Mongols DBQ PDF
Mongols DBQ PDF
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The Mongols:
How Barbaric Were the
“Barbarians”?
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Mongols DBQ
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Directions: In the 13th century CE the Mongols created the largest connected land mass
empire in the history of the world. For centuries they have been remembered as a brutal tribe of
nomadic barbarians who were a serious threat to people and civilizations throughout Asia and
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Europe. But is there more to the story? How barbaric were the barbarians?
The Documents:
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Background Essay Mongols DBQ
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story straight. This background essay is 0 1,000 kilometers Genghis Khan’s invasions 1211–1227
MT
0 1,000 miles
followed by ten documents. Your task
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the documents to judge the Mongol’s
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world. Were they barbarians spreading QazvinÁ Merv T I AN
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Á SHAN TANGUTS Chung-tu
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to the story?
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Beginnings SUNG EMPIRE
In
Merkits, the Kipchaks. The Mongol empire was eastern Russian frontier. The great Mongol
suddenly not so little. general Subedei sought to make an example of
Still further to the west was the ancient Riazan that would cause other Russian cities to
Persian empire of Khwarazm which included submit. The city was destroyed. Men, women,
the modern nations of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and children were slain. A few survivors were
and Iran. Initially Genghis Khan and the Shah of allowed to escape to carry the warning: The
Khwarazm worked out a peaceful trade agree- Mongols are coming – submit or die.
ment, but then a Mongol caravan of 150 traders Kolumna, Suzdal, Vladimir, Kozelsk, Kiev
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entering Khwarazm from Mongolia was mur- and other cities in Russia; Lublin, Cracow in
dered by one of the Shah’s governors. This Poland; Liegnitz in Silesia; Buda and Pest in
turned out to be a bad mistake. What followed Hungary – the Mongols swept their way west.
was a Mongol onslaught that raked over the land By May, 1242, Mongol intelligence patrols were
of the Khwarazm Shah. Cities fell; Persian casu- just 60 miles from Vienna.
alties were extraordinarily high. And then the unexpected – the Mongols
The Second Wave: Russia and turned back! Word from Mongolia had apparent-
Eastern Europe ly reached the front lines that the Great Khan
In 1227 Genghis Khan died and was suc- Ogedei had died. Not understanding what had
ceeded by one of his four sons, Ogedei. Ogedei happened, western Europe held its breath and
ordered the building of a Mongol capital called waited.
Karakorum, and afterward itched for further At about this time, in the 1240s, a small
conquest. After long debate with his brothers number of European visitors began to visit
Mongolia and Mongol-controlled
Á Kostroma
Á
China, men like the John of Plano
Novgorod Kazan
Á
Moscow
ÁBulgar Mongols in Europe 1237–1242
Mongol invasion
Carpini, Friar William of Rubruck, and,
Á
a
Se
l t ic LITHUANIA
Á Kozelsk
PRINCIPALITIES Mongol withdrawl several years later, the famous Marco
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Vienna AT 0 400 miles
Á HI
AN
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China. Thanks to the writings of these
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Venice C AU
Se
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Á CROATIA
travellers we have some firsthand
.
S MT
a
Ad WALLACHIA .
eR GEORGIA S.
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AT
IA BULGARIA accounts of Mongol life.
The Third Wave: The Middle East
and generals the decision was made to invade
Ogedei was succeeded by Genghis’ grandson
Russia and eastern Europe. Ogedei predicted the
Mongke. Mongke set his sights on still further
campaign would take a long eighteen years. An
conquest. Two targets were chosen, the Middle
army of 50,000 horse soldiers, Persian and
East and southern China.
Chinese engineers, and 20,000 draftees were
made ready to march. By the winter of 1237 this Again, a huge Mongol army was assembled
army stood poised on the frozen banks of the on the steppes – thousands upon thousands of
Volga; Russia and Europe lay before them. horses, numerous siege machines, and one thou-
sand Chinese engineering teams for building
The next five years were to shake the Western
roads and bridges. The massive army advanced
world. The first city to fall was Riazan on the
into Persia on January 1, 1256.
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Background Essay (Continued) Mongols DBQ
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First the Mongols annihilated a troublesome Kubilai, a grandson of Genghis, who ruled in
sect known as the Assassins. Next they advanced China. Kubilai maintained enough ties with the
500 miles west to the walls of Baghdad. There, other khanates to achieve a measure of security
in February, 1258, this spiritual and cultural across much of Asia. Historians have called this
center of Islam fell. Mongol armies proceeded time pax Mongolica or “the Mongolian peace.”
into Syria and Palestine where they were joined Kubilai was probably the most cultured of
by Christian troops from Armenia and Georgia. the Great Khans. He expanded his holdings in
It was a time of shifting alliances and these China by defeating the Sung Empire in southern
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China and established a new dynasty
D on R
V o l ga
R. Mongol invasion 1256–1259 he called the Yuan. For the first time
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In his later years Kubilai weakened
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Red Sea
T S.
a
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Balkh Kubilai’s death the Mongols began to
Á Herat
KHURASAN lose their grip across the entire empire.
