Absolutism and Constitutionalism in Europe

Alright, you're here for a review of Unit 3 of AP European History, so let's get to it. Get them brain cows ready for milking, because we ain't got no time to waste. Now the title of this unit tells you what it's all about. Absolutism and Constitutionalism. These are two new innovations on government that are going to dominate Europe during this period. So the question is, which states will become absolutist, and which states will become constitutional, and And why? Mmm, intrigue. And everything we talked about in the last unit sets the stage for these innovations in government. In that unit, states were working to centralize power. And the reformation and the wars of religion helped states along that road by merging political and religious authorities and providing common enemies to unite against. And as a result, those states would go one of two ways in this unit, absolutism or constitutionalism. And I reckon we ought to start with absolutism. Okay, one of the major political shifts during this period was the shift towards absolutism in European monarchies. And that's exactly what it sounds like. Sounds like Absolutism describes how monarchs consolidated all state power under themselves in order to advance the needs of their own state. Now remember that prior to this period, power was distributed among monarchs, nobles, and the church. But during this period, monarchs looked around at each other and said, Hey, y'all want all the power? To which they responded, Absolutely. Monarchical power joke? Anyway, let's consider a couple of factors that led to the rise of absolutist states. First there was the weakened influence of the Catholic Church due to a growing acceptance and tolerance of Protestant practice, and a lack of interest in religious warfare after the Peace of Westphalia. Second, merchant classes were expanding rapidly during the period of global trade, and in some measure they desired absolute monarchs for the economic and political stability they could provide. Additionally, this meant that power was shifting away from landed nobility into the hands of this new merchant class. So when I mentioned earlier that power was shared between three entities, look at what's happening now. The power of the nobility is waning, and so is the power of the Church. And who's left? monarchs, and their power is only going to increase during this period. Now you're going to need to know some examples of these absolutist rulers, and the poster boy for absolutism is and always will be Louis XIV of France. He was fond of saying l'etat c'est moi, which when being translated means I am the state. In other words, he saw himself and his own person as the highest and only authority for France. Now while Louis was still a child, events were unfolding in France that would enable him to become that all-powerful monarch that he eventually became, and these events collectively are known as the the Fronde. This was a rebellion of French nobles against Cardinal Mazarin, who was ruling France at the time when Louis was only a child. As Mazarin consolidated power in a centralized state, therefore diminishing the power of the nobles, that was just too much for them. The short story is that the Fronde threw France into chaos and Mazarin ultimately prevailed. But the key takeaway was this. The vast majority of French people realized that they needed to have a strong ruler to protect them from each other and from living in chaos. So when Louis finally comes of age and is all like, I am the state, the people are ready for such a development. Now those words would mean absolutely nothing if Louis couldn't back it up by actually ruling absolutely, and he did that in the following ways. With the help of his finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV introduced several reforms that helped consolidate power. power under his throne. First was the intendant system. Louis sent bureaucratic agents called intendants into the various districts of France who acted as avatars of Louis himself. As such, whatever policies Louis passed, his intendant would make sure they were obeyed throughout France. Now this undermined the authority of local governors and, more to the point, the nobility, and made sure all parts of Louis'kingdom were made to obey his will. So if you lived under Louis'rule and he imposed a law and you were like, ahhh, the The king lives all the way over there, he'll never know whether I obey or not. Well, you're probably gonna go ahead and get your head chopped off because the king was there in effect through his intendance. Through all of these actions, Louis was steadily consolidating power under himself and away from local administrators and nobles. Another way Louis consolidated power was in the construction of the Palace of Versailles. Or if you live in the American South like I do, Versailles. Anyway, in order to undermine the authority of the nobles, he had many of them relocated into his own palace at Versailles. There he can keep an eye on them and demand their loyalty. I mean, it's awfully difficult to do anything to undermine the king's power when you live in his house. And in order to keep the nobility from thinking too much about losing their power, Louis threw parties on the regular and pushed enough alcohol on them to kill a stout farm animal. And you know, it actually worked for a while. Next, Louis revoked the Edict of Nantes, and in this way, Louis took power away from the Catholic Church. The Edict of Nantes was put in place by Henry IV and established an almost unheard of degree of religious tolerance in France for the Protestant minority living there. Louis decided that to have a state whose people did not all conform to his own religious beliefs, which is to say Catholicism, wasn't a good look for a man who desired absolute power. And in removing protection for the Huguenots, hundreds of thousands of them migrated to more tolerant states, robbing France of a healthy portion of their merchant class. Additionally, Louis essentially made himself the head of the Catholic Church in France, which merged political and religious loyalties of the French population. And finally, Louis worked to consolidate power through military expansion. Now, we'll talk more about Louis'wars in a moment, but for now, let me just mention how they were paid for. In order to finance Louis'endless wars, his finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, shaped the French economy. economy according to mercantilist policies, which meant that he enacted steep tariffs throughout France and made sure that they were exporting more than they were importing. And this had the effect of decreasing France's debt. It also breathed new life into France. into domestic industries, expanded France's colonial holdings, and created a favorable balance of trade. But despite all the good work Colbert did, Louis'wars undid most of it. Okay, now another absolutist ruler you should know is Peter the Great of Russia. By the time Peter became Tsar in 1682, Russia was in a state of crisis. Russia was still socially and politically organized according to medieval standards. Other European nations in the West had adopted new technology and new methods of education and finance, while Russia lagged behind in a sort of feudalistic society. So Peter went on a little trip to some of these Western nations to see how they did things in return for the help of the Western people. turned home, convinced that Russia had to westernize or else be overtaken by the Western European states. And so here are some of the reforms Peter introduced to modernize Russia while at the same time consolidating power under himself. First Peter introduced political reform. He required nobles to serve in the army of the civil administration. There was a series of ranks called the Table of Ranks that nobles could move through, which meant that experts ended up on top. And to Peter, this was both essential to a modern government and the key to reducing the power of the nobility. Second he introduced religious reform. He reorganized the Russian Orthodox Church. by eliminating the role of patriarch, which was kind of like the pope of the Orthodox Church, and replaced it with the Holy Synod, which Peter populated with officials and ministers who would do Peter's bidding. And third, Peter introduced cultural reforms, which is to say he tried to shape the Russian culture to fit the image of Western Europe. To that end, Peter required nobles to wear Western clothing and shave their beards. If you refused to shave your beard, you had to pay a beard tax. So needless to say, Peter would not approve of your boy Heimler. There you go. Now in order to pull off all these innovations, Peter tripled taxes, and that meant that most of the nobles and peasantry despised Peter's reforms. Even so, Peter's work to westernize