AP European History-Chapter 18 – Flashcards
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What important developments led to the agricultural revolution, and how did these changes affect peasants?
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(possible essay question)
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What problems could commonly occur before the agricultural revolution?
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Climactic conditions produced poor or disastrous harvests every eight or nine years, unbalanced and inadequate food in famine years made people extremely susceptible to illness, eating material unfit for human consumption during times of crop failure, such as bark or grass, resulted in intestinal ailments of many kinds, influenza and smallpox preyed on populations weakened by malnutrition.
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What was the main set back for agriculture in the Middle Ages?
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The pattern of farming in the Middle Ages sustained fairly large numbers of people, but did not produce material abundance
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Soil-Exhaustion
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A big problem from everyone plowing and using the same land year after year
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Open-Field System
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land isn't organized for efficiency but rather fair distribution; primary crop is grain, but grain pulls nutrients [primarily nitrogen] out of the fields. As such, crops had to be rotated so that one field would be left uncultivated, or fallow; this left a significant portion of land uncultivated and thus unproductive. Also, peasants were extremely heavily taxed.
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The Three Year System
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To deal with the problems of field exhaustion, peasants staggered the rotation of crops every three years to make production more even
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Fallow
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Fields left uncultivated to cope with soil-exhaustion. Greatly inhibited efficient production and lead to even greater burdens on the peasants.
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The conditions of serfs in Eastern Europe
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In eastern Europe, the percentage of the population drawing their livelihood from agriculture was significantly higher than others. As such, serfdom was even more common than ever and working conditions remained dismal. As the base of an entire economy, serfs were heavily burdened.
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The conditions of serfs in Western Europe
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Working class was better off in western Europe, where peasants were generally free from serfdom and sometimes owned land that they could pass on to their children.
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The Agricultural Revolution
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A term encompassing a number of improvements in farming. Technological progress offered a different way for peasants to improve their position. Improvements in farming had multiple effects: new crops made ideal feed for animals, which allowed peasants to build up their herds of cattle and sheep, which in turn meant more meat and better diets, as well as more manure for fertilizer and therefore more grain for bread and porridge. Advocates of the new crop rotations argued that innovating agriculturalists needed to enclose and consolidate their scattered holdings into compact, fenced-in fields in order to farm more effectively. Encompasses the movement known as enclosure. Landlords imposed newer farming techniques in order to increase productivity.
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How successful were the European peasants' attempt of revolt in protest of the land laws?
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When the small landholders and the village poor could effectively oppose the enclosure of the open fields and the common lands, they did so. However, the option of peasant revolt was a poor one because the social and political conditions that sustained the ruling elites were ancient and deeply rooted, and powerful forces stood ready to crush protest. So not very successful
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Use of nitrogen-storing crops
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Discovery of nitrogen producing crops creates as use for fallow fields [crops like clover which provides excellent food for livestock; manure helps make the fields fertile again] Their use was pioneered by the dutch.
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Crop-Rotation
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The process of rotating crops through fields and allowing one or two fields to lay fallow so that they can regain nutrients.
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Effects of improvements in farming
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More productive farming led to a surplus of food, surplus of food led to less demand for agricultural workers, less demand for agricultural workers led to the opportunity for ecconomic and urban growth
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Enclosure
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The system of dividing up land rather than having communal fields. This movement meant a revolution in village life and organization, but it appeared to be the necessary price of technical progress. Began as early as the 16th century, when parliament imposed the system on England.
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Where did the new methods of the agricultural revolution originate?
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The Netherlands
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Reasons for Dutch leadership in farming?
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Holland was densely populated, and in order to feed themselves the Dutch sought maximum yields from their land and strove to increase the cultivated area through the steady draining of marshes and swamps. Stimulated by commerce and overseas trade, the growing urban population provided Dutch peasants with markets for all they could produce and allowed each region to specialize.
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How did England benefit from the Dutch involvement in the agricultural revolution?
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In the first half of the seventeenth century the English invited Dutch experts to drain the extensive marshes, or fens, of wet and rainy England; their efforts converted swampy wilderness into thousands of acres of productive land. Charles Townshend: English ambassador to the Netherlands; very impressed by Dutch farming techniques. Came back to England and began to use these new techniques on his land. When his land began producing greater profits, people started to pay attention.
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Jethro Tull
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(1674-1741) An important English innovator who tried to develop better farming methods through empirical research, such as using horses rather than oxen for plowing and sowing seed with drilling equipment for even distribution at the proper depth. Not the greatest innovator but did contribute to the spread of these new ideas. (editor of an agricultural journal)
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What was the result of the agricultural revolution in England?
