
around the world-

- European infiltration

Commercial conflicts between Venice and the Ottoman empire between 1400s and 1500s, but after
Portuguese discovery of new routes, they both had much to lose.

1700s, several geopolitical and economic developments

- Decline of Muslim empires

- European regulation of trade
o English, Dutch and French companies supplanted Turkish and Arab firms
o Russian merchants in central Asia

The Early Modern Atlantic Economy

Discovery of America by Europeans, new and revolutionary event.

- Link between Africa, America and Europe

In the Atlantic trade, Europeans tried to organize resources and people

- Triangular trade
o Manufactured goods from Europe to Africa in exchange for slaves
o Slaves brought to America, where sold for cash, sugar and other American products
o American products sold in Europe or in Asia (silver)

Merchants regularly violated the slave trading monopolies, high competition between the various
European countries.

Europeans traded slaves, gold, copper, ivory and cloth in Africa for muskets, textiles, iron, liquor and cowry
shells. The slave trade had a fundamental impact in African societies, even if the search for slaves was
highly regulated by local societies. Low density of males added incentive to polygamous marital
arrangements.
By the end of the 1700s, the decline of productivity as a result of the slave trade, started to damage African
industrial production.

The Spanish empire had two important ramifications:

- Gold and silver bullion

o Travelling until Asia to pay for luxury goods and spices
- Agricultural commodities
o Brazil, sugar cane; highly profitable and suitable for high-volume production
 Abundant supply of slave labor

The plantation system became the model for commodity agricultural production throughout the Americas

- Native depopulation
- Small number of European settlers repopulation with African slaves

Outside the plantation economy, native tribes traded anima furs and skins in return for firearms, alcohol
and other manufactured goods.

- Extensive colonization after the fall of the Aztec and Inca empires.

Trade in furs fed a ravenous European demand by the early 1700s.

- Rivalry and conflict between European and American goods.

o Both between American and European nations

Enormous capital for European countries and merchant organizations

Chapter 4: The movement of Peoples and Diffusion of Cultures

The roots of modern migration patterns extend back to the substantial movements of peoples in the early
modern age. As different ethnic communities established new homes in new places, various peoples
interacted with one another on an extensive scale for the first time and created new societies.

- Transatlantic: enslaved Africans and Europeans towards America

- Eurasia: Russian movement eastward and Chinese resettlement in both southeast and central Asia

Land and labor in the Atlantic world

Spanish: central and south America

- Land drew Europeans across the Atlantic

o Forced labor by indigenous population
o Introduction of encomienda (old feudal traditions)
 In return from protecting and teaching Christianity, the landlord received income
and labor. A little more than slavery
North America:

- Rationalization the appropriation of landed resources

o Land could be taken because nobody was farming it. Hunting, fishing and picking was
factiously not considered an economic activity that marked property.

Among the 16th and 17th century 2 major developments intensified the demand for labor

- Collapse of native populations to diseases

o Slave labor
- European settlements in the Caribbean island
o Plantation system of sugar production, following the Brazilian example
 Most laborers did not survive for more than several years
 Constant demand for African slaves

Portuguese first raided the coasts of Africa and then inserted themselves into the African slave market,
increasing progressively the demand.

- 10-12 million of African slaves for plantations and mines

o From Guinea Coast to Angola
o 2/3 were male

Buying and selling slaves formed an integral part of African society long before the Portuguese arrived.
They were victims of

- Warfare
- Judicial punishment
- Indebtedness

Processes next to capture were

- stripping, shaving and branding them.

- Division according to gender and shipment

Travel: 1-2 months

- In the deck if the weather was good

- in the hold if the weather was bad

dangers:

- disease
- malnutrition
- bad weather

25 percent of all Africans died during the voyage, 25% of 10 millions = 2.5 millions => 12.5 millions captured
in Africa.

Merchant companies delivered slaves to specific markets. High mortality rate.

- sugar plantations, new disease environments

- low fertility rate => few women, work even during pregnancy

Resistance: suicide, sabotage, revolts (especially in the ship)

- lots of Africans worked slowly and damaged equipment as a means of resistance.

