Unit 4: Maintaining and

Developing Maritime
Empires
c. 1450 - 1750
Learning Objective
(Topic 4.5)

Explain how rulers

employed economic
strategies to consolidate
and maintain power
throughout the period
from 1450 to 1750.
(Governance)
Historical
Developments
Mercantilist policies and practices were
used by European rulers to expand and
control their economies and claim
overseas territories. Joint-stock
companies, influenced by these
mercantilist principles, were used by rulers
and merchants to finance exploration and
were used by rulers to compete against
one another in global trade.
Learning
Objective (4.5)

Explain the continuities

and changes in networks
of exchange from 1450 to
1750. (Economic
Systems)
Historical
Developments

The Atlantic trading

system involved the
movement of goods,
wealth, and labor,
including slaves.
Historical Developments
The new global circulation of goods was
facilitated by chartered European
monopoly companies and the global flow of
silver, especially from Spanish colonies in the
Americas, which was used to purchase Asian
goods for the Atlantic markets and satisfy
Chinese demand for silver. Regional markets
continued to flourish in Afro-Eurasia by using
established commercial practices and new
transoceanic and regional shipping services
developed by European merchants.
Global silver trade in the
17th century.
Learning Objective (4.5)
Explain how political, economic, and cultural factors affected society from 1450 to
1750. (Social Interactions and Organization)
Historical Developments

Some notable gender and family

restructuring occurred, including
demographic changes in Africa that
resulted from the slave trades.
Historical
Developments

The Atlantic trading system involved

the movement of labor—including
slaves—and the mixing of African,
American, and European cultures and
peoples, with all parties contributing
to this cultural synthesis.
Learning Objective (4.5)

Explain the similarities and differences

in how various belief systems affected
societies from 1450 to 1750.

