AP World History Unit 4 Review: Trans-Oceanic Interconnections (1450-1750)

hey there and welcome back to heimlich's history now if you've been following through all the videos for ap world

history unit 4 then we have finally got to the end of it and we need to review the whole dang unit so if you're ready

i'm ready let's get to it all right now before we jump in you should know that this unit review is part of a larger ap

world history review packet and in this view packet you will find reviews for all units of ap world history you'll

find practice multiple choice questions for every unit essential questions about the most important material in the

curriculum and two full ap style practice tests i put a lot of hard work in it to make sure you get an a in your

class and a five on your exam in may so if you need some review help i highly recommend going to get a link in the

description below all right unit four the main theme of this unit is the trans-oceanic interconnections that

occurred in the world from 1450 to 1750 all right if you have no idea what that means let me try to strip all the ap

speak off of it and explain it up real nice this unit is all about the development and expansion of sea-based

empires also known as maritime empire and the leading player in this new kind of empire was europe and that's kind of

a big deal because up to this point in world history europe is kind of behind everybody else in terms of economics and

empire built but during this period europeans assumed a primary place on the world stage as an imperial power to be

reckoned with now how did they do that well the first answer is the advancement of technology especially maritime

technology one advance was the creation of new kinds of ships like the flute the caravelle and the carrot the what the

what and the what the flute the caravel and the carrick now what's important to know about these ships is that they were

smaller faster and much cheaper to build and much nimbler on the seas additionally these were strictly

merchant ships now the general practice up to this time was to build merchant ships that could be converted into

warships if needed but starting with the portuguese the great innovation was to make these trading ships trading ships

only and that's why they were cheaper and one of the reasons they were faster and more nimble was the introduction of

the latin sale this was a triangular sale that allowed sailors to harness wind on both sides of the boat instead

of just waiting for it to blow from behind now this is not a european invention the arabs and the chinese have

been using them for a long time before this the europeans are just now catching up there were also navigational

technologies that made it possible to sail greater distances improved astronomical charts enabled sailors to

reckon their positions on the seas the astrolabe and the magnetic compass made it possible to pinpoint a ship's exact

location as it sailed now again europeans didn't invent these technologies they just harnessed their

power for their own purposes during this time and all this made it possible for europeans to venture out into the

atlantic ocean to search for a sea route to asia and the reason why they wanted to do that is because muslims controlled

most of the land-based trade routes and that made it impossible for europeans to establish trade on their own terms now

as the europeans took to the sea and sailed west it turns out that they ran smack into a continent that they didn't

know existed namely the americas it was christopher columbus who was the first to make this discovery of the new land

unknown to the european and i know that's arguable because you know the vikings and some people say the chinese

discovered america but you know for our purposes it's christopher columbus and he landed in the caribbean islands and

sparked a massive global change which is known as the colombian exchange essentially the colombian exchange was a

biological exchange of animals people food and diseases between the eastern and western hemispheres now it's going

to be important for you to know at least some specific examples of some of those exchanges that took place across the

atlantic and maybe disease is the most important the europeans brought smallpox with him and when that disease began to

spread among the natives of the americas the consequences were devastating somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 to

90 percent of the native population was killed by the disease but in happier news the natives of america sent

syphilis back with the europeans to spread among themselves now there's some debate scientifically on whether the

syphilis actually came from the native americans but that's at least the story that the europeans told themselves in

terms of food and animals europe introduced sugar and horses to the americas and the americas sent potatoes

and maize and guinea pigs back to europe and that's not even close to everything that exchanged during this period but

those are a few specifics that you can hold on to now let's finish this section by talking about the exchange of people

and one of the most significant exchanges of people during this period was in the atlantic slave trade once the

colonizing europeans realized that the climate in the americas made for great agriculture and once they failed

miserably to make other systems of labor worked they turned to the importation of enslaved people from africa and this was

a system known as chattel slavery and chattel just means property so this was the kind of slavery in which people

became the property of those that bought them and this system of labor turned out to be the best solution for the european

aims in the americas the europeans had tried to enslave the natives to do their work but the natives had the unthinkable

gall to start dying in massive numbers from the european diseases how dare you and since we're talking about coerced

labor systems in the americas i should tell you about a few that the europeans tried in order to get the natives to

work for them first let's talk about the encomienda system under this system spanish conquistadors were tasked with