Russia brought the nation into the mainstream of European development, and that process was continued through his later successor, Catherine the Great. Now, even though many monarchs were moving towards absolutism, there were a couple of significant exceptions, and I reckon we ought to talk about them now, namely the English and the Dutch. First, the English. As France, Prussia, Austria, and Russia were all moving towards absolutism, England was moving in the opposite direction towards constitutionalism. Now, constitutionalism means that the government would be limited by the rule of law. of law. Or to put it another way, the monarch had to share power with a representative body, and in the case of England, that would be the parliament. But there was some trouble on the horizon, which would eventually lead England into a civil war to settle just how much power the monarch would have, and that would be the English Civil War, which lasted from 1642 to 1651. The first cause was the doctrine of the divine right of kings. This idea was gaining traction throughout Europe, and during this period it bled into England as well. After Elizabeth I died without an heir, James I succeeded her. He believed that the monarch was God's representative on earth and therefore any curtailment of his power is an affront to God's own power. In other words, the king represents Jesus himself, and ain't nobody taking away power from Jesus. But unfortunately for him, England had created that pesky Magna Carta in 1215, which created the English parliament and gave it control over the money, and thus prevented any king from wielding absolute power. Okay, so then Charles I succeeded James and inherited this divine right belief from his father. They believed that since they were representatives of God, property, for example, could be taken for the throne with immunity. This of course led to significant tensions, between the monarchs and the parliament, specifically the House of Commons, who liked to remind the king that English traditions forbade anyone's property for being taken for them except through the due process of law. To which the king responded, wouldn't that be hilarious if I believed that? So that belief in the divine right of kings is for sure causing tension in England during this time. The second cause of the war was economic. Now Charles grew further embittered against Parliament because of the economic troubles England faced after having fought the Thirty Years War, which we talked about in the last unit, and the need to raise an army to fend off the French. an Irish rebellion as well. He and his father spent metric buttloads of money without oversight from Parliament, who was always trying to rein in the spending of these extravagant monarchs. And the solution Charles came up with in 1629 to avoid those restrictions was to refuse to call Parliament into session, and therefore they couldn't bother. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. But in order to crush the rebellion in Scotland, Charles was forced to call parliament into session in 1640 and it became known as the Long Parliament. This parliament passed the Triennial Act, which forced the king to call parliament into session at least once every three years, thus creating more limits on the power of the king and so the tension was revived. The third cause of the war was, not surprisingly, religion. The Church of England was established by Henry VIII during the growing movement of Protestantism. However, despite some significant changes in theology, the Anglican Church, which is another way of saying the Church of England, retained quite a few practices and structures from the Catholic Church, like the hierarchy of bishops and priests. However, a growing minority in the Church known as the Puritans were getting a little saucy about these Catholic holdovers and wanted to purify the Church by ridding it of all these vestiges of Roman Catholicism. James I refused to bow to their demands, and Charles I went so far as to marry a Catholic. No! Oh yeah. Anyway, those three realities were causing significant tension between the King and Parliament, and in 1642 the English Civil War began. Essentially it was a conflict between the King, Parliament, and other elites who were over their respective roles in the political structure. After three years of fighting, the Parliament's new model army was victorious over the King's army. However, Charles I refused to concede, and at this point a member of the House of Commons who also happened to be a Puritan, namely Oliver Cromwell, rose up and led the Parliamentary Army against the King and won a decisive victory. Afterward, Cromwell kicked out any members of parliament who opposed him, and those representatives that were left were known as the Rump. Parliament. The rump parliament then tried Charles I for treason, found him guilty, and went ahead and cut his head off. And that is how you abolish kingship in England, ladies and gentlemen. But just to be clear, Cromwell is a great example of a ruler who got slapped drunk with power. His intent through the war was to create a commonwealth in England, but in reality he created a dictatorship. He didn't give the people the rights they thought they'd been fighting for, but instead consolidated all the power under himself. And in that way, he fit Machiavelli's definition of a leader who held onto power at all costs. Okay, now let's talk about the consequences of the English Civil War. Civil War. As a result of this war, England became a true republic, called the Protectorate under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, who was named Lord Protector. And though in word, England was now a republic, in reality it was ruled as a military dictatorship with Cromwell at the head. The people were none too happy with this arrangement, not least because as a Puritan, Cromwell imposed the same kind of strict moralistic rules upon England that John Calvin imposed in Geneva. No drinking, no swearing, no dancing. You know, no wonder they weren't happy. Anyway, the Protectorate ended up falling apart after Cromwell's death in 1658. So you know, get them filth- filthy mouths out, strike up a dance, and raise a glass. And so by 1660, Parliament restored the monarchy, giving the throne to Charles II, and this became known as the Restoration Period. But Charles II did not fulfill their hopes. He schemed with France and didn't work well with Parliament. Then James II came to power after Charles II, and he was kind of a turd by English reckoning. He appointed all kinds of Catholics to important positions in the army and universities in the government. No! Oh yeah! So Parliament, realizing that they had just fought a civil war to rid England of turd kings, resisted. James and instead offered the throne to James's daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange. And when James heard of this plan, like a real man, he fled, abdicating his throne, and William and Mary rose to power in 1689. This transfer of power was known as the Glorious Revolution because monarchs were changed without bloodshed. Except that there were quite a few rebellions and quite a bit of bloodshed. But regardless, with the ascension of William and Mary to the throne, the idea of the divine right of kings in England was officially put to death and England had established a true constitutional monarchy. And a significant means by which parliament did this was by enacting the the English Bill of Rights, which included provisions for Parliament to levy taxes, not the monarch, and stipulated that when Parliament made a law, it could not be annulled by the monarch. Additionally, William and Mary were not allowed to assume the throne until they signed the Bill of Rights. Okay, now let's talk about the other exception to absolutism during this period, namely the Dutch. Now, because of their strategic location on the Atlantic, the trading city of Antwerp led the Dutch to become the most prosperous state in Europe during this period. For almost a century, the region had been controlled by the Habsburg rulers in Spain, and as the Dutch grew increasingly prosperous, Philip II of Spain decided to take over the decided to get his inbred hands on more of that wealth. So he enacted policies that would clamp down on the Netherlands and direct more of their wealth to the Spanish throne. Furthermore, the Netherlands had become a hotbed of Protestantism, especially the Calvinist flavor. And as it grew, Philip, who was of course a Catholic, became more and more frustrated at their lack of obedience. And when Dutch Protestant agitators began destroying and desecrating Catholic churches across the Netherlands, Philip went ahead and sent an army to squash the rebellion and ended up killing thousands of Dutch Protestants on charges of treason. And that's when Protestant leader William of Orange