Hi and welcome back to Heimler's History. So we've been going through Unit 4 of AP World History and the main theme in this unit is the expansion of sea-based empires. And in this video we're going to talk about two things.
Number one, what economic strategies did these sea-based empires use to increase their power? And number two, how did the development of these empires affect the political and the religious cultural dynamics in the places where they existed? Mmm, can you taste that sauce? Well, let's get to it.
Now, if you've been watching my other videos on Unit 4, you're going to hear me in this video repeat some of the things I've already said. And the reason I'm repeating myself is because the curriculum repeats itself, and if you find it repeating itself, you better know that this is pretty important stuff. Alright, let's get into economics. Now as I've mentioned before, the dominant economic system of most of the Europeans doing the colonizing during this period was mercantilism.
And the main idea here is that the mercantilist system assumed that there was a fixed amount of wealth in the world. It's like a pie. If there's only one pie and I want a bigger piece of that pie, that means that somebody's gonna have to have a smaller piece of that pie. And the main operating principles of mercantilism are as follows.
Number one, a state's wealth is measured in gold and silver. Number two, a state's main economic goal is to create a favorable balance of trade, and then... What they meant by that is that they aim to have more exports than imports, and that should make sense. If you're exporting goods, that means that gold and silver are coming in. If you're importing goods, that means that gold and silver are going out.
And in Pi world, we always want more Pi, so we need to have more gold and silver coming in. And number three, colonies exist to serve the mother country, especially with raw materials. Now under this system, a new kind of company was formed to finance colonial expansion, namely joint stock companies.
Under this model, exploration and the expansion of empire was financed not by a government, but by joint investors who pooled their money together. And once they did, they would share in both the profits and the losses of the company. And two prominent examples of joint stock companies were the British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company. Now, not Not every European state adopted this new means of expansion. Over in Spain and Portugal, it was the kings and queens who were still footing the bill.
Also under the heading of economics, you should know that the huge infusion of gold and silver into the world economy from the Americas had a profound effect. If you want a vocabulary word for this, and I know you do, it was called the Commercial Revolution. And all that means is that goods, in large part, are now being traded not for other goods but for gold and silver.
And the Chinese especially had an appetite for silver, and they got that silver by trading luxury goods like silk. Also under the heading of economics, we should talk about a massive change to the world economy through something called the Triangular Trade. Essentially, the Triangular Trade was a new and massive system of trade that sprang up in the Atlantic Ocean.
And in its most basic form, it went like this. Manufactured goods were traded from Europe to West Africa, enslaved people were transported to the Americas, in exchange for them raw materials like sugar, molasses, and lumber were traded back to Europe. Now the advent of the Atlantic trade was altogether new during this period, but as I've mentioned before, the Indian Ocean trade was still going strong. And just as they always had, states were vying for dominance over those routes.
For example, a big rivalry developed between the Europeans and the Muslims to control the Indian Ocean routes. In 1509, the Portuguese defeated Muslim forces in a battle over trade rights, and that's probably to be expected. The Portuguese had really good ships, but... once they tried to defeat the Moroccan Muslims on land, they weren't so fortunate and suffered a pretty humiliating defeat.
Still under the heading of economics, we need to talk about the development of trade monopolies. Now a monopoly is just when one entity has total domination over a market. In this case, the monopolies granted certain governments or certain merchants exclusive trading rights at given ports.
A good example of this is the monopoly established by the Spanish over tobacco growth in the Americas. And since the world couldn't stop smoking those magnificent lung darts, The Spanish grew extraordinarily wealthy as a result of this monopoly. And the final thing I'll mention under the heading of economics is the continuity of the traditional regional markets with respect to trade. Now we've been talking a lot about the growth of big state trade, but the trade of peasant and artisan goods flourished too.
And if you want some examples, you've got silk from China, cotton from India, and wool and linen from West Europe. Alright, now let's switch gears and talk about the cultural changes that occurred as a result of the expansion of sea-based empire. Now let's start with the effects of the African slave trade. Some African states were severely weakened by the slave trade, like the Kingdom of the Congo. But because it was so profitable, the trade continued.
And that led to some significant demographic changes in Africa. Since those that were captured were a majority males, that left a lot of women without husbands. And this practice led to the rise of the practice of polygyny, which is the practice where men take more than one wife. Additionally, Africa experienced a precipitous decline in population.
However, because of the Columbian Exchange and the introduction of American foods like maize and and Manioc into Africa, the population began to grow in spite of its depletion. Okay, let's look at some other effects of trade on culture. A significant question that any expanding empire has to answer is this, what are we supposed to do about the belief systems of the people we're conquering? If you remember back to the last period, the Mongols decided that it was best to be tolerant of people's religious beliefs, as did Aq- Bar in the Mughal Empire.
But in general, when the Europeans were in the business of empire expansion, they did the opposite. Now because of the spread of European diseases among the Native Americans, much of their cultural and social systems were wiped clean. Even those who survived the onslaught of smallpox had a further erasure of their culture. For example, Hernan Cortes, upon conquering native peoples, had all their books burned. And once their history was gone, the Spanish transported their language into these places, further diminishing native culture.
Now one of the major cultural elements in any society is their religious beliefs. And as religion spread into new territories during this time, there are essentially two responses to it. Number one, syncretism.
They combined Christianity's major doctrines with beliefs about the African spirit world and the importance of dance and movement, and over in the Americas, many indigenous people embraced Christianity and combined it with the celebration of their own holy days. The second response to the spread of religion into new territories is conflict. And a good example is the Sunni-Shia divide among the Muslims. And this split was pretty old, but it was intensified by the Ottoman conflict with the Safavids.
Another good example of religious conflict during this period is the Protestant Reformation. This was a split in the Christian Church that separated Roman Catholics from the newly formed of Protestants. And that split occurred for many reasons, but among the most important was a differing interpretation on the doctrine of salvation.
Alright, that's what you need to know about topic 5 of Unit 4 of AP World History. If you would like to see the Heimler's History Empire grow in its significance and power, then subscribe and come along. Also you can support this channel and the creation of these videos by joining me on Patreon. And if you want to keep watching, there's a video right over there that's gonna make all your dreams come true.
Heimler out.