protecting a group of natives and in exchange for that protection they could force them to work on their land the

second system is called hacienda and under this system many of the spanish landowners turned their encomiendas or

their little land grants into huge plantations and guess who got to do the work neither of these systems worked out

for long and so then they borrowed from the incans the mida system now under the incan rulers the mida system was used to

coerce labor for public projects this only occurred for a certain amount of days throughout the year so the spanish

looked around and said that's a pretty good idea we're going to do that so they coerced men to labor for them for a

certain amount of time but the big difference was the incan mida system was done for the sake of public works but

the spanish version of it was done for the sake of private gain now upon the north american continent the british

used a system of labor called indentured servitude but those servants were only bound to work for seven years and after

that they were free to go and they had the annoying habit of actually going free after their indenture was up how

dare you so the importation of people from africa solved all these problems for the colonists these africans were

property for life and because they had mingled with the larger afro-eurasian continent system for millennia they

weren't susceptible to european diseases and later there will come a reckoning for such violations of human nature but

not yet all right let's talk economics for a hot minute one of the major effects of the linking of the eastern

and the western hemispheres during this time was a new global economy so let's talk about the economic system itself

first and then we'll talk about the kind of imperial expansion that grew out of that economic system so the economic

system you need to know for this unit is mercantilism this was the dominant economic system in europe during this

period and i've explained more about it in other videos but really what you need to know for our purposes in this unit

review is this that in a mercantilist mindset there is only a fixed amount of wealth in the world like if you could

somehow gather up all the gold and silver in the world and put it in a big pile well that's the amount of wealth

that's in the world sitting right in front of you in that pile and by the way that's how they measured wealth in

mercantilist economies gold and silver and i always think about it like a pie if you really believe that only one pie

exists in the world and you want a bigger slice of that pie that means necessarily that somebody else has to

have a smaller slice of that pie but the problem is this in pie world nobody wants a small piece of the pie everybody

wants all the pies so as you can imagine this system led to some intense rivalries among the european powers

what's that you say competition between merck and delist states what a perfect time to talk about european

establishment of colonies around the world mercantilism and colonial establishments are connected for the

following reason if a country wanted gold and silver coming in which is to say wanted a bigger slice of the world

pie that means they had to have exports going out and if they're going to export goods to other places that means they

have to have metric butt loads of raw materials in order to make those things to export were they going to get all

those raw materials well colonies the portuguese were the first to establish an empire for the sake of trade but they

did it a little differently than those who came after them instead of claiming huge portions of land they merely set up

what's called a trading post empire all along the african coast and as a result of this the portuguese soon became a

major player in the indian ocean trade network but eventually the portuguese did establish more than trading posts

and the most significant example of this is their colony in brazil now not to be outdone by the portuguese the french and

the british and the dutch and the spanish all rushed out to establish empires in the americas and the details

of these overseas empires aren't as important but what is important to know is that these colonies existed to serve

the mother country and that is the mercantilist mindset now i should mention here who is paying for all of

this exploration and colonization well in general it was the states who were paying for it but the british and the

dutch innovated on this count and created a new way to fund these ventures namely joint stock company this was a

way to fund exploration among private investors who shared the financial burden of that exploration and

colonization among themselves the reason why they would take such a risk is because if the mission succeeded then

they would share in the fabulous wealth of the colony now the last thing i'll mention is the social changes that

occurred when the eastern and the western hemispheres were united and there were upsets all over the world to

social hierarchies but maybe the most significant change in social hierarchy was in the america with the introduction

of europeans into the americas a completely new social hierarchy was established it's called the castus

system and it was a new way of organizing the layers of society based on ancestry and race at the top of the

system where the peninsulares which were those who were born in europe below them were the cryos of the creoles which were

europeans but like b grade europeans because they were born in the americas although both of them were the casters

which was a cascading mashup of natives and africans with the cast as a further hierarchy was established first was the

mestizos who were of mixed european and indigenous ancestry second were the mulattos which were the mixed european

and african ancestry third were the zambos which were the mixed indigenous and african ancestry folks and at the

bottom of all were the indigenous people and the african people themselves okay so that's what you need to know for unit

four of ap world history now i've gone very quickly over a lot of information in some cases i've been very general so

if you need to dive into the details here's a playlist for all my topic videos for unit 4. now my people you

know that i'm here to help you get an a in your class and a five on your exam in may so if that's something you're into

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