rose to leadership. ship and led the Dutch Protestants in ridding the Netherlands of Spanish influence. Wait, William of Orange? Isn't that the guy who came to power in England after the Civil War? It is indeed the same guy, but before he was king in England, he was head of state in the Dutch Republic. Now, the Dutch Republic was officially formed by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which in addition to ending the Thirty Years'War also ended the Eighty Years'War between the Dutch and the Spanish. As a result of this, the Dutch Republic emerged as the wealthiest European commercial empire. They led in trade in the Atlantic world for a time and had a large footprint in the Indian Ocean trade as well. Now, the newly- The truly independent Dutch did not install a king, but rather established an oligarchy, which is essentially a government ruled by a small group of people. In this case, the oligarchy was made up of the urban gentry and wealthy landowners, which represented each province of the Netherlands. And together they made up the States-General and decided questions of foreign and domestic policy. And you can't think of the States-General as if it were a representative government like they had to some degree in England. The men who made up the States-General were elite members of society and typically passed policies that served their own best interests. Even so, the British and the Dutch stand apart during this period. period as examples of European countries that did not go the way of absolutism. Okay, we've been talking about how power has shifted and been reallocated during this period, but now let's talk about power on a broader European scale. Now, as you know from the last unit, the Peace of Westphalia effectively ended the period of religious wars in Europe. Religion was a major factor in why states went to war prior to this period. But after Westphalia, the main reason wars occurred was to maintain the delicate balance of power in Europe. And the balance of power was the constant pursuit of making sure that all nations in the continent were more or less equal in power. And that way, no one nation can dominate the entire continent. Now, you'll need to know a few examples of how this pursuit of the balance of power worked out, so let's start with the Partition of Poland. This idea of the balance of power sealed the fate of Poland and essentially wiped it off the map for about 150 years. Now, Poland itself was a constitutional monarchy, but it was riddled with weaknesses. The landed nobles exploited the peasantry and made a habit of defying the king. Additionally, they did not have a robust bureaucracy like Britain to unite the country. country and they had been weakened by almost constant war for decades. Add to that, Poland was surrounded by absolutist states, namely Russia, Prussia, and Austria. And any absolutist worth his or her salt can smell weakness like a shark can smell blood in the water. Now, the balance of power between these three nations was initially unbalanced by Russia's victories against the Ottoman Empire, which made Russia the stronger nation in the central European sphere. So instead of going to war against Russia, Austria and Prussia decided to propose a diplomatic solution. Look, Poland sits right here in the middle of us. They're weak, so how about we just divide Poland up between us and make it a maintain the balance of power without having to fight about it. It took about 25 years starting in 1772, but eventually Poland was annexed into these three rival powers and disappeared from the map. But, you know, it's okay because the balance of power was restored, right? Okay, what else did the pursuit of the balance of power cause? Well, the need for a balance of power increasingly created the need for countries to go to war with each other and expand their militaries. For example, let's talk about the Battle of Vienna in 1683. The Ottoman Empire was massive in the 17th century and held possessions in southeastern Europe and they had ambitions to push further into the war. Central Europe. They attempted to invade Austria in the Battle of Vienna in order to secure better trading routes along the Danube River. In order to keep this expansion from happening and thus disrupting the balance of power, the Austrian Habsburgs, Poland before the partition, and the Holy Roman Empire united to stop the invasion and did so successfully. And with the balance of power restored, that battle marked the end of Ottoman expansion into Europe. Oh yeah, remember when I mentioned Louis XIV's wars? Let's talk about them now. Louis XIV was pretty thirsty to gain power and territory and engaged in almost endless wars in order to make gains in French territory and his dynasty. along with other strategic dynasties that increased Louis'power. He fought the Dutch War to gain territory in the Spanish Netherlands and to weaken the Habsburgs, which was ultimately unsuccessful. He also fought in the War of Spanish Succession from 1702 to 1713 to pursue his own dynastic interests. When Charles II of Spain died, it was arranged that Philip V succeed him. But the saucy part was that Philip actually was Louis XIV's grandson. More intrigue. Now several European nations feared this arrangement because it meant that potentially France and Spain could be combined and ruled under a single throne, namely Louis XIV. Now, given each nation's extensive colonial holdings, this would decisively tip the balance of power towards France and Spain, and then who could stand against them? And so war immediately broke out to prevent this scenario. So England, the United Provinces, Austria, and Prussia fought against France, Spain, and Bavaria. And remember what this war was about. It wasn't a religious war, but rather a war to prevent one nation, France in this case, from gaining too much power and thus upsetting the balance of power in Europe. And that is crucial to remember. Well, the war ended in 1713 with the Treaty of Utrecht, which did a lot of things. But for our purposes, we just need to point out that the treaty stipulated that Philip V would remain on the Spanish throne, but that France and Spain must remain separate entities. So the Treaty of Utrecht maintained the balance of power in Europe. Okay, now third, the pursuit of the balance of power led European nations to expand their militaries because, you know, you just can't kill other Europeans without a sizable army. And the key player here was Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. Small militias became obsolete as Adolphus built a massive professional standing army and deployed it mightily during the Thirty Years'War. They were highly organized into ascending ranks. ranks so that the hierarchy of authority was clear. Also new military technology was developed, from firearms to mobile cannon to more elaborate fortifications. But in order to finance all of this, Adolphus was required to raise taxes and expand the bureaucracy in order to keep everything organized. Other European leaders looked at the Swedish army and were like, dang, I gotta get me some of that. Not least, Louis XIV. And this expansion of the military affected the balance of power significantly. It was those nations who expanded their military in the ways I just mentioned that found themselves on the winning side of the balance of power. Okay, now it's time to talk about agriculture because During this period, farming underwent some major innovations, and taken all together, it's known as the agricultural revolution. It started in Britain and the Low Countries of the Netherlands. And here's the crazy thing. More and more people were moving to urban areas for industrial work. For example, recall from Unit 1 the enclosure movement, which gradually reduced the amount of land available to farmers, and that sent a lot of them to the cities looking for work. But even with fewer farmers, agricultural output nearly tripled in various places across Europe. How did that happen? So glad you asked. These are some of the major innovations from the last period. significant of which was the three-field system. That was a big deal, but still a third of the land had to lie fallow every year so that the soil's nutrients could be replenished. But in this period, a new innovation was developed in order to replenish the nutrients of the soil. Farmers discovered that they could alternate grain crops, which leached nutrients from the soil, with other crops that restored nutrients to the soil, like potatoes and clover. Now fields could produce crops with no yearly fallow period. This had the effect of dramatically increasing the food supply and other agricultural goods. Additionally, this period saw the introduction of several new farming technologies. three of which I'm going to tell you about now. First was the introduction of Jethro Tull's seed drill, which made