THE WORLD ATLAS

Chapter · Early Modern Period

Peace of Utrecht

The world in 1715

The world of 1715 was taking stock after a great war. The War of the Spanish Succession had ended with the treaties of Utrecht (1713) and Rastatt (1714): Philip V kept Spain and its American empire, Austria took Spain's lands in Italy and the Netherlands, and Great Britain, formed by the union of England and Scotland in 1707, gained Gibraltar, Minorca, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Hudson Bay, along with the right to supply enslaved Africans to Spanish America.

Louis XIV died in September 1715 after 72 years on the throne, leaving France to his five-year-old great-grandson. Peter the Great had defeated Sweden at Poltava in 1709 and built St Petersburg as Russia's new capital. In India, the Mughal Empire was weakening fast after Aurangzeb's death in 1707, while the Marathas grew stronger. Qing China under the Kangxi Emperor was peaceful and populous, and Tokugawa Japan remained closed.

Open the map in 1715

The great powers

Region by region

Southern Africa

The Dutch Cape Colony was spreading inland, and a smallpox epidemic in 1713 devastated the Khoikhoi. Portugal held Angola and the Mozambique coast, while the Rozvi kingdom ruled the Zimbabwe plateau and the Lunda and Luba kingdoms the southern Congo basin. Oman's Ya'rubid imams controlled the Swahili coast from Mombasa to Zanzibar. In Madagascar, Sakalava kingdoms dominated the west coast, and pirates had used the island as a base.

Northern Africa

Moulay Ismail still ruled Morocco from Meknes. Egypt was an Ottoman province governed in practice by rival Mamluk beys. Algiers was run by its deys, Tunis by the new Husainid dynasty (1705) and Tripoli by the Karamanli dynasty (1711). In West Africa, Asante under Osei Tutu, Dahomey and Oyo were the leading powers, Kanem-Bornu and the Hausa states held the central Sahel, and Ethiopia, under Emperor Yostos, was losing central authority.

Europe

George I of Hanover became king of Great Britain in 1714 and faced a Jacobite rising in 1715. Louis XV succeeded Louis XIV in France with Philip of Orleans as regent. Philip V ruled Spain, Emperor Charles VI ruled Austria with its new lands in Italy and the southern Netherlands, and Victor Amadeus II of Savoy had become king of Sicily. Peter the Great was winning the Great Northern War against Charles XII of Sweden, Frederick William I ruled Prussia and Augustus II Poland-Lithuania.

Middle East & South Asia

Ahmed III's Ottoman Empire retook the Peloponnese (Morea) from Venice in 1715. Safavid Iran under Shah Sultan Husayn was crumbling, with Afghan Ghilzai rebels independent in Kandahar since 1709. The Mughal emperor Farrukhsiyar reigned at Delhi but depended on the powerful Sayyid brothers; the Marathas under Shahu and his new Peshwa Balaji Vishwanath were expanding, and the Sikh leader Banda Singh Bahadur was captured in 1715. European companies held trading towns such as Madras, Bombay, Calcutta and Pondicherry.

Northern & Central Asia

Russia ruled Siberia and was pushing south toward the Kazakh steppe and Central Asia, sending expeditions up the Irtysh. The Dzungar Khanate under Tsewang Rabtan was at its strongest, raiding the Kazakhs, whose khan Tauke died around 1715. The Kalmyks held the lower Volga, and the Uzbek khanates of Bukhara and Khiva ruled the oases of Transoxiana.

East Asia

The Kangxi Emperor's Qing China was at peace and growing rapidly in population, though Qing armies were preparing to confront the Dzungars, who would invade Tibet in 1717. Korea was ruled by King Sukjong. Japan's shogun was the child Tokugawa Ietsugu, guided by the Confucian scholar Arai Hakuseki, and trade remained restricted to Dutch and Chinese merchants at Nagasaki.

Southeast Asia

The Dutch VOC controlled the Moluccas and much of Java's coast, propping up the Mataram ruler Pakubuwono I. Ayutthaya under King Thai Sa remained a major rice and trading kingdom, Burma's Toungoo dynasty under Taninganway was weak, and Vietnam stayed divided between the Trinh lords and the Nguyen lords, who were expanding into the Mekong delta. Spain ruled the Philippines from Manila.

Northern North America

Under the Treaty of Utrecht, France gave Britain Newfoundland, Acadia (Nova Scotia) and its claims to Hudson Bay, where the Hudson's Bay Company traded across Rupert's Land. France kept the St Lawrence valley, Cape Breton Island, where it would build Louisbourg, and the Great Lakes fur trade. Most of the north and west remained Indigenous territory.

Southern North America

Britain's colonies stretched from New England to Carolina, where the Yamasee War of 1715 nearly destroyed the colony. France held Louisiana along the Mississippi and Gulf coast and would found New Orleans in 1718. Spain ruled New Spain, Florida and Cuba and was building missions in Texas. In the Caribbean, Britain held Jamaica and Barbados, France held Saint-Domingue and Martinique, and the golden age of piracy, soon to include Blackbeard, was beginning.

Northern South America

The Viceroyalty of Peru still governed all Spanish South America from Lima; a separate Viceroyalty of New Granada would be created in 1717. Portuguese Brazil was booming on Minas Gerais gold, drawing settlers and enslaved Africans inland. The Dutch held Suriname, and the French and British held smaller stretches of the Guiana coast.

Southern Cone

By the Treaty of Utrecht between Spain and Portugal (1715), Spain returned Colonia do Sacramento to Portugal, keeping the Rio de la Plata contested. Spain ruled Chile, Paraguay and Buenos Aires, Jesuit missions organised the Guarani, and the Mapuche kept their independence south of the Biobio. Mounted Indigenous peoples controlled the pampas and Patagonia.

Australasia & Oceania

No Europeans had settled Australia, New Guinea or the Pacific islands. Aboriginal nations, Papuan societies and Maori iwi lived independently, and in Polynesia Tonga's chiefly lines and the rival chiefs of Hawaii and Tahiti ruled their islands. The Dutchman Jacob Roggeveen would reach Easter Island in 1722.

Events

  1. The War of the Spanish Succession begins
  2. England and Scotland unite as Great Britain; Aurangzeb dies
  3. Peter the Great defeats Charles XII of Sweden at Poltava
  4. Treaty of Utrecht ends the war and redraws colonial maps
  5. George I of Hanover becomes king of Great Britain
  6. Louis XIV dies; the Jacobite rising in Britain; the Yamasee War in Carolina

Moments of this period

Wars of this period

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Sources