Chapter 16 The World in the Age of

European Expansion 1492-1763

Section 1 European Trading Empires in Asia
The people the Europeans encountered in the Americas were less
technologically advanced and thus easier to dominate. In Asia, however,
they confronted technologically comparable civilizations that were even
more populous than their own. Consequently, although they were able
gradually to establish trading empires, they generally were not able to
conquer vast territories as they were doing across the Atlantic Ocean.
Europe and the Ottoman Empire
During the 1500s and much of the 1600s, the Islamic Ottoman Empire
remained the primary threat to European Christian civilization.
Nevertheless, the period also marked the beginnings of a relative decline in
Ottoman strength just as Europes strength was increasing. The decline
resulted partly from internal political problems. After Suleiman I, the LawGiver (whom Europeans called the Magnificent) (15201566), only a
handful of strong sultans ruled the empire effectively.[1] Unlike earlier
rulers, few sultans now led their troops in battle. Consequently, their
prestige with the army dwindled. Furthermore, where once Ottoman
princes had been named as provincial governors, most now remained in the
harem until they ascended the throne. Thus they had little or no experience
in governing before becoming sultan. Grand viziers and members of the
harem supported weak sultans they could easily control.[2]

Such weak sultans could not stop the chaos caused by warring

political factions or a rebellious military. Janissaries, the elite slave soldiers

of the sultan's army, mutinied in 1589 after being paid with coins melted
down from metal ornaments rather than real money.[3] In 1622 and 1648,
Janissary rebels even assassinated the reigning sultans. Like Roman
emperors and Abbasid caliphs, many Ottoman sultans became captives of
their own bodyguards.
The decline could also be traced in part to European economic
expansion into Ottoman territory. In the early 1500s, in his wars against the
Safavids and the Habsburgs, Suleiman I had pursued an alliance with
France. As part of this alliance, in 1536 he granted France special trade
privileges, which became known as capitulations.[i] These privileges,
particularly tax exemptions and extraterritoriality(which made French
subjects answerable not to Ottoman courts but to French courts run by
French consuls), had the unintended effect of allowing French merchants to
capture even the internal carrying trade of the Empire. Not only could
French merchants undercut their Ottoman competitors in buying and selling
goods, French ships could actually carry goods from one part of the Empire
to another cheaper than their Ottoman counterparts. As French merchants
dominated more and more of the Empires trade, their tax exempt status
also meant declining revenues for the sultans treasury. Later sultans
established similar agreements with other Western nations, further
weakening the Ottoman economy.[ii]
Yet, despite its growing weakness, the Ottoman Empire remained a
major power in the 1500s and 1600s. When a combined Spanish and Italian
fleet achieved victory over the Ottomans in 1571 at the Battle of
Lepanto, [iii] it was only a minor setback. The Ottoman grand vizier
assured the sultan, Selim II, after the battle that "the might of the empire is
such that if it were desired to equip the entire fleet with silver anchors,
silken rigging and satin sails, we could do it."[iv] Within a year, the sultan
had a new fleet that once again dominated the Mediterranean.
The Ottomans also remained extremely powerful on land.[v] In
1683 the Ottoman army marched to Vienna, the Habsburg capital. Seeing
the huge dust cloud stirred up by the Turks, wealthy Viennese citizens "fled
their houses, courtyards and beautifully tapestried rooms, leaving wine in
the cellars and rugs on the floors."[vi] Some 200,000 Ottoman soldiers
under the command of Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa encamped in a great tent
city outside the gates and settled in for a long siege. The siege was the
second time Ottoman forces had attacked Vienna.