(Cultural Developments and

Interactions)
Historical
Developments
In some cases, the increase
and intensification of
interactions between newly
connected hemispheres
expanded the reach and
furthered development of
existing religions, and
contributed to religious
conflicts and the development
of syncretic belief systems
and practices.
European Empires Established
● European colonization was based on an
economic theory called mercantilism
○ Goal of economic gain to benefit
mother country
○ Encouraged exports
○ Accumulation of bullion (gold, silver)
○ Raw materials extracted from colonies
○ Finished goods and services are
sold/traded to colonies
● New World colonies expanded the mother
country’s (France, Spain, Portugal,
Netherlands, England) economy, tilting the
balance of power in the world toward
Europe
Mercantilism
Joint-Stock Companies
● Joint-stock companies were large privately owned trading companies
● Investors bought stock in the company, taking on risks in the hopes of earning
high returns from exploration and trade
● Investors were only responsible for their personal investment (limited liability)
and therefore spread the burden of the risk and cost of the voyage among a
larger group of people
● Encouraged investments by making it safer and less risky
● Removed the requirement of state-sponsored voyages (although they did
have state support)
● An important emergence in early capitalist society
● Two main players: English East India Company (1600) and Dutch
counterpart: the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische
Compagnie) or VOC (1602)
● Charters with their government allowed them to buy, sell, build trading posts,
and make war in the company's’ best interests
The Atlantic Economy
● Triangular Trade
○ Experimentation with labor systems
○ New methods of transportation (caravel)
○ Capitalistic enterprise (mercantilism)
● All combined to create a network of sea routes
● Europe to Africa
○ Guns, textiles, manufactured goods
● Middle Passage; Africa to Americas
○ Enslaved Africans to the Americas
■ “brought” foods such as okra and rice
● New World to Europe
○ Goods produced in the new world included raw materials
○ sugar, tobacco, cotton, rice, gold, silver
● Ships also crossed Pacific
○ Manila (capital of the Spanish colony of the Philippines) galleons
○ Traded silver for Asian luxury goods
Add this
to your
map!
 Atlantic Trading System
● Capitalism and mercantilism applied to exchanges
across the Atlantic
● Investors sought profits in the production and
export of cash crops
● Some crops from New World to Old (tobacco)
● Brazil and the Caribbean principal sources of
sugar (from Eastern Hemisphere)
○ Needed to be raised on large plantations
○ Raw sugar cane could not survive the ocean journeys
■ Processed before it was shipped
○ Producer needed growing fields and a processing plant
■ Large investment; small farmers couldn't survive
○ Slave labor
 The Great Dying
● One of the biggest impact Europeans had
on the New World was the arrival of
deadly diseases
● 60-80 million died
● Lack of domesticated animals meant
indigenous populations did not have
exposure to disease
○ Smallpox, measles, typhus, influenza, malaria,
yellow fever
● Indigenous people on Caribbean islands
were gone in 50 years
● Some areas lost 90% of their population
● The same was occuring in Dutch and
British colonies in North America
Spanish and Portuguese Empires
● The conquistadors claimed and discovered
lands in the names of their empires (mostly for
Spain)
● Portuguese were preoccupied with interests in
Africa and Asia (trading post empires)
○ Viceroys appointed to administer Brazil
● The Spanish established two centers of
authority
○ Mexico and Peru
○ Later divided into four viceroyalties and the Audiencia
of Chile
○ Built Mexico City on old Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan
○ Built administrative buildings in old Inca centers in
Cuzco
○ Capital in Lima along the coast
 Spanish and Portuguese Empires
 Viceroys were the king’s representatives
◦ Communication difficult; viceroys operated fairly
independently
◦ Viceroys set up government in urban areas; members of
bureaucracy lived nearby
◦ Until 17th century most officials were born in Spain but
over time posts given to some of the new generation
 Urban settlement patterns in Brazil were
similar
◦ Jesuits and priests arrived to convert natives
◦ Set up residences and churches
◦ Priests also saw to the spiritual needs of Europeans and
established schools
◦ Amerindians converted as a result of close contact with
priests
◦ Eventually some priests protested Spanish exploitation
The Burning of sacred
Mexica texts by
Catholic missionaries.
Women in the New World
● Women were often traded and sold as
slaves to European conquerors
● Some elite woman married European men
as a method of cementing an alliance
between indigenous groups and the new
arrivals
● For the average woman, slavery, rape,
and abuse were common fates
● Also led to new racial social hierarchies
due to the intermixing of enslaved
Africans, natives, and Europeans
● Due to the presence of the Incas and
Mexica, the Spanish and Portuguese
colonized the wealthiest lands of the New
World
● Established cities, churches, and
universities well before the British colonized
North America
● Wealth was in commercial agriculture &
silver mining
● Encomienda and hacienda labor systems
were utilized
○ Large estates employed native workers
○ Another form of slavery
New Social Hierarchies in New Spain
● New social hierarchies emerged
based on race and birth location
● Peninsulares had the most
power, land, and political authority
○ Looked to Spain for guidance but
largely saw themselves as unique and
independent
● Creoles were the children of
peninsulares, born in New Spain
● A lack of Spanish women meant
that mixed race children were also
included in the social hierarchy,
but below peninsulares and
creoles
Casta Paintings
European Women in New Spain
● Patriarchal society
○ Father authority over children
○ Women couldn’t hold political positions, run a
plantation or mines
○ Women did control dowry and ran business after
husbands died
○ Women had full rights to inheritance
● European women were considered “bearers
of civilization”
● Transmitted male wealth, honor, and status
by birthing legitimate children (children born
in wedlock)
● “Purity of the Blood” was a concern
○ In Spain the concern was Muslim and Jewish mixing
○ In the New World, mixing with Africans or
indigenous peoples
Since they were born
on the Iberian
Peninsula (Spain
and Portugal)
“peninsulares” were
most likely to have
“purity of the blood.”
Historical
Developments
In some cases, the increase
and intensification of
interactions between newly
connected hemispheres
expanded the reach and
furthered development of
existing religions, and
contributed to religious
conflicts and the development
of syncretic belief systems
and practices.
 Natives in New Spain
● At the bottom of the social hierarchy
● Populations destroyed by disease
● Used as labor force for agricultural labor and
mining
● Forced to convert to Christianity by missionaries
○ Some converted willingly to be more accepted by
Spanish society
● Spanish refused to recognize female property or
inheritance rights
● Christian saints blended with indigenous gods to
create new syncretic beliefs
● Tupac Amaru revolt in Peru in 1780 showed
indigenous peoples were unhappy and willing to
defend their traditions
 How does the
Virgin of
Guadalupe
illustrate
syncretism in the
New World?
Vodun / Vodou via Smithsonian.com
Vodou or Vodun has roots in the religious traditions of West and Central Africa,
where most Haitians’ ancestors were born, and in the Roman Catholicism of
European colonizers in Africa and the French who colonized the western third of the
island of Hispaniola in the 17th and 18th centuries. Its beliefs and practices were
forged in one of the most brutal slave regimes the world has known.

