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The Mongols
The Mongols in China: Were they Barbarians??
Directions: Write the answers in your notebook. You may type, but you must sketch the image by hand. No cutting and pasting!!
- Go to Mongols in World History: http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/mongols/index.html
- Go to The Mongol Conquests:
I’m writing an essay that answers: Why did the Mongols conquer Eurasia. What’s my thesis?
Context: Mongolia in the early 13th century began to conquer various parts of Eurasia
Thesis: The Mongols conquered Eurasia because they were no longer able to rely on their own territory for sustenance, they needed a way to acquire necessary goods, and their leader’s beliefs encouraged them to invade others.
a. How do each of the following factors help explain Mongol conquest?
-ecology
Colder temperatures meant that Mongolia was unable to produce enough food to feed its citizens, so it needed somewhere else to get food. As a result, the Mongols invaded other nations in order to gain access to more food
-economic factors
Mongolia was dependent on certain goods which it imported from other nations. Trade disruptions prevented it from having access to these goods which it so desperately needed. Without these goods the consequences would be great, so Mongolia had no choice but to invade other nations to get these goods.
-Genghis Khan
Chinggis believed that it was his duty to unite the world, being influenced by deities and gods. He followed Shamanism As a result of this belief, he began invading other nations in an attempt to fulfill this duty. Therefore, Genghis Khan led the Mongols to invade other nations because his beliefs encouraged him to conquer the world.
“It is said that Tenggeri, the sky god of the Mongols, gave Chinggis the mission of bringing the rest of the world under one sword”
- Next, go to the Mongols in China
a. under life in China under Mongol Rule, read about life for peasants, artisans, and merchant groups under Mongol rule
The Pax Mongolica was a series of relative peace and stability during the height of the Mongol Empire. The period fostered unprecedented trade, and allowed ideas to spread widely across its territory
Confucian ideas were typically disliked by earlier Mongol rulers as they represented a different path for China than they had chosen. Khublai Khan became Confucian in order to integrate himself with Confucian Chinese citizens
scholars Scholars with views that began to actually oppose those of Mongol rulers were typically suppressed, and were not allowed to hold the highest positions of government
Farmers engaged in crop cultivation and livestock herding, providing food and various other commodities for the Chinese territory of the Mongol Empire. They were valued by the Mongols, being granted tax remissions which benefited the Mongols in the long term
Artisans The Chinese prized commodities such as jades, bronzes, ceramics, porcelains, and more, yet did not provide them a high social status. The Mongols also valued artisanship, therefore they gave artisans various benefits including freedom from unpaid labor, tax remissions, higher social status
merchants Merchants had a higher status as well gaining various
military Hybrid force of very experienced and skillful warriors, including many cavalrymen. Organizing into groups allowed highly effective strategic management of troops
b. Write to what extent each class benefited from Mongol rule and be able to give 1 example.
- Explore the image gallery.
a. Find 1 image you think best represents Mongol conquest or Mongol rule in China.
