Pangaea•

ALFRED WEGENER AND PANGAEA • In 1915, the German geologist and meteorologist Alfred Wegener (1880-1930) first proposed

the theory of continental drift, which states that parts of the Earth's crust slowly drift atop a liquid core. The fossil record supports and gives credence to the theories of continental drift and plate tectonics.

Wegener hypothesized that there was an original, gigantic supercontinent 200 million years ago, which he named Pangaea, meaning "All-earth". Pangaea was a supercontinent consisting of all of Earth's land masses. It existed from the Permian through Jurassic periods. It began breaking up during the late Triassic period.

Pangaea started to break up into two smaller supercontinents, called Laurasia and Gondwanaland, during the late Triassic. It formed the continents Gondwanaland and Laurasia, separated by the Tethys Sea. By the end of the Cretaceous period, the continents were separating into land masses that look like our modern-day continents.

Wegener published this theory in his 1915 book, On the Origin of Continents and Oceans. In it he also proposed the existence of the supercontinent Pangaea, and named it (Pangaea means "all the land" in Greek).

• The term Beringia comes from the name of Vitus Bering, a Danish explorer for the Russian czar in the 18th Century. Bering-Chirikov expedition explored the waters of the North Pacific between Asia and North America. The Bering Strait, which lies between Alaska and Northeast Russia, and Bering Island, in the Commander Islands, are named after him.

• It is a region of worldwide significance for cultural and natural resources. This area also provides an unparalleled opportunity for a comprehensive study of the earth --its unusually intact landforms and biological remains may reveal the character of past climates and the ebb and flow of earth forces at the continents’ edge. Biological research leads to the understanding of the natural history of the region and distribution of flora and fauna. As one of the world’s great ancient crossroads, Beringia may hold solutions to puzzles about who the first people were to come to North America, how and when they traveled and how they survived under such harsh climatic conditions.

Beringia

Beringia• It is currently believed that the ocean levels rose and fell

several times in the past. During extended cold periods, tremendous volumes of water are deposited on land in the form of ice and snow, which can cause a corresponding drop in sea level. The last "ice age" occurred around 12-15,000 years ago. During this period the shallow seas now separating Asia from North America near the present day Bering Strait dropped about 300 feet and created a 1,000-mile wide grassland steppe, linking Asia and North America together with the "Bering Land Bridge". Across this vast steppe, plants and animals traveled in both directions, and humans entered the Americas.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/parcs/atlas/beringia/lbridge.htmlBering Land Bridge Movie

The Land/Ice Bridge

People, with their languages, customs, and cultures traveled across the land bridge after the herds as hunter-gatherers.Artifacts and fossils tell archaeologists and anthropologists that they migrated to all parts of North, Central, and South America adapting their lives to the available food, climate, and sheltering materials.

How Do We Know?

• Archaeologists have traced man’s origins back into the past by finding artifacts—man-made articles—and dating them by using Carbon-14 dating. Carbon traces decay at a given time interval, so one can determine the authenticity and the age of an item by measuring the amount of carbon residual.

A Portuguese painting from 1522 tells the story of the martyrdom of Ursula, a medieval Catholic saint.

The religious story and the sailing ships in the background express the themes of the age of exploration.

The Search for Spices

• Why did Europeans cross the seas?

• How did Portugal’s eastward explorations lead to the development of a trading empire?

• How did Columbus's voyages affect the search for a passage to the Indies?

1

Why Did Europeans Cross the Seas?

• As Europe’s population recovered from the Black Death, the demand for trade goods grew.

• Europeans wanted spices. • Cinnamon, pepper, nutmeg, cloves . . . these and other spices were a vital part of

the world economy in the 1400s. Because the spice trade was controlled by Arab merchants and traders, Europeans didn’t know how to get the spices they desperately wanted. 

• European merchants wanted to gain direct access to the riches of Asia. (Avoid Venice monopoly).

• Some voyagers still wanted to crusade against the Muslims.

• Others were inspired by the Renaissance spirit to learn about distant lands.

1

The Crusades

• The Crusades were expeditions undertaken, in fulfillment of a solemn vow to deliver the Holy Places from Mohammedan tyranny.

• Origin of the Crusades is directly traceable to the moral and political condition of Western Christendom in the eleventh century. At that time Europe was divided into numerous states whose sovereigns were absorbed in tedious and petty territorial disputes while the emperor, in theory the temporal head of Christendom, was wasting his strength in the quarrel over Investitures. The popes alone had maintained a just estimate of Christian unity; they realized to what extent the interests of Europe were threatened by the Byzantine Empire and the Mohammedan tribes, and they alone had a foreign policy whose traditions were formed under Leo IX and Gregory VII. The reform effected in the Church and the papacy through the influence of the monks of Cluny had increased the prestige of the Roman pontiff in the eyes of all Christian nations; hence none but the pope could inaugurate the international movement that culminated in the Crusades. But despite his eminent authority the pope could never have persuaded the Western peoples to arm themselves for the conquest of the Holy Land had not the immemorial relations between Syria and the West favored his design. Europeans listened to the voice of Urban II because their own inclination and historic traditions impelled them towards the Holy Sepulcher.