Battle of Vienna on September 12, 1683. Taken

from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/84/Vienna_
Battle_1683.jpg/300px-Vienna_Battle_1683.jpg
The siege was also the last time, however, for the Ottomans had finally
overreached their own strength. After nearly two months, the city had not
fallen. Then, responding to the desperate pleas of the Habsburg emperor,
Polish and German troops led by the Polish king John Sobieski arrived and
routed the Turks. An Ottoman chronicler of the time lamented this defeat:
"The accursed infidels . . . succeeded in capturing such quantities of
money and supplies as cannot be described. They therefore did not even
think of pursuing the soldiers of Islam and had they done so it would
have gone hard. May God preserve us. This was a calamitous defeat of
such magnitude that there has never been its like since the first
appearance of the Ottoman state."[vii]
The last siege of Vienna marked the beginning of a more rapid and steady
decline in Ottoman power. Further defeats by Europeans led to the
1699 Treaty of Karlowitz, in which the Ottomans lost control over much
of their European territory.[viii]
The once unbeatable Turks were now permanently on the defensive.
The largely volunteer Ottoman army rarely matched the growing
professionalism of European armies. Even the once dreaded Janissary corps
went into decline as its membership became hereditary and training was
neglected. Provincial officials took advantage of this weakness. By the
mid-1700s, the sultans had lost effective control of Egypt, Syria, and parts
of Arabia to local governors. Like the last Abbasids, later Ottoman sultans

ruled over much of the empire in name only.

The Portuguese in Asia
The balance of power in the Mediterranean took many years to shift from
the Ottoman Empire to the European powers. In the meantime, the
Portuguese, followed later by the Dutch, French, and English, sailed their
deep-water vessels armed with heavy cannons around Africa in search of
the spices, silks, and other luxuries of the East. From trading posts and forts
scattered throughout the Indian Ocean and southern Asia, European
merchants tried to impose their own control over the Indies trade.
As the first Europeans to discover the way into the Indian Ocean,
the Portuguese were also the first to challenge Islamic dominance of
eastern trade and to establish their own commercial empire in Asia. When
Vasco da Gama's crew landed at Calicut, India, in 1498, for example, an
astonished Muslim merchant from Tunis exclaimed, "May the devil take
you! What brought you here?" "Christians and spices,"[ix] replied the
Portuguese, who returned home laden with spices, fine woods, porcelain,
silk, and precious stones. Over the next several decades Portugal set up
trading forts along the African coast, at the mouths of the Red Sea and
Persian Gulf, and on the Indian and Southeast Asian coasts.[x]

Map of the main Portuguese settlements in the East (1600s.).

Taken

from http://www.colonialvoyage.com/Pempir1.jpg
In 1510 Afonso de Albuquerque, the governor of Portugal's Asian
possessions, attacked and drove from power the local ruler of Goa, on the
west coast of India.[xi] Albuquerque made Goa the administrative center of
Portugal's Asian trade empire. By 1515 Albuquerque had also conquered
Malacca, the wealthiest trading center on the Malay coast, and Hormuz, at
the mouth of the Persian Gulf.[xii] Meanwhile, in 1511 Portugal had
captured the main port in the Moluccasthe famed Spice Islands. In the
early 1500s they also began settling Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka).
Anxious to maintain a monopoly over the eastern trade, the
Portuguese allowed only king's ships to trade with the Estado da India, as
they called their Asian empire. Royal merchantmen, accompanied by armed
escorts, carried black pepper, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and mace
to Lisbon. Though expensive in lives and resources, the spice trade yielded
handsome profitsfor example, it provided 39 percent of the Crown's
income in 1518. [xiii] Continuing to expand, the Portuguese also gained
footholds in Japan and China. They reached Japan in the 1540s and quickly
profited by trading Chinese goods for Japanese silver. In 1557 the Chinese
allowed them to establish a trading station at Macao.[xiv] Here, however,
the Portuguese were dependent on Chinas goodwill, as Antnio Bocarro, a
resident of Macao, described in 1635:
The peace that we have with the king of China is as he likes it, for
since this place is so far from India, and since he has such vastly greater
numbers of men than the most that the Portuguese could possibly
assemble there, never did we think of breaking with him whatever
serious grievances we may have had; because the Chinese have only to
stop our food-supplies to ruin our city.[xv]
The spectacular rise of Portugal's trading-post empire, however, was
followed by an equally rapid decline.
A small kingdom, Portugal had neither the people nor the financial
resources to maintain such a vast empire. Portuguese rulers also proved
remarkably shortsighted. As early as 1496, for example, they followed
Spains example and ordered the expulsion of the Jews from the country.
This cost Portugal not only large numbers of people but also much wealth
and valuable expertise, which the country could ill afford to lose. In
addition, the grandiose ambition of the royal monopoly in the Estado da
India proved impossible to maintain. All traders, including local Asian
merchants, were required to obtain licenses from the Portuguese to operate
within Asian waters. They were also required to land their goods only in
Portuguese controlled ports where they were obliged to pay Portuguese