b. sketch the image and write an explanation for why you chose it
Toward A World Economy - The Mongols Connect The Known World
The disruption of the wide plague along with the growing strength of the Russian state enabled the Russians to break the Mongols’ hold by the end of the fifteenth century
● This development ended the Mongols’ rise to the world stage
The Mongol Empire as a Eurasian Network
Chinese culture and Buddhism provided a measure of integration among the people of East Asia during the third-wave era
Christianity did the same for Europe, while Islam connected most of the lands in between
● The Mongols’ religious tolerance and support of merchants drew missionaries and traders from all over the world ● The Mongol capital at Karakorum was a cosmopolitan city with places of worship for Buddhists, Daoists, Muslims, and Christians ○ Chinggis Khan and several other Mongol rulers married Christian women ○ This facilitated the exchange and blending of cultural and religious ideas ■ In Persia, images of the Prophet Muhammad appeared, drawing on Chinese painting techniques and using Buddhist and Christian traditions as models ○ Entertainers from all over the world were brought to the Mongol court ■ Actors and musicians from China ■ Wrestlers from Persia ■ A jester from Byzantium provided entertainment for the Mongol court ○ This movement of people facilitated the diffusion of ideas, religions, and techniques, a process greatly encouraged by Mongol authorities ○ The Mongols encouraged cultural exchange ■ This process allowed the diffusion of Chinese technology and artistic convention such as painting, printing, gunpowder weapons, compass navigation, high-temperature furnaces, and medical techniques, which flowed Westward ■ Muslim astronomers brought their skills and knowledge to China as Mongol authorities wanted “second opinions on the reading of heavenly signs and portents” and assistance for crafting accurate calendars ○ Plants and crops also circulated throughout the Mongol Empire, such as lemons and carrots from the Middle East which travelled to China ● Europe benefited greatly from these exchanges as they previously had less advanced technology, and were less wealthy than other regions, also being previously exempt from Southernization and exchanges in Asia
The Plague: An Afro-Eurasian Pandemic
● Carried by rodents, transmitted by fleas to humans, the plague erupted initially in 1331 ● Reached the Middle East and Western Europe by 1347 ● The plague affected many ● Beyond immediate devastation, the bacteria had longer-term social changes ○ Labor shortages provoked much sharp conflict between scarce workers who sought higher wages or better conditions ○ The rich resisted these demands
○ A series of peasant revolts in the fourteenth century reflected this tension which also undermined the practice of serfdom ● The shortage of labor may have fostered a greater interest in technological innovation and created, for a certain period, more employment opportunities for women ● The event may have fostered the continent’s future growth
Effect on Mongols
● Cities declined, the volume of trade began diminishing all across the Mongol world ● By 1350 the Mongol Empire was in great disarray ○ The Mongols lost control of Chinese, Persian, and Russian civilizations ● The disruption of Mongol-based land routes encouraged the Europeans to traverse the seas in order to reach Asia ○ The end of the Mongol Empire was caused by a combination of internal and external factors, including the fragmentation of the empire into smaller khanates, political instability, succession disputes, and external events like the Black Death and natural disasters. The empire's vast size made it difficult to control, leading to assimilation and the rise of regional powers, which ultimately broke the central authority
European Growth
As Europeans conquered more nations and civilizations such as the Americas, the Europeans brought with them much more of their culture and ideas, such as Christianity and European languages which became very common throughout all of the Americas
Their expansion to the Americas gave them much more power, control, prosperity, and wellbeing than ever before
Indian Ocean Trade
How did the first Global Period build on southernization and the world we have studied so far (continuity)?
During the first Global Period, European civilizations began to travel East, entering into the world of Southernization. As European civilizations began to learn more about Asia and Africa, demand for Eastern commodities and goods rose, marking the beginning of the spread of Southernization from Asia to Europe.
What changed when the Portuguese entered the Indian Ocean (change)?
Africans also borrowed cultural ideas from the Europeans in addition to valuable European goods. Among these ideas were religion, for example in the Kingdom of the Congo, King Alphonso I converted to Christianity, greatly influencing many aspects of African culture, including art. African societies depended heavily on the valuable European weapons, so they began to fight each other in order to gain access to more slaves to trade more
- How was the Japanese reaction to Europe an anomaly during this time?
While African tribes were generally accepting to European presence, the Japanese closed themselves off from the Europeans. They prevented all trade with the Europeans, attempting to remove the presence of Europeans and foreign religions
- What political, economic and social factors spurred imperial expansion?
After the Seven Years’ War, Britain gained significant influence in India. The British established a trading post there, which was run by the British East India Company, which also ran many of Britain’s other trading posts. Religious tension with the Muslims and the Hindus allowed the British to gain a foothold in India, consolidating a lot of influence.
British:
- In what ways did the Portuguese alter Indian Ocean Trade?
The Indian Ocean had huge infusions of European merchants. The Indian Ocean trade network absorbed most changes, continuing the prosperity of the network. The Portuguese used military might to make trade favorable for themselves.
