4.4: Maritime Empires Link Regions

African and Asian Responses to European Expansion

Africa

• In Africa, trading posts were usually established in cooperation with local African leaders

• Portuguese often traded with these leaders
• Portuguese gave gunpowder weapons, Africans gave slaves

• These African leaders with guns also gave them a huge advantage to this without guns
• This is why a lot of African leaders were willing to trade with the Portuguese, and many grew immensely wealthy from this trade
• Trading with the Portuguese gave African leaders immense economic, political, and military advantages

• Cultural exchanges happened too:
• King Alfonso I of the Kingdom of Kongo converted to Christianity

Japan

• Japan was not happy with European influence

• When Dutch and Portuguese first show up with merchants and missionaries, Japanese were initially tolerant

• However, Japanese noticed that there was a growing influence of European and Christian ideas on their people

• So Japan immediately shut down everything
• Closed off all trade
• Purged all remaining European/Christian influence

Political, Economic, Religious Rivalries

British in India

• Initially the British East India Company, like all the other European nations at the time, had small trading posts

• However, the British East India Company began to expand

• It took advantage of tensions between Muslims and Hindus to increase its political power

• Sepoys, which were European-trained Indian forces, allowed the company to gain further influence

European Conquests in the Americas

• Thanks to the diseases the Spanish conquistadors brought, the populations of the Incas and Aztecs plummeted, which made them easier to conquer

• Conquistadors = Spanish explorers and soldiers who conquered territories in the Americas in the 1500s
• Hernán Cortés conquered Aztecs
• Francisco Pizarro conquered Incas

Spanish Conquering the Aztecs

• Aztec Empire conquered many peoples and subject them to provide tribute

• As such, many of these peoples grew resentment against their Aztec overlords

• Cortés used this to his advantage, garnering their support to overthrow the Aztecs

• Thanks to this, along with disease, in 1521, Spanish conquer Aztecs and establish the colony of New Spain

Spanish Conquering the Incas

• By 1572, Spanish under Francisco Pizzaro conquered the Incans as well

• Pizzaro like Cortés used resentments of conquered peoples and disease (albeit unintentionally) to overthrow the Incas

• Colony of New Castile established in Peru

Treaty of Tordesillas

• Spain and Portugal both wanted to control lands in Americas and as such got in a lot of disputes

• In 1494, they settle their differences in the Treaty of Tordesillas

• Divided up the Americas between them
• Portugal got Brazil, Spain got the rest

Labor Systems

• One continuity is the use of coerced labor
• "Coerced” means doing something against your will

Hacienda System

• Comes from Spain

• Spanish government granted haciendas (land) to conquistadors and nobles willing to go to the Americas

• Landowners would develop agriculture on their lands, and would often cultivate cash crops like sugarcane

• The workers working on the haciendas were trapped because they owed enormous amounts of debt to the landowners and their wages were extremely low

• As such, these lords would grow filthy rich off the backs of these workers

• Workers were usually Native Americans

Encomienda System

• Not so much a system of land ownership as the hacienda system was but more a system of labor

• Goal was to exploit Native Americans for labor and their resources

• The encomendero was in charge of a number of Native Americans

• The justification for this system was as follows:
• Native Americans provide labor and Spanish in return offer protection

• Spanish also aggressively tried to convert the native peoples to Christianity through the encomienda system

• Similar to feudal Europe in a way

Mit’a System

• Spanish borrowed and reappropriated the mit’a system previously used by the Incan Empire
• In this system, men from conquered peoples were supposed to work on public projects for a certain amount of days as tribute

• Spanish came to Americas in search for gold and although they didn’t find much gold, they found a lot of silver

• Reappropriated the mit’a system but instead of working on public projects the natives would mine for silver

Chattel Slavery

Problems with Native American Labor

• There weren’t enough of them as most of them died from disease

• Natives knew their land far better than the Europeans and were often able to escape

Rise of Chattel Slavery

• Slaves from Africa were not subject to these problems with Native Americans
• There were plenty of them in Africa
• Knew land even less than Europeans as they were from Africa

• Had to endure the brutal Middle Passage (journey of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean from Africa to the Americas)
• Conditions on these ships were horrific