duties on their cargoes. In effect, the Portuguese were not only trying to
monopolize the trade between Asia and Europe but to control and tax the
entire inter-Asian seaborne trade!
To be successful, such a policy would have required an enormous
fleet and control of virtually every important landing spot from the Cape of
Good Hope to Japan - or at the very least all of the strategic narrows
through which ships would have to pass. Portugal simply did not have the
manpower or ships to maintain control over such a huge area. As early as
the 1530s, both local Asian merchants and other Europeans were slipping
through the Portuguese naval net and evading Portuguese customs duties.
Moreover, despite numerous attempts, the Portuguese were never able to
gain control of the strategic entrance to the Red Sea. As more and more
Asian and European merchants evaded the Portuguese monopoly, by the
1560s the Red Sea route into the Mediterranean was supplying as much of
the spice trade to Europe as the route around Africa.
Maintaining such a vast military and naval commitment proved
more expensive than the entire profits provided by the Estado da India. In
1524, for example, the Portuguese crown had to float a huge loan using the
revenues from the following year's spice production as collateral. In
addition, though revenues from the spice trade were enormous, much of the
profit ended up in the hands of Dutch merchants who distributed the spices
from Lisbon into western and northern Europe.
Portuguese Decline
With appropriate irony, perhaps, the eventual demise of Portugal's
dominance of the spice trade was due to the same movement that had first
given birth to Portugal's overseas adventures - the crusading spirit of the
reconquista. In 1578, the devout Portuguese king, Dom Sebastiao, led an
army across the Strait of Gibraltar to fight against the Muslim ruler of
Morocco. Neither he nor most of his men ever returned. Since the young
king had died without an heir, the throne passed to his uncle, a priest and
Cardinal of the Catholic Church, Henry I. Unable to obtain a release from
his vows of celibacy from the Pope, however, Cardinal-King Henry also
died childless only two years later in 1580. After a brief succession
struggle, the Portuguese throne passed to Phillip II of Spain, on condition
that Portugal and its empire would retain their identity and independence
from Spain.
The Portuguese nobility had hoped that Phillip's accession to the throne
would benefit Portugal, but in fact the opposite happened. So long as the
Spanish monarchy also ruled Portugal from 1580 to 1640, the Spanish
neglected Portugal's trade and colonies. Even worse, with the union of the