- What labor systems supported the expansion of empires during this time?
Coerced labor fostered the expansion of empires during the period.
- Spanish--Hacienda
The Spanish government granted haciendas, or land holdings, to conquistadors and Spanish nobles who wanted to make the journey across the sea. This land was in the control of the land owners, allowing them to farm, lease out to Spaniards of lower classes, etc. The people who worked on these lands were unlikely to stop working on these lands from low wages and debt racked up to land holders
- Spanish--Encomienda (like feudalism in the Americas)
The beneficiary of the system was granted responsibility over a certain number of natives. The nobles offered those natives education in Christianity, protection, in return those natives gave tribute, often in the form of labor
- Spanish--Mita
The Spanish borrowed this system from the Incas. This system compelled people to labor on public projects for a given number of days per year. The Spaniards discovered silver within American soil, so they required native tribes to send villagers to work for them in exchange for next to no wages
- African Chattel Slavery (how did it solve problems other forms of servitude presented?)
There were not enough native workers after European diseases wiped out large numbers of them. The natives also knew their own land far better than the colonizers did so they were often able to escape. Africans were brought to the Americas to labor on lands, solving native issues
- Indentured Servants
In the North, the British tried this system, where people had to work a certain number of years then they could go free. Once the servants were done, they could go free, so employers had to find new labor. Therefore chattel slavery solved these problems for the Europeans
- How did chattel slavery differ in the Americas from the Eurasian sphere?
In the Americas, many were placed on rural plantations, isolating slaves from community networks that were present elsewhere. In the Eurasian sphere, African slaves were more likely to work at seaports, as household servants, or as sailors. They were often near highly populated areas, providing more opportunities to find communities with other people who had been enslaved
Kingdom of Kongo
The Kingdom of Kongo was a large kingdom in the western part of central Africa
● The founders were KiKongo speaking people, hence the name ● The kingdom was founded in 1390 CE through a political marriage ● The marriage was between Nima a Nzima to Luqueni Luansanze, the daughter of Nsa-cu-Clau, the chief of the Mbata people
■ Missionaries were only allowed to remain through the allowance of the King ■ As a result, missionaries were required to tread carefully and much more diplomatically in their treatment of local beliefs
Slavery in Kongo
The export of slaves was necessary for the Kingdom of Kongo to maintain its relationship with Portugal
● The export of slaves to Europe and the Americas became a source of instability within the Kingdom ● Kongo began to trade slaves very quickly after their contact with Portugal ○ The Kongolese King protected his own subjects called ‘gente’ or freeborn from slavery ■ This was good at the beginning of the kingdom as the kingdom was growing in population rapidly ○ The Portuguese would kidnap freeborn Kongolese citizens to use as slaves ○ King Afonso was unable to protect his citizens from this ● During the Jaga invasion, which captured the Kongolese capital, the Kingdom of Kongo had a massive economic market collapse, so people would sell their family members into slavery ○ During this period more freeborn Kongolese people were sold to the Portuguese into slavery than ever before, including princes and nobles ● The kings of Kongo proclaimed that they would protect their subjects from slavery, including rich poor, and even their enslaved subjects ○ The promise was successful, and the kings were mostly able to protect their subjects ○ King Alvaro sent an emissary to Sao Tome to ransom for his enslaved subjects who were about to be shipped over the Atlantic ○ Most people enslaved in the Jaga invasion were allowed to return to the kingdom, demonstrating the kings’ ability to protect their subjects as long as they had a strong central authority ● After 1590 several civil wars and rebellions weakened the authority of the Kings leading to an increase in Kongolese subjects being enslaved ● Slaves were the only international currency that the Kongolese had access to, therefore requiring a constant supply of slaves ● Foreign slaves were running out, so the kingdom used people from rebellions as slaves instead
