AP European History

## Learning Outcomes

- Explain why Atlantic states built overseas empires between the late 1400s and mid-1600s
- Distinguish between Portugal’s trading-post empire and Spain’s territorial empire
- Identify how the Dutch Republic and England challenged Iberian dominance
- Understand how mercantilism connected empire-building, trade, and state power
- Recall key dates, places, and institutions such as **1494**, the **VOC**, and **Jamestown**
- Analyse how imperial rivalry shifted Europe’s economic focus toward the Atlantic
- Use specific evidence in comparison, causation, and continuity/change arguments

## AP European History Syllabus

For the AP European History, you are expected to understand how Atlantic states built competing empires in the period c. 1450-c. 1648, with a focus on the following syllabus points:

- Know that **Portugal**, **Spain**, the **Dutch Republic**, **England**, and to a lesser extent **France**, competed for overseas trade, territory, and influence
- Identify the difference between a **trading-post empire**, a **territorial empire**, and **settler/commercial colonies**
- Understand the significance of the **Treaty of Tordesillas (1494)** and why it mattered mainly to Spain and Portugal
- Explain how **mercantilism** linked bullion, colonial markets, and state regulation of trade
- Know the role of **joint-stock companies**, especially the **Dutch East India Company (1602)** and **English East India Company (1600)**
- Understand the importance of **Jamestown (1607)**, the **Dutch West India Company (1621)**, and later English-Dutch rivalry
- Explain how empire-building encouraged the **Atlantic slave trade**, plantation economies, and wider global exchange
- Analyse how Atlantic expansion contributed to the **Price Revolution** and the shift of Europe’s economic centre from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic

## Test Your Knowledge

_Attempt these questions before reading this article. If you find some difficult or cannot remember the answers, look more closely at that area during your revision._

1. How did Portugal’s empire differ from Spain’s empire?
2. What did the **Treaty of Tordesillas** do, and why was it limited in practice?
3. Why were the Dutch Republic and England especially strong imperial rivals in the 1600s?
4. What role did **mercantilism** play in overseas empire-building?
5. How did Atlantic competition change Europe itself, not just overseas lands?

## Introduction

Between the late fifteenth century and the mid-seventeenth century, European states turned Atlantic access into global power. This was not one single “Age of Exploration” story. It was a struggle among rival states trying to gain wealth, weaken enemies, spread Christianity, and control trade routes. For AP European History, this topic sits in Unit 1 and connects strongly to the themes of **interaction of Europe and the world**, **states and other institutions of power**, and **poverty and prosperity**.

What makes this subtopic high value on the exam is comparison. Students must not treat all empires as the same. Portugal, Spain, the Dutch Republic, and England did not expand in identical ways. Their empires had different structures, different goals, and different effects, even though all were part of a larger Atlantic competition.

> **Key Term: Atlantic states**
> European states with access to Atlantic routes that expanded overseas for trade, territory, and power, especially Portugal, Spain, England, and the Dutch Republic.

### Why Atlantic states built empires

European states did not sail outward for one reason alone. Empire-building came from several causes acting together.

First, there was the search for direct access to Asian goods. Spices, silks, and other luxury products had long reached Europe through middlemen. Atlantic monarchies wanted to avoid those middlemen and take profits for themselves. This helps explain why Portugal moved down the African coast and why Spain tried a westward route.

Second, rulers wanted bullion and taxable wealth. Overseas conquest promised gold, silver, land, and customs revenue. That mattered because stronger revenues helped monarchies finance armies, navies, and state-building at home.

Third, religion mattered. Christian rulers and missionaries often described expansion as a duty to spread Christianity. On the exam, this should not be treated as fake or as the only cause. It was real, but it also worked alongside profit and rivalry.

Fourth, prestige and balance-of-power politics drove expansion. If one state gained colonies, rivals feared falling behind. That is why the topic is called “Rivals on the World Stage.” Empire was a status marker.

> **Key Term: mercantilism**
> The belief that state power depended on accumulating wealth, especially bullion, and regulating trade so colonies supplied raw materials and served as protected markets.

Mercantilism helps explain why governments cared so much about colonies. Colonies were not simply distant lands. In mercantilist thinking, they were economic tools. They could provide sugar, tobacco, dyes, or metals, and they could be forced to buy goods from the mother country.