Bubonic plague

• The Black Death (more recently known as the Black Plague) was a devastating pandemic that first struck Europe in the mid-14th century (1347–1350), when it was estimated to have killed about a third of Europe's population. A series of plague epidemics also occurred in large portions of Asia and the Middle East during the same period, which indicates this outbreak was actually a world wide pandemic. The same disease is thought to have returned to Europe every generation with varying degrees of intensity and fatality until the 1700s.

• Bubonic plague is an infectious disease that is believed to have caused several epidemics or pandemics throughout history. Bubonic plague is the most common form of plague which is characterized by swollen, tender inflamed lymph glands (called buboes)

• It is primarily a disease of rodents, particularly marmots (in which the most virulent strains of plague are primarily found), but also black rats, prairie dogs, chipmunks, squirrels and other similar large rodents. Human infection most often occurs when a person is bitten by a flea that has previously fed on an infected rodent.

The Spread of Plague • Brought back with the knights from the Crusades. The fleas on the rats on the ships helped to quickly spread the disease.

• “Bring out yer dead” was heard every week—collect those who had died and toss them on the cart for a mass burial. A third of the population died outright. Towns and cities were decimated—so that shops and houses were vacant and weeds grew up in the middle of once busy streets from lack of foot-traffic.

• Gloom and doom—average life expectancy in Europe was @ 18 years old. This led folks to believe that the end of the world was coming and that they had better—live for today and convert as many as possible to Christianity—to get their gold stars in Heaven.

• Rise of the middle class as serfs managed to leave their manors and live free for year and a day. They moved to cities and established them-selves within a trade/guildhall.

Marco Polo Travels in China1275-1292

• Marco Polo was born in Venice, Italy in the year 1254. He had an education of different skills in accounting, foreign languages, and knowledge of the Christian Church. His background in business and culture and his love for nature made Marco Polo very observant of humans, animals, and plants.

• His father, Nicolo, and his uncle, Maffeo, were merchants who began their first eastern journey in 1260. They visited Constantinople and made their way to the domain of the Great Kublai Khan, ruler of China. The Emperor became interested in stories of the native land of the merchants; thus, he sent the Polos back to the Pope as his ambassadors with messages of peace and interest in converting areas of China to Christianity.

• The merchants remained in Venice for two years and decided to keep their promise of return to Kublai Khan. Large profits from trade with these distant parts also prompted the brothers to return. On this journey, they took the seventeen year old Marco Polo with them. After three and a half years of travel, the ambassadors humbly appeared before the Emperor.

• China had matured in the arts, both fine and practical, beyond anything found in Europe. Literature was greatly respected. Paper had already been invented; books of philosophy, religion, and politics could be found and a large Encyclopedia had been printed under the supervision of the Emperor. Mechanical devices were not lacking and paper money was the accepted currency in many sections of the empire. It was in this world of advanced wonders that Marco Polo resided for many years.

• Upon his return to Italy, Marco Polo told of his findings of jade, porcelain, silk, ivory, and other riches of Asia. He described the festival of the Emperor's birthday in which everything from clothing to ornaments were laced in gold. He also explained how he saw people using black stones for fuel (later known as coal). Unfortunately, all his stories and details of the unimaginable were rejected, and Marco Polo became the "man of a million lies."

• After he retrieved his notes from China, Marco Polo transformed his travels into manuscript form. His work has been criticized because he did not include fundamentals of Chinese life as tea, foot-binding, or even the Great Wall. He was frank, unpoetic in imagination and vision, and constantly spoke of trade, money, risks, and profits (as an ordinary business man/merchant would do). However, he wrote in incredible detail of the birds animals, plants, and other aspects of nature.

• When he was near death, a priest entered his room and asked him if he wanted to admit his stories were false. Instead, Marco Polo replied, "I do not tell half of what I saw because no one would have believed me."

Polo’s discoveries in Cathay

• Gunpowder• Fireworks• Paper• Noodles• Printing• coins• Venice’s stranglehold on trade with the Far East—

from overland (The Silk Road) and the Mediterranean was their monopoly

Abu Hajj Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Battuta

Saint Brendan

• Who was Saint Brendan and did he lead Columbus to discover America?

This is a common myth about the discovery of America. St. Brendan was an Irish monk or priest that lived well before the time of Columbus. Some people think that he traveled to the Americas. We have no way of knowing one way or the other because there is no physical evidence, and most of the stories about him sound like legends and are very mythic in style.