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By 1870 English farmers were producing 300 percent more food than they had produced in 1700, even though the number of people working the land had increased by only 14%. This provided food for England's rapidly growing urban population.
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What did English Parliament do during the revolution and how did it affect peasants?
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The eighteenth century enclosure movement. It led to an uneven distribution of land in favor of the nobles because they ruled in their own interest. As such, nobles became wealthier land lords while peasants lost land and were forced to work for the nobles at meager wages.
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What were the two major historical developments that came from the enclosure movement in England?
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The rise of a market-oriented estate agriculture and the emergence of a landless rural proletariat.
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Proletarianization
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the transformation of large numbers of small peasant farmers into landless rural wage earners. By the early nineteenth century a minority of wealthy landowners held most of the land in England and leased their holdings to middle-size farmers, who relied on landless laborers for their workforce; not only was the small landholder deprived of his land, but the large farms required fewer laborers, which led to widespread unemployment.
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Why did the European population rise dramatically in the eighteenth century?
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The basic cause of European population increase was a decline in mortality as well as a marginal increase in birth rates. Birthrates went up because: i. Children were profitable ii. No birth control iii. Social security (children take care of parents when they're too old to work) iv. Death rates for children are still high
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What were the main causes of death in the 17th C? Why?
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Famine, plague, and war
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What causes population growth and an increase in birth rates?
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Women had more babies than before because new opportunities for employment in rural industry allowed them to marry at an earlier age. The basic cause of European population increase as a whole was a decrease in death rates. 1.) One of the primary reasons for this was a mysterious disappearance of the bubonic plague. 2.) Improvements in the water supply and sewage resulted in somewhat better public health and helped reduce diseases in some urban areas of western Europe. 3.) People also became more successful in their efforts to safeguard the supply of food. 4.) Advances in transportation lessened the impact of local crop failure and famine Emergency supplies could be brought in and localized starvation became less frequent. 5.) Wars became less destructive than in the 17th C and spread fewer epidemics. 6.) Nutritious new foods from the New Worlds were introduced. 7.) Simply put: Famines, epidemics, ad wars continued to occur and to affect population growth, but their severity moderated
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What caused a decrease in mortality?
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1. One of the primary reasons for this was a mysterious disappearance of the bubonic plague 2. Improvements in the water supply and sewage resulted in somewhat better public health and helped reduce diseases in some urban areas of western Europe 3. People also became more successful in their efforts to safeguard the supply of food 4. Advances in transportation lessened the impact of local crop failure and famine 5. Emergency supplies could be brought in and localized starvation became less frequent 6. Wars became less destructive than in the 17th C and spread fewer epidemics 7. Nutritious new foods from the New Worlds were introduced 8. Simply put: Famines, epidemics, ad wars continued to occur and to affect population growth, but their severity moderated
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How and why did rural industry intensify in the eighteenth century?
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Population growth meant that the poor in the countryside increasingly needed to supplement their agricultural earnings with other types of work. Rural industry provided employment for laid off workers (victims of Proletarianization) thus allowing for the rapid expansion in England .Most continental countries developed rural industry more slowly.
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Cottage industry
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consisted of manufacturing with hand tools in peasant cottages and work sheds, grew to become a crucial feature of the European economy. Was often organized through the putting-out system. Paid by the piece; textiles are the main thing manufactured.
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Putting-out system
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The system in which a merchant loaned, or "put out," raw materials to cottage workers, who processed the raw materials in their own homes and returned the finished products to the merchant. Variations on this basic relationship included workers buying their own raw materials, whole families participating in domestic industry, or several workers banding together to perform a complicated process in a workshop outside the home. As industries grew in scale and complexity, production was often broken into stages. The system grew because it was not restricted by rigid guild standards and because underemployed labor was abundant, with poor peasants and landless laborers willing to work for low wages.
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What market employed the most workers in Europe up to the 19th C?
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Textiles
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John Kay
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The inventor of the flying shuttle
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the flying shuttle
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An invention that allowed weavers to weave faster; they started to run out of thread faster, this lead to the employment of spinsters (usually widowed/old women)
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From a merchant capitalist's point of view, what was the problem with rural labor?
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The problem was not low wages but the control of rural labor. Cotton workers were difficult to supervise They accused workers-especially female spinners- of laziness, drunkenness, and immorality. If workers failed to produce enough thread, it must be because their wages their wages were too high and they had little incentive to work. Merchants then insisted on maintaining the lowest possible wages to force the "idle" poor into productive labor
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Compare and contrast views on the effects of rural industry.