○ Kings also enslaved Kongolese people who were criminals who had committed various crimes, such as disrespecting nobles and rebelling against the central authorities ● Internal conflict in the 1600s and 1700s symbolized the end of the king’s protection of his subjects from slavery ○ During this period, every Kongolese citizen was in danger of being enslaved, causing instability within the Kingdom ○ During this period many people were captured by Portuguese, British, and Dutch slave traders, being shipped across the Atlantic
Internal Conflict, Factionalism and Civil War in the Kingdom of Kongo
The split within Kongo began in 1593 with the internal conflict between Sonyo, one of the richest provinces in the kingdom, and the Kongolese state
● In 1641 the Soyo declared independence under Count Daniel da Silva ● King Garcia II of Kongo declared war on the Soyo ● That same year the Kongo worked with the Dutch to expel the Portuguese from Luanda, creating a rift between the nations ● Two decades later, Portuguese colonisers invaded the Kingdom of Kongo in the Battle of Mbwila ○ The Kongolese lost, the Portuguese seized the island of Luanda, an important source of Nzimbu shells, the local currency, leading to conflict within the kingdom ○ The king was also greatly killed from the Portuguese ■ As a result two royal factions, the Kimpanzu and the Kinlaza competed for power, dividing much of the kingdom ● The two factions established their own capitals, the Kinlaza faction in the mountain fortress of Kimbangu, and the Kimpanzu faction in the northern town of Mbula, creating decentralization, leading to even more instability, as there were essentially two new nations ○ The Kongolese joined with the Portuguese to engage the Soyo yet did not succeed
Why Kongo had so much instability
- The pressures of the slave trade de-legitimized the kings, weakening the monarchy
- Portuguese military expeditions also greatly weakened the central authority
- The conflict between the Counts of Soyo and the kings of Kongo
In the 1500s the city of Mbaze Soyo grew very wealthy from the slave trade
● Power struggles between factions continued to the 1800s further eroding the legitimacy and power of the kings ● In 1839 the British abolished the slave trade, patrolling the shores of the Kingdom of Kongo to ensure that no slaves were being transported ○ The ivory and rubber trade became popular forms of income for the kingdom after the abolition of the slave trade ○ The rubber trade in particular was not dependant on large armies and centralised power as the slave trade had been. What was essential for the rubber trade was a small and mobile workforce ■ Since the rubber grew inland, large parts of the population moved inland to harvest and sell it to European traders. ■ The larger villages and cities which had been the main source of power for the Kongo nobility and royalty disappeared ■ Mobility became an essential part of Kongolese society, and people learned how to deconstruct entire houses and moved them at short notice ■ By 1880 most of the Kingdom of Kongo comprised of small, decentralised trading villages
● During the Berlin Conference of 1884 – 1885 European powers decided that Portugal would take most of what remained of the Kingdom of Kongo, and Belgium would take the rest ○ In order for Portugal to claim the territory they were required to occupy the area ○ Portugal had limited military success against the Kingdom of Kongo so they had to find another way to occupy the territory ○ An opportunity arose in 1883 when King Pedro V was in a conflict against a rival faction ■ Pedro invited the Portuguese into an alliance, and in return Portugal could station soldiers in São Salvador, making King Pedro V a vassal ○ The Portuguese demanded rights to collect taxes and trade revenues, ending the independence of the Kingdom of Kongo ● By the early 1900s the Kingdom was integrated into the Portuguese colony of Angola
European Empires in the Americas
Western European empires had territories that were an ocean away instead of adjacent
● Following Columbus’ voyages, the Spanish conquered various Mediterranean territories, also beginning to voyage to the mainland where they conquered the Aztec and Inca empires ● The French, British, and Dutch also began settlements along the eastern coast of North America ● The Portuguese also began to colonise the Americas, establishing themselves along the coast of present-day Brazil ○ From these beginnings, Europe officially expanded its reach to the Americas
What made this achievement possible?