However, Columbus apparently did have some prior information that there was land on the other side of the Atlantic ocean. Many scholars think he obtained it in part from the fishermen of Bristol in England and from those in Portugal, both of whom are likely to have explored the rich fishing grounds off the Grand Banks in Canada and in the Caribbean. He somehow knew the exact route with the best ocean currents for the times of year when he sailed and made an almost direct line to his first landing.

So, while we do not know if St. Brendan actually went to America (there are unconfirmed legends that the Welsh, the Egyptians and the Phoenicians also landed there), we do think that Columbus may have gotten information from fishermen in the British Isles.

The Irish Discover America

• In the fifth century, St. Patrick started the christening of the Irish. The Irish quickly accepted the new religion, and soon started to make voyages of their own. In 563, St. Columba established a monastery on the island of Iona, on the Scottish coast, and from Iona and other places, the Irish not only preached among the Picts, but also traveled onto the Atlantic Ocean. A famous story is the one of the voyages of St. Brendan, who traveled to the Atlantic to find the Promised Land of the Saints. According to the story, he found several islands and had a number of adventures before finding this promised land. Although St. Brendan was a historical person, the story was probably not that of his voyage, but a combination of stories from several Irish monks. There is discussion about the nature of the islands that are described. The Orkneys, Faeroe and Iceland are almost certainly included, but historians do not agree whether some of the descriptions are about the Azores, Newfoundland and other lands in America. What is certain, is that the Irish later established themselves in Faeroe, and, from the late eighth century onwards, Iceland. After the arrival of the Vikings they may have left Iceland for Greenland, but nothing has been heard of this colony since.

The Vikings• The Vikings were a people from Scandinavia. In the second half of the eighth century, they started

raids on England, and during the next centuries, their raids and lands formed an important force in European politics. But apart from these raids, which went as far as Italy, the Vikings were also important traders. Especially the Vikings from Sweden played an important role, sending their ships up the Russian rivers, and through small portages reaching places as far as Constantinople and Persia. Nevertheless, here too they were conquerors as well as traders, and various of the main principalities of medieval Russia, such as Novgorod and Kiev, were established by them. One Viking trader that we know by name is Ottar (also known as Ohthere), who told king Alfred of Wessex about his voyage northward along the Norwegian Coast to the White Sea region. His is the oldest known voyage around North Cape.

• In the west, the Vikings colonized a number of lands - the Hebrides, the Orkneys, Faeroe, Iceland. The latter country was first seen around 860. It was discovered by accident by Gardar Svarsson, who was blown off course going to the Hebrides. The same happened to Naddod around the same period. Next, Floki Vilgerdasson spent a Winter there, the colonization of the country was started in the 870s, and by 930 viking colonies were spread over all of Iceland.

• Like Iceland before, around 930 Greenland was discovered by a Viking who was blown off course, his name was Gunnbjorn. The first Viking to colonize Greenland was Eric the Red. In 982, Eric was banned from Iceland because of manslaughter, and he decided to explore the country discovered by Gunnbjorn. After three years he returned, talking enthusiastically about the land, which he called Greenland, and in 986, he returned with several shiploads of colonists. Two colonies were started, the eastern and the western settlement, both on the west coast.

• Bjarni Herjulfsson came back home to his father in Iceland in 986, only to hear that his father had joined Eric to Greenland. He decided to go there himself, but missed it, and reached America. He explored a large part of the American coast, but he did not land there. Around the year 1000, Eric's son Leif tried to establish a colony somewhere in America, in a land he called Vinland. A few more attempts were made in the following years, but all were abandoned after only one or two years. We do not know where exactly Vinland was. On Newfoundland, a Viking settlement has been found in a place called L'Anse aux Meadows. Many historians believe that this was the settlement of Leif, but others think that Vinland was further south, perhaps in New England.

• Undoubtedly, America has been visited by Vikings after this, but there is no evidence that they made any more attempts at actually colonizing the country. The colonies in Greenland prospered for some time, but in the fourteenth century it began to deteriorate, and in the fifteenth century it was abandoned, for as yet unknown reasons. The sagas say it was the savage skraelings who drove them out.

• Europe and hierarchy• Bubonic Plague• Medieval religious thought• Reconquista• Patriarchal society• Trade without paying Venetian prices• 1588 England’s defeat of the Spanish Armada—

Drake, caravels, and the weather vs. huge Spanish Men-of-war.

• off Irish coast—survivors with excellent horseflesh to breed and swarthy “Black Irish” coloring

Inventions leading to the Age of Exploration

• Lateen sails• Improved rudders• Improved compass• Caravels—lighter, more maneuverable ships• Improvements in the stern rudder• Mapmaking/cartography• Discovery of the Trade Winds

Tools of Ocean Navigation1

Astrolabe This device was used to measure the

angles of the sun and stars above the horizon. It was difficult to use

accurately in rough seas.