A common mistake is to define mercantilism too narrowly as “trade.” It was more than trade. It involved state direction, monopoly privileges, tariffs, and the idea that international wealth was limited, so one state’s gain often seemed like another’s loss.

> **Test Tip:** In SAQs and LEQs, build causation with at least three linked motives: trade, state power, and rivalry. That earns stronger analysis than giving only one cause such as “they wanted gold.”

### Comparing the main empire types

The clearest way to master this topic is by comparing empire models.

Portugal built the earliest Atlantic empire and mostly created a **trading-post empire**. Prince Henry the Navigator encouraged voyages along the African coast after **1415**, and Portuguese sailors gradually improved navigation. **Bartholomew Dias** rounded the **Cape of Good Hope** in **1487**, and **Vasco da Gama** reached India in **1498**. Portugal’s main goal was not large inland conquest. Instead, it wanted strategic ports and commercial control. Key locations included West Africa, **Goa**, **Malacca**, and **Hormuz**. This empire was maritime, coastal, and commercial.

> **Key Term: trading-post empire**
> An empire based on controlling ports, forts, and sea routes rather than conquering and settling large inland territories.

Spain followed a different path. After **Christopher Columbus** sailed west in **1492**, Spain built a **territorial empire** in the Americas. The key turning point came with conquest. **Hernán Cortés** defeated the Aztec Empire by **1521**, and **Francisco Pizarro** overthrew the Inca Empire in the 1530s. Spain ruled large stretches of land, founded colonial administrations, and extracted huge mineral wealth, especially silver.

> **Key Term: territorial empire**
> An empire based on conquest, settlement, and direct rule over large land areas.

Spain’s empire depended heavily on coercive labour. The **encomienda** system granted colonists rights to Indigenous labour or tribute in return, in theory, for protection and Christian teaching. In practice it was often brutal and exploitative. Later labour drafts such as repartimiento were somewhat more regulated in theory, but coercion remained central.

> **Key Term: encomienda**
> A Spanish colonial labour system in which colonists received the right to demand Indigenous labour or tribute in exchange for supposed protection and Christianization.

The exam often rewards students who explain not just that Spain had silver, but why silver mattered. Bullion from places such as **Potosí** and Mexican mines strengthened Spain in the sixteenth century, but it also fed wider European inflation. That is part of the **Price Revolution**. So Spanish conquest changed not only the Americas but also the European economy.

Portugal and Spain were the earliest leaders, and the **Treaty of Tordesillas (1494)** tried to divide newly encountered non-European lands between them along an Atlantic line. Lands to one side went to Spain, to the other to Portugal. This helps explain why **Brazil** became Portuguese after Cabral’s arrival in **1500** while most of Latin America became Spanish.

But students must not overstate the treaty.

> **Key Term: Treaty of Tordesillas**
> A 1494 agreement between Spain and Portugal dividing newly encountered non-European lands between them along a demarcation line.

England, France, and the Dutch did not accept permanent Iberian monopoly claims. That matters because it explains later challenges to Spanish and Portuguese power.

The Dutch Republic rose in the seventeenth century through a third model: the **commercial maritime empire**. The Dutch were less interested in vast settler colonies than in shipping, finance, and profitable exchange. Amsterdam became a leading centre of banking and trade. Dutch strength rested on merchant wealth, a huge merchant marine, and flexible business institutions.

The most important example is the **Dutch East India Company**, or **VOC**, founded in **1602**.

> **Key Term: joint-stock company**
> A business in which investors pooled capital and shared risks and profits, often under a state charter for overseas trade.

The VOC had powers that look almost state-like: it could wage war, make treaties, and govern overseas bases. That shows a major difference from Spain’s more direct imperial administration. Dutch expansion often happened through chartered companies rather than simple royal conquest.

England followed yet another path. It built **settler and commercial colonies**, especially in North America and the Caribbean. **Jamestown (1607)** is a crucial example because it was England’s first permanent colony in North America. English expansion also relied on chartered companies and private investment, including the **English East India Company (1600)**. Unlike the Dutch focus on carrying trade, England combined settlement, plantation production, and maritime rivalry.

> **Test Tip:** If a prompt asks for comparison, organise by empire type: Portuguese trading-post, Spanish territorial, Dutch commercial, English settler-commercial. That structure is clearer than listing states one by one without direct contrast.