Fear of revolt among whites and were therefore extremely violent.

1791, St Domingue

- slaves and free mulattos revolted against the French colonial government.
o Birth of Haiti, the first ex-colonial country to become a republic alone, 1804 (13 years of
war)

Coerced labor represented the most cost-effective means to produce profits from the land

- Opposition to slavery began in the 1700s, after 300 hundreds of years of its birth

Slave markets existed, in a much smaller extent, also in North America

- Demand for agricultural labor. Native tribes participated fully in the trade.
o Increasingly violent environment in the geopolitics across the southeastern region.
 Some tribes as the Apalachee incurred in heavy losses from war and slave raiders
 Lack of trust convinced native tribal leaders to discontinue their slave raiding
alliances with colonial forces

To pay for the Atlantic crossing or to repay debts at home, men and women contracted with employers to
work for a specific period, 4-7 years

- Shelter, food and clothing

Treatment non compatible to Africans.

What permitted Europeans to plant themselves on the African coastline and carve out empires in America
was the generally the technological superiority and their ferociousness.

- Investments in ship-building

No major debates about the morality of enslavement. Many Europeans, Africans and Americans benefited
from the trade.

In 1700s, criticism of slavery (Enlightenment). In 1800s, decrease in economic profitability. In 1899, Brazil
banishes slavery, the last one.

New societies in the Atlantic World

European immigration 1.4 million. It grew because of reproduction. Still, great number of Africans, cultural
influence on the development of American culture.

- Religious practices
- Musical expressions
- Culinary traditions

The mixture of a great number of African cultures created new cultural expression in the Americas.

Among the Europeans, initially most migrants were men. Later they started sending children from
orphanages because no woman wanted to risk such a voyage. Later arrived also spontaneous emigration.

Local women played important functions, creating a social hierarchy based on ethnic gradations. High
gender disparity.

- Creoles, mestizos, mulattos, zambos

Ethnicities merged, blending European, American, and African peoples. Intermarriage was frequent when it
involved the union with an important local family, in order to gain prestige and power.

Since peoples of European descent dominated political, social and economic life, they brought their
institutions. Government, law, religion and language.

Introduction of Christianity. Catholic and Protestants brought their religion and converted slaves and
indigenous people. However, native American and African societies played an important role in the
development of popular culture. Religious beliefs blended old and new rites. Religious orders found that it
was particularly effective. Ex: Our lady of Guadalupe. African-Americans introduced novel forms of worship,
including dancing and music.

The colony’s language was the colonizer’s one. The creole languages used by blacks bled into the different
European vernacular dialects, creating an African-European mixture.

The colonial demand for labor in the early 16th century brought together Africans, Americans and
Europeans who formed multiethnic societies in the early modern world.

Resettlement Across Asia

Russian migration across Siberia

- From 300 000 in 1710 to 2.7 million by 1800

the early modern migration Russianized Siberia. Striking parallels with the transatlantic migrations

- Ruthless colonization of a vast territorial expanse, inhabited largely by seminomadic peoples,

decimation due to disease, exploitation of land and coercion of labor and the transformation of
indigenous cultures into new multiethnic societies

Ivan IV expanded into the Kazan region.

- Prized commodities, as salt, gold and copper. The most important were fur pelts. As sugar was to
the Caribbean, furs were to Siberia.

Land provided a source of income for a second wave of immigrants in the 1600s and 1700s.

- Support from the Russian Orthodox Church, presence of missionaries, repudiating Islam and
shamanistic religions.

First it was sent military and administrative personnel, missionaries and hunters. Then the peasants arrived,
as farmers or artisans.

- Strong cultural interaction with the local population. Among time, sexual interaction blended
ethnicities imperceptibly. Sometimes it was violent.

Russian peasants experienced the same type of restrictions and financial exactions that they had attempted
to flee in Muscovy and moved further east.

