THE WORLD ATLAS

Chapter · Early Modern Period

Sun Kings and Sultans

The world in 1700

In 1700 three emperors ruled more people than all of Europe combined: the Kangxi Emperor of Qing China, who had completed the conquest of China and fixed the Russian border at Nerchinsk, the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, whose empire had reached its greatest size but was exhausted by endless war against the Marathas, and the Ottoman sultan, who had just been forced to give up Hungary at the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699). In Europe Louis XIV of France dominated from Versailles.

On 1 November 1700 the childless Charles II of Spain died, leaving his empire to Louis's grandson Philip and triggering the War of the Spanish Succession. In the north, Peter the Great of Russia, Denmark and Saxony-Poland attacked Sweden, beginning the Great Northern War. Britain and France were competing in North America and India, and gold had just been discovered in Brazil. The Atlantic slave trade was now carrying tens of thousands of Africans each year.

Open the map in 1700

The great powers

Region by region

Southern Africa

The Dutch East India Company's Cape Colony, under Governor Willem Adriaan van der Stel, was expanding inland at the expense of the Khoikhoi. Kongo was still split by the civil war that began in 1665, which Pedro IV would end in 1709, and Portugal ruled Angola and Mozambique. On the Zimbabwe plateau the Rozvi kingdom of the Changamire dynasty had pushed the Portuguese out, while the Luba and Lunda kingdoms flourished in the interior. In 1698 Oman captured Fort Jesus at Mombasa, ending Portuguese power on most of the Swahili coast.

Northern Africa

Sultan Moulay Ismail ruled a strong, reunited Morocco from Meknes. The Ottomans held Egypt, where Mamluk-descended beys had real power, and Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli were nearly independent. In West Africa, Osei Tutu was forging the Asante kingdom around Kumasi, Dahomey and Oyo were growing on the slave trade, and Kanem-Bornu and the Hausa states traded across the Sahara. Ethiopia was ruled by Emperor Iyasu I from Gondar, and the Funj ruled Sennar.

Europe

Louis XIV's France was Europe's strongest state, and Spain passed from Charles II to Louis's grandson Philip V in November 1700. William III ruled England, Scotland and Ireland and led the Dutch Republic, and Emperor Leopold I had won Hungary from the Ottomans. In the Great Northern War, which began in 1700, the young Charles XII of Sweden crushed Peter the Great's Russian army at Narva in November. Augustus II ruled Poland-Lithuania and Saxony, and Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg was about to crown himself King in Prussia (1701).

Middle East & South Asia

The Ottoman Empire under Mustafa II had lost Hungary and Transylvania at Karlowitz but still held the Balkans, Anatolia, Iraq and Arabia's coasts. Safavid Iran under Shah Sultan Husayn was weak and poorly governed. Aurangzeb's Mughal Empire covered nearly all of the subcontinent after conquering Bijapur (1686) and Golconda (1687), but the emperor was bogged down fighting the Marathas, led after Rajaram's death in 1700 by his widow Tarabai. The English, Dutch and French East India Companies traded from coastal forts such as Madras, Bombay and Calcutta.

Northern & Central Asia

Russia held all of Siberia to the Pacific and had agreed its border with China at Nerchinsk (1689). The Dzungar Khanate under Tsewang Rabtan controlled the eastern steppe and the Tarim Basin, the Kazakh Khanate under Tauke Khan held the central steppe, and the Kalmyks lived on the Volga under Russian protection. Bukhara and Khiva remained independent Uzbek khanates.

East Asia

The Kangxi Emperor ruled a powerful Qing China, having crushed the Revolt of the Three Feudatories (1681), annexed Taiwan (1683) and defeated the Dzungar leader Galdan, bringing the eastern (Khalkha) Mongols under Qing rule. Korea was ruled by King Sukjong. Japan, under the shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, enjoyed the peaceful, prosperous Genroku era behind its closed borders. Tibet was ruled in the name of the Dalai Lama.

Southeast Asia

The Dutch VOC dominated the spice trade from Batavia and was gaining control over Java's Mataram kingdom by intervening in its revolts and succession disputes. Ayutthaya was ruled by King Phetracha, who had expelled French influence in 1688. Burma's Toungoo dynasty under Sanay Min was in decline, the Trinh lords governed northern Vietnam and the Nguyen lords the south, and Spain ruled the Philippines.

Northern North America

The English Hudson's Bay Company, chartered in 1670, traded for furs around Hudson Bay in the vast territory it called Rupert's Land, and competed with New France, whose towns lined the St Lawrence. French and English colonists and their Indigenous allies fought repeated frontier wars, and the Great Peace of Montreal in 1701 would bring a truce with the Haudenosaunee. Inuit, Cree, Dene and other nations held the far north and west.

Southern North America

England had a chain of colonies from Massachusetts to Carolina, including Pennsylvania (1681) and New York, taken from the Dutch in 1664. France had explored the Mississippi and founded Louisiana in 1699. Spain ruled New Spain, Florida and Cuba, had reconquered New Mexico after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and had briefly planted missions in east Texas (1690 to 1693). In the Caribbean, England held Jamaica and France had won western Hispaniola (Saint-Domingue) in 1697.

Northern South America

The Viceroyalty of Peru governed Spanish South America from Lima, with Potosi's silver output now declining. In Portuguese Brazil, the discovery of gold in Minas Gerais in the 1690s set off a huge gold rush, while sugar plantations in the north-east depended on enslaved Africans; the runaway-slave kingdom of Palmares had been destroyed in 1694. The Dutch, English and French held small colonies in the Guianas.

Southern Cone

Spain ruled Chile, Paraguay and the Rio de la Plata, but Portugal had planted the rival outpost of Colonia do Sacramento across the river from Buenos Aires in 1680. Jesuit reductions organised the Guarani, and the Mapuche held the land south of the Biobio. The pampas and Patagonia remained under Indigenous peoples who had adopted the horse.

Australasia & Oceania

The Dutch had mapped much of Australia's western, northern and southern coasts, and the English buccaneer William Dampier visited Western Australia in 1699, but none settled. Aboriginal nations held the continent, Papuan peoples New Guinea and Maori iwi New Zealand. In Polynesia, Tonga's paramount chiefs and the rival chiefs of Hawaii and Tahiti ruled without European contact.

Events

  1. The Ottoman siege of Vienna is broken; the Qing annex Taiwan
  2. Aurangzeb conquers Golconda, bringing the Mughal Empire to its height
  3. The Glorious Revolution in England puts William III and Mary II on the throne
  4. Treaty of Nerchinsk fixes the border between Russia and Qing China
  5. Treaty of Karlowitz: the Ottomans cede Hungary to Austria; the French found Louisiana
  6. The Great Northern War begins; Charles XII wins at Narva
  7. Charles II of Spain dies, leaving his throne to Philip of Anjou

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