sure the seeds were planted at exact intervals and covered them over with dirt. Another innovation, the mechanical hoe, was able to increase the efficiency with which weeds were removed from the soil. And third was the cast iron plow, which, in addition to digging furrows for planting more efficiently, was made with interchangeable parts that allowed for easier repair and quicker manufacture. Now, also contributing to this increased production of food was the Columbian Exchange, which we talked about in Unit 1. One of the key foods for peasants was the potato, which was exceedingly nutritious and cheap to grow. In fact, Half an acre of potatoes could feed a family all year long. And with all the new foods being introduced, like avocados and beans and squashes, the diet of Europeans expanded, which led to better health and longer lifespans. Now, of course, no discussion of Europe from 1648 to 1815 would be complete without some chatter on economic developments. Am I right? You know I'm right. So let's start with economic shifts on the ground, and then we'll look at them from the state perspective. So during this period, labor and trade were increasingly freed from traditional restrictions imposed by governments and corporate entities, and this occurred most dramatically in the For example, prior to this period, workers would only be paid if they were part of a guild which had its own authority structure. The guilds usually controlled prices and kept them high, which benefited the elite rather than the workers. But with the rise and transformation of Britain's wool industry, which had been around since medieval times, British manufacturers began paying wages directly to workers, which had the effect of limiting the influence of guilds. This had the further effect of raising workers'wages because since they got paid per garment, there was a great incentive to increase productivity. Okay, now let's talk about the context in which many of these workers were performing their labor, namely the cottage industry. Before the factory became the dominant mode of manufacturing goods in the industrial revolution, on which, more in the next unit, goods for purchase were made mainly in people's homes. And that's why we call this the cottage industry, and it's also known as the putting out system. Merchants and entrepreneurs would buy raw materials and then pay wages to various people to transform those raw materials into finished goods. For example, merchants would buy raw cotton or wool, and then they would pay wages to spinners and weavers and dyers, who would then produce a finished textile, which could then be sold on the market. The system is what laid the foundation for industrialization. in the next century, and this system had the effect of increasing the number of workers, especially in rural villages, who could earn wages and sustain their families. Now, the growth of this kind of market economy led to increasing demand for manufactured goods, which meant that there was a push to get manufacturing out of people's homes and into new buildings called factories. Again, we're going to talk way more about this in the next unit, so I'll just mention it briefly here. The first iteration of factories were all about textile production, which means that they made cloth goods. These factories were powered by moving water, which is why they had to be built around rivers and streams. And Richard Arkwright's water frame was a significant invention. It was a wheel that was turned by moving water, which could then power machines that created fabric and clothing. Workers became increasingly specialized in their jobs within the factory walls, and no longer would any one person create a sellable good from start to finish. But like I said, the cottage industry set the stage for this. In the cottage industry, merchants would bring their goods from one set of workers to the next. This house would weave the fabric, that house would dye the fabric, and on and on. And this division of labor only intensified in the factory, and all of that put together led to an explosion of demand for manufactured textiles. Now the growth of the the market economy led to new financial practices and institutions as well. For example, we see the rise of the insurance industry during this time. For a monthly premium, insurance companies would recoup an entrepreneur's losses if something catastrophic happened like a fire destroying a factory. And with that kind of security, entrepreneurs, especially in England, gained confidence to invest metric buttloads of money into the factories and the growing inventories of goods for sale. Also, we saw the rise of specialty banks and venture capital. Prior to 1750, if an entrepreneur wanted to build a factory, for example, they would have to borrow money from family or have a fortune of their own. But with this explosion of commerce due to the rise of the factory system, specialty banks arose which kept only some of the money people deposited and loaned the rest out as venture capital to be paid back with interest. Venture capital, in case you don't know, is just what it sounds like. If you have a venture you'd like to attempt, like starting a business or building a factory, then this bank can loan you the capital, which is to say, the boom boom, to get it done. Okay, so that's how economic changes were playing out at the ground level, so now let's look at it from the top and see how states are experiencing economic change. Europeans are going to increasingly control the worldwide economy during this period, already talked about, that control of the worldwide economy is going to contribute significantly to events like the agricultural revolution and the consumer revolution, which we'll talk about in the next unit. But the question is, how did they come to dominate the world economy? Well, states still had their roots sunk in mercantilist policies. Remember, mercantilism was a state-driven economic system. The main goal was to increase a country's store of gold and silver by maintaining a favorable balance of trade, which means more exports than imports. You can see these kinds of policies played out, for example, in France with Louis XIV's finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert. Also remember that one of the key driving factors of mercantilist policies was the establishment of colonies. And why is that? Because not only were colonies valuable sources of raw materials for their parent country, but the people who lived there could also buy the manufactured goods produced by those raw materials. And about halfway through this period, mercantilism is going to start giving way to capitalism, but for now, mercantilist policies are going to fit right in with the political trend of absolutism. But Europe began dominating the world economy in large part because of increased demand for new world products like sugar and rice and cotton. This increase in demand meant that colonial plantation owners owners needed more laborers to harvest their crops. As indigenous laborers quickly died off because of European diseases or ran away, European planters increasingly turned to African enslaved laborers to work their land. This had the effect of increasing the food supply in most of Europe, as I mentioned before. These Africans were captured from their homes, forced onto slave ships, and then made to endure the brutal Middle Passage. Often with only enough room for their prostrate bodies, these enslaved Africans endured weeks and sometimes months of disease and brutality, only to arrive to similarly harsh conditions in the plantation fields. In the slave trade, was part of a larger system of trade known as the triangular trade. And three guesses as to what shape these trade routes resembled. Triangle. On the nose, me from that camera. And here's how the cycle of trade went. Merchants started on the west coast of Africa to buy enslaved laborers, and then they carried them across the middle passes to trade them in the Caribbean for sugar and molasses, and then sailed up to the Atlantic colonies in North America to trade them for rum, and then run it all over again. Now, because enslaved labor kept prices low, this global trade significantly contributed to a growing consumer culture in Europe. In other words, because these prices were low, low, more people were buying more things. For example, they bought sugar, which was once considered a luxury. They bought textiles made of cotton and silk. And the tobacco trade became a massive industry, because what's an evening with friends without those magnificent lung darts? Alright, if you need any more help with these topics, then my Unit 3 playlist is right here, and it's gonna make all your dreams come true. Click right here to get my Ultimate Review Packet, which is gonna help you get an A in your class and a 5 on your exam in May. Heimler out.

