Unit 12: Global Encounters and Empire
Crops, diseases, and people crossing oceans for the first time, gunpowder empires ruling from Istanbul to Delhi, and new ideas about reason and power.
8 topics · 32 questions
Each topic is a path, not a menu: work down it in order and every question builds on the one above. Click any of them to watch the answer draw itself.
The Columbian Exchange
- How it worksShow me crops, animals, and diseases crossing the Atlantic in both directions after Columbus's voyages.
- Worked exampleFind how many centuries pass between the potato's arrival in Europe from the Andes and it becoming a staple crop feeding a growing population.
- Common mistakeWhy isn't the Columbian Exchange a story of Europe simply taking and the Americas simply losing?
- Going furtherWhat happens to Native American diets and farming once European and African crops and livestock arrive across the Atlantic?
Your turn1 of 2
Before 1492, no tomato grew anywhere in Italy, and no horse existed anywhere in the Americas. Why not?The Demographic Collapse of Native Americans
- How it worksShow me smallpox and other Eurasian diseases sweeping ahead of European explorers into populations with no immunity to them.
- How it worksHow does centuries of isolation from Eurasian livestock leave Native Americans with no built-up resistance to diseases like smallpox?
- Worked exampleTrace estimated Native American population in the Americas from before 1492 to a century after contact.
- Going furtherWhat happens to labor systems in the Spanish colonies once disease wipes out most of the Native workforce they relied on?
Your turn1 of 2
Within a century of European contact, Native American populations in some regions fell by as much as 90 percent. Why did the decline reach numbers that catastrophic?The Atlantic Slave Trade
- How it worksShow me the volume of enslaved Africans transported across the Atlantic rising and falling by decade over four centuries.
- How it worksHow does the triangular trade link European manufactured goods, African captives, and American raw materials into one continuous circuit?
- Worked exampleFind how many million enslaved Africans historians estimate were transported across the Atlantic between the 1500s and the 1860s.
- Common mistakeWhy isn't the Atlantic slave trade accurately described as something Europeans carried out entirely on their own?
- Going furtherWhat happens to West and Central African societies as demand for captives reshapes local warfare and politics?
Your turn1 of 2
As disease devastated Native American populations, European colonies increasingly relied on enslaved Africans for labor instead. Why turn specifically to Africa?The Plantation Complex and Sugar
- How it worksShow me the chain from European sugar demand to Caribbean and Brazilian plantations to the transatlantic slave trade.
- Common mistakeWhy isn't sugar's history in the Americas separable from the history of slavery that produced it?
- Going furtherWhat happens to a Caribbean island's landscape and economy once it converts almost entirely to sugar monoculture?
Your turn1 of 2
European demand for sugar grew dramatically in the 1600s and 1700s. Why did that demand for something sweet end up driving the forced transport of millions of enslaved Africans?The Encomienda System
- How it worksShow me the encomienda system as an exchange: a conquistador gets Native labor and tribute, and in return owes protection and conversion.
- How it worksHow does the encomienda system function as forced labor in practice even though it was not legally called slavery?
- Common mistakeWhy isn't the encomienda system the same legal arrangement as owning land outright?
- Worked exampleFind how many years the encomienda system operates in Spanish America before reformers force the crown to begin phasing it out.
- Ties togetherHow does the encomienda's forced-labor logic reappear later in the plantation complex's demand for enslaved African labor?
Your turn1 of 2
Rather than paying conquistadors wages, the Spanish crown granted them the labor and tribute of entire Native American communities. Why structure the reward this way?The Gunpowder Empires
- How it worksHow does a siege cannon actually bring down a wall that arrows and battering rams never could?
- Worked exampleShow me the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal empires expanding across Eurasia between 1450 and 1750.
- Common mistakeWhy doesn't gunpowder's Chinese origin explain why China didn't build the largest gunpowder empire of the era?
- Going furtherWhat happens to the power of local nobles once only a centralized state can afford to build and maintain an artillery corps?
Your turn1 of 2
For a thousand years, thick stone walls had reliably protected cities from siege. Around 1450, those same walls suddenly stopped working. What changed?The Scientific Revolution
- How it worksShow me the model of the universe flipping from Earth-centered to Sun-centered as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler build on each other.
- How it worksHow does Galileo's telescope provide observational evidence that directly contradicts the Earth-centered model?
- Ties togetherHow does trusting observation over ancient authority in science directly feed the Enlightenment's new arguments about power next?
Your turn1 of 2
Copernicus proposed that the sun, not the earth, sat at the center of the universe. That idea provoked serious controversy and danger for those who taught it. Why was putting the sun at the center considered so dangerous?The Enlightenment and New Ideas About Power
- How it worksShow me political authority flowing down from a king by divine right, then flip it and show it flowing up from the consent of the governed.
- Worked exampleFind how many decades pass between Montesquieu proposing separated powers in 1748 and the U.S. Constitution putting it into practice in 1787.
- Common mistakeWhy isn't the social contract an actual document that any Enlightenment thinker imagined people literally signed?
- Going furtherWhat happens to a monarchy's legitimacy once its own subjects start describing government as a contract that can be broken?
Your turn1 of 2
In 1700, most European governments claimed kings ruled by divine right, answerable to God alone. Why was saying a government works for the people it governs such a radical idea at that time?