Maritime Empires Established
Teacher Resources
Lesson Guide
Looking for teaching tips and sample answers for the SAQ activity and more? Check out this guide.
Empires, Enslavement, and Revolutions Thematic Map
This map can help your students visualize the volume of the slave trade as well as the embarkation and disembarkation routes that enslaved people journeyed during this era.
Driving Question: Why and how did European empires expand their territorial holdings in the Americas, Asia, and Africa from c. 1450 to 1750 CE?
Although European mariners traveled by sea to the Americas beginning in the late fifteenth century, it wasn’t long after that their initially small colonies expanded into maritime empires. In this lesson, we will explore the beginnings of these European empires that cemented transoceanic connections, and the impacts they had on social structures across the world.
Learning Objectives
- Explain the process of state building and expansion among various empires and states in the period from 1450 to 1750.
- Explain the continuities and changes in economic systems and labor systems of these empires from 1450 to 1750.
- Explain changes and continuities in systems of slavery from 1450 to 1750.
- Use graphic biographies as microhistories to support, extend, or challenge the overarching narratives from this region.
- Evaluate the changes and continuities to economic and labor systems as new transoceanic empires expanded, and the strategies maritime empires used to maintain their power.
- Assess how systems of slavery changed as European maritime empires expanded.
What pushed Europeans to explore, and how did they keep their grip on faraway lands?
This article introduces the oceanic empires that arose during this era. It’s a great way for students to get their heads around the content before they do a deep dive on the Indian Ocean and European colonies in the Americas later in the lesson.
How did European maritime empires transform the world from 1450 to 1750? While these new empires were similar to land-based empires in many ways, maritime empires experienced a unique set of challenges and developed new technologies to overcome them.
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Guiding Questions
While much attention was given to Atlantic trade routes, the Indian Ocean was thriving as a multi-layered and prosperous region.
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Guiding Questions
Look back on all you’ve learned in this unit by reviewing and connecting important vocabulary.
The Spanish and the Portuguese led early colonialism in the Americas; but they were not the only ones to come to this “New World”.
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Guiding Questions
One AP teacher wrote that this article helps “students confront the difficult realities of the transatlantic slave trade while developing historical empathy, balancing the study of systems and consequences with the human stories at their center.”
This overview of the event known as the transatlantic slave trade shows a major economic development depended on the horrific treatment of enslaved humans. The violence and scale of the transatlantic slave trade seems to exceed any other known instance of slavery in history.
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Guiding Questions
The real-life Pocahontas was a Powhatan woman named Amonute, daughter of the powerful ruler Wahunsenacah. As a young woman, she acted as an interpreter between her people and the settlers and delivered gifts of food to the English, as well. However, many of the facts of this story are disputed.
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Guiding Questions
Curating historical exhibits can be challenging. How do you honor the individuals and provide historical context to educate viewers?
What makes an empire an empire? Must it be land-based? Or can it be maritime-centered? These are the questions you will ponder as you study the Omani Empire, which you will find doesn’t fit neatly into our standard ideas of Asian or European empires.
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Guiding Questions