In Persia Mongol authority ended in 1335. In
eastern Christians saw the Mongol attack on the
China the last Mongol emperor was removed in
Middle East as a kind of crusade against Islam.
1368. In Russia the Golden Horde breathed its
Then, suddenly, history repeated itself. Just as
final official breath in 1502. The Mongol era
the death of a Great Khan had stopped the
was over.
Mongols as they approached Vienna in 1242,
now the death of Mongke Khan in 1259 caused The Question
the Mongols to pull back from the walls of What should we make of the Mongols?
Jerusalem. There is no debate among historians that the
Pax Mongolica and Kubilai Khan in China Mongols had their brutal side. But when the day
of historical judgment comes and the Mongol
By this time the Mongol Empire consisted
goods and bads are placed side by side on the
of four parts or khanates – the Russian khanate
balance scale, which way does the scale tip?
called the Golden Horde, the Persian khanate of
Read the documents that follow and make your
the Ilkhans, the central Asian khanate, and a
judgment: The Mongols: How barbaric were
fourth khanate which included Mongolia and
the “Barbarians”?
China. The next Great Khan was the famous
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Document 1 ✎ Notes
Source: Map created from various sources.
Paris
Kiev
Bl
(Russia)
k
M
Se
ed
a
ite
Aral
rra
Caspian Sea
Sea
ne
Karakorum Sea of
an
L. Balkhash Japan
Se
Tabriz
a
Shangdu
Jerusalem (Kaiping) JAPAN
J Ain Julut Baghdad Daidu
Egyptian Mamluks Samarkand CHAGHADAI (Beijing)
Yellow
defeat Mongols, Nishapur
1260 KHANATE KHANATE OF Sea
Red Sea
Hangzhou
ul Delhi
G
f
Agra
PACIFIC
OCEAN
South
Arabian China
Sea Sea
Bay of
Bengal
Note: The area of the continental United States (excluding Alaska and Hawaii) is 3,036,885 square miles.
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Document 2 ✎ Notes
Source: John of Plano Carpini, History of the Mongols, in Christopher Dawson, The Mongol Mission,
London: Sheed and Ward, 1955.
Note: John of Plano Carpini was a Franciscan emissary of Pope Innocent IV and traveled to
Karakorum between 1245 and 1247. It is believed he was the first European to visit the
Mongols in their homeland.
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Document 3 ✎ Notes
Source: John of Plano Carpini, History of the Mongols, in Christopher Dawson, The Mongol
Mission, London: Sheed and Ward,1955.
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When ... they are going to join it, sometimes even fencing it round
battle, they draw all the battle lines so that no one can enter or leave.
just as they are (about) to fight. The They make a strong attack with
chiefs or princes of the army do not engines (catapults for slinging large
take part in the fighting but take up stones) and arrows and they do not
their stand some distance away leave off fighting by day or night, so
facing the enemy, and they have that those inside the fortress get no
beside them their children on horse- sleep; the Tartars however get some
back and their womenfolk and rest, for they divide up their forces
horses; and sometimes they make fig- and they take it in turns to fight so
ures of men and set them on that they do not get too tired. If they
horses. They do this to give the cannot capture it in this way they
impression that a great crowd of throw Greek fire (napalm); some-
fighting men is assembled there. times they even take the fat of the
They send a detachment of people they kill and, melting it, throw
captives and men of other nationalities (catapult) it on to the houses, and
who are fighting with them to meet wherever the fire falls on this fat it is
the enemy head-on, and some of the almost inextinguishable.
Tartars (Mongols) may perhaps While they are pitched before the
accompany them. Other columns of fortification they speak enticing
stronger men they dispatch far off to words to the inhabitants making them
the right and the left so that they are many promises to induce them to sur-
not seen by the enemy and in this render into their hands. If they do
way they surround them and close in surrender to them, they say: “Come
and so the fighting begins from all out, so that we may count you
sides. Sometimes when they are few according to our custom” and when
in number they are thought by the they come out to them they seek out
enemy, who are surrounded, to be the artificers (artisans) among them
many, especially when the latter and keep these, but the others, with
catch sight of the children, women, the exception of those they wish to
horses and dummy figures.... have as slaves, they kill with the
They reduce fortresses in the axe....
following manner. If the position of
the fortress allows it, they surround
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Document 4 ✎ Notes
Source: Ata-Malik Juvaini, Genghis Khan: The History of the World Conqueror, edited by UNESCO and
Manchester University Press, © UNESCO 1997. Reprinted by permission.
In the spring of 618/1221, the people of Nishapur (a city in Persia) saw that the
matter was serious ... and although they had three thousand crossbows in action on the
wall and had set up three hundred mangonels and ballistas and laid in a correspondent SV
quantity of missiles and naphtha, their feet were loosened and they lost heart....