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(pg 564. possible essay question)
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Industrious revolution
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The shift that occurred as families in northwestern Europe focused on earning wages instead of producing goods for household consumption; this reduced their economic self-sufficiency but increased their ability to purchase consumer goods. This occurred as Europe reduced leisure time, stepped up the pace of work, and directed the labor of women and children away from production of goods for house consumption and toward wage work.
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Why was the role of women in the Industrious Revolution controversial?
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(pg 566) When women entered the labor market, they almost always worked at menial, tedious jobs for very low wages. Yet it seems that women who earned their own wages also took a greater role in household decision making. Women's use of their occasional surplus income helped spur the rapid growth of the textile industries.
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What were guilds, and why did they become controversial in the eighteenth century?
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(possible essay question pg 566)
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guild system
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The organization of artisanal production into trade-based associations, or guilds, each of which received a monopoly over its trade and the right to train apprentices and hire workers. Reached its peak in most of Europe in the 17th and 18th C. The second half of the 18th C, critics attacked the systems as outmoded institutions that obstructed technical progress and innovation.
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What was the effect of rural industry on the guild system?
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One consequence of the growth of rural industry was an undermining of the traditional guild system that protected urban artisans.
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Who was allowed to become a member in a guild?
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While women were occasionally admitted to guilds, the majority of guilds only admitted local men who were good Christians, had several years of work experience, paid stiff membership fees, and completed a masterpiece. They also favored family connections. Masters' sons enjoyed automatic access to their fathers' guilds, while outsiders were often barred from entering.
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What did Colbert attempt to do for the guilds and why?
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Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the French finance minister under Louis XIV, revived the urban guilds and used them to encourage high-quality production and to collect taxes. Guild masters in Paris received exclusive rights to produce and sell certain goods, access to raw materials, and the rights to train apprentices and open shops. Guilds also served social and religious functions, providing a locus of sociability and group identity to the middling classes.
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The Faubourg Saint-Antoine
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An eastern suburb of Paris that maintained freedom from guild privileges through an old legal loophole, acting as a haven for the "false-workers" bitterly denounced by masters.
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Physiocrats
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Anti-guild group; followed Adam Smith; criticized guilds, or "corporations," for their restrictions, a critique he extended to all state-approved monopolies and privileged companies.
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Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot
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Created a law that abolished French guilds, deciding they were outmoded and exclusionary institutions that obstructed technical innovation and progress and that they did not allow the common people to earn a living and exclude females.
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Adam Smith
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(1723-1790) A professor of philosophy and a leading figure of the Scottish Enlightenment. Developed the general idea of freedom of enterprise and established the basis for modern economics in his work, "Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" (1776). Criticized monopolies and privileged companies for their restrictions. Preferred free competition. Proposed that the government should limit itself to only three duties: defense, order, and sponsoring the public. Supported economic liberalism and stated that there is the law of supply and demand. Capitalism.
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Economic liberalism
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A belief in free trade and competition based on Adam Smith's argument that the invisible hand of free competition would benefit all individuals, rich and poor
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What three duties did Adam Smith propose the government limit itself to?
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1. It should provide a defense against foreign invasion 2. It should maintain civil order with courts and police protection 3. It should sponsor certain indispensable public works and institutions that could never adequately profit private investors
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Free Competition
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Protected consumers from unfair prices or terms and gave everyone equal right to sell
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"Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of Wealth of Nations"
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(1776) Criticized monopolies and privileged companies for their restrictions. Preferred free competition. Proposed that the government should limit itself to only three duties: defense, order, and sponsoring the public. Supported economic liberalism and states that there is the law of supply and demand. Capitalism. Written by Adam Smith
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How did colonial markets boost Europe's economic and social development, and what conflicts and adversity did world trade entail?
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(possible essay question pg 569)
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Which countries benefited the most from colonial development and world trade?
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The Netherlands, France, and above all Great Britain. Great Britain thus became the leading maritime power but they competed ruthlessly wit France and the Netherlands for trade and territory.
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Mercantilism
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Aimed particularly at creating a favorable balance of foreign trade in order to increase a country's stick of gold. A country's gold holdings served as an all-important treasure chest that could be opened periodically to pay for war in a violent age.
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Navigation Acts
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Established first by Oliver Cromwell; required that goods imported from Europe be carried on British-owned ships or on ships of the exporting country. These laws gave British merchants and ship owners a virtual monopoly on trade with British colonies. Were a form of economic warfare that initially targeted the Dutch, who were far ahead of the English in shipping and foreign trade. Eventually the Dutch began to fall behind, leaving France as England's main competitor.