The eastward flow of Russians into Siberia formed one of the most extensive transcontinental interactions
in the early modern period, with dramatic implications for northern Asia. Conversion of the landscape into
an agricultural region. Same triangular dynamic as America.
Chinese migration towards:

 From 1500 to 1800 the maritime territories of the Indian Ocean

o merchant activity despite restrictions
 demand for Chinese goods remained high so merchants migrated to Melaka,
Bangkok, Manila and Jakarta
o mid-1600s, from Ming to Qing, supporters of the Ming fled the country into other islands in
the southeast.
o End of anticommercial edicts at the end of 1600s, allowing foreign trade to recommence.

Chinese immigrants became absorbed into the host society, surrendering their native identity. They
converted to Catholicism, Islam etc.

Mestizo societies, informed by both Chinese and local tradition. They maintained a strong sense of
“Chineseness”.

Some were sojourners, male migrants that experienced a part of their life in the south east and then, in a
second phase, returned in the home country. They were then replaced by new sojourners.

Chinese found homes, throughout southeast Asia because host societies regarded them as useful for their
own purposes. This is true also regarding Europeans.

 1700s, Across Asia.

o Mongolia, Turkestan, Tibet and other regions
o Planned by the Qing dynasty, paralleled the Russian conquest of Siberia

Idea: provide security along the western frontier against Mongols and counter the Russian push into
northern Mongolia and the amur River basin.

- Tibet, Mongolia and Xinjiang

They used mass migration as a tool of empire-building.

- Military colonies before extensive civilian migration

o Incentives: land, tools, seeds, a horse and financial assistance.
o 155 000 Chinese peasants in northern Xinjiang
- Criminals and political dissidents into exile
- Multiethnic settler societies under Qing imperial control

This was supported by Confucianism, which emphasized the comprehensive reach of the emperor over all
peoples in Middle Kingdom, regardless of their ethnic background. This universalism was at the same time
in pair with policies to keep peoples separate.

- Local leaders of ethnic groups to implement laws dictated by central authorities

- Opposition to intermarriage across ethnic boundaries. Difficulties in enforcing it.

Migrants interconnect world regions

There was a pull and push effect offered by governments and populations that caused migration.

Demand for land and labor, ambition and hopes for a better future. This created new societies across
America and Asia. Social hierarchies were reflected by ethnic reasons in most places.
 Chapter 5: The Formation of New Demographic and Ecological
Structures
Human societies modify physical landscapes for agriculture and other activities.

- Agriculture put significant pressure on the natural resources that exploits.

o Increase in population, that requires more resources in turn.

Global expansion had significant environmental consequences. Migrants = carriers of biological systems,
familiar animals, bugs, weeds, parasites and diseases

Global dissemination of disease

Smallpox (vaiolo)

- Indigenous depletion because of two reasons

o Biological assimilation throughout Afro-Eurasia
o Geographical isolation of America

Europeans were exposed to a host of disease environments either directly through migration indirectly
through contact with Asiatic societies. Ex: bubonic plague afflict Europe periodically until the 1700s.

Other: smallpox, measles, influenza, mumps and dysentery. Those who survived acquired an immunity
from the pathogen for life.

Native populations were cut off from Eurasian pathogens and did not have the opportunity to develop any
biological resistance to these diseases.

Africans introduced malaria and yellow fever. Native population of Mesoamerica plunged from 14 million in
1520s to 3 million in the 1620s.

The disease arrived before Pizarro in the 1530s and crippled the Inca empire.

In north America, people survived generally hunting and fishing. The patterns of infection paralleled those
of South America.

The only American disease that arrived in Europe was syphilis. For Europeans these mortality rates only
confirmed their own confidence in divine favor for their conquests.

Africans also functioned as key vectors of diseases.

Diseases also accompanied Russians in their quest for furs and for land across Siberia. Smallpox and
sexually transmitted diseases (syphilis and gonorrhea)

South border of Africa and Oceania -> aborigines (1/3 of the population) and locals.

This gave Europeans a sense of spiritual and physical superiority.

Worldwide dispersal of plants and animals

World’s population roughly doubled from 1500 to 1800. The movement of plants and animals played an
integral part in the increase of food production that drove population increase.