Geographical Advantage: Portugal, Britain, Spain and France were closer to the America than any Asian competitors
Wind Advantage: The Atlantic Ocean had a complex current system and fixed winds that Europeans were able to use to their advantage in maritime sailing, innovating to make their ships among the most maneuverable in the world
The alternating monsoon winds of the Indian Ocean were much harder to navigate
Mobilization: European states and trading companies effectively mobilized human and material resources
European Technologies: Many European innovations in mapmaking, navigation, sailing techniques and ship design allowed the Europeans to traverse the Atlantic Ocean with ease
Divisions Within Local Societies: Various Aztec subjects have greatly despised the domination of the Mexicas, so they became useful allies when conquistador Hernán Cortés invaded that Empire
Next, many thousands of Tlaxcalans allied with Cortés, forming the majority of his army, with many times more Tlaxcalan soldiers than Spanish soldiers, allowing the Spaniards to easily invade the Aztecs
After the invasion tens of thousands of Aztecs joined Cortés, allowing him to form a Spanish Mesoamerican empire far larger than that of the Aztecs
Many Inca elite welcomed the Spanish invaders as liberators, living with them to share their rule of Andean miners and farmers
A dispute between two rival contenders for the Inca throne between two brothers also helped the Spanish military to recruit allies to augment their own strength
Native populations dropped up to 90%
Densely populated areas had essentially vanished from half a century after Columbus’ arrival
The situation was similar within Dutch, British territories of North America
Some people, such as Governor Bradford of Plymouth colony believed the disease was God’s reassurance of the Europeans’ right to rule in the Americas
Bradford believed that God was “sweeping away great multitudes of the natives … that he might make room for [them]” Essentially making room for the Europeans as they deserved to settle there more
In the 17th century the native population began to recuperate somewhat, even then only in some specific regions of the continents
The Little Ice Age
The Little Ice Age was a period from the thirteenth to the nineteenth century of unusually cool temperatures spanning much of the early modern period, most prominently in the Northern Hemisphere
● The great dying is thought to be a cause of the Little Ice Age as desertion of large areas of Native American farmland brought forth ending of traditional practices of forest management through more burning in many regions ○ These changes allowed plant life to flourish once again, intaking large amounts of carbon dioxide, contributing to global cooling ● Shorter growing seasons and less hospitable weather affected food production in regions across the world ● The onset, duration, and effects of the Little Ice Age varied from region to region ○ The impact of a cooler climate reached its peak in the mid-seventeenth century, allowing what scholars call the General Crisis ■ Much of China, Europe, and North America experienced record or near-record cold winters during this period ■ Regions near the equator in the tropics and Southern Hemisphere also had extreme conditions and irregular rainfall, resulting in the growth of the Sahara Desert, for instance ○ Effects of The Little Ice Age General Crisis ■ Wet, cold summers reduced harvests dramatically in Europe, while severe droughts ruined crops in many other regions, especially China, which had many more terrible drought between 1637 and 1641
■ Difficult weather conditions accentuated the stresses in societies, leading to global famines, epidemics, uprisings, and war in which millions died ■ The collapse of the Ming dynasty in China, nearly constant warfare in Europe, and civil war in Mughal India all occurred in the context of the General Crisis ■ In central Mexico, heartland of the Aztec Empire and the center of Spanish colonial rule in the area had severe drought in the five years after 1639 which skyrocketed the price of maize, left granaries empty and many people without water, prompting an unsuccessful plot to declare Mexico’s independence from Spain ■ Continuing drought in the years following led to more people worshipping the statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe who had gained a reputation for producing rain, showing how people turned to religion only when required ■ The Caribbean experienced some more opposite effects such as torrential rains during the 1640s providing ideal conditions for the breeding of mosquitoes that carried disease ■ These effects subsided when more favorable weather patterns began in the eighteenth century ○ The General Crisis reminds us that climate often plays an important role in shaping human history, yet also tells us the human activity, such as the importation of deadly new kinds diseases may also shape the climate, being true long before the current climate crisis
The Columbian Exchange
The diminishing population in the Americas combined with the Little Ice Age created a labor shortage, welcoming newcomers such as colonizing Europeans as well as enslaved Africans