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The War of the Spanish Succession
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(1701-1713)As the Netherlands began to fall behind in international trade, France stood as England's most serious rival in the competition for overseas empire. This war started in 1701 when Louis XIV accepted the Spanish crown willed to his grandson Phillip. This upset the continental balance of power. This union with France and Spain also threatened to encircle and destroy the British colonies in North America. This was the first of a series of wars to decide who would become the leading maritime and colonial power. During this first conflict, Louis XIV was defeated by a coalition of states and was forced in the Peace of Utrecht (1713) to cede France's northernmost American holdings to Britain. Spain was compelled to give Britain control of its West African slave trade (asiento) and to let Britain send one ship of merchandise into the Spanish colonies annually.
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Peace of Utrecht
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Ended the War of the Spanish Succession. Louis XIV was defeated by a coalition of states and was forced in the ________ to cede France's northernmost American holdings to Britain. Spain was compelled to give Britain control of its West African slave trade (asiento) and to let Britain send one ship of merchandise into the Spanish colonies annually.
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The War of the Austrian Succession
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(1740-1748) Started when Frederick the Great seized Silesia from Austria's Maria Theresa. Included Anglo-French conflicts in India and North America, but it ended with no change in the territorial situation in North America. This war helped set the stage for the Seven Years' War. English had been smuggling into Spain; Spain sets up a coast guard to protect from this; English become very upset with this interference. If a ship was caught, goods and ships were confiscated and the captain would have his ear cut off. A captain named Jenkins testifies before parliament and drops his ear in 1739. Starts a war known as "the war of Jenkins ear" which merged into the war of the Austrian succession. Pretty much a stand off.
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The Seven Years' War
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(1756-1763) This war was the decisive round in the Franco-British competition for colonial empire. Austria's Maria Theresa sought to win back Silesia and crush Prussia, thereby restablishing the Habsburg's leadership in German affairs. The battle was inconclusive in Europe and the fate of the battle to North America to be decided. Allied with many Native American tribes, the French built more forts in 1753 in what is now western Pennsylvania to protect their claims on fur-trading regions. A Virginia force attacked a small group of French soldiers and then the war to conquer Canada was on. French and Canadian forces under the experienced marquis de Montcalm fought well and scored major victories against the British and colonists until 1758. Beginning in 1758, Britain, led by William Pitt, used its superior sea power to destroy the French fleet and choke off French commerce around the world; a four-month siege of Quebec in 1759 by British naval and land forces sealed Britain's victory.
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Marquis de Montcalm
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Leader of the French and Canadian armies in the battle of the Seven Years' War in North America
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William Pitt
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Leader of the British armies in the battle of the Seven Years' War in North America
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1763 Treaty of Paris
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(1763) In this treaty, which brought an end to Franco-British competition, France lost its remaining possessions on mainland North America (Canada and all land East of Mississippi River) as well as most of its holdings in India. Britain then realized its goal of monopolizing a vast trading and colonial empire.
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Describe 18th century colonial trade for Britain
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In the 18th C, London grew into the West's largest and richest city. The mainland colonies provided and expanding market for English manufactured goods. English exports of manufactured goods to the Atlantic economy came to the rescue. To America and Africa went a large quantity of metal items. Thus, the mercantilist system achieved remarkable success for England in the 18th C and by the 1770's England stood on the thresh hold of the Industrial Revolution.
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How did the French fare during the 18th C in colonial trade?
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Thought France lost much to the English, they still profited from the colonies of Saint-Domingue and Martinique and Guadalupe. They provided immense fortunes in plantation agriculture and slave trading during the second half of the 18th C. Saint-Domingue became the world's leading producer of coffee and sugar and the most profitable plantation colony in the New World.
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How did Spain fare in colonial trade in the 18th C?
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Spain gained Louisiana from France in 1763. Also Spanish influence expanded westward all the way to northern California through the efforts of Spanish missionaries and ranchers. Its mercantilist goals were boosted by a recovery in silver production.
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Debt Peonage
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A form of serfdom that allowed a planter or rancher to keep his workers or slaves in perpetual debt bondage by periodically advancing food, shelter, and a little money. Developed by Spanish landowners.
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Atlantic Slave Trade
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The forced migration of Africans across the Atlantic for slave labor on plantations and in other industries; the trade reached its peak in the 18th C and ultimately involved more than 12 million Africans. This practice intensified with the growth of trade and demand for slave-produced goods like sugar and cotton. The plantations of Portuguese Brazil received the largest number of enslaved Africans-45% of the total.
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What changes in organization did intensification of 18th C slave trade result in?
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After 1700, Britain became the undisputed leader in shipping slaves across the Atlantic, European governments and ship captains cut back on fighting among themselves and concentrated on commerce. Some African merchants and rulers who controlled exports profited from the greater demand for slaves, often gaining access to European and colonial goods as well as firearms with their new found wealth.