### Rivalry, trade, and the Atlantic system

These empires did not exist separately. They collided.

The Dutch and English especially competed in the seventeenth century. The Dutch had early advantages in shipping efficiency, finance, and Asian trade. The English responded with naval strength and laws designed to direct trade toward English merchants. The **Navigation Act of 1651** reflected mercantilist thinking by restricting trade and challenging Dutch carrying dominance. This rivalry helped spark the **Anglo-Dutch Wars** and later the transfer of **New Netherland** to England in **1667**.

The Dutch also built an Atlantic presence through the **Dutch West India Company (1621)**, active in West Africa, the Americas, and the slave trade. England likewise tied imperial growth to Atlantic plantation economies, especially sugar in the Caribbean.

That leads to an important distinction students often blur: the **Atlantic slave trade**, **triangular trade**, and **plantation economy** are related but not identical. The Atlantic slave trade was the forced transport of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic. Triangular trade describes broader exchange routes among Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Plantation economies were labour systems based on cash crops like sugar and tobacco.

As Indigenous populations collapsed from disease, especially after the Columbian Exchange, European colonists increasingly turned to African enslaved labour. This intensified interstate rivalry because colonies now produced extremely profitable goods.

Empire competition also shifted Europe’s economic centre of gravity. In the later Middle Ages, the Mediterranean had dominated long-distance commerce. But Atlantic expansion strengthened Lisbon, Seville, Amsterdam, London, and other Atlantic ports. This is a major AP Euro consequence.

> **Key Term: Atlantic slave trade**
> The forced transportation of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic to labour mainly in the Americas.

The Columbian Exchange formed part of the same system. Crops, animals, diseases, people, and technologies crossed oceans in both directions. Potatoes and maize helped European population growth. Sugar and tobacco strengthened colonial economies. Disease devastated Indigenous societies. So when you explain imperial rivalry, do not isolate political competition from biological and economic change.

### Why this rivalry matters for AP arguments

For exam purposes, this topic works best in three kinds of argument: causation, comparison, and change over time.

For causation, explain that Atlantic states built empires because of intersecting motives: direct trade access, bullion, Christianity, and rivalry. Then link these causes to effects: stronger states, naval expansion, global exchange, and forced labour systems.

For comparison, focus on structural differences. Portugal controlled routes. Spain conquered land. The Dutch built trade-and-finance networks. England developed settler and plantation colonies. Those differences are more useful than vague claims like “they all wanted empire.”

For change over time, show that imperial leadership shifted. Portugal and Spain dominated first, but by the seventeenth century Dutch and English power was growing. That shift was tied to shipping, finance, chartered companies, and willingness to challenge Iberian claims.

France can also be mentioned briefly as an Atlantic rival, especially in North America and the Caribbean. But for this subtopic, the strongest comparisons are usually Portugal, Spain, the Dutch Republic, and England.

A strong LEQ thesis might sound like this: Atlantic states built competing empires for wealth, strategic advantage, and religious expansion, but they did so through distinct imperial models, with Portugal building a trading-post network, Spain creating a territorial empire, and the Dutch and English relying more heavily on maritime commerce and chartered companies.

That kind of answer is strong because it includes both argument and categories of proof.

## Key Point Checklist

_This article has covered the following key knowledge points:_

- Atlantic states built competing overseas empires between the late fifteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries
- Portugal created a trading-post empire focused on ports, forts, and sea routes
- Key Portuguese milestones include **1415**, **1487**, and **1498**
- Spain created a territorial empire through conquest in the Americas after **1492**
- Spanish wealth depended heavily on bullion, especially silver from the Americas
- The **encomienda** system was a coercive labour arrangement in Spanish America
- The **Treaty of Tordesillas (1494)** divided claims between Spain and Portugal but was not accepted by all European powers
- The Dutch Republic built a commercial maritime empire based on shipping, finance, and chartered companies
- The **VOC (1602)** and **English East India Company (1600)** show the importance of joint-stock enterprise
- England developed settler and commercial colonies, including **Jamestown (1607)**
- Mercantilism linked empire-building to bullion, trade regulation, and state power
- Atlantic rivalry helped expand the slave trade, strengthen plantation economies, and shift Europe’s economic focus toward the Atlantic