c. 1450 to c. 1750:

1. c. 1450 to c. 1750: • The Early Modern Era, or • “The Blue Era”. Why Blue?

2. The “Picture of the Era”?

3. The “Coin of the Era”?

4. The “Maritime Revolution” CAUSE: A synthesis of previously –developed seafaring technology and knowledge: • COMPASSES from China • ASTROLABES from Arab civilization • LATEEN SAILS from the Indian Ocean • New MAP-MAKING SKILLS from those societies, plus Europe . . .

5. . . . And Effects! • CHINA: Voyages of Zheng He into the Indian Ocean, sponsored by the Yongle emperor of the Ming Dynasty, 1405-1433. . . • . . . But then abandoned upon the death of the Yongle Emperor

6. What the Portuguese Did with the Maritime Revolution: • Used CARAVELS, with MARITIME CANNON ON THEM! • Started a NAVIGATION SCHOOL to become a seafaring nation! (Henry the Navigator’s idea . . .) • By 1498, had made their way (Vasco da Gama) around Africa and into the Indian Ocean . . .

8. What the Portuguese did NEXT with the Maritime Revolution: It’s a TRADING-POST EMPIRE!

9. DIDN’T meet their goal of DOMINATING Indian Ocean trade, but a combination of clever alliances and force (some would say “piracy”) DID give them a big role in that trade network.

10. ANOTHER Effect of the Maritime Revolution?

11. What did SPAIN do with the Maritime Revolution? “In Fourteen Hundred Ninety-Two, Columbus Sailed the Ocean Blue . . .”

12. THE COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE!

13. KEY COMPONENTS OF THE COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE: • DISEASES – • SMALLPOX leads to the demographic collapse of the Americas (50% to 90% of the population killed) & facilitates the conquest of the Americas by Europeans. • SYPHILLIS probably spread from the Americas to Afro-Eurasia.

14. 2. Horses (And Cattle) • Transformed the Environment of the Grasslands of North and South America (native species “pushed out” – Decline of buffalo coincides with arrival of horses). • Transformed LIFESTYLES of some native peoples (Apache; Dakota; Navajo actually became MORE NOMADIC and MORE PASTORAL) • ECONOMIC TRANFORMATION – Rise of RANCHING ECONOMY (in Mexico, for example.)

15. 3. Sugar • Transformed the DIET of the world! (Example: Forensic anthropologists tell us that people around the world had PRETTY GOOD TEETH until about 500 years ago . . .) • Made some people RICH (Who in this picture looks RICH?) . . . • . . . And condemned millions of others to SLAVERY. • Transformed the LANDSCAPE of large areas of the Americas, thanks to SOIL DEPLETION and DEFORESTATION. ( . . . One reason why Haiti is the poorest nation in the Americas today.)

17. 4. Potatoes & Maize (Corn!) • Became a WIDESPREAD part of the African/Eurasian diet (about 20% of calories, some historians estimate!) • Historians believe that American foods were a KEY PART of the massive population growth which began by the end of the Early Modern Era.

19. THE “ATLANTIC SYSTEM”

20. Mercantilism Mercantilism – An economic policy in which a nation seeks to maximize its wealth and power by maximizing its supply of bullion (precious metals, like gold and silver) “The ordinary means therefore to increase our wealth and treasure is by Foreign Trade, wherein we must ever observe this rule: To sell more to strangers yearly than we consume of theirs in value.” -- Thomas Mun, English economist.

21. Mercantilism: The Easy Way The Spanish continued to use the MITA SYSTEM created by the Incas to demand labor as tribute from native workers. They’re the ones who mined the silver at Potosi.

22. Mercantilism: The Slightly Harder Way • CASH CROP production became key to the economies of European overseas empires . . . Tobacco, indigo, cotton, but MOST OF ALL: • PLANTATION ECONOMIES in the Caribbean; Brazil; southern colonies of British North America.

23. Atlantic Slave Trade • Transfer of 9 – 12 MILLION African captives to the Americas (Chiefly the Caribbean and Brazil) from the 1500s to 1830s • CRITICAL part of the world economy . . .