two crowns, Spain's enemies became Portugal's enemies - and at the time
perhaps the most important of Spain's enemies were the Dutch, who were
in revolt against the Habsburgs in an effort to establish their independence.
Yet the Dutch were also the most important distributors of Portugal's spice
trade into northern Europe. Despite his promise to keep the affairs of the
two kingdoms separate, eventually, in 1594, Phillip banned Dutch
merchants from trading in Lisbon. Unwilling to simply give up the
lucrative spice trade, the Dutch quickly decided to obtain the spices at their
source - in effect, to challenge openly and directly the Portuguese
monopoly in Asia. Over the next half century, until 1640 when Portugal
regained its independence from the Spanish monarchy, in a sustained and
deliberate assault Dutch forces harassed and raided Portuguese shipping
and outposts throughout Asia. Although Portugal managed to hold on to
many of its trading posts, its share in the eastern spice trade steadily
declined in the 17th century as much of the Asian trade fell into Dutch and
English hands.
The Rise of the Dutch
The 1600s were in many ways a period of remarkable success for the
Dutch. After winning independence from Spain, the new Dutch Republic
became one of the wealthiest and most progressive parts of Europe.
Although Calvinism became the dominant religion of the Netherlands,
eventually a policy of religious tolerance prevailed. Politically, the
Netherlands was a kind of federal association of the various provinces. The
States General of the United Provinces, a parliamentary body of provincial
representatives, governed the Netherlands. In military matters, the Princes
of Orange, who had led the struggle against Spain, remained dominant.
The Dutch owed their commercial success primarily to their
position on the sea. In the northern provinces deep-sea fishing had become
the primary commercial activity. In addition, by the end of the 16th century
the Dutch dominated the coastal shipping of northern Europe. In the
17th century nearly 10,000 Dutch vessels dominated the carrying trade of
France, England, Spain, and the Baltic countries.
As their wealth grew, the Dutch also began to develop institutions
to sustain such large-scale commercial activity. In 1609, for example, they
established the Bank of Amsterdam, which issued its own currency, the
florin. The Dutch government itself guaranteed the safety of deposits. At
the time the rest of Europes various currencies were in a state of chaos due
to the heavy influx of gold and silver from the Americas. Drawn by the
stability of the florin as a currency, more and more people from all over
Europe deposited their capital in the Bank of Amsterdam and came to the

bank for loans. Amsterdam soon became Europes leading financial center.
Dutch entry into the Indies trade was largely due to the continuing
hostility of their former rulers, the Spanish Habsburgs. Even before
independence, in 1594 Phillip II of Spain had banned the Dutch from
trading for Portugal's Asian goods at Lisbon. As Spain continued to restrict
the flow of Indies goods into Dutch ports, in 1602 Dutch merchants
responded by establishing the private Dutch East India Company to trade
directly with Asia. The new Dutch republic granted the company sole rights
to carry on trade between the Netherlands and the East Indies and Africa.
More aggressive than the Portuguese, the Dutch eventually began to
conquer and occupy entire islands in an effort to monopolize the spice trade
at the source of production.

Map of the main VOC (Dutch East India Company)

settlements in the East (1660s.). Taken
from http://www.colonialvoyage.com/vocmap.jpg
The Dutch established their first colony in Asia in 1619 at Batavia (now
Jakarta) on the island of Java. From Java they expanded west to take the
island of Sumatra and east to seize the valuable Spice Islands from
Portugal. They also soon captured Malacca, Ceylon, and Cochin on the
southwest coast of India, and established a trading post at Nagasaki, Japan.
In 1652, they established a colony of Dutch farmers, or Boers, at the Cape
of Good Hope in South Africa to supply their ships in the Asian trade.

Other European Competitors

The Dutch were not the only ones to seek the wealth of the Asian trade. In
1600 Queen Elizabeth I granted a charter to the British East India
Company. Over the next century, the Company established trading posts at
Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta in India. The company also set up a few
trading posts in Malaya and the East Indies, but India remained its
headquarters and chief source of wealth. By the end of the century, British
ships also began trading for teas and silks in China.

By the late 1600s the Portuguese and Spanish, the pioneers in global exploration, had
been displaced in many regions by the English, French, and Dutch. Taken
fromhttp://occawlonline.pearsoned.com/bookbind/pubbooks/brummettconcise/chapter98/
medialib/illustrations/WALL5295310.gif

Meanwhile, the French East India Company, formed in 1664,

established a trading post at Pondicherry on the southeast coast of India.
The French soon began to involve themselves in local politics and by the
mid-1700s actually controlled some Indian territory. What made this
possible was the state of Indian politics and the Mughal Empires declining
grip on its subjects.