These are two new innovations on government that are going to dominate Europe during this period. So the question is, which states will become absolutist, and which states will become constitutional, and And why? Mmm, intrigue.

And everything we talked about in the last unit sets the stage for these innovations in government. In that unit, states were working to centralize power. And the reformation and the wars of religion helped states along that road by merging political and religious authorities and providing common enemies to unite against.

And as a result, those states would go one of two ways in this unit, absolutism or constitutionalism. And I reckon we ought to start with absolutism. Okay, one of the major political shifts during this period was the shift towards absolutism in European monarchies. And that's exactly what it sounds like.

Sounds like Absolutism describes how monarchs consolidated all state power under themselves in order to advance the needs of their own state. Now remember that prior to this period, power was distributed among monarchs, nobles, and the church. But during this period, monarchs looked around at each other and said, Hey, y'all want all the power?

To which they responded, Absolutely. Monarchical power joke? Anyway, let's consider a couple of factors that led to the rise of absolutist states. First there was the weakened influence of the Catholic Church due to a growing acceptance and tolerance of Protestant practice, and a lack of interest in religious warfare after the Peace of Westphalia.

Second, merchant classes were expanding rapidly during the period of global trade, and in some measure they desired absolute monarchs for the economic and political stability they could provide. Additionally, this meant that power was shifting away from landed nobility into the hands of this new merchant class. So when I mentioned earlier that power was shared between three entities, look at what's happening now. The power of the nobility is waning, and so is the power of the Church.

And who's left? monarchs, and their power is only going to increase during this period. Now you're going to need to know some examples of these absolutist rulers, and the poster boy for absolutism is and always will be Louis XIV of France.

He was fond of saying l'etat c'est moi, which when being translated means I am the state. In other words, he saw himself and his own person as the highest and only authority for France. Now while Louis was still a child, events were unfolding in France that would enable him to become that all-powerful monarch that he eventually became, and these events collectively are known as the the Fronde.

This was a rebellion of French nobles against Cardinal Mazarin, who was ruling France at the time when Louis was only a child. As Mazarin consolidated power in a centralized state, therefore diminishing the power of the nobles, that was just too much for them. The short story is that the Fronde threw France into chaos and Mazarin ultimately prevailed.

But the key takeaway was this. The vast majority of French people realized that they needed to have a strong ruler to protect them from each other and from living in chaos. So when Louis finally comes of age and is all like, I am the state, the people are ready for such a development.

Now those words would mean absolutely nothing if Louis couldn't back it up by actually ruling absolutely, and he did that in the following ways. With the help of his finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV introduced several reforms that helped consolidate power. power under his throne. First was the intendant system. Louis sent bureaucratic agents called intendants into the various districts of France who acted as avatars of Louis himself.

As such, whatever policies Louis passed, his intendant would make sure they were obeyed throughout France. Now this undermined the authority of local governors and, more to the point, the nobility, and made sure all parts of Louis'kingdom were made to obey his will. So if you lived under Louis'rule and he imposed a law and you were like, ahhh, the The king lives all the way over there, he'll never know whether I obey or not. Well, you're probably gonna go ahead and get your head chopped off because the king was there in effect through his intendance.

Through all of these actions, Louis was steadily consolidating power under himself and away from local administrators and nobles. Another way Louis consolidated power was in the construction of the Palace of Versailles. Or if you live in the American South like I do, Versailles.

Anyway, in order to undermine the authority of the nobles, he had many of them relocated into his own palace at Versailles. There he can keep an eye on them and demand their loyalty. I mean, it's awfully difficult to do anything to undermine the king's power when you live in his house. And in order to keep the nobility from thinking too much about losing their power, Louis threw parties on the regular and pushed enough alcohol on them to kill a stout farm animal.

And you know, it actually worked for a while. Next, Louis revoked the Edict of Nantes, and in this way, Louis took power away from the Catholic Church. The Edict of Nantes was put in place by Henry IV and established an almost unheard of degree of religious tolerance in France for the Protestant minority living there. Louis decided that to have a state whose people did not all conform to his own religious beliefs, which is to say Catholicism, wasn't a good look for a man who desired absolute power.

And in removing protection for the Huguenots, hundreds of thousands of them migrated to more tolerant states, robbing France of a healthy portion of their merchant class. Additionally, Louis essentially made himself the head of the Catholic Church in France, which merged political and religious loyalties of the French population. And finally, Louis worked to consolidate power through military expansion.

Now, we'll talk more about Louis'wars in a moment, but for now, let me just mention how they were paid for. In order to finance Louis'endless wars, his finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, shaped the French economy. economy according to mercantilist policies, which meant that he enacted steep tariffs throughout France and made sure that they were exporting more than they were importing.

And this had the effect of decreasing France's debt. It also breathed new life into France. into domestic industries, expanded France's colonial holdings, and created a favorable balance of trade. But despite all the good work Colbert did, Louis'wars undid most of it.

Okay, now another absolutist ruler you should know is Peter the Great of Russia. By the time Peter became Tsar in 1682, Russia was in a state of crisis. Russia was still socially and politically organized according to medieval standards.

Other European nations in the West had adopted new technology and new methods of education and finance, while Russia lagged behind in a sort of feudalistic society. So Peter went on a little trip to some of these Western nations to see how they did things in return for the help of the Western people. turned home, convinced that Russia had to westernize or else be overtaken by the Western European states.

And so here are some of the reforms Peter introduced to modernize Russia while at the same time consolidating power under himself. First Peter introduced political reform. He required nobles to serve in the army of the civil administration.

There was a series of ranks called the Table of Ranks that nobles could move through, which meant that experts ended up on top. And to Peter, this was both essential to a modern government and the key to reducing the power of the nobility. Second he introduced religious reform. He reorganized the Russian Orthodox Church.

by eliminating the role of patriarch, which was kind of like the pope of the Orthodox Church, and replaced it with the Holy Synod, which Peter populated with officials and ministers who would do Peter's bidding. And third, Peter introduced cultural reforms, which is to say he tried to shape the Russian culture to fit the image of Western Europe. To that end, Peter required nobles to wear Western clothing and shave their beards. If you refused to shave your beard, you had to pay a beard tax.

So needless to say, Peter would not approve of your boy Heimler. There you go. Now in order to pull off all these innovations, Peter tripled taxes, and that meant that most of the nobles and peasantry despised Peter's reforms. Even so, Peter's work to westernize Russia brought the nation into the mainstream of European development, and that process was continued through his later successor, Catherine the Great.

Now, even though many monarchs were moving towards absolutism, there were a couple of significant exceptions, and I reckon we ought to talk about them now, namely the English and the Dutch. First, the English. As France, Prussia, Austria, and Russia were all moving towards absolutism, England was moving in the opposite direction towards constitutionalism.