24. Transfer of African people AND culture to the Americas . . . • FOODS like okra . . . • RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS, syncretized into Vodun & Candomble . . . • MUSICAL TRADITIONS

25. NEW SOCIETY of the Spanish colonies in the Americas . . . • The CASTAS: • Peninsulares • Creoles • Mestizos • Indios • Latin American CHRISTIANITY: Becomes the dominant religion of the region, but in a new, SYNCRETIC form (traditional holy figures and sites morph into Christian figures and sites – VIRGIN OF GUADALUPE!

26. OKAY, BUT WHERE IS OUR “COIN OF THE ERA” MOST LIKELY TO WIND UP?

27. Ming Dynasty China!(Yet Another Spin of the Dynastic Cycle) • In 1368, Hongwu, a peasant’s son, leads a peasant rebellion against the rule of the (Mongol) Yuan Dynasty. • Hongwu declares a new dynasty: The Ming Dynasty (meaning “brilliant”). • Hongwu, and his son, Yongle (pictured), set about returning China to its pre-Mongol ways • This included the tribute system with foreign states, which Yongle sought to extend in a way consistent with this era’s BIG BLUE THEME . . .

28. CHINESE CONTINUITIES . . . • (Neo-)Confucianism and the Civil Service System (Bureaucracy) • Mahayana/ “Pure Land” Buddhism • ECONOMIC PRODUCTION FOR EXPORT . . .

29. . . . BUT SOME CHANGES, TOO! • TAXATION IN SILVER COIN! • . . . Leads to MORE INTENSIVE PRODUCTION OF CONSUMER GOODS by the peasantry (SILK-WEAVING!) • . . . Growing POPULATION . . . • . . . And a NEW DYNASTY in 1644 (Rule by “OUTSIDERS” again, the Manchus) -- QING DYNASTY.

30. Qing Dynasty China

31. Tokugawa Japan Isolationist; more centralized; emergence of Japanese culture

33. Off to South Asia . . . THE MUGHAL EMPIRE, from the mid-1500s . . . • Another GUNPOWDER EMPIRE! • Chief Task: Managing the DIVERSE ethnic & religious groups in India • RELIGIOUS TOLERATION becomes a policy (Akbar the Great) . . . • . . . Until the strictly-Islam emperor Aurangzeb tries to enforce Islamic orthodoxy in the late 1600s – KEY FACTOR in the downfall of the empire.

34. . . . Meanwhile, NEW Religious traditions are emerging in South Asia: • SIKHISM! • Often described as a “blend” of Islam and Hinduism (though most Sikhs would dispute this simplistic explanation.)

35. India and World Commerce • Increasingly, trade with the outside world is controlled by EUROPEAN JOINT-STOCK COMPANIES . . . • DUTCH EAST INDIA COMPANY (VOC) • BRITISH EAST INDIA COMPANY • Often made money by TRANSPORTING goods from place to place . . . • . . . And then, at the end of the era,

37. Muslim Empires

38. Safavid Empire • One of a LONG SERIES of Persian dynasties . . . • . . . Promoted Shia Islam within its empire . . . • . . . LONG CONFLICT with the . . .

39. OTTOMAN EMPIRE! • Conquest of Constantinople, 1453 (another GUNPOWDER EMPIRE!) • Policy of religious & cultural TOLERANCE . . . • Lotsa MONUMENTAL ARCHITECTURE . . . • . . . Interesting forms of STATE CONTROL:

40. JANISSARIES • DEVSHIRME

41. RUSSIA becomes a MAJOR LAND-BASED EMPIRE . . .

42. European CULTRUAL TRADITIONS . . . • THE RENAISSANCE! • SECULAR HUMANISM!

43. Jan Van Eyck Wedding Portrait

44. The REFORMATION! Hi . . . I’m Martin BLUEther! • PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY! • More PERSONAL relationship with God • Facilitated by the PRINTING PRESS!

45. The SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION! • Europe becomes the FIRST SOCIETY to put a SCIENTIFIC (EMPIRICAL) VIEW of the universe in a CENTRAL PLACE in their beliefs . . . • EXAMPLES: Copernicus & the Heliocentric view of the universe; Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation