The Spanish treating of the America's

Strayer points out that in the Spanish territories of the new world that it was a "more fluid and culturally blended society than in the racially rigid colonies of North America (412)." The driving force behind this more flexible society was the missionaries and church authorities.  Even though the Church played a role in the rationalizing of the oppression of these people by seeing them as savages and needing to be saved, the Church would quickly attempt to humanize the Indians.  These Church authorities would demand some form of kindness towards the part of the indigenous people through all the suffering they had faced.

Another reason for the intermingling of the Spaniards with the Indian population was that the Spaniards came over without women.  Unlike the people who came over from England, who came with the goal of establishing a freer society and moved with their families, the Spanish did not come to establish colonies or empires.  The Spaniards goals were more short term, to find their own treasure, and help Spain become wealthier.  This lack of women, and the unexpectedly long time the Spaniards spent in the America’s meant that they had sex with the indigenous people.  This lead to the creation of different classes based on mixed races, something that didn’t happen in the United States until contemporary times.  Unlike contemporary US society, these mestizos’s had more rights then full indigenous peoples but less rights then full blood Spaniards.  In reality it was more difficult to tell the difference between these people then the authorities expected, thus there was a lot of people who would pass up in their class standings do to their lighter skin.

I think that there is a lot of this left in both US and Latin American societies.  Looking at the media of both countries, it is easy to see that Latin America media is more inclusive of people of all colors in their TV shows.  In the US, we still have a lack of true diversity in our TV shows.  The US is now made of many different people, yet we still see a majority of white faces on TV.  Though Latin America is better in their representation of their diversity, they do still play in to the racial class history.  The characters with white skin, and light eyes are usually the wealthiest person, whether they are good or evil. 

Islamic Empire

           Islam’s success in spreading was linked to its quickly developed empire that intertwined religion and politics/ military in to one entity.  This empire building was quickly started after Muhammad died.  One of the aspects of this rush to empire was to bring the people together, to help them forget the differences that kept them apart for centuries.  Islam also arose when the two near by empires, Byzantine and Persian, were waning.  The conquering of these empires allowed Islam to quickly expand outward, and including the migration of numerous Arabic-speaking people into these lands expanding the Islam.  Muslims saw this quick conquering and assimilation of peoples within this empire as a sign from Allah, that they were doing good work. 

            Byzantine was not completely conquered by this first push, and mostly kept modern day Turkey as its base.  Most of the peoples in conquered Byzantine were quick to convert to Islam.  They already had an understanding of monotheism, Islam saw Jesus Christ as one of the prophets, and Islam provided similar hierarchies that helped these people understand their place in a Muslim society.  Some places did provide a challenge and were quickly overwhelmed by the Islamized Turks who migrated into these parts.  The Persian Empire also offered a people who would convert easily because of their belief in Zoroastrianism.  Other places would provide a challenge.

            The Muslims continued their drive beyond these old empires, conquering lands that provided good agricultural land.  Not all of their expansion was through conquering and military accomplishments.  The east coast of Africa voluntarily converted to Islam.  These people saw this as an opportunity to improve relations with the Muslims and had great respect for their skills as traders.  Islam tended to stay within these coastal communities, and had some synchronism with the African religions.   These peoples would fast for Ramadan, while also sacrificing animals to Allah.  Farther into Africa, the people would have difficulty with the concept of a single God located in a separated plane, similar to the problems Islam faced in India.

            India, though conquered by force and occupied for a few centuries, would never become Muslim in its cultural heartland.  The parts that did become Muslim were Buddhists, lower-caste people, or societies on the edge of India’s influence and beginning to settle.  Hinduisms flexibility and many numerous gods held Islam at bay.  These were two very different traditions, one that was strictly monotheistic, and another that was all-inclusive, could be monotheistic and polytheistic at the same time.  Hinduism and Islam met and created a new religion, Sikhism, though neither had much influence on the other.  

China as the main mover during the "Era of Accelerating Connections"

           I found the chapter 9 on China, to be the most interesting.  China seemed to be a very advanced society at this time, developing many technologies that would help advance other society’s.  From creating larger ships that influenced the development of ships in the Indian Ocean basin to the magnetic compass, to developing a thriving economy that inspired other civilizations with its wealth and diversity.  China was a dominant figure in this third wave of civilization, through technology, agriculture, and markets it was able to help other civilizations get a start.

           China provided lots of technologies to these thriving trade lanes, helping them grow by providing an open trading partner and the largest markets with the wealthiest residents in the known world. Some of the technology that China was able to pass to other societies was gunpowder, the magnetic compass, paper-making and printing.  China also improved upon technologies that would be found in other societies, rice from Vietnam that was drought resistant, borrowed the idea of a windmill from the Persians, and developed papermaking and printing as a response to Buddhism growing influence in China.  China was a flexible dynamic empire that was producing the best technologies, and incorporating others. 

           China, with the help of the new rice, was able to create agriculture “package.”  This package helped Chinese culture to spread out, amongst the Northern and Southern “Barbarians.”  This package would mainly work in the south were the cultures there were able to successfully establish and cultivate this package.  The groups living in the areas north of China did not have land appropriate for these plants and were never acculturated into the Chinese sphere of influence.  The South was acculturated into China for about 1,000 years, and would eventually leave to form Vietnam. 

           The final piece of the straw for China’s dominance was its markets.  China had so much wealth that they were able to spend money on goods that was for wealth comparison.  These markets had developed into a modern market with goods from all over the world that demanded high prices.  These traders would then purchase exotic goods and deliver then all over the world demanding the price they could fetch.  Sounding very much like the begins of market capitalism.