Now, constitutionalism means that the government would be limited by the rule of law. of law. Or to put it another way, the monarch had to share power with a representative body, and in the case of England, that would be the parliament.

But there was some trouble on the horizon, which would eventually lead England into a civil war to settle just how much power the monarch would have, and that would be the English Civil War, which lasted from 1642 to 1651. The first cause was the doctrine of the divine right of kings. This idea was gaining traction throughout Europe, and during this period it bled into England as well. After Elizabeth I died without an heir, James I succeeded her. He believed that the monarch was God's representative on earth and therefore any curtailment of his power is an affront to God's own power. In other words, the king represents Jesus himself, and ain't nobody taking away power from Jesus.

But unfortunately for him, England had created that pesky Magna Carta in 1215, which created the English parliament and gave it control over the money, and thus prevented any king from wielding absolute power. Okay, so then Charles I succeeded James and inherited this divine right belief from his father. They believed that since they were representatives of God, property, for example, could be taken for the throne with immunity.

This of course led to significant tensions, between the monarchs and the parliament, specifically the House of Commons, who liked to remind the king that English traditions forbade anyone's property for being taken for them except through the due process of law. To which the king responded, wouldn't that be hilarious if I believed that? So that belief in the divine right of kings is for sure causing tension in England during this time. The second cause of the war was economic. Now Charles grew further embittered against Parliament because of the economic troubles England faced after having fought the Thirty Years War, which we talked about in the last unit, and the need to raise an army to fend off the French.

an Irish rebellion as well. He and his father spent metric buttloads of money without oversight from Parliament, who was always trying to rein in the spending of these extravagant monarchs. And the solution Charles came up with in 1629 to avoid those restrictions was to refuse to call Parliament into session, and therefore they couldn't bother.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy. But in order to crush the rebellion in Scotland, Charles was forced to call parliament into session in 1640 and it became known as the Long Parliament. This parliament passed the Triennial Act, which forced the king to call parliament into session at least once every three years, thus creating more limits on the power of the king and so the tension was revived.

The third cause of the war was, not surprisingly, religion. The Church of England was established by Henry VIII during the growing movement of Protestantism. However, despite some significant changes in theology, the Anglican Church, which is another way of saying the Church of England, retained quite a few practices and structures from the Catholic Church, like the hierarchy of bishops and priests.

However, a growing minority in the Church known as the Puritans were getting a little saucy about these Catholic holdovers and wanted to purify the Church by ridding it of all these vestiges of Roman Catholicism. James I refused to bow to their demands, and Charles I went so far as to marry a Catholic. No! Oh yeah.

Anyway, those three realities were causing significant tension between the King and Parliament, and in 1642 the English Civil War began. Essentially it was a conflict between the King, Parliament, and other elites who were over their respective roles in the political structure. After three years of fighting, the Parliament's new model army was victorious over the King's army. However, Charles I refused to concede, and at this point a member of the House of Commons who also happened to be a Puritan, namely Oliver Cromwell, rose up and led the Parliamentary Army against the King and won a decisive victory. Afterward, Cromwell kicked out any members of parliament who opposed him, and those representatives that were left were known as the Rump.

Parliament. The rump parliament then tried Charles I for treason, found him guilty, and went ahead and cut his head off. And that is how you abolish kingship in England, ladies and gentlemen.

But just to be clear, Cromwell is a great example of a ruler who got slapped drunk with power. His intent through the war was to create a commonwealth in England, but in reality he created a dictatorship. He didn't give the people the rights they thought they'd been fighting for, but instead consolidated all the power under himself.

And in that way, he fit Machiavelli's definition of a leader who held onto power at all costs. Okay, now let's talk about the consequences of the English Civil War. Civil War. As a result of this war, England became a true republic, called the Protectorate under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, who was named Lord Protector. And though in word, England was now a republic, in reality it was ruled as a military dictatorship with Cromwell at the head.

The people were none too happy with this arrangement, not least because as a Puritan, Cromwell imposed the same kind of strict moralistic rules upon England that John Calvin imposed in Geneva. No drinking, no swearing, no dancing. You know, no wonder they weren't happy. Anyway, the Protectorate ended up falling apart after Cromwell's death in 1658. So you know, get them filth- filthy mouths out, strike up a dance, and raise a glass. And so by 1660, Parliament restored the monarchy, giving the throne to Charles II, and this became known as the Restoration Period.

But Charles II did not fulfill their hopes. He schemed with France and didn't work well with Parliament. Then James II came to power after Charles II, and he was kind of a turd by English reckoning.

He appointed all kinds of Catholics to important positions in the army and universities in the government. No! Oh yeah! So Parliament, realizing that they had just fought a civil war to rid England of turd kings, resisted. James and instead offered the throne to James's daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange.

And when James heard of this plan, like a real man, he fled, abdicating his throne, and William and Mary rose to power in 1689. This transfer of power was known as the Glorious Revolution because monarchs were changed without bloodshed. Except that there were quite a few rebellions and quite a bit of bloodshed. But regardless, with the ascension of William and Mary to the throne, the idea of the divine right of kings in England was officially put to death and England had established a true constitutional monarchy. And a significant means by which parliament did this was by enacting the the English Bill of Rights, which included provisions for Parliament to levy taxes, not the monarch, and stipulated that when Parliament made a law, it could not be annulled by the monarch.

Additionally, William and Mary were not allowed to assume the throne until they signed the Bill of Rights. Okay, now let's talk about the other exception to absolutism during this period, namely the Dutch. Now, because of their strategic location on the Atlantic, the trading city of Antwerp led the Dutch to become the most prosperous state in Europe during this period. For almost a century, the region had been controlled by the Habsburg rulers in Spain, and as the Dutch grew increasingly prosperous, Philip II of Spain decided to take over the decided to get his inbred hands on more of that wealth. So he enacted policies that would clamp down on the Netherlands and direct more of their wealth to the Spanish throne.

Furthermore, the Netherlands had become a hotbed of Protestantism, especially the Calvinist flavor. And as it grew, Philip, who was of course a Catholic, became more and more frustrated at their lack of obedience. And when Dutch Protestant agitators began destroying and desecrating Catholic churches across the Netherlands, Philip went ahead and sent an army to squash the rebellion and ended up killing thousands of Dutch Protestants on charges of treason.

And that's when Protestant leader William of Orange rose to leadership. ship and led the Dutch Protestants in ridding the Netherlands of Spanish influence. Wait, William of Orange? Isn't that the guy who came to power in England after the Civil War? It is indeed the same guy, but before he was king in England, he was head of state in the Dutch Republic.

