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Course: World History Project AP® > Unit 3
Lesson 1: 3.0—Unit 3 OverviewWATCH: Unit 3 Overview
What can a ruler who had 13 titles tell you about how empires maintained control over their subjects? In this video, students will learn about the large, land-based empires of Afro-Eurasia from 1450 to 1750. These empires covered thousands of miles of territory and diverse populations with different languages, ethnicities, and belief systems. Maintaining control was a primary concern for rulers who wanted to ensure that their subjects paid their taxes, obeyed the laws, and didn’t launch rebellions. Balancing authority and tolerance was difficult, and land-based empires employed similar tactics to solve these issues, but each empire also faced unique challenges. Like what you see? This video is part of a comprehensive social studies curriculum from OER Project, a family of free, online social studies courses. OER Project aims to empower teachers by offering free and fully supported social studies courses for middle- and high-school students. Your account is the key to accessing our standards-aligned courses that are designed with built-in supports like leveled readings, audio recordings of texts, video transcripts, and more. Register today at oerproject.com!
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Website: https://www.oerproject.com/AP-World-History
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OERProject
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/oerproject/. Created by World History Project.
Video transcript
Have you ever thought about how your government
gets you to do things? Simple things, like wear a seat belt or... complicated things,
like paying taxes and registering for the draft. Some of the strategies are obvious. Governments
have armies and police forces with big guns and the authority to make people do what they want.
But, some of the strategies are... less noticeable, and involve carrots—rather than
sticks—to convince you to act in certain ways. Look at the money you use. It probably carries faces of your leaders, or other symbols of
the government. Every time you buy a Mars Bar, you're acknowledging the authority of your
government to control the medium of exchange. Governments use plenty of other cultural
symbols to convince citizens of their authority; founding myths, impressive buildings, and
religious justifications often support the right of the government to govern. Governments
have been using these sorts of strategies for thousands of years. I'd like to introduce you to
someone. His name is Suleiman. Or, more formally, Suleiman the First, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire,
King of Kings, Emperor of the East and West, Majestic Caesar, Prince and Lord of the most
happy constellation, Commander of the Faithful, Refuge of all the people in the whole entire
world, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, the shadow of the almighty dispensing quiet on
the Earth, King of believers and unbelievers, Possessor of men's necks, and Allah's deputy on
Earth. To his own subjects—the inhabitants of the vast Ottoman Empire—he was commonly known
as "Suleiman the Lawgiver." Europeans simply called him "Suleiman the Magnificent."
And his reign certainly was magnificent. He ruled for 46 years and expanded the
territory and the wealth of the empire, conquering North Africa, Hungary, and Mesopotamia.
He also reformed the Ottoman legal system. So, that explains "Magnificent" and "Lawgiver," but how did Suleiman earn these
other titles? And what do these titles tell us about how the sultans of the Ottoman
Empire managed to rule for over 600 years? To answer that, let's examine some of the most
powerful governments in the early modern world. Hi, I'm Rachel Hansen, and this is Unit
3: Land-Based Empires 1450 to 1750. By the mid-15th century, the Mongol Empire had
fractured and new empires were rising to replace the power vacuum it left behind. Five large
land-based empires arose in territory once held by the Mongols. In the period from 1450 to 1750,
these were the most powerful states on the planet: the Ottoman, Russian, Safavid, Mughal, and the
Ming and Qing empires. Historians sometimes call these the "gunpowder empires" because they used
gunpowder weapons to conquer and rule. In this unit, we call them "land-based empires," meaning
they ruled vast territories of contiguous land masses—mostly in Asia, but also parts of Africa
and Europe. Ruling such large empires wasn't easy. Thankfully, each of these empires had risen in the
wake of the Mongol collapse, and they were able to learn from the Mongols example (that shouldn't
surprise you—you already know the mongols were successful rulers as well as warriors).
These empires competed for dominance and trade. The Ottomans and Russians repeatedly fought over
the Black Sea and Caucasus Mountains. The Safavids found themselves at odds with the Ottomans and
the Mughals. And towards the end of this period, each of these empires increasingly clashed with
small European adventurers who were attracted by the wealth of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific
Coast of Asia. In Unit 3, we focus in on these five empires that ruled most of Eurasia and
North Africa. We'll attempt to understand how they expanded and how they managed to govern
all these diverse societies that they conquered. Okay, so... what are some themes in governance
that these empires shared? The rulers of each of these empires relied on conquest and military
might to expand their territory and keep their subjects in line. But like your own government,
they also used more... subtle methods. Here are two in particular that historians have identified:
first, all of these empires centralized authority meaning, they kept as much power as possible
in the emperor's hands rather than delegating to a class of aristocrats in distant provinces.
However, no emperor, no matter how magnificent, could manage such vast empires alone, so large
bureaucracies emerged to manage the complexity. These bureaucracies developed a
professional class of officials who handled tasks like tax collection. Second, in each of these empires, religions
played a large role in governance. In Russia, the Orthodox Christian
church worked closely with the Tzars. In the Ottoman Empire, the Sultan claimed
religious authority for all Sunni Islam. In the Safavid Empire, the Shahs made
Shia Islam the religion of the state, putting them at odds with the Sunni
Ottomans and Mughals. And in China, different emperors chose to embrace and
reject different religions through the years, including various forms of Buddhism,
Confucianism, Taoism, and Islam. So, in these large empires, culture and religion
played a critical role in administering the empire and enhancing the authority of the
ruling dynasty and central government. Rulers wielded the authority of their gods, along
with the power of their gunpowder. Yet, emperors also often found it useful to practice a certain
amount of religious tolerance—like the Mongols had—allowing minorities within their empires
a role in governance or some local autonomy. Clearly, these powerful empires had many tools
at their disposal to conquer and command, and each ruler used them somewhat differently.
Let's zoom in on the Ottoman example to see how these themes played out. One fun way to do that
is to examine some of Suleiman's many titles. The Ottoman Sultans claimed the title of
Caliph. That means he's the religious and political successor to the prophet Muhammad
and leader of the Islamic world, making him Allah's deputy on Earth. As the Ottoman
Empire conquered more Islamic territories, this title gave the sultans more
authority over the faithful. Their conquest of Arabia also gave
the sultan's custodianship—meaning control—of the two holiest cities in
Islam: Mecca and Medina. This one, Majestic Caesar, is similar to another
title the sultans claimed after they conquered Constantinople in 1453:
Kayseri Rûm, or Caesar of the Romans. The Ottomans, like the Russian Tsars and Byzantine
Emperors, claimed to be the successors of the Roman Empire. Many empires claimed succession from
some earlier empire to bolster their authority. In the Mediterranean and Eastern
Europe, that was usually the Romans. The Ottoman sultans understood that
they ruled many peoples, far and wide, of many ethnicities and faiths, including
non-believers. To administer their diverse empire, they utilized two important systems: the first was
called the Millet System, and the other was called "devshirme." Under the Millet system, the Ottoman
Emperor permitted various religious communities like Christians and Jews to govern
themselves by their own laws, as long as they swore loyalty—and paid taxes—to
the sultan. Milets helped the sultan in Istanbul rule over people of many faiths without provoking
revolts in its distant provinces. Under the second system, devshirmei, the sultan enslaved young
boys from Christian communities in the Balkans. We used the term 'enslaved' accurately, but
this was different in many ways from the kind of slavery you're probably familiar with.
Under the devshereme system, the boys became professional soldiers and bureaucrats, often
rising to positions of great power in the empire— several became Grand Vizier, the
second-most powerful man in the empire. Many families wanted their children to enter this
service and would bribe Ottoman officials. The devshereme ensured that the sultan had a powerful
army and an effective bureaucracy that was loyal to him and not to his rivals. Thanks to policies
like these, the land-based empires remained the most powerful states through this period. Yet
by the late 18th century, their magnificence was beginning to fade as European overseas
empires began to challenge their supremacy.