Fifteenth Century Civilizations Notes

The Worlds of the Fifteenth Century: Chapter 12

Developments throughout the 15^th century

• Central, East, Southeast Asia
  • Ming Dynsasty China, 1368-1644
  • Conquests of Timur, 1370-1406
  • Zheng He's maritime voyages, 1405-1433
  • Spread of Islam into Southeast Asia
  • Rise of Malacca
  • Civil war among competing warlords in Japan

• South Asia/India
  • Timur's invasion of India, 1398
  • Various Muslim sultanates in northern India
  • Rise of Hindu state ofVijayanagar in southern India
  • Founding of Mughal Empire, 1526

• Middle East
  • Expansion of Ottoman Empire
  • Ottoman seizure of Constantinople, 1453
  • Founding of Safavid Empire in Persia, 1501
  • Ottoman siege of Vienna, 1529

• Christendom/Europe
  • European Renaissance
  • Portuguese voyages of exploration along West African coast
  • Completion of reconquest of Spain, ending Muslim control
  • End of the Byzantine Empire, 1453
  • End of Mongol rule in Russia; reign of Ivan the Great, 1462-1505

• Africa
  • Songhay Empire in West Africa, 1464-1591
  • Kingdom of the Kongo in West Central Africa
  • Expansion of Ethiopian state in East Africa
  • Kingdom of Zimbabwe/Mwene Mutapa in southern Africa

• The Americas/Western Hemisphere
  • Aztec Empire in Mesoamerica, 1345-1521
  • Inca Empire along the Andes, 1438-1533
  • Iroquois confederacy (New York State)
  • “Complex” Paleolithic societies in Australia
  • Chiefdoms and stratified societies on Pacific islands
  • Yap as center of oceanic trading network with Guam and Palau

Australia:

• remains “Paleolithic” according to Western historians
• developed manipulation of their environment
  • “firestick farming,” which is still used at Yosemite
• gatherer-hunter society flourishes; permanent village settlements exist in northwest
  • large, sturdy houses
  • economic specialization: ranked societies with occasional slavery
  • chiefdoms with “big men”
  • extensive storage of food

The Igbo and Iroquois

• small village-based communities, rather than city-states or empires
• societies were at the center of things, with own history of migration, cultural transformation, social conflict, incorporation of new people, political rise and fall, interaction with strangers
• IGBO
  • West African peoples east of the Niger River
  • could have developed into a small state, but rejected kingship
  • relied on title societies and social ranking, women's associations, hereditary ritual experts, balance of power among kinship groups
  • traded actively with other small societies and distant peoples-copper, iron, cotton, fish
  • shifted from matrilineal to patrilineal system of tracing descent
• IROQUOIS
  • located in New York State
  • productive agriculture of maize- and bean-farming
  • settlements grew and distinct peoples emerged-resulted in frequent warfare
    • Five Iroquois-speaking peoples: Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca-agreed to settle differences peacefully through a confederation council of clan leaders
    • Iroquois League expressed limited government, social equality, personal freedom
    • very female-based civilization: descent was matrilineal, married couples lived with wife's family, women controlled agriculture and property. Women could select and depose primary male leaders

Pastoral Peoples—Central Asia and West Africa:

• nomadic pastoral peoples directly affected civilizations
• CENTRAL ASIA
  • Mongolian Empire relied on pastoral expansion
  • Timur's army of nomads devastated Russia, Persia, India
  • Timur's pastoral group controlled the area between Persia and Afghanistan
    • sophisticated elite culture
    • rulers patronized artistic occupations
  • Timur's conquest-last great military success of nomadic Central Asia
  • fell to expansion of the Russian and Chinese Empires
• WEST AFRICA
  • independence from established empires
  • largest pastoral society is the Fulbe-herding people
    • migration eastward since 1000 CE
    • small communities among agricultural people, paid grazing fees and taxes
    • resented subordination to agricultural peoples
    • slowly adopted Islam while migrating

Ming Dynasty China (1368-1644)

• China's recovery from Mongolian rule and the plague
• promoted all non-Mongolian influences-Confucianism, gender roles from earlier dynasties
• prominent emperor: Emperor Yongle (ruled 1402-1422)
• capital relocated to Beijing
• reestablished civil service examination system
• economic rebound

European state-building

• states learned to tax their citizens more effectively
• constant need for war over rival claims for territory
• The Renaissance
• religious themes expanded but were also challenged by Renaissance art
• maritime voyages through the fifteenth century prominent, competed with China

Islam

• expansion of the Ottoman Empire through Southeastern Europe and North Africa
• established by Turkic warriors, who became dominant people of the Islamic world by ruling over the Arabs who created this faith
• Ottoman sultans sought to renew unity to the Islamic world
• Safavid Empire
  • began with a Sufi religious order
  • forcibly imposed Shia version of Islam as the official religion of the state
  • sharp divide into the political and religious life of hearland Islambecause almost all of the surrounding people practiced Sunni form of Islam
• Songhay Empire
  • Islam was a growing faith but limited to urban elites
  • culturally divided empire, the monarch Sonni Ali (ruled 1465-1492) practiced proper Islam but also performed as a magician
  • majorcenter for Islamic learning and commerce
• Mughal Empire
  • located in India, governed largely non-Muslim populations
  • Islamized Turkic group invaded India
  • established unified control over most of the Indian peninsula
  • brief political unity which laid foundation for British colonial rule
  • accommodated Hiindu subjects with some Muslim influences
• this period known as the “second flowering of Islam”

The Americas

• The Aztec Empire
  • built by the Mexica people who came from northern Mexico
  • developed military capacity, served as mercenaries, negotiated elite marriage alliances, built Tenochtitlan
  • amazing commerce
  • loosely structured government with unstable conquest state
  • frequent rebellion by the peoples
  • featured canals, dikes, causeways, bridges
  • sacrificial rituals meant to impress enemies, allies, subjects, and the gods
• The Inca Empire
  • also a source of great commerce
  • bureaucratic empire based under the absolute emperor
  • state owned land and resources and each province had a governor
  • quipus were used to record births, deaths, marriages, and other population data
  • some places in the empire showed resistance, others were willing to accommodate
  • system of manufacturing goods

The Silk Road

The Silk Road is arguably the most well-known road of commerce during the classical era. Compared to the Sand and Sea Roads, the Silk Road demonstrated extremely high versatility in its ability to transport materials from China to as far as Turkey and Greece. The Silk Road posed major significance for its time in transporting not only silk, but textiles, precious minerals, weapons, precious minerals, foods and spices, as well as sickness, as in the Black Death, and the ideas of Confucian, Islamic, and Buddhist thought.

Since the development of silk-making from silkworms in China, the techniques of silk fabrication spread quickly to India, and through communication along the Silk Road, throughout Eurasia. Considering that China began manufacturing silk as long ago as 3000 BCE, their perfection of the craft is particularly admirable (Strayer 317). Furthermore, it is the extent to which the Silk Road reached through Eurasia that makes it admirable; traders made their way through the treacherous mountain ranges in Asia to Mongolia, India, Persia, and Arabia. The long-lasting nature of the Silk Road promotes its success as well; the Silk Road was a means of trade for over 2000 years.

The long-term effect of the Silk Road is its influence on trade as we know it today. As compared to today, the level of commerce transacted through the Silk Road is relatively small. However, it was a groundbreaking market because it paved the way for new modes of trade and travel. It inspired the spread of items and ideas, and for this it must be given credit where credit is due.