The religion honors a supreme creator god who is considered too remote to reach
directly. Worshipers venerate intermediary spirits, such as the orisha gods of the
Yoruba people who inhabit what is now Nigeria, Benin and Togo, and figures from
Haitian history. The faith is decentralized. It is practiced creatively, not prescriptively,
which helps to account for the differing forms practiced elsewhere, such as in New
Orleans. Like many great religions, throughout its history Haitian Vodou has provided
both solace and an intimate sense of community to the oppressed.
 How does
Vodun/Vodou
illustrate
syncretism in the
New World?
British in North America
● Arrived late and got the “leftovers” of the New
World
● Arrived from England which had experienced
Protestant and Catholic conflicts as well as
the creation of a Parliament which checked
the power of their king
● Puritans and Quakers wanted to escape old
European society rather than recreate it
(unlike those settling in New Spain)
● Less class hierarchies than in Spanish or
Portuguese settlements
● Men had more freedom in the New World,
while women still lived within the patriarchal
confines of society
 British in North America
● More British settled in North America than
Spanish settlers in Central and South America
● Amerindian populations decimated through
disease and warfare
● Less slaves needed as many farms were small-
scale and independent
○ Both of these led to less racial mixing that was so
prevalent in Spanish and Portuguese colonies
○ No creation of a similar “casta system” in North America
● Most settlers were Protestant and not as
interested in converting native peoples
○ More promotion of literacy
● Church and state not as closely connected
● Stronger traditions of local self-government
 Comparing Colonies in the Americas
 Latin America  North America
● Encomienda, Mit’a, Slave labor ● Slavery and indentured
servants
● Single men soldiers; married ● Families came, less
native women intermarriage & racial mixing
● Authoritarian government, ● Government was more
viceroys, no assemblies, independent, assemblies with
elaborate bureaucracies less elaborate bureaucracies
● Amerindians forced into labor ● Amerindians pushed aside, not
● Hierarchical social structures; generally used for labor
● Hierarchical social classes in
several classes based on ethnicity
the south, less hierarchical and
● Jesuit focus on conversion; rigid in the North
crusading traditions from Spain ● Less religious conversion
Historical
Developments
Peasant and artisan labor continued
and intensified in many regions as
the demand for food and consumer
goods increased.

Increased peasant and artisan labor:

● Western Europe— wool and

linen
● India—cotton
● China--silk
Continuities in Networks of Changes in Networks of
Exchange 1450-1750 Exchange 1450-1750
Continuities in Networks of Changes in Networks of
Exchange 1450-1750 Exchange 1450-1750
● Trade driven by desire for luxury ● Trade dominated by Europe
goods ● Shift of importance to the Atlantic
● Chinese commodities in high Ocean trade network
demand ● Development of colonies and trading
● Spices from SE Asia in high demand post empires
● Trade driven by desire to ● Capitalist concepts such as joint-
accumulate wealth and power stock companies
● Trade still prominent in the Indian ● Mercantilism
Ocean region ● Trade largely involved raw materials
● Trade dominance dependant upon generated by plantation agriculture
latest technological developments ● Role of chattel slavery
● Peasant and artisan labor continued ● New technology: caravels, fluyt,
to supply the demand for consumer galleons
goods (ex: silk in China) ● Role of silver in global markets