Caravel This ship combined the square sails of

European vessels with the lateen (triangular) sails of their Arab counterparts.

The new rigging made it easier to sail across and into the wind.

Cartography

Probably as long as people have been around, they have been drawing maps of things. The appeal is maybe obvious: it gives us the ability to see a much bigger picture than we would otherwise. We can see where things are, how to get places, and where we are. 

As travels extended, mapmakers could increase their knowledge and fill in areas of coastline and continents previously undiscovered.

Portugal leads the Way

• Prince Henry the Navigator wished to expand• knowledge, improve cartography, and extend• navigation. He founded a sailing school in Sagres. He

wished to find a route to India and an entrance to wealth and trade. When Henry died in 1460, his sailors had only reached as far as the Canary Islands in West Africa. Twenty-eight years later, Bartholomeu Dias proved that Africa could be circumnavigated when he reached the southern tip of the continent. This is now known as the "Cape of Good Hope." In 1499, Vasco da Gama was the first sailor to travel from Portugal to India.

• Just a few years earlier, Queen Isabella of Spain hired a sailor named Christopher Columbus from Genoa to reach India by sailing west. It wasn't until years later that anyone understood that the "Indians" he encountered weren't from India after all.

Portugal’s Voyages to the East

By the 1400s, Portugal had expanded into Muslim North Africa.

Henry the Navigator sent ships to explore the western coast of Africa.

In 1488, Bartholomeu Dias rounded the southern tip of Africa, later called the Cape of Good Hope.

In 1497, Vasco da Gama reached the spice port of Calicut in India.

In 1502, da Gama forced a treaty on Calicut.

The Portuguese seized key ports around the

Indian Ocean to create a vast trading empire.

1

Over the next two centuries, some Portuguese explorers managed to reach parts of present-day Congo, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, establishing limited trade. In general, however, the Portuguese did not venture far from the coasts. They knew little about Africa’s interior, and they lacked accurate maps or other resources to help them explore there. Furthermore, Africans in the interior, who wanted to control the gold trade, resisted such exploration. As a result of all these factors, when the Portuguese empire declined in the 1600s, the Portuguese did not leave a strong legacy in Africa, merely outposts.

From West Africa, the Portuguese sailed around the continent. They continued to establish forts and trading posts, but they also attacked existing East African coastal cities such as Mombasa and Malindi, which were hubs of international trade. With cannons blazing, they expelled the Arabs who controlled the East African trade network and took over this thriving commerce for themselves. Each conquest added to their growing trade empire.

African Kingdoms and Trading States, 1000 B.C.–A.D. 1600

• Vast migrations of people have contributed to the rich diversity of African cultures. One such series of migrations, called the Bantu migrations, probably occurred because of changes in the environment. Over a period of a thousand years, Bantu-speakers from West Africa moved south and east to populate most of southern Africa. Today, as many as one third of Africans speak a language in the Bantu family.

Kingdoms of West Africa

By A.D. 100, settled farming villages on the western savannas of Africa were expanding. Soon trade networks linked the savanna to forest lands in the south and then sent goods across the Sahara.By A.D. 200, camels, brought to North Africa from Asia, had revolutionized trade across the Sahara. Camel caravans created new, profitable trade networks. Gold and saltwere the major products. Gold was plentiful in present-day

Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal. North Africans sought gold to trade in exchange for European goods. West Africans traded gold to North Africans in exchange for an equally valuable item, salt.

People need salt in their diet to stay healthy, especially in hot, tropical areas.

The Kingdom of GhanaBy A.D. 800, the rulers of the Soninke people had united many farming villages to form the kingdom of Ghana. The king controlled gold-salt trade routes across West Africa. So great was the flow of gold that Arab writers called Ghana “land of gold.” Over time, Muslim merchants established Islam in Ghana. Muslim art, technology, and philosophy were influential as well. When the empire of Ghana declined in the late 1100s, it was swallowed up by a new rising power, the kingdom of Mali.

The World of West African Forest Kingdoms

• Include African slave factories and West African forest kingdoms-- wealth and trade.

• Caravans of trade. Islam, kinship network, education, trade—ideas as well as wares

• Benin• Askia Muhammad of Songhai• Mansa Musa of Mali

The Kingdom of MaliMali emerged by 1250. It controlled both the gold-mining regions to the south and the salt supplies of the Sahara. The greatest emperor of Mali was Mansa Musa who came to the throne in 1312. Musa expanded Mali’s borders. A convert to Islam, Musa journeyed to Mecca in 1324 to fulfill the hajj. Musa’s pilgrimage forged new ties with Muslim states and brought scholars and artists to Mali.

The Kingdom of SonghaiAs Mali weakened in the 1400s, a new West African kingdom, Songhai , arose. Songhai forged the largest state that had ever existed in West Africa. The kingdom controlled trade routes and wealthy cities like Timbuktu, a leading center of learning. Songhai prospered until about 1586. At that time, civil war and invasion weakened and splintered the empire.

