Chapter 13: Political Transformations

Chapter 13: Political Transformations

The early modern era (1450-1750) was an "age of empire" (554). Imperialism, or the act of national expansion through military affairs, has a bad rap. However, Strayer argues that though it was true that empire building could be violent and forceful, imperialism in the early modern era gave rise to globalization because the mixing of diverse peoples created refreshing changes and relevant changes in history.

European Empires in the Americas & Comparing Colonial Societies in the Americas
Europeans had advantages in colonizing the Americas because of geography, Atlantic winds, and European innovations. They also were driven by a determination to find the world's riches, their expansion from ecological production, and competition for wealth and status among rival states. They were also boosted by local allies that basically assisted their conquest. For example, peoples of the Aztec empire joined Cortes in carving a Spanish Mesoamerican empire (557). Strayer finally says their diseases helped in conquest because their contamination helped to wipe out Native Americans. This doesn't sound too humanistic to me, but it seems what he is trying to say is that the Europeans were driven by their desire to expand, so they saw outnumbering local peoples, (which turned out to be about 90% of the Native American population) (558) through germs was advantageous to them. However, it is also strange to me because disease is part of human physiology, so I sometimes wonder if when they intended to come to America, they also intended to contaminate the natives strategically. This became known as the Great Dying, as it coincided with the Little Ice Age of "unusually cold temperatures" (560) during the early modern era. This devastation sparked the term General Crisis, causing drought, famine, labor shortage, and disease. However, it also created "room for immigrant newcomers" (561), thus Africans and Europeans brought their flora and fauna, essentially giving rise to a new culture and interaction of peoples. European empires generated the large-scale transformations. This included a large population growth in the Americas from essential food crops, chocolate and tobacco, which spread widely around the world, societal development leading to globalization and the reshaping of the world economy through commerce, slavery, and mining, what became known as the Colombian exchange - the network of diverse peoples, trade, organisms, and disease created by European colonial empires in the Americas, giving rise to the Scientific and and Industrial Revolutions and resulting in the New World.

European empires thrived based on mercantilism wherein the government economy served as the source of national prosperity. Women were abused, raped, and enslaved. The economic foundation of Mexico and Peru was the Spanish conquest through commercial agriculture, mining, and oppressive system of enslavement of native peoples who were the backbone of labor "despite their much-diminished numbers" (565). This economic system that relied on forced labor and acquiring of wealth consequently shaped a society characterized by stratification and gender hierarchy. Women couldn't hold public office and socially were "subordinate" and "viewed as weak"(566), but they were significant in their ability to reproduce, and Spaniards looked down on mixed-race peoples. When reading the section of mestizas and mestizos, I could relate. All my life I grew up understanding my mixed race identity, and I told people, even in my college personal statement, that I am mestiza because I am half Filipino and half Guatemalan. The reason some textbooks refer to the indigenous peoples of the Americas as "Indians" is because this is what Europeans labeled them, for they were at the bottom of the Mexico and Peru societies, and they became most subject to Spanish overlords and their culture was wiped away.

Europeans found profit in sugar in the Caribbean and Brazil colonies. The ancient, labor intensive practice yielded profits for a mass market, but called for the massive use of slave labor, so "European sugarcane planters turned to Africa and the Atlantic slave trade for an alternative workforce" (568) and "80% or more" served in Brazil and the Caribbean, working under harsh conditions. Women had a significant role in labor. The use of Africans for slaves resulted in a highly mixed-race population, and more slaves in the Latin American sugar colonies were set free, and skin color was not the only component indicative of status. The plantation complex spread to the colonies of North America, where mixed-racial unions were not as accepted, and slaves were born into the New World, and any hint of African ancestry already determined one's place in society. However, there were more British settlers, more literacy, and local self-government in the British colonies. As a whole, European imperialism in the Americas gave rise to globalization and the emergence of a new society throughout that is relevant today.

The Steppes and Siberia: The Making of a Russian Empire & Asian Empires
The Russian Empire developed between 1500 and 1800 because fur animals were attractive and security was sought. The empire was built through the conquest of native nomadic people, at the same time a modern Russian state was forming. Natives were forced to abandon their pastoral ways, forced to pay tribute and taxes, and pressured to convert to Christianity. Expansion Russified the natives, and they learned the Russian language and became Christians. Expansion also made Russia and an empire rich with resources, as well as immense modernization of Russian military forces.

In Asia, the non-Chinese Qing dynasty built the Chinese empire, adopting and ruling through Chinese ways such as language and Confucianism. They took over central Eurasia and expanded Chinese territory, adding non-Chinese minorities. Alongside Russia's expansion, the Chinese conquests transformed Central Asia fostering a network of trade and culture, but eliminated nomadic pastoralists. India's Mughal Empire hosted brutal conquests that provided India with some political unity under the interaction of Islamic and Hindu cultures in South Asia, composed of Turkic warriors. Mughal India's emperor, Akbar, incorporated a policy of diverse religious accommodation, even removing the non-Muslim tax and giving women more freedom, whereas Akbar "reversed" (581) it, causing growing conflict between the two major religions. The Ottoman Empire took over the Middle east and was Islam's most significant empire of Turkish warrior groups. Central Asian woman became independent and free with men, having a larger political rule, and the Turks became Islam. It preserved sacred Islam tradition, and was a location for cross-cultural encounter, specifically the interaction of Islam and Christendom. The Ottoman authorities tolerated Christianity but threatened it.