Age of Exploration
Driving Question: How were European oceanic empires different from land-based empires?
Although Europeans had traveled by sea to the Americas centuries before this time, during this period their reach expanded into maritime empires. In this lesson, we will explore the beginnings of the European empires that cemented transoceanic connections.
Learning Objectives:
- Examine the characteristics of early modern oceanic empires to determine how they differed from earlier forms of empire.
- Use a graphic biography to support, extend, or challenge the overarching narratives from this time period.
Vocab Terms:
Looking for additional ways to introduce this topic? Check out another teacher’s approach in the “Age of Exploration Introduction Activity Using Apple Pie” thread in the Community Forum.
By the end of this lesson, you’ll be ready to respond to the prompt, Develop an argument that evaluates the extent to which European oceanic empires differed from land-based empires in the period 1450–1750. First, let’s figure out what that prompt even means.
In the fifteenth century, explorers from Europe set out across the oceans. Their voyages and conquests made some Europeans very rich and some rulers very powerful. But as you’ll see in the article and graphic bio below, not everyone shared equally.
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Guiding Questions
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Guiding Questions
Narratives about this period are often centered on Europe—how Europeans traveled to the Indian Ocean and East Asia and achieved dominance. This article and graphic bio unsettle those expectations, showing Europeans entering as small players in an already-thriving network, and showing the connections established by Europeans through the eyes of an East African samurai in Japan.
European navigators also traveled to the Indian Ocean in search of new trade opportunities. In this article and graphic bio, you’ll read about their interactions with powerful states and a flourishing network of trade.
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Guiding Questions
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Guiding Questions
European sea travel transformed trade and imperial expansion—but it also produced enormous social change and upheaval. Use this article and activity to evaluate whether there was anything new about this type of empire.
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Guiding Questions
As you teach these materials, remind students that they’re focusing on comparison. The key is helping students see that “gunpowder empires” and “oceanic empires” were not entirely separate stories. Both types of empire relied on military force, administration, and economic extraction, but they operated across different spaces and networks. The drawing activity can help you make those distinctions visible.
Continue your exploration of oceanic empires by comparing them to another kind of empire—gunpowder empires. What did they have in common? And what was different?
Now that you’ve met plenty of land-based empires, it’s time to return to the prompt you parsed at the beginning of the lesson.
If you want to extend student engagement with the distinctions between land- and sea-based empires, use the videos below to compare the Comanche and Omani empires. The contextualization activity will help the students think about the distinctions and blurred lines separating these two types of empires.
This lesson focused on how oceanic empires were different from their land-based counterparts. But it’s time to challenge that idea with two very nontypical empires: the Omani and Comanche.
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Guiding Questions
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Guiding Questions
