Make Up

Chapter 14: The period from 1450-1750 are usually called "the early modern era" historians have looked at this period as having signs of the beginnings of the modern era. There was more globalization through the European explorers and the Atlantic Slave trade. Christianity was spread by missionaries through Asia and Africa. China expanded into inter Asia and the Ottoman Empire took over most of the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and southeastern Europe  There is another way to look at the early modern era for the majority of people in the world in these three centuries there was just more development of older agrarian societies. Empires did expand such as the Chinese Empire. Empires are not new though because we have to remember the Roman Empire which seemed so great but then fell apart. In the early modern empire building people traveled greater distances to take over lands that were not theirs. The best example of this is the the empires set up by Western European countries in North America and South America. The European realized they were in a less well off role in commerce with Asia and wanted another place to make their mark, control territory and get rich. The result of the Spanish and Portuguese conquest of Latin America was the almost complete extinction of its native peoples through disease and massacres. The Europeans felt that in every way they were superior in to the ancient civilizations in North and South America. The spread of disease transfer of plants and animals and the communication and migration that came from the founding of European empires is called the "Colombian exchange." The eastern and western half's of the world began tied together as never before. The Western Europeans who were losing out in the balance of power now became the dominant players through their colonies. In Latin America there was lots of intermarriage between the Spanish men and Indian women. The former Inca and Aztec empires became composed of Spaniards, Mestizos and Indians with some African slaves. Even till this day however, there is prejudice in Latin American countries against people who are more "Indio" and darker skinned. Even though the colonists in Latin America came to look for gold agriculture was what built many of the economies through the production of sugar cane. In the Carribean, sugar production depended on slavery. In contrast, in North America many people who were fleeing conditions in England wanted to make new homes and looked at the colonies as empty even though there emptiness was achieved by killing off most of the Native Americans. In the southern part of North America slavery was used to produce sugar and cotton but slaves were not needed to work in the Northern colonies because they were settled by smaller farmers. Russia also expanded its empire going into Siberia. Just as in North and South America the Russian colonists killed off most of the Native people. Many of the Native people have been nomads who traveled freely. Now the Russians charged them fees to cross agricultural lands that had once been their own territory. It took centuries for people to recognize the terrible loss of the Native populations destroyed by colonialism and these civilization's incredible culture, language and ideas.