Turning In: European Settlement and the Retreat into Isolation, 1500s-1700
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All 12 Flashcards — Turning In: European Settlement and the Retreat into Isolation, 1500s-1700
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Question
What kind of settlement did Spain build in the Philippines?
Answer
A full colony from 1565 — direct rule, land seizure (encomiendas), and mass Catholic conversion of the population.
Question
How did Portuguese, Dutch and British settlement generally differ from Spain's model?
Answer
They mainly built fortified trading-post empires (e.g. Malacca, VOC/EIC posts) to control trade routes, rather than ruling whole populations.
Question
What happened at Malacca in 1511?
Answer
The Portuguese, under Afonso de Albuquerque, captured the wealthy trading sultanate of Malacca, ending local rule of the region's key spice-route port.
Question
Define VOC.
Answer
The Dutch East India Company (founded 1602) — a chartered trading monopoly that focused on controlling the spice trade, especially in the Moluccas.
Question
What were the four faces of European settlement's impact on indigenous peoples?
Answer
Demographic, Territorial, Social, and Religious/cultural change (memory line: D-T-S-R).
Question
What did China's Ming court order in 1525, and why?
Answer
The destruction of ocean-going ships, due to the cost of maintaining a navy, fear of piracy, and Confucian suspicion of overseas trade — ending state-sponsored long-distance seafaring.
Question
Define sakoku.
Answer
Japan's 17th-century "closed country" policy under the Tokugawa Shogunate, restricting foreign contact and travel abroad.
Question
What were the main features of sakoku?
Answer
Japanese subjects banned from travelling abroad (death penalty for returning); foreign ships banned from most ports; Christianity suppressed; only four controlled "gateways" remained open.
Question
Name Japan's four sakoku-era "gateways" and their trading partners.
Answer
Nagasaki (Dutch and Chinese trade), Tsushima (Korea), Satsuma (Ryukyu Kingdom), Matsumae (Ainu of Hokkaido).
Question
Why did the Tokugawa Shogunate fear Christianity and foreign traders?
Answer
It saw them as a threat to political control and social order in a recently unified Japan, potentially strengthening rivals to shogunate authority.
Question
What was the overall political impact of isolation on China and Japan?
Answer
It strengthened central authority (Ming/Qing court; Tokugawa Shogunate) by removing external threats and internal rivals who had profited from foreign trade.
Question
Did isolation completely end trade for China and Japan?
Answer
No — it reduced trade but did not eliminate it: Chinese coastal trade continued informally, and Japan's Nagasaki gateway kept Dutch and Chinese trade alive under strict control.
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Full study notes for Turning In: European Settlement and the Retreat into Isolation, 1500s-1700
Topic 20.3 hub
Exploration, trade and interaction in East Asia and South-East Asia (1405–1700)
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