Period IV (1450-1750 CE): Global Interactions
4.1 Globalizing Networks of Communication and Exchange
I.
I can evaluate the world context that allowed global, rather than just trans-regional, circulation of goods.
I can assess how this new global circulation caused prosperity for merchants and governments in old trading regions like
the IOMS, Mediterranean, Sahara, and Silk Roads, and also disruption.
II.
I can explain how Europeans built on previous knowledge to develop new tools in cartography, like revised maps,
innovations in ship design, as in the caravel, and improved understanding of global wind and current patterns.
I can analyze why these technological developments made transoceanic travel and trade possible.
III.
I can describe and analyze examples of transoceanic maritime reconnaissance.
A.
 I can describe the naval voyages of Ming Dynasty Admiral Zheng He.
 I can explain how they enhanced Chinese prestige in the Indian Ocean.
 I can explain the debate within the government of the Ming stimulated by Zheng He’s voyages.
B.
 I can describe the Portuguese global trading-post empire and how it developed along coastal regions.
 I can analyze how this trading empire developed as a result of Prince Henry the Navigator’s school and increased
travel to and trade with West Africa.
C.
 I can recognize the state-led Spanish sponsorship of their maritime voyages and how their specific sponsorship of
Columbus led to increasing European interest in travel and trade across the oceans.
D.
 I can recognize that, while the Portuguese and Spaniards established routes to Asia, other Europeans were looking
for another route to Asia across the North Atlantic, creating settlements and conducting commercial fishing along
the way.
E.
 I can recognize that, at this point in history, the already-established networks of Oceania and Polynesia were not
dramatically affected because European reconnaissance in the Pacific did not frequently reach these areas.
IV.
I can assess the ways in which silver, taken from Spanish colonies in the Americas, facilitated the purchase of Asian
goods for Atlantic markets.
I can recognize that the silver in these transactions was extracted from the Americas by royal chartered European
monopoly companies.
I can evaluate why regional markets in Afro-Eurasia continued to flourish using established commercial practices and
utilizing transoceanic shipping services developed by European merchants.
A.
 I can explain how and why the role of Europeans in Asian trade was to transport goods from one Asian country to
another market in Asia or the IOMS region.
B.
 I can assess how the creation of a global commercial-based economy was connected to the new global circulation
of silver from the Americas.
C.




I can define mercantilism and describe its use by European rulers.
I can define joint-stock company.
I can describe how mercantilism and joint-stock companies were used by Europeans rulers to control their
domestic and colonial economies.
I can describe how joint-stock companies were used by European merchants to compete against one another in
global trade.
D.
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
I can describe the Atlantic System.
I can explain how the movement of goods, wealth, free and unfree laborers, and the mixing of African, American,
and European cultures and peoples created a unique system within the Atlantic region.
V.
I can define Columbian Exchange.
I can evaluate how the new connections between the Eastern and Western Hemisphere resulted in the Columbian
Exchange.
A.
 I can evaluate why European colonization of the Americas led to the spread of smallpox, measles, and influenza
among Amerindian populations.
 I can describe why these diseases were already endemic (widespread) in the Eastern Hemisphere.
 I can recognize that vermin, including mosquitoes and rats, were also unintentionally spread.
B.
 I can explain how and why American foods like potatoes became staple crops in parts of Europe, Asia, and
Africa.
 I can analyze and explain how and why cash crops like sugar were grown mostly on plantations, using coerced
labor.
 I can describe why cash crops like sugar were mostly exported to Europe and the Middle East in this period.
C.
 I can describe the movement of AfroEurasian fruit trees, grain, sugar, and domesticated animals like horses to the
Americas.
 I can describe how African slaves brought other foods to the Americas, like rice.
D.
 I can evaluate why populations in AfroEurasia benefited nutritionally from the increased diversity in their diets
brought about by these new American foods.
E.
 I can identify the ways European colonization and the introduction of European agriculture and settlement
practices affected the physical environment of the Americas through deforestation and soil depletion.
VI.
I can explain how religions continued to spread, reform, and become syncretic as interactions between and among
hemispheres intensified.
A.
 I can describe how Islam adapted to new settings in AfroEurasia as believers adapted the religion to local cultures.
 I can recognize that Sufi practices became more widespread, because it tended to be more open-minded about
local cultural practices.
B.
C.
D.
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I can analyze how Christianity became much more widespread through diffusion.
I can explain how Christianity became much more diverse because of the Reformation.

