THE WORLD ATLAS

Chapter · Early Modern Period

Gunpowder Empires

The world in 1600

In 1600 the world was dominated by vast land empires armed with cannon and muskets: Ming China, the Ottoman Empire, Safavid Iran under Shah Abbas the Great, and the Mughal Empire of Akbar, which ruled well over 100 million people. Spain, joined with Portugal since 1580, held the first empire on which the sun never set, stretching from Mexico and Peru to the Philippines, and Spanish silver from Potosi flowed across the globe to China.

But challengers were appearing: the Dutch were fighting for independence, and on the last day of 1600 Queen Elizabeth I chartered the English East India Company. In Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu's victory at Sekigahara in October 1600 ended a century of civil war. Russia was about to fall into its Time of Troubles. Worldwide, new crops from the Americas such as maize, potatoes and chili peppers were spreading, while the Atlantic slave trade was growing steadily.

Open the map in 1600

The great powers

Region by region

Southern Africa

Kongo, under Alvaro II, remained a Christian kingdom allied with Portugal, but Portuguese Angola, centred on Luanda (founded 1576), was waging slave-raiding wars against the kingdom of Ndongo. On the Zimbabwe plateau the Mutapa ruler Gatsi Rusere depended increasingly on Portuguese support, and Portugal held Mozambique and Fort Jesus at Mombasa (1593). The Luba and Lunda kingdoms grew in the interior, and Madagascar was divided among kingdoms including the Merina.

Northern Africa

Morocco's Saadi sultan Ahmad al-Mansur had destroyed the Songhai Empire at the Battle of Tondibi in 1591 and ruled Timbuktu through Moroccan pashas. The Ottomans held Egypt and, through regencies, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli. Kanem-Bornu was the strongest state around Lake Chad, the Hausa city-states and Oyo were growing, the Funj Sultanate ruled from Sennar on the Nile, and Ethiopia was ruled by the young Emperor Yaqob after Sarsa Dengel's death in 1597.

Europe

Philip III had just succeeded Philip II as king of Spain and Portugal. Elizabeth I ruled England and Henry IV, who ended the French Wars of Religion with the Edict of Nantes (1598), ruled France. The Dutch Republic under Maurice of Nassau was still fighting Spain, Emperor Rudolf II ruled the Holy Roman Empire from Prague, and Sigismund III Vasa ruled Poland-Lithuania while his uncle Charles held power in Sweden. Boris Godunov ruled Muscovy, and the Ottomans and Habsburgs were locked in the Long Turkish War in Hungary.

Middle East & South Asia

Mehmed III ruled the Ottoman Empire from the Balkans to Iraq and Arabia, though it faced revolts in Anatolia. Shah Abbas I had reformed the Safavid army and moved his capital to Isfahan in 1598. Akbar's Mughal Empire stretched from Kabul and Kashmir to Bengal and was pushing into the Deccan, capturing Ahmadnagar in 1600. The southern sultanates of Bijapur and Golconda, the weakened Vijayanagara kings and Portuguese Goa shared the south.

Northern & Central Asia

Russian Cossacks had conquered the Khanate of Sibir, defeating its last khan, Kuchum, in 1598, and Russian forts were pushing east across Siberia. The Kazakh Khanate under Esim Khan dominated the steppe, the Nogai Horde roamed between the Volga and the Urals, and Bukhara had just passed from the Shaybanids to the Janid (Ashtarkhanid) dynasty, with Khiva independent to the west.

East Asia

The Wanli Emperor reigned over Ming China, though he had largely stopped attending to government and the costly war in Korea had drained the treasury. In Manchuria, Nurhaci was uniting the Jurchen tribes. Korea's King Seonjo was rebuilding after Japan's invasions of 1592 to 1598. In Japan, Toyotomi Hideyoshi had died in 1598, and Tokugawa Ieyasu defeated his rivals at Sekigahara in 1600, setting the stage for the Tokugawa shogunate.

Southeast Asia

King Naresuan had restored Ayutthaya's independence from Burma and made it the leading mainland power, while Burma's Toungoo empire had collapsed and was being rebuilt by Nyaungyan Min at Ava. Vietnam was ruled in name by the Le emperors but split between the Trinh lords in the north and the Nguyen lords in the south. Aceh, Banten, Johor and the rising Javanese kingdom of Mataram competed with Portuguese Malacca, Spain ruled the Philippines from Manila, and the first Dutch fleets had arrived.

Northern North America

France was reviving its interest in the St Lawrence: in 1600 Pierre de Chauvin set up a fur-trading post at Tadoussac, and Samuel de Champlain would found Quebec in 1608. Basque, French and English fishermen visited Newfoundland every summer. The vast interior remained under Indigenous nations such as the Cree, Innu, Haudenosaunee, Wendat (Huron) and Inuit.

Southern North America

Spain ruled New Spain, from Central America to northern Mexico, under Viceroy Gaspar de Zuniga, Count of Monterrey, and Juan de Onate had just claimed New Mexico (1598). Spain also held Florida's St Augustine and the main Caribbean islands, which were raided by English, French and Dutch privateers. England's Roanoke colony had vanished, and Jamestown would not be founded until 1607; the rest of North America belonged to Indigenous nations such as the Powhatan, Haudenosaunee, Creek, Pueblo and Apache.

Northern South America

The Viceroyalty of Peru, ruled from Lima, governed nearly all of Spanish South America; the silver mines of Potosi, worked by forced Indigenous labour, made it one of the richest places on Earth. Spaniards also ruled New Granada (Colombia) and Venezuela. Portuguese Brazil, now under the Spanish crown, was the world's leading sugar producer, worked increasingly by enslaved Africans. The Amazon interior remained largely Indigenous.

Southern Cone

Spain held Chile, Paraguay (from Asuncion) and the Rio de la Plata, where Buenos Aires had been refounded in 1580. In 1598 the Mapuche destroyed a Spanish army at Curalaba and went on to wipe out the Spanish towns south of the Biobio River, which became a lasting frontier. The pampas and Patagonia remained in the hands of Indigenous peoples.

Australasia & Oceania

Spanish navigators had visited the Solomon Islands (1568) and Marquesas (1595), but Australia was still unknown to Europeans; the Dutchman Willem Janszoon would reach it in 1606. Aboriginal nations held Australia, Papuan peoples New Guinea and Maori iwi New Zealand, while Tonga's Tu'i Tonga line remained the main Polynesian power.

Events

  1. Spain founds Manila; a Holy League fleet defeats the Ottomans at Lepanto
  2. Philip II of Spain becomes king of Portugal, uniting the two empires
  3. The Spanish Armada fails against England
  4. Moroccan troops destroy the Songhai Empire at Tondibi
  5. Japan invades Korea; the war lasts until 1598
  6. Edict of Nantes in France; Shah Abbas moves the Safavid capital to Isfahan
  7. Tokugawa Ieyasu wins at Sekigahara; the English East India Company is chartered

Moments of this period

Wars of this period

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