Mughal power had been declining in India since the death of the
emperor Aurangzeb in 1707. Aurangzebs long and costly wars in the
Deccan had drained the imperial treasury.[xvi] Then, in November 1738,
Nadir Shah, a powerful new Persian ruler, led his army across the Indus
River. In 1739 his forces sacked Delhi, massacring some 30,000 people.
Nadir Shah had effectively destroyed Mughal power, though weak
emperors remained on the throne until 1857.
During the remainder of the 1700s, Marathas from the Deccan,
Sikhs from the Punjab, and Afghan invaders fought over much of the
country. In their wars with each other, many local rulers looked for support
to the Europeans who had established trading posts along their coasts. In
return, the Indian rulers promised increased trading privileges and even the
right to tax whole provinces. Sensing great profit, the British and French
allied themselves with local princes to expand their trade.[xvii] By the
1740s Mughal weakness and disunity had left the door open for increasing
European domination.
China and Japan
Farther east, in China and Japan, a different story unfolded. Under the late
Ming and early Qing dynasties, the Chinese Empire remained considerably
more powerful than the new trading empires of Europe. In Japan too,
shoguns of the Tokugawa dynasty transformed the Japanese feudal system
into a strong, centralized government that dictated its own relationship with
the European "barbarians."
The Qing. Under both the Ming and early Qing dynasties, China remained
perhaps the strongest and most extensive empire in the world. As European
traders and merchants appeared on Chinas borders, they found that China
had less to gain from Europe than Europe had to gain from China. The
Chinese generally realized this too and consequently restricted European
traders to certain ports along the coast. The Portuguese had been the first to
arrive, and had essentially become a part of the Chinese system even at
their base in Macao. As other Europeans arrived they found entry into
Chinas trade even more difficult.
Even under Chinas new Manchurian dynasty, the Qing, the old
Confucian dislike of merchants and trade continued to shape Chinese
attitudes. Having lived in Chinas shadow for many generations, the
Manchus had learned from Chinese advisers. Once in power, they sought to
bolster their own legitimacy by maintaining the Confucian traditions. Even
under their most enlightened ruler, Kangxi, although they began to
experience more interaction with Europeans, they remained determined to

control the relationship.

BIO Kangxi was born in 1654,[xviii] and at the age of seven he
succeeded to the dragon throne of China as emperor.[xix] Like all members
of the Qing dynasty, he was never allowed to forget his identity as a
Manchu. As a child he learned the arts of a Manchu warrior, such as
archery and hunting, in the grassy steppes of his Manchurian homeland. In
that "untamed country," Kangxi later wrote, he had a "sense of
freedom."[xx]

Emperor Kangxi. From http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/article_images/2006-3-6kangxi--ss.jpg

The young Manchu prince was also taught to play the role of a
Chinese emperor, however. In the imperial palace, within the walls of the
Forbidden City in Beijing, he learned not only to write his native Manchu
but also to paint the intricate brush strokes of Chinese characters, and to
recite the Confucian classics from memory.
Although controlled at first by a powerful regent, at age 15 Kangxi
began ruling in his own right. In his early years, he fought hard and
successfully to consolidate his position on the throne. In 1683 he expanded
the empire by taking control of the island of Taiwan. He also firmly
established China's northern and western borders. Sending an army against
Russian forces in the north, in 1689 he won back territory China had lost.
When Mongol warriors threatened the western borders, Kangxi personally
led an army against them. He regarded his defeat of Galdan, the Mongol
leader, as his finest hour. "My great task is done," he wrote to his court "As
for my . . . own life, one can say it is happy. One can say it's fulfilled."[xxi]
Kangxi's later years were not as happy, however, largely due to his
relationship with the Europeans. In 1706 the emperor had a serious

disagreement with Catholic missionaries. For years Kangxi had allowed

Jesuit priests to practice their religion in China because their scientific
knowledge proved useful to him. He had appointed Jesuits as his chief
astronomer and as advisers on geography and engineering. But when an
emissary from the pope refused to acknowledge the validity of ancestor
worship, Kangxi ordered the expulsion of Catholic officials, an act that had
lasting effects on Chinas relationship with Europe.[xxii]
Kangxi's death in 1722 left China territorially strong, but facing
both internal and external challenges. Nevertheless, Chinas strength
allowed it to control the growing number of European merchants seeking
entry into its territory.