I can recognize that Buddhism continued to spread within Asia.
 I can identify the cult of saints in Latin America as a syncretic form of Christianity.
VII.
I can recognize and explain how merchants gained more and more profits and how governments collected even more
taxes.
I can explain how the increase in the wealth and flow of money caused funding for visual and performing arts to increase,
and allowed some forms of the arts for popular audiences to come into being.
A.
 I can name several Renaissance artists who created visual and performing arts and explain the ways in which their
works were innovative.
B.
 I can describe how literacy expanded during this period.

I can analyze how this expansion caused the proliferation of popular authors, literary forms, and works of
literature in AfroEurasia, specifically the theater of Shakespeare in England and Kabuki in Japan.
4.2 New Forms of Social Organization and Modes of Production
I.
I can evaluate and explain how a growing demand for raw materials and finished products increased and changed
traditional peasant agriculture, caused plantations to expand, and created a higher demand for labor.
A.
 I can identify and explain the intensification of labor in many regions including cotton textile production in India
and Silk textile production in China.
B.
 I can describe how slavery in Africa continued both into African households and through the export of slaves to
the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean.
C.
 I can explain how the growth of plantation economies increased the demand for slaves in the Americas.
D.
 I can identify and explain forms of coerced labor, such as indentured servitude, and how they were used in the
American colonies
II.
I can analyze how new ethnic, racial, and gender hierarchies were restructured as a result of the emergence of new social
and political elites.
A.
 I can explain how imperial conquests and a widening of global economic opportunities contributed to the
formation of new political and economic elites such as the urban commercial entrepreneurs in all major port cities
in the world and the Manchu in China.
B.
 I can describe how the power of existing political and economic elites, like the nobility in Europe, rose and fell as
they confronted new challenges to their ability to affect the decisions of increasingly powerful monarchs and
leaders.
C.
D.

I can explain how gender and family restructuring occurred, like the dependence of European men on Southeast
Asian women for conducting trade in the region as well as demographic changes in Africa as a result of the slave
trade.

I can identify new ethnic and racial classifications like the Mestizos and Creoles in the Americas, and explain how
it led to massive demographic changes.
4.3 State Consolidation and Imperial Expansion
I.
I can analyze and explain the variety of methods used by rules in order to legitimize and consolidate their power.
A.
 I can describe and give specific examples of how rulers used the visual arts and monumental architecture to
display power and legitimize their rule.
B.
 I can explain how rulers continued to use religious ideas such as divine right by the European monarchs and the
public performance of Confucian rituals by Chinese emperors in order to legitimize their rule.
C.
D.

I can describe how states adjusted their treatment of ethnic and religious groups in order to utilize their economic
contributions while limiting their ability to challenge state authority as seen in the treatment of non-Muslim
subjects by the Ottomans.

I can recognize that the recruitment of bureaucratic elites through the Chinese examination system, and the
development of military professionals like the salaried Samurai, became more common by rulers who wanted to
maintain a centralized government.
E.

I can explain how rulers used tribute collection and tax farming to increase revenue in order to expand their
territory.
II.
I can evaluate how imperial expansion relied on an increased use of gunpowder cannons and armed trade to establish large
empires across the globe.
A.
 I can identify new trading-post empires established by the Europeans in Africa and Asia.
 I can explain how the power of the states in the interior West and Central Africa were affected by the European
empires despite an increase in profit for the rulers and merchants involved.
B.
 I can identify and describe the expansion of the following land empires:
o Manchu
o Mughals
o Ottomans
o Russians
C.
 I can identify and describe the new maritime empires established in the Americas by the following countries:
o Portugal
o Spain
o The Netherlands (Dutch)
o France
o Britain
III.
I can analyze and describe how competition over trade routes like piracy in the Caribbean, state rivalries like the OttomanSafavid conflict, and local resistance like peasant uprisings, created significant challenges to state consolidation and
expansion.