Internal and External Challenges to State Power from 1450 to 1750 CE
Teacher Resources
Lesson Guide
Claim testing is an essential historical thinking skill, especially for AP® students. Find everything you need to teach students how to test claims about transoceanic empires in the guide.
Blog: Zumbi: King of Palmares and Bane of the Slavers
Have students do a deep dive on an illustrative example by reading about Maroon societies and resistance in this blog.
Driving Question: What impacts did organized resistance have on state power c. 1450 to 1750?
As empires expanded throughout the early modern period, evolving states began to centralize their power in order to maintain control over their territories. This centralization often came at the cost of those at the edges of the central state. Across social, political, and economic groups, people within the centralizing empires came together to resist in ways both big and small.
Learning Objectives
- Explain the effects of the development of centralized state power from 1450 to 1750.
- Understand how societies changed politically, economically, and culturally as maritime empires expanded and consolidated their power, and how populations responded to, and even resisted, these changes.
- Analyze primary source documents to assess imperial expansion, competition, and resistance from c. 1450 to 1750 CE.
- Find evidence to support claims and counterclaims about new transoceanic empires.
Vocab Terms:
Have you ever read a prompt and thought, “What in the world is that asking?” We’ve got you covered with the Question Parsing Tool.
This article introduces the various ways individuals and groups resisted state expansion. It’s a great way for students to get their heads around the content before they do a deep dive on different resistance movements around the world.
Growth benefitted expanding empires, but for those in its path, imperial expansion was something that could inspire revolt and resistance.
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Guiding Questions
Don’t skip this video, which provides students with a powerful illustrative example of local resistance to state power in this era.
Revolutionary movements erupted in many places as maritime empires expanded. Use the materials below to evaluate how people resisted state expansion.
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Guiding Questions
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Guiding Questions
Collaborate, adapt, or resist? Indigenous peoples used a variety of tactics, but you’ll decide how to categorize these strategies.
You have learned a lot about imperial expansion form 1400-1750. Now it’s time to use primary source documents to explain the causes and effects of this expansion! As always, use the Quick-Sourcing Tool to help you.
Remember that you can quickly assess students’ claim-testing skills using the feedback form for this activity.
It’s time to test claims about transoceanic empires! Let’s see what you’ve learned—or haven’t!