Taken from http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/china/images/qingmap.gif

In 1760 a British envoy petitioned the imperial court for increased

and more open trade. The Emperors reply was a polite but firm no.
Anxious not to lose control over their trade to foreign devils, Chinese
emperors laid down strict guidelines to regulate all relations between
Chinese and Europeans. For example, they allowed European ships to dock
only at one port, Guangzhou, and to trade only with a small number of
officially licensed Chinese merchants, known as the Cohong. They also
required Europeans to live in a special "foreign settlement" outside the city
walls and to abide by Chinese laws. Not until the 1800s did relations begin
to turn in the Europeans favor.
The Unification of Japan. Like the Chinese, the Japanese also controlled
their relationship with the Europeans. The first contact between the two
cultures occurred in 1543, when a Portuguese ship wrecked on the Japanese
island of Tanega-shima. The Portuguese soon opened a trading post. Six
years later, a Jesuit priest, Francis Xavier, arrived in Kyushu, hoping to

convert all of Japan to Christianity, starting with its leaders, the daimyo.
The Jesuits had arrived in Japan just as several strong Japanese lords had
begun to restore central authority after a long period of political disunity.
One of these lords, Oda Nobunaga, had begun the rebuilding
process by creating a powerful new army. By arming peasant foot soldiers
with long spears, Nobunaga defeated the more traditional cavalry forces of
his enemies.[xxiii] When the Portuguese introduced firearms into Japan in
1543, Nobunaga was quick to arm his troops with the new weapons. From
his strategic lands in central Honshu, Nobunaga expanded his control over
much of Japan. By 1568, he had established his control over Kyoto, the
capital, and made himself the emperors guardian.

Oda Nobunaga[4]
As Nobunagas power grew, he faced serious opposition from a
coalition of daimyos and powerful Buddhist warrior sects, particularly the
Tendai based at their great monastery fortress, Enryakuji on Mt. Hiei. In
1571, however, Nobunaga attacked and razed Enryakuji, massacring its
inhabitants. Two years later, in 1573, he deposed the last Ashikaga shogun.
In 1580, he destroyed the last great Buddhist monastery-fortress at Osaka
and thus became the undisputed master of central Japan. On the verge of
accomplishing his dream to unify the empire, however, in 1582 he was
betrayed and attacked by one of his own generals. In the fighting,
Nobunaga was either killed or committed suicide rather than surrender. It
was left to one of his loyal generals, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, to continue the
process of unification.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi is often presented by Japanese historians as the
pivotal figure in the history of the country. He began life as a peasant from
the village of Nakamura in Owari province. Sometime in the 1550s, he
joined Oda Nobunaga, eventually rising to become one of his greatest
generals. After personally avenging Nobunagas death, Hideyoshi took
control of the army and continued his mentors process of unification.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi[5]
In this atmosphere of intrigue and internal warfare, the Jesuits
unavoidably became involved in Japanese politics. Nobunaga had been
fascinated by the Westerners. He valued many of the new tools and artifacts
they brought with them like guns and he also seems to have patronized
them as a counterweight to the militant Buddhist sects that opposed him.
Hideyoshi too at first favored Christianity and the Jesuits. He himself liked
to wear Portuguese clothes and Christian religious symbols that had
become fashionable even among non-Christian Japanese, as something new
and exotic. Nevertheless, as European contacts and involvement in
Japanese life grew, many Japanese leaders, including Hideyoshi,
increasingly worried about their long-term impact on Japanese society.
In 1587 a Spanish ship from the Philippines arrived hoping to break
Portugals monopoly on Japanese trade. With the Spanish came another
Catholic order, the Franciscans, who soon challenged the Jesuits for
Japanese converts. The rivalry between the two Catholic missionary orders
only added to the already complex political situation in Japan; rival
daimyos allied themselves with one group or the other for their own
strategic purposes. Alarmed by the growing political intrigues, Hideyoshi
apparently concluded that the Jesuits were becoming as politically powerful
and potentially dangerous as the Buddhist monasteries had been. Without