Now, the Dutch Republic was officially formed by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which in addition to ending the Thirty Years'War also ended the Eighty Years'War between the Dutch and the Spanish. As a result of this, the Dutch Republic emerged as the wealthiest European commercial empire. They led in trade in the Atlantic world for a time and had a large footprint in the Indian Ocean trade as well. Now, the newly- The truly independent Dutch did not install a king, but rather established an oligarchy, which is essentially a government ruled by a small group of people. In this case, the oligarchy was made up of the urban gentry and wealthy landowners, which represented each province of the Netherlands.

And together they made up the States-General and decided questions of foreign and domestic policy. And you can't think of the States-General as if it were a representative government like they had to some degree in England. The men who made up the States-General were elite members of society and typically passed policies that served their own best interests. Even so, the British and the Dutch stand apart during this period. period as examples of European countries that did not go the way of absolutism.

Okay, we've been talking about how power has shifted and been reallocated during this period, but now let's talk about power on a broader European scale. Now, as you know from the last unit, the Peace of Westphalia effectively ended the period of religious wars in Europe. Religion was a major factor in why states went to war prior to this period.

But after Westphalia, the main reason wars occurred was to maintain the delicate balance of power in Europe. And the balance of power was the constant pursuit of making sure that all nations in the continent were more or less equal in power. And that way, no one nation can dominate the entire continent. Now, you'll need to know a few examples of how this pursuit of the balance of power worked out, so let's start with the Partition of Poland.

This idea of the balance of power sealed the fate of Poland and essentially wiped it off the map for about 150 years. Now, Poland itself was a constitutional monarchy, but it was riddled with weaknesses. The landed nobles exploited the peasantry and made a habit of defying the king. Additionally, they did not have a robust bureaucracy like Britain to unite the country.

country and they had been weakened by almost constant war for decades. Add to that, Poland was surrounded by absolutist states, namely Russia, Prussia, and Austria. And any absolutist worth his or her salt can smell weakness like a shark can smell blood in the water. Now, the balance of power between these three nations was initially unbalanced by Russia's victories against the Ottoman Empire, which made Russia the stronger nation in the central European sphere.

So instead of going to war against Russia, Austria and Prussia decided to propose a diplomatic solution. Look, Poland sits right here in the middle of us. They're weak, so how about we just divide Poland up between us and make it a maintain the balance of power without having to fight about it.

It took about 25 years starting in 1772, but eventually Poland was annexed into these three rival powers and disappeared from the map. But, you know, it's okay because the balance of power was restored, right? Okay, what else did the pursuit of the balance of power cause? Well, the need for a balance of power increasingly created the need for countries to go to war with each other and expand their militaries.

For example, let's talk about the Battle of Vienna in 1683. The Ottoman Empire was massive in the 17th century and held possessions in southeastern Europe and they had ambitions to push further into the war. Central Europe. They attempted to invade Austria in the Battle of Vienna in order to secure better trading routes along the Danube River.

In order to keep this expansion from happening and thus disrupting the balance of power, the Austrian Habsburgs, Poland before the partition, and the Holy Roman Empire united to stop the invasion and did so successfully. And with the balance of power restored, that battle marked the end of Ottoman expansion into Europe. Oh yeah, remember when I mentioned Louis XIV's wars?

Let's talk about them now. Louis XIV was pretty thirsty to gain power and territory and engaged in almost endless wars in order to make gains in French territory and his dynasty. along with other strategic dynasties that increased Louis'power. He fought the Dutch War to gain territory in the Spanish Netherlands and to weaken the Habsburgs, which was ultimately unsuccessful. He also fought in the War of Spanish Succession from 1702 to 1713 to pursue his own dynastic interests.

When Charles II of Spain died, it was arranged that Philip V succeed him. But the saucy part was that Philip actually was Louis XIV's grandson. More intrigue. Now several European nations feared this arrangement because it meant that potentially France and Spain could be combined and ruled under a single throne, namely Louis XIV.

Now, given each nation's extensive colonial holdings, this would decisively tip the balance of power towards France and Spain, and then who could stand against them? And so war immediately broke out to prevent this scenario. So England, the United Provinces, Austria, and Prussia fought against France, Spain, and Bavaria.

And remember what this war was about. It wasn't a religious war, but rather a war to prevent one nation, France in this case, from gaining too much power and thus upsetting the balance of power in Europe. And that is crucial to remember.

Well, the war ended in 1713 with the Treaty of Utrecht, which did a lot of things. But for our purposes, we just need to point out that the treaty stipulated that Philip V would remain on the Spanish throne, but that France and Spain must remain separate entities. So the Treaty of Utrecht maintained the balance of power in Europe. Okay, now third, the pursuit of the balance of power led European nations to expand their militaries because, you know, you just can't kill other Europeans without a sizable army.

And the key player here was Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. Small militias became obsolete as Adolphus built a massive professional standing army and deployed it mightily during the Thirty Years'War. They were highly organized into ascending ranks. ranks so that the hierarchy of authority was clear.

Also new military technology was developed, from firearms to mobile cannon to more elaborate fortifications. But in order to finance all of this, Adolphus was required to raise taxes and expand the bureaucracy in order to keep everything organized. Other European leaders looked at the Swedish army and were like, dang, I gotta get me some of that.

Not least, Louis XIV. And this expansion of the military affected the balance of power significantly. It was those nations who expanded their military in the ways I just mentioned that found themselves on the winning side of the balance of power. Okay, now it's time to talk about agriculture because During this period, farming underwent some major innovations, and taken all together, it's known as the agricultural revolution. It started in Britain and the Low Countries of the Netherlands.

And here's the crazy thing. More and more people were moving to urban areas for industrial work. For example, recall from Unit 1 the enclosure movement, which gradually reduced the amount of land available to farmers, and that sent a lot of them to the cities looking for work. But even with fewer farmers, agricultural output nearly tripled in various places across Europe.

How did that happen? So glad you asked. These are some of the major innovations from the last period.

significant of which was the three-field system. That was a big deal, but still a third of the land had to lie fallow every year so that the soil's nutrients could be replenished. But in this period, a new innovation was developed in order to replenish the nutrients of the soil.

Farmers discovered that they could alternate grain crops, which leached nutrients from the soil, with other crops that restored nutrients to the soil, like potatoes and clover. Now fields could produce crops with no yearly fallow period. This had the effect of dramatically increasing the food supply and other agricultural goods. Additionally, this period saw the introduction of several new farming technologies.

three of which I'm going to tell you about now. First was the introduction of Jethro Tull's seed drill, which made sure the seeds were planted at exact intervals and covered them over with dirt. Another innovation, the mechanical hoe, was able to increase the efficiency with which weeds were removed from the soil. And third was the cast iron plow, which, in addition to digging furrows for planting more efficiently, was made with interchangeable parts that allowed for easier repair and quicker manufacture.