Askia Muhammad

Trade Routes of East AfricaBy the time the kingdom of Axum conquered Nubia about A.D. 350, Axum had long been an important trading center. Located southeast of Nubia, Axum linked trade routes between Africa, India, and the Mediterranean world. A powerful Axum king converted to Christianity in the 300s. At first, Christianity strengthened ties to the Mediterranean world. However, in the 600s, Islam came to dominate North Africa, leaving Axum an isolated island of Christianity. Over time the kingdom of Axum slowly declined.

As Axum declined, a string of trading cities gradually rose along the East African coast. Since ancient times, traders had visited this coast. In the 600s, Arab and Persian merchants set up Muslim communities under the protection of local African rulers. By 1000, port cities were thriving from trade across the Indian Ocean.

Societies in AfricaFactors such as Africa’s varied geography, diverse climates, and later migration and trade played major roles in how early societies developed throughout the continent. In some medieval African societies, the nuclear family was typical, with parents and children living and working together, while in other communities the family included several generations. Political patterns varied depending in part on the size and culture of the community.Across Africa, religious beliefs were varied and complex. Some Africans followed traditional beliefs and were polytheistic. By 100, both Christianity and Islam had spread to many regions of Africa. African societies preserved their values and history through both oral and written literature. Oral traditions date back many centuries. In West Africa, griots, or professional storytellers, recited ancient stories as they still do today.

Griots — masters of words and music, were historians, genealogists, advisers to nobility, entertainers, messengers, praise singers.

We would call them spoken word artists.

Kinship NetworkEthnocentricityXenophobiaSlavery

• Xenophobia—the fear/distrust of any one who is foreign or strangers.

• Ethnocentricity—the firm belief that your society is the center of the universe, the best, and , therefore, that everyone else is not as good.

• Kinship Network—everyone within a society fits in because they are regarded as extended family, regardless of rank, from king to slave.

The Forest Kingdoms of West Africa

• The Europeans enslaved the Antilles Indians wherever they could. This caused their rapid disappearance and they were therefore not as available for slave labor. Thanks to initiative of a Spanish priest (Bartholomew de Las Casas), the solution to this dearth of manpower was found in the large scale importation of slaves from Africa. These slaves came from all parts of the West coast of that continent, from the mouth of the Senegal river to the Cape of Good Hope, but especially from the Eastern Guinea coast (today's Ghana, Togo, Dahomey, and Nigeria coast) and the Congo-Angola coastal region. Africa at this time was at a decisive turn of its history. Since the Portuguese navigators succeeded in diverting the flow of the gold trade, which made the richness and fame of the great Sudanese Empires, the economy of the interior states gradually fizzled out. The last blow being struck in 1591 with the destruction of the Songhai Empire by a Moroccan army. The coastal states the rose in importance , particularly in Eastern Guinea. While the Atlantic trade at first enriched the coastal states, it soon forced these newly formed Kingdoms to rapidly become esclavagist, because of the above mentioned needs in the developing American states. War being the best way to obtain slaves to be sold to Europeans, a permanent and general state of conflict, disunity and chaos resulted for the next centuries, and all hopes of progress for Africa was put to an end. On the coast of Eastern Guinea, the rise of Ashantee and Dahomey Kingdoms long preceded Columbus' time. Dahomey, whose great period was in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was to give Haiti its main, though unofficial religion - the Voodoo and play an important part in the development of its Creole language. Even today, the language of Dahomey is still the ritual language of Voodoo priests.

• In that time, a very important center of civilization existed in the area of the Yoruba and Edo speaking countries. Corresponding approximately to the former southwestern state of Nigeria, they were divided in kingdoms among which were Oyo, Ife, and Benin. Their societies were basically agricultural but there was also a varied and important production in handicrafts. There were extensive cities and prosperous trade, which found a ready means of exchange in the cowry shell currency. Their culture originated from the city of Ife, whose art of terra-cotta and brass beads, is world famous as one of the summits of mondial art.

• The Angola-Congo coast in 1500 was on the verge of having the only experience of a mixed Afro-European culture: the kingdom of Congo, Christianized by the Portuguese. But the attempt was ephemeral. Facing the esclavagist enterprises of the Sao-Tome slave dealers, the Congolese expelled the Portuguese at the beginning of the 17th century.

• It must be noted that the places of origin of the Americas' Black slaves (North, Central, South and West Indies) far from being primitive, had an evolved civilization of their own. Black Africa, in the West African interior and the East coast, knew the written culture in Arabic and Swahili, as early as the 14th century. On the West coast, the culture was more oral even though a form of written literature can also be found. That last character, together with the religious importance of mask in the statuary, and of the cultural importance music and dance as a vehicle for cultural information, was perpetuated in the West Indies.

