Monday, February 18, 2013
European vs Asian Empires
Are European Empires crueler to their subjects than Asian Empires?
As I was reading the material on Spain and interesting idea popped into my head, I was thinking about the previous empires that we have discussed, and it appears that European empires are much more ruthless and Asians ones. The European ones that we discussed were the Romans and the Islamic state, both were very expansionist states whom you did not want to be against. They were not very tolerant of other people's within their borders and exploited their subjects to an extreme.
On the other hand the Asian Empires that we have talked about are China and the Mongols. Now China, while it was still exploitive of the subjects in the empire, everyone who wasn't the emperor would have been seen as a subject, causing for everyone to be viewed on almost the same level. This results in a lack of the upper level people receiving benefits at the expense of the lower class, as would be seen much more prominently in Rome and Islam.
When it comes to the Mongols, while they were ruthless on the battlefield, they were surprisingly tolerant of other people. If someone lived through the initial invasion of the Mongols, it was very likely that they would not be killed. The Mongols accepted all religions and people groups to live as equals in their empire.
Now this all brings us to another European Empire, Spain. The conquistadors of Spain were ruthless. They went to the new world looking for wealth and power. Usually a small number of them would overthrow vast empires such as Pizarro and his 200 conquistadors overthrowing the Incas. Pizarro is known to have had upwards of 100 thousand Native American people's under his own personal control. As can be seen, they enslaved vast amounts of the population. Those who were not enslaved were killed by disease. Of the 15 million native Americans in Mexico pre-Columbus, only about 800 thousand remained at the end of the 17th century. Clearly it seems that the Spanish empire in the America's was one of the most ruthless empires, something that appears to be common of European empires of Asian ones.
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That's a very interesting thought.
ReplyDeleteAnd it certainly, from our reading, seems to apply in reference to the Spanish and Ottoman empires.
However, I think it is especially important to note that the most of the "ruthlessness" of the Spanish, is described in Parsons' book, which we have already established, is 'anti-empire.' One of the most notable mentions of Spanish ruthlessness in Cooper and Burbank is: "In the Americas... settlement replaced pillage and barter." Still, it seems, overall that the European Empires are more ruthless (more so, Romans and Mongols).
However, I also think that the sections entitled "Sexual Politics of Succession" and "Slaves of the Sultan", about the Ottoman Empire, require a glance because they don't seem wholly pure in terms of ruthlessness.
So, to answer your question more directly, probably so. But I do think that the two authors would be a little conflicted about it.
I agree with this point, as discussed in class we did state that the Ottoman's and the Chinese seemed to be much more accepting of those who they conquered as opposed to European empires. Personally, I thought this occurred simply because most would not dare to rise up against the Ottoman's or the Chinese because of their obvious domination and ability to whip out entire populations without hesitation. They had no need to treat their subjects in a in-humane manner simply because their subjects understood that if they simply did as they were told life would be much easier, and death would hopefully not be in their near future.
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