● Europeans and Africans brought their plants and animals including wheat, rice, sugarcane, grapes, and many garden vegetables and fruits, as well as various weeds, transforming American diets and ways of life to resemble European diets and ways of life ○ For example, in what is now the continental United States, there has been the destruction of around 90 percent of the precious old-growth forests as the land was logged and turned into fields and pastures ■ The newly introduced animals multiplied in the Americas as there was a lack of natural predators, making possible the ranching economics and cowboy cultures of both North and South America
○ The Columbian Exchange led to a wholly new world, an interacting Atlantic that permanently connected Europe, Africa, and North and South America ■ The long-term benefits of this network were unequally distributed ■ The peoples of Africa and the Americas had social disruption, disease, slavery on a grand scale, while Western Europeans gained the greatest rewards ○ New information came to Europe, changing the traditional way of thinking contributing to the Scientific Revolution ■ The Columbian Exchange led to the Scientific Revolution ○ The wealth of the colonies , including precious metals, natural resources, new food crops, slave labor, financial profits, and colonial markets, provided one of the foundations on which Europe’s Industrial Revolution was built ● The colonies also represented an extension of European civilization ● In summary, the colonial empires of Europe travelling to the Americas facilitated a changing global balance of power, thrusting the marginal Western Europeans into an increasing central and commanding role on the world stage ○ Without the New World to discover, Europe would have remained the inferior continent of people, yet they rose to the very top
Comparing Colonial Societies in the Americas
European colonial empires, such as the Portuguese, British, French, and Spanish, did not conquer and govern established societies, rather created new ones entirely
● These societies came from the decimation of Native American peoples and the introduction of European and African peoples, cultures, plants, and animals ● European colonial strategies were based on mercantilism
Mercantilism: “Mercantilism was an economic theory dominant in Europe from the 16th to 18th centuries that viewed national wealth as finite and sought to maximize a nation's accumulation of precious metals (gold and silver) through a favorable balance of trade (exporting more than importing)”
○ Governments served their countries’ economic interests best by encouraging exports and accumulating bullion (precious metals such as silver and gold) ■ Colonies provided demand for the controlling nation’s manufactured goods and supplied the controlling nation with bullion ■ These advantages fueled many European wars and colonial rivalries around the world during the early modern era
○ The type of economy established in particular regions influenced the colonies’ development ■ Settler-dominated agriculture, slave-based plantations, ranching, or mining ○ The character of Native American cultures also differed greatly depending on various factors ■ More densely populated those Native American areas and urbanized Mesoamerican and Andean civilizations differed greatly from the sparsely populated rural villages of North America ○ Men and women often experienced colonial intrusion in distinct ways ■ Aside from violent conquest, epidemic disease, coerced labor, both Native American and enslaved African women had to deal with additional demands made on them as females ■ Conquest was often accompanied by the transfer of women to new colonial rulers ■ Cortés for example, marked his alliance with the city of Tlaxcala against the Aztecs with an exchange of gifts where he received hundred of female slaves and eight daughters of elite Tlaxcalan families, whom he distributed to his soldiers ■ After conquest many Spanish men married elite native women, a long-standing practice in Amerindian societies that was encouraged by both Spanish and indigenous male authorities to cement relationships ○ Many women experienced great sexual abuse including rape following conquest ■ dependent or enslave women working under the control of European men frequently found themselves required to perform sexual services ■ This was tragic for women and the enslaved men who were unable to protect their women from such abuse ○ Such variations in culture, policy, economy, and gender generated quite different colonial societies in several important regions of the Americas
In the Lands of the Aztecs and the Incas
The Spanish conquest of the Aztec and Inca empires in the sixteenth century gave Spain access to the most wealthy, urbanized, and densely populated region of the Western Hemisphere
● Within a century, before British had begun their colonizing efforts in North America, the Spanish in Mexico and Peru had established nearly a dozen large cities, several impressive universities, hundreds of cathedrals, churches, and missions; an elaborate administrative bureaucracy, and a network of regulated international commerce