• Thus, in Columbus' time some of the main characters of the modern West Indies could be foreseen. In the tragedy that will follow Columbus arrival in the new world, the Europeans have the leading part. The technological superiority of European developing states coupled with their greed swiftly overcame local Indian societies. It even overtook African societies which at the onset worked in association with them. But the tragedy of slavery, in its forceful transfer of African was to give the "new world" its most durable specificity.

Portuguese traders quickly joined the profitable slave trade, followed by other European traders. Europeans bought large numbers of slaves to perform labor on their plantations—large estates run by an owner or an owner’s overseer—in the Americas and elsewhere. Europeans also bought slaves as exotic servants for rich households. By the 1500s, European participation had encouraged a much broader Atlantic slave trade.

An early voice raised against the slave trade was that of Affonso I, ruler of Kongo in west-central Africa. As a young man, Affonso had been tutored by Portuguese missionaries, who hoped to convert Africans to Christianity. After becoming king in 1505, he called on the Portuguese to help him develop Kongo as a modern Christian state, but he became alarmed as more and more Portuguese came to Kongo each year to buy slaves. Affonso wanted to maintain contact with Europe but end the slave trade. His appeal failed, and the slave trade continued. Africa’s great wealth was her people and millions were stolen from their homeland in the African Diaspora.

In 1490, the Portuguese converted the son of a Kongo king to Christianity and then helped him take his father’s throne.

The new king, born Nzinga Mbemba, was renamed Affonso.

King Affonso soon realized that his relationship with Portugal had extremely negative consequences, as can be seen from his letter to King John III of Portugal in 1526. In his letter, the king of Kongo appeals to the king of Portugal to end the slave trade.

Europeans still refuse to take responsibility for the crimes that led to their great wealth and power.

The Asante KingdomThe Asante kingdom emerged in the area occupied by present-day Ghana. In the late 1600s, an able military leader, Osei Tutu, won control of the trading city of Kumasi. From there, he conquered neighboring peoples and unified the Asante kingdom. The Asante faced a great challenge in the Denkyera, a powerful neighboring enemy kingdom. Osei Tutu realized that in order to withstand the Denkyera, the people of his kingdom needed to be firmly united. To do this, he claimed that his right to rule came from heaven, and that people in the kingdom were linked by spiritual bonds. This strategy paid off when the Asante defeated the Denkyera in the late 1600s.

Under Osei Tutu, government officials, chosen by merit rather than by birth, supervised an efficient bureaucracy. They managed the royal monopolies on gold mining and the slave trade. A monopoly is the exclusive control of a business or industry. The Asante traded with Europeans on the coast, exchanging gold and slaves for firearms. They also played rival Europeans against one another to protect themselves. In this way, they built a wealthy, powerful state.

The Oyo empire arose from successive waves of settlement by the Yoruba people of present-day Nigeria. It began as a relatively small forest kingdom. Beginning in the late 1600s, however, its leaders used wealth from the slave trade to build up an impressive army. The Oyo empire used the army to conquer the neighboring kingdom of Dahomey. At the same time, it continued to gain wealth by trading with European merchants at the port city of Porto-Novo.

Elmina Castle European traders called the places where they held and traded slaves “castles.” Built by the Portuguese in 1482, Elmina Castle in present-day Ghana was used as a base for trading slaves, gold, and imported European products

In the late 1700s, another African ruler tried to halt the slave trade in his lands. He was the almany (from the Arabic words meaning “religious leader”) of Futa Toro, in present-day Senegal. Since the 1500s, French sea captains had bought slaves from African traders in Futa Toro. In 1788, the almany forbade anyone to transport slaves through Futa Toro for sale abroad.

However, the inland slave traders simply worked out a new route to the coast. Sailing to this new market, the French captains easily purchased the slaves that the almany had prevented them from buying in Futa Toro.

Approximately 40 million people were harvested from Africa --stolen into slavery for over 500 years.

France

Following the Portuguese example, by the 1600s several European powers had established forts along the western coast of Africa. As Portuguese power declined in the region, British, Dutch, and French traders took over their forts. Unlike the Portuguese, they established permanent footholds throughout the continent.In 1652, Dutch immigrants arrived at the southern tip of the continent. They built Cape Town, the first permanent European settlement, to supply ships sailing to or from the East Indies. Dutch farmers, called Boers, settled around Cape Town. Over time, they ousted, enslaved, or killed the people who lived there. The Boers held a Calvinist belief that they were the elect, or chosen, of God. They looked on Africans as inferiors and did not respect their claims to their own land. In the 1700s, Boer herders and ivory hunters began to push north from the Cape Colony. Their migrations would eventually lead to battle with several African groups.

Diverse Traditions of Southeast Asia

• What are the key geographic features of Southeast Asia?