Now, also contributing to this increased production of food was the Columbian Exchange, which we talked about in Unit 1. One of the key foods for peasants was the potato, which was exceedingly nutritious and cheap to grow. In fact, Half an acre of potatoes could feed a family all year long. And with all the new foods being introduced, like avocados and beans and squashes, the diet of Europeans expanded, which led to better health and longer lifespans. Now, of course, no discussion of Europe from 1648 to 1815 would be complete without some chatter on economic developments.

Am I right? You know I'm right. So let's start with economic shifts on the ground, and then we'll look at them from the state perspective. So during this period, labor and trade were increasingly freed from traditional restrictions imposed by governments and corporate entities, and this occurred most dramatically in the For example, prior to this period, workers would only be paid if they were part of a guild which had its own authority structure.

The guilds usually controlled prices and kept them high, which benefited the elite rather than the workers. But with the rise and transformation of Britain's wool industry, which had been around since medieval times, British manufacturers began paying wages directly to workers, which had the effect of limiting the influence of guilds. This had the further effect of raising workers'wages because since they got paid per garment, there was a great incentive to increase productivity. Okay, now let's talk about the context in which many of these workers were performing their labor, namely the cottage industry. Before the factory became the dominant mode of manufacturing goods in the industrial revolution, on which, more in the next unit, goods for purchase were made mainly in people's homes.

And that's why we call this the cottage industry, and it's also known as the putting out system. Merchants and entrepreneurs would buy raw materials and then pay wages to various people to transform those raw materials into finished goods. For example, merchants would buy raw cotton or wool, and then they would pay wages to spinners and weavers and dyers, who would then produce a finished textile, which could then be sold on the market. The system is what laid the foundation for industrialization.

in the next century, and this system had the effect of increasing the number of workers, especially in rural villages, who could earn wages and sustain their families. Now, the growth of this kind of market economy led to increasing demand for manufactured goods, which meant that there was a push to get manufacturing out of people's homes and into new buildings called factories. Again, we're going to talk way more about this in the next unit, so I'll just mention it briefly here. The first iteration of factories were all about textile production, which means that they made cloth goods. These factories were powered by moving water, which is why they had to be built around rivers and streams.

And Richard Arkwright's water frame was a significant invention. It was a wheel that was turned by moving water, which could then power machines that created fabric and clothing. Workers became increasingly specialized in their jobs within the factory walls, and no longer would any one person create a sellable good from start to finish. But like I said, the cottage industry set the stage for this.

In the cottage industry, merchants would bring their goods from one set of workers to the next. This house would weave the fabric, that house would dye the fabric, and on and on. And this division of labor only intensified in the factory, and all of that put together led to an explosion of demand for manufactured textiles. Now the growth of the the market economy led to new financial practices and institutions as well. For example, we see the rise of the insurance industry during this time.

For a monthly premium, insurance companies would recoup an entrepreneur's losses if something catastrophic happened like a fire destroying a factory. And with that kind of security, entrepreneurs, especially in England, gained confidence to invest metric buttloads of money into the factories and the growing inventories of goods for sale. Also, we saw the rise of specialty banks and venture capital.

Prior to 1750, if an entrepreneur wanted to build a factory, for example, they would have to borrow money from family or have a fortune of their own. But with this explosion of commerce due to the rise of the factory system, specialty banks arose which kept only some of the money people deposited and loaned the rest out as venture capital to be paid back with interest. Venture capital, in case you don't know, is just what it sounds like. If you have a venture you'd like to attempt, like starting a business or building a factory, then this bank can loan you the capital, which is to say, the boom boom, to get it done. Okay, so that's how economic changes were playing out at the ground level, so now let's look at it from the top and see how states are experiencing economic change.

Europeans are going to increasingly control the worldwide economy during this period, already talked about, that control of the worldwide economy is going to contribute significantly to events like the agricultural revolution and the consumer revolution, which we'll talk about in the next unit. But the question is, how did they come to dominate the world economy? Well, states still had their roots sunk in mercantilist policies.

Remember, mercantilism was a state-driven economic system. The main goal was to increase a country's store of gold and silver by maintaining a favorable balance of trade, which means more exports than imports. You can see these kinds of policies played out, for example, in France with Louis XIV's finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert. Also remember that one of the key driving factors of mercantilist policies was the establishment of colonies.

And why is that? Because not only were colonies valuable sources of raw materials for their parent country, but the people who lived there could also buy the manufactured goods produced by those raw materials. And about halfway through this period, mercantilism is going to start giving way to capitalism, but for now, mercantilist policies are going to fit right in with the political trend of absolutism.

But Europe began dominating the world economy in large part because of increased demand for new world products like sugar and rice and cotton. This increase in demand meant that colonial plantation owners owners needed more laborers to harvest their crops. As indigenous laborers quickly died off because of European diseases or ran away, European planters increasingly turned to African enslaved laborers to work their land.

This had the effect of increasing the food supply in most of Europe, as I mentioned before. These Africans were captured from their homes, forced onto slave ships, and then made to endure the brutal Middle Passage. Often with only enough room for their prostrate bodies, these enslaved Africans endured weeks and sometimes months of disease and brutality, only to arrive to similarly harsh conditions in the plantation fields. In the slave trade, was part of a larger system of trade known as the triangular trade. And three guesses as to what shape these trade routes resembled.

Triangle. On the nose, me from that camera. And here's how the cycle of trade went.

Merchants started on the west coast of Africa to buy enslaved laborers, and then they carried them across the middle passes to trade them in the Caribbean for sugar and molasses, and then sailed up to the Atlantic colonies in North America to trade them for rum, and then run it all over again. Now, because enslaved labor kept prices low, this global trade significantly contributed to a growing consumer culture in Europe. In other words, because these prices were low, low, more people were buying more things.

For example, they bought sugar, which was once considered a luxury. They bought textiles made of cotton and silk. And the tobacco trade became a massive industry, because what's an evening with friends without those magnificent lung darts?

Alright, if you need any more help with these topics, then my Unit 3 playlist is right here, and it's gonna make all your dreams come true. Click right here to get my Ultimate Review Packet, which is gonna help you get an A in your class and a 5 on your exam in May. Heimler out.

Transcript for:Absolutism and Constitutionalism in Europe

Transcript for:
Absolutism and Constitutionalism in Europe