- Transportation of American plants to Europe and Asia.

o Maize, potatoes, tomatoes, beans
They could be cultivated in climatic zones not always suitable for Old World products

Dissemination of American crops into Africa followed the wake of European overseas incursions.

Transportation of animals that served as beasts of burden or sources of protein in Asia and Europe. Almost
no domesticated animals inhabited Americas.

- Cattle, horses, sheep, pigs and goats

o Travel faster
- Ranches changed the landscape in South America in the early modern period.

Commercial crops: tobacco, cocoa, coffee. Europeans utilized American soils to grow specific Old World
commodity crops, as sugar cane, cotton and indigo.

Generally they operated as plantations.

Ecological impact

Huge toll on ecosystems around the world

Deforestation

By the end of 16th century, deforestation in Europe led to scarcity of wood, especially in Britain and the
Netherlands.

- Expanding population required land to farm and raising livestock, wood to heat.
o Ship-building consumes wood

Brazil:

- high quality wood sold by local Tupi tribes

- sugar and tobacco plantations
- mining

Hunt of jaguars, deer, snakes and other animals

Caribbean:

- sugar plantations, destruction of the ecosystem, animals died or fled (if birds)
- cotton and tobacco plantations

North America

- deforestation

Siberia -> no export of wood, only for internal use. A little in Siberia, where people burnt forests to clear
land and create fertile soil. When the soil had lost its fertility it was converted in grazing land for livestock.

China -> period of rapid growth and dynamic change

- Ming and Qing made agricultural policy a high priority in their social, economic and political
agendas
o Widespread destruction of forest through slash and burn methods.
o Introduction of American foods.

Deforestation in China surpassed the destruction of woods in any other part of the world, leading to
extensive erosion and the buildup of silt into waterways. Unpredictable and destructive flooding.
How did contemporaries understand these changes? Mixture of apprehension and opportunism.
Christianity and Confucianism were hostile to underdeveloped land

- Frontier settlers gave little thought to matters outside their own immediate self-interest
o Little restraint on human exploitation of natural resources
 By 1700s, Venice ordered the reforestation of woodlands to counter soil erosion.
 Confucian scholars recognized the connections between forest clearing, erosion
and flooding
 Japan only country that tool effective measures to counter the problem of
wholesale land clearance.
 Increase in fishing and whaling
 Reduce consumption
 Keep fertility in check through contraception and abortion

Other landscape alterations

Farming replaced the typical grass of the steppe region.

Ranching developed in central economic enterprises in Mexico

- Depletion of native vegetation, survival of cactus

- Livestock trampling compacted the soil, leading to erosion, and ranch hands killed predators
o Drought and famine in 1600s and 1700s
o no widespread environmental degradation

mining:

- mercury poisoned laborers, horses, cattle; imposing a heavy toll on local populations and producing
global consequences

Depletion of mammals and fish

Deer in North America, big cats in South America, China and Africa, and other big mammals.

- Frontier societies
o Killing of predators who threatened humans and livestock

Marine mammals = cheap sources of fuel and food for expanding population

Big cats in China: perceived as dangerous, even if it was really rare.

Loss of wildlife consistent with the loss of natural habitat

In Africa and South America, big animals were also hunted as a sport, so they retreated beyond the frontier
of colonial settlement.

Coastal societies hunted whales, especially in Canada, Greenland and in the Pacific and Arctic oceans.

- Whaling was an extremely profitable enterprise.

One beneficiary in this process was the Atlantic cod, which could enjoy a much more bounteous supply of
plankton and small crustaceans .
Cod was fished greatly. When yields dropped in a certain area, fishermen simply moved to more fertile
locations, enabling the depleted regions to recover.

The limits of the frontier

The global expansion of peoples into frontier territories carried enormous consequences for the
relationship between human societies and natural ecosystems. Europeans had a biological advantage in
America, Siberia, South Africa and Oceania.

Chapter 6: The transmission of Religion and Culture

The spread of universal religious systems: Christianity and Islam

Islamicization: the first wave

Christianization: the first wave

Orthodoxy vs. accommodation: the second wave

Constructions of knowledge

Ethnography

Cartography and Astronomy

Religion and intellectual interconnections

Conclusion