warning, he suddenly issued an edict ordering all Christian missionaries to

leave Japan though Portuguese traders might remain.
Despite his sudden reversal, however, the peasant general did not at
first strictly enforce the order. In fact, in 1593 he accepted three Franciscan
monks from Manila as Spanish ambassadors. Although their primary goal
was to establish trade relations, he subsequently allowed them to establish
their own mission as well. Still, the growing influence of Christian
missionaries over their converts among the samurai and daimyos continued
to worry Hideyoshi. Finally, in 1597, all his fears about the real purpose of
Christian missionary work came to a head when a Spanish galleon
shipwrecked on the Japanese coast. In an effort to impress the Japanese
daimyo who rescued them, the Spanish officers displayed a map of the
world showing the vastness of the Spanish Empire and bragged about the
leading role that their missionaries had played in establishing it. When the
daimyos report reached Hideyoshi he determined to put an end to the
threat once and for all. After confiscating the ships cargo and sending the
crew back to Manila, he ordered the immediate execution of all Franciscans
in Japan. Eventually some twenty-six missionaries, six Europeans and
twenty Japanese, were crucified. He had instituted this new policy, he
subsequently wrote to the Spanish viceroy in Manila, Because I learned
that the promulgation of this religion was a part of the scheme of your
country to conquer other nations.[6] Soon thereafter he ordered all Jesuits
to leave Japan as well, and began to destroy Christian churches. The
persecutions might have continued but for Hideyoshis own death in 1598.
Hideyoshis death stalled the anti-Christian campaign, but only
momentarily. In the early 1600s the Dutch and English also found their way
to the island empire, bringing with them not only their often-violent rivalry
over trade, but also their competing versions of Protestant Christianity
both of which were at war with all branches of Catholicism. As the
Japanese learned of the religious and political rivalries that divided
Europeans, more and more became disillusioned and began to turn against
the foreigners. When Hideyoshis one-time rival, Tokugawa Ieyasu,
completed the process of Japanese unification after Hideyoshis death, and
became shogun in 1603, he and his successors finally outlawed Christianity
and severely restricted European activities in Japan.
Establishing a strong, central authority, the Tokugawa shoguns
initiated more than two centuries of stability in Japan. Local rulers and their
samurai, headquartered in fortified castle towns, kept the peace. In 1588
Hideyoshi had disarmed the peasants, allowing only samurai to bear arms,
and the Tokugawa continued the policy. Confucian values of loyalty to lord
and family underpinned a rigid traditional social structure. To limit
disruptive outside influences, the shoguns strictly controlled trade and

increasingly restricted foreign travel. By 1650 they had achieved almost

complete isolation. A few Dutch merchants were the only Europeans
allowed to trade in Japan, from a small base at Nagasaki, and all Japanese
were forbidden to travel outside the island empire on pain of death.

Section 1 Review
IDENTIFY and explain the significance of the following:
Battle of Lepanto
capitulations
Treaty of Karlowitz
Afonso de Albuquerque
Aurangzeb
Nadir Shah
Kangxi
LOCATE and explain the importance of the following:
Goa
Malacca
Hormuz
Moluccas
Ceylon
Macao
Batavia
Bombay
Calcutta

Madras
Pondicherry
1. Main Idea How did the Portuguese, the Dutch, the English, and the
French establish trading empires in Asia?
2. Main Idea What economic and political factors contributed to the
decline of the Mughal Empire?
3. Geography: Region What parts of Asia did the Portuguese, Spanish,
Dutch, British, and French conquer by 1763?