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What was the European view of the slave trade in the 18th C?
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Until the early part of the 18th C, Europe considered the slave trade a legitimate business. But as details of the plight of slaves became know, a campaign to abolish slavery developed in Britain. In 1807 Parliament abolished the British slave trade, although slavery continues in British colonies and the Americas for decades.
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Creole
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Refereed to people of Spanish ancestry who were born in the Americas
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What new identities and communities emerged in the 18th C?
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1. Over time the colonial elite came to feel that their circumstances gave them different interests and characteristics from those of their home population. 2. Creole traders and planters increasingly resented the regulation and taxes imposed by colonial bureaucrats. 3. Since most European migrants were men, much of the population of the Atlantic world descended from unions-forced or through choice-of European men and indigenous or African women. 4. Colonial attempts to classify and systematize racial categories greatly influenced developing Enlightenment thought on racial difference. 5. Mixed-race populations sometimes rose to the colonial elite. 6. Free people of color established their own proud social hierarchies based on wealth, family connections, occupation, and skin color. 7. Religions such as Christianity took on a distinctive character
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What backlash occurred as a result of black prosperity?
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In the second half of the eighteenth century, the prosperity of some free people of color brought a backlash from the white population of Saint-Domingue in the form of new race laws prohibiting nonwhites from marrying whites and forcing them to adopt distinctive attire.
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How were mixed race relationships viewed in the British colonies of the Caribbean and the southern mainland?
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Masters tended to leave their mixed-race progeny in slavery, maintaining a stark discrepancy between free whites and enslaved people of color. British colonial law forbade marriage between English men and women and Africans or Native Americans.
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Olaudah Equiano
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An eloquent spokesman for the mixing of African and European cultures. Came to the Americas as a slave and became a free man.
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Describe Religion and conversion efforts in North America
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Converting indigenous people to Christianity was a key ambition for all European powers in the New World. Conversion efforts in North America were less effective due to the scattered nature of settlement and the lesser integration of native people into the colonial community. Protestants were less active as missionaries although some dissenters, like Quakers and Methodists, did seek converts among native people. Slavery presented a limitation to conversion however, as some slave owners would not baptize their slaves fearing that baptism would give them more rights. Elements of African religion and practice often in endured, especially in the Caribbean. It even was often incorporated with Christian traditions. Jews did not share equal status with Christians, even though they were considered white Europeans.
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Describe the treatment of Jews in the New World
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Jews were eager participants in the new Atlantic economy and established a network of mercantile communities along its trade route. Jews in European colonies faced discrimination. They were considered to be white Europeans and thus ineligible to be slaves, but they sis not enjoy equal status with Christians
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The Dutch East India Company
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Formed in 1602, it took control of Portuguese spice trade, eliminating Portugal from the the race for spices. Batavia (Jakarta) was its main port in the Indian Ocean. While the Portuguese had treated the Indian states and people as business partners, the Dutch established outright control and reduced them to dependents. The Dutch's hold in Asia faltered in the 18th C due to the company's failure to diversify to meet changing consumption patterns. Spices continued to compose much of the Dutch's shipping. Fierce competition from the English East India Company also severely undercut the Dutch.
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The British East India Company and the conquering of India
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The British originally struggled for a foothold in Asia with the Dutch monopolizing the Indian Ocean, causing the British to return to India, a source of trade in silks, textiles, and pepper. Throughout the 17th C, the British relied on trade concessions from the Mughal emperor, but when the Mughals conceded world-wide trading privileges in 1716, the British increasingly intervened in local affairs and made alliances or even waged war against Indian princes. Britain's great rival for India was France. Their rivalry was resolved with the Treaty of Paris which granted all France's possessions in India to the British with the exception of Pondicherry, an Indian Port city.With the elimination of France, British trading power increased. In 1764 company forces defeated the Mughal emperor. Robert Clive became the first British governor general of Bengal with direct authority over any province. By about 1805 the British had overcome Indian resistance to gain economic and political dominance of much of the subcontinent and India was named the jewel of the British Empire in the 19th C.
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Robert Clive
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A British East India Company agent who had led its forces in battle. Became the first British governor general of Bengal, northeast India, with direct authority over the province.
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Describe British settlment in Australia
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Captain James Cook claimed the east coast of Australia for England in 1770, naming it New South Wales. The first colony was established there in the late 1780's, relying on the labor of convicted prisoners forcibly transported from Britain. Settlement of the western portion of the continent followed in the 1790's. Settlement soon aroused hostility from the aboriginal peoples.
