Visualizing Oceanic Empires
WORLD HISTORY PROJECT1200 / LESSON3.3ACTIVITYVISUALIZING OCEANIC EMPIRESUnless otherwise noted, this work is licensed under CC BY 4.0. Credit: “Visualizing Oceanic Empires”, OER Project, https://www.oerproject.com/1PurposeIn this activity, you’ll use excerpts about oceanic empires to draw and explain what these states may have looked like. By creating and explaining visuals, you’ll develop a more complete picture of the effects these empires had on individuals.Process1.Before you read the excerpts below, write two or three sentences responding to this prompt:What is your impression of European maritime exploration after 1492? Do you think it had a positive or negative effect on the world?2.Read each excerpt, and then complete the prompts.Excerpt 1 from “European Colonies in the Americas”The Spanish dominated the Americas at first with the creation of the colonies of New Spain and Peru. These new European settlements included Indigenous, African, and Asian populations. The societies that emerged from these settlements were based on the richest silver mines in the world, sugar production, and the making of natural red and blue dyes.Draw what the document is describing:
WORLD HISTORY PROJECT 1200 / LESSON3.3ACTIVITYVISUALIZING OCEANIC EMPIRES2Prompt:Explain whether this document describes a positive or negative effect of European empires:Excerpt 2 from “Extended Biography: Yasuke (1579–1582)”Jesuits arrived in the Indian Ocean following the expansion of Portuguese military and economic presence there. In the sixteenth century, the Portuguese established a series of forts, trading posts, and colonies that reached from the coast of East Africa to India, China, and Japan. During that time, Catholic Jesuit missionaries began arriving in Japan with the goal of converting the country to Catholicism. Established in 1540, the Jesuit order had sent missionaries all around the Americas, Africa, and Asia in the sixteenth century. In Japan, they arrived alongside Portuguese merchants, who acted as the middlemen between Japan and their rivals in China. This period of open trade with the Portuguese, from 1543 to 1614, is known as the Nanban period and saw expanded connections between Japan, Europe, and the Indian Ocean trade.Draw what the document is describing: Prompt:Explain whether this document describes a positive or negative effect of European empires:
WORLD HISTORY PROJECT 1200 / LESSON3.3ACTIVITYVISUALIZING OCEANIC EMPIRES3Excerpt 3 from “Oceanic Empires, 1450 to 1750”As you moved over the world’s oceans you would pass through different waters and different empires. At each stop you’d encounter a new point in a global network of trade and colonies, and the different states competing to control them. In each encounter you’d meet the communities that kept these new, networked empires functioning, often in unexpected ways: Malay sailors running Portuguese ships in Goa; Cantonese merchants selling to Spanish officials in Manila; enslaved African workers offloading European ships in Nagasaki; Italian financiers and Nahuatl laborers in the streets of Vera Cruz.Draw what the document is describing: Prompt:Explain whether this document describes a positive or negative effect of European empires:
WORLD HISTORY PROJECT 1200 / LESSON3.3ACTIVITYVISUALIZING OCEANIC EMPIRES43.Reflect on this activity by answering the following questions:•Look back at your interpretations of the excerpts. Did they match the expectations you wrote down before reading? Why or why not?•Do you think these excerpts accurately represent the effects of European exploration on the world? What else would you need to form a more complete picture?