• What impact did Indian civilization have on new kingdoms and empires?

• What factors contributed to the growth of Vietnamese culture?

2

New Kingdoms and Empires

This trading empire controlled the Strait of Malacca, vital to shipping.

Local people blended Indian beliefs into their own forms of worship.

The Khmer people adapted Indian writing, mathematics, architecture, and art.

Khmer rulers became Hindus, while most ordinary people preferred Buddhism. King Suryavarman II built a great temple complex at Angkor Wat.

King Anawrata made Pagan a major Buddhist center.

The capital city had many magnificent stupas, or dome-shaped shrines.

SRIVIJAYAKHMER EMPIREPAGAN

The blend of Indian influences with local cultures produced a series of kingdoms and empires in Southeast Asia.

2

Empires and Kingdoms

of Southeast Asia

2

VietnamThe Vietnamese developed their own distinct culture. In 111 B.C., China invaded the region and remained in control for 1,000 years.

During the Chinese occupation, the Vietnamese absorbed Confucian ideas, modeled their government on that of China, and adopted many aspects of Chinese culture.

2

Despite the powerful Chinese influences, the Vietnamese preserved a strong sense of their separate identity. Two noble sisters, Trung Trac and Trung Nhi, briefly drove out the Chinese and tried to restore a simpler form of government based on Vietnamese traditions.

My niece and her husband

My new niece, Anna

European Footholds in Southeast Asia and India

• How did the Portuguese and the Dutch build empires in the East?

• How did Spain control the Philippines?

• How did the decline of Mughal India affect European traders?

3

Commander Afonso de Albuquerque

a Portuguese rifle

In 1511, a Portuguese fleet commanded by Afonso de Albuquerque dropped anchor off Malacca, a rich Islamic trading port that controlled the sea route linking India, Southeast Asia, and China. The fleet remained at anchor for several weeks before opening fire. According to a Malaysian account:“The cannon balls came like rain. And the noise of the cannon was as the noise of thunder in the heavens and the flashes of fire of their guns were like flashes of lightning in the sky: and the noise of their matchlocks [guns] was like that of groundnuts [peanuts] popping in the frying pan.”—From the Malay Annals

Portuguese and Dutch Trading Empires

Portugal used firepower to win control of the rich Indian Ocean spice trade.

In less than 50 years, the Portuguese had built a trading empire with military and merchant outposts rimming the southern seas.

Despite their sea power, the Portuguese were not strong enough to conquer much territory on land.

The Dutch were the first Europeans to challenge Portuguese domination is Asia.

They used their sea power to set up colonies and trading posts around the world.

The Dutch East India Company seized Malacca from the Portuguese. Soon after, they were able to enforce a monopoly in the Spice Islands, controlling shipments to Europe as well as much of the trade within Southeast Asia.

3

Spain and the Philippines

In 1521, Magellan had claimed the Philippines for Spain.

Within fifty years, Spain had conquered and colonized the islands.

Unlike other people in Southeast Asia, the Filipinos were not united. As a result, they were easily conquered.

The Philippines became a key link to Spain’s overseas trading empire. The Spanish shipped silver mined in Mexico and Peru across the Pacific to the Philippines. From there, they used the silver to buy goods in China.

3

Before the 1700s, the Mughal empire was larger, richer, and more powerful than any kingdom in Europe.• While European merchants were dazzled by India, the sophisticated

Mughal civilization was unimpressed by the Europeans. • When Europeans sought trading rights, the Mughal emperors saw no

threat in granting them.

In the early 1700s, the Mughal central government collapsed. • French and English traders battled

each other for control of India, while war erupted in Europe between England and France.

• The British East India Company used an army of British troops and sepoys to drive the French out, take over Bengal, and spread its power.

Mughal India and European Traders 3

An Indian Sepoy An Indian officer in the British army poses with his wife in this Indian painting dating from the 1700s. influence into other parts of India.

Symbols of the Dutch EmpireThe Dutch painting Jacob Mathieusen and His Wife (c. 1650) shows a senior official in the Dutch East India Company overlooking the Dutch fleet in Batavia, Indonesia. A slave holds a parasol, an Asian symbol of power. How can you tell that the artist was European?

Encounters in East Asia

• How was European trade with China affected by the Manchu conquest?

• What factors led Korea to isolate itself from other nations?

• What attitude did the Tokugawa shoguns have toward foreign traders?

4

Treaty of Tordesillas or

The Papal Line of Demarcation

1494

• Upon returning to Spain in 1493 after his first voyage, Christopher Columbus contacted Pope Alexander VI (a Spaniard by birth) to report his discoveries. Acting as the great European arbiter of the day, the pope then issued a bull (decree) that divided the New World lands between Spain and Portugal by establishing a north-south line of demarcation Undiscovered non-Christian lands to the west of the line were to be Spanish possessions and those to the east belonged to Portugal. News of this decision was not warmly greeted by the Portuguese.