By the Saturday night all the walls were covered with Mongols;... The Mongols
now descended from the walls and began to slay and plunder.... They then drove all the
survivors, men and women, out onto the plain; and ... it was commanded that the town
should be laid waste in such a manner that the site could be ploughed upon; and that ...
not even cats and dogs should be left alive....
They severed the heads of the slain from their bodies and heaped them up in piles,
keeping those of the men separate from those of the women and children.
Note: Juvaini was a Persian chronicler who was in the employ of the Mongol Il-khan of Persia who
served under the Mongols as the governor of Baghdad. He wrote this account about forty years
after the destruction of Nishapur.
Note: These casualty figures are found in George Marshall’s Storm from the East. Despite very probable
exaggeration, there is agreement among chroniclers of the time and historians of today that the
number of deaths at Nishapur was staggering.
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Document 5 ✎ Notes
Source: Persian manuscript, “The Shah Namah” or “Book of Kings,” c. 1300, Chester Beatty Library,
Dublin. In Robert Marshall, Storm from the East, From Genghis Khan to Kubilai Khan, University
of California Press, 1993. Reproduced with the permission of BBC Worldwide Limited. Copyright
© Robert Marshall 1993.
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A scene from a Persian manuscript c.1300, showing the execution of a prisoner by a Mongol soldier.
Others are being buried alive upside-down.
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Document 6 ✎ Notes
Source: Charles J. Halperin, Russia and the Golden Horde, Indiana University Press, 1985.
Reprinted by permission of Indiana University Press.
The Mongols conquered nearly all of Asia and achieved what all Inner Asian SV
steppe empires had dreamed of, control of the continental caravan routes from
China to Persia. The enormous destructive cost of the Pax Mongolica cannot be
denied, but the Mongol Empire made significant contributions to the political
institutions, economic development, and cultural diversity of many lands. No
history of the Mongol Empire ... which dwells only on Mongol destruction, can be
satisfactory.
• In both China and Persia the Mongols had taken up residence among
their new subjects, garrisoning cities and gradually blending to a degree
with the (local) societies. As a result, their economic interests coincided
with those of the native peoples, and the Mongols, after the destruction
of the initial conquest, promoted diversified economic development.
• The same was true in Persia, partly because Persian craft traditions
were well-established, but also because the Ilkanids (Mongol rulers)
were patrons of the arts.
• The Persian silk industry also benefitted from the Mongol conquest
because of the contacts that opened up with China.
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Document 7 ✎ Notes
Source: Paul Ratchnevsky, Genghis Khan: His Life and Legacy, translated by Thomas Nivison
Haining, 1991. Reprinted by permission of Blackwell Publishing. (Italics added.)
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Document 8 ✎ Notes
Source: Marco Polo,The Travels of Marco Polo, Penguin Books, 1958.
Document Note: Marco Polo journeyed to China from 1271 to 1295. For 17 of these years, Polo
served Kubilai Khan in various capacities, including ambassador.
The Yams SV
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Document 9 ✎ Notes
Source: William of Rubruck, The Journey of William of Rubruck, translated by a nun of
Stanbrook Abbey, edited by Christopher Dawson, London: Sheed and Ward, 1955.
The next day he Mongke Khan sent his scribes to me, who said:
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/Our master sends us to you and he says: 1Here you are, Christians,
Saracens Muslims, and tuins Rubruck would translate tuins as pagans;
in fact, they were Buddhists, and each of you declares that his law is the
best and his literature, that is his books, are the truest.2 He therefore
wishes you all to meet together and hold a conference and each one is to
write down what he says so that he can know the truth.0
On the day following the exchange between the religious spokesmen
Mongke Khan made this profession of faith to Rubruck: /We Mongols
believe that there is but one God, by Whom we live and by Whom we die
and towards Him we have an upright heart. But just as God gave
different fingers to the hand so has He given different ways to men.0
Notes: • Mongke Khan was the fourth Great Khan, the grandson of Genghis, and the brother of
Kubilai who would succeed Mongke upon his death in 1259.
• Over the course of the next two centuries Mongol leaders often converted to
the region’s dominant religions – Christianity, Islam, or Buddhism.
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Document 10 ✎ Notes
Document Note: There were two codes of conduct that guided Mongol life. One of these was the
yasa, usually referred to as the Mongol law. The second was the bilik, which was a
set of rules to live by.
On Hospitality On Adultery
Source: Rashid ad-Din, Collected Chronicles. Source: Yasa fragment, in Paul Ratchnevsky, SV
Genghis Khan.
When a husband goes hunting or to
war, his wife must maintain the house- Whosoever commits adultery will be
hold, so that the messenger or guest executed, whether or not they have
who dismounts there finds all in order previous convictions.
and the wife is able to provide him
with good food and anything else he Source: Juvaini, trans. L.A. Khanlaryan in Paul
may require. Ratchnevsky, Genghis Khan.
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