• In the spring of 1494, representatives of Spain and Portugal met in the Spanish town of Tordesillas and negotiated a solution to their dispute. The line of demarcation was located to a position 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. Spain had gained control of most of the New World.

• The pope granted his official recognition of this agreement in 1506. Spain and Portugal, with a few exceptions, remained loyal to the terms of the treaty; the Portuguese would expand deep into Brazil beyond the demarcation line, but Spain did not object. The natives of these regions were not consulted about the assignment of their homelands to others and competing powers in Europe totally ignored the line.

• For years following 1494, the Spanish lamented their consent to the treaty, convinced that they had received the short end of the stick. Their initial discoveries in the New World yielded little mineral wealth, but much disease and discomfort. Their evaluation of this bargain with Portugal changed dramatically in the 1520s as the riches from Aztec Mexico and Inca Peru began to be exploited.

Important Chinese LeadersHongwu—a peasant’s son

commanded the army and drove the Mongols out of China. He established the Ming Dynasty.

Yonglo—son of Hongwu, established the Forbidden City. He sent Zheng He to explore. Matteo Ricci was allowed to visit China

The Manchus invade and take over China, establishing the Qing dynasty

Kangxi—emperor in 1661, welcomed the Jesuits and their knowledge.

Qian-long—grandson of Kangxi, was offended by British Lord Macartney. With peace and new crops, China’s population increased bigtime!

A Chinese watercolor portrays Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci with European objects, including a model of the universe.

A geography book that Ricci translated into Chinese is shown

European Trade With China

The Europeans who reached Asia in the 1500s were very impressed by what they saw . The Chinese, however, saw the Europeans as “southern barbarians,” lacking civilized ways.

The Ming dynasty had ended overseas exploration in the mid-1400s.

Portuguese traders reached China by sea in 1514. The Ming eventually allowed them a trading post at Macao. Because they were uninterested in European trading products, the Ming demanded payment for Chinese goods in gold or silver.

After the Manchus conquered China, the Manchu Qing dynasty maintained the Ming policy of restricting foreign trade.

The Europeans continued to press to expand trade to other areas of China.

4

Emperor Qianlong

Korea and Isolation: The Hermit Kingdom

Several events led Korea to turn inward for a period of about 250 years.

As in China, the low status of merchants in Confucianism led Koreans to look down on foreign trade.

In the 1590s, a Japanese invasion devastated the land of Korea.

In 1636, the Manchus conquered Korea before overrunning China. Korea was forced to become a tributary state to the Manchu’s Qing dynasty.

Oda Nobunaga1534 - 1582

Oda Nobunaga was the initiator of the unification of Japan under the shogunate in the late 16th century, which ruled Japan until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was also a major daimyo (landowner)during this period of Japanese history. His work was continued, completed and finalized by his successors Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu. He failed to complete the unification and one of his generals betrayed him and forced Oda to perform seppuku, or ritual suicide.

 織田 信長 

Oda Nobunaga appears frequently within fiction and continues to be portrayed in many other anime, manga, video games, and cinematic films. Many depictions show him as villainous or even demonic in nature, though some portray him in a more positive light.

Bushido = The Way of the Warrior

Japan and Foreign Traders

The Japanese at first welcomed western traders.They acquired western firearms and built castles modeled on the European design.

The Tokugawa shoguns grew increasingly hostile toward foreigners. They saw the foreigners as agents of an invading force.They suspected that the many Japanese Christians were loyal to the pope, rather than to Japanese leaders. They disliked the competition among Christian missionaries.

By 1638, the Tokugawas had barred all western merchants and forbidden Japanese to travel abroad. They also ended foreign trade.

4

By 1638, the Tokugawas had turned against European traders as well. Japan barred all European merchants and forbade Japanese to travel abroad. To further their isolation, they outlawed the building of large ships, thereby ending foreign trade. In order to keep informed about world events, they permitted just one or two Dutch ships each year to trade at a small island in Nagasaki harbor.Japan remained isolated for more than 200 years. Art and literature flourished, and internal trade boomed. Cities grew in size and importance, and some merchant families gained wealth and status. By the early 1700s, Edo (present-day Tokyo) had a million inhabitants, more than either London or Paris.

Bringing Trade and Christianity This 1600s decorative screen shows Japanese people meeting a Portuguese ship carrying European goods and missionaries. Did the presence of missionaries help or hurt European-Japanese trade relations?

Haiku

• Desire for Asian luxury goods such as spices, gold, and silks

• Motivation to spread Christianity

• Strategic need to gain more direct access to trade

• Desire to gain glory for country

• Renaissance curiosity to explore new lands

• Competition with other European countries

Causes of European Exploration

Important European Explorers

European Footholds in the Eastern Hemisphere

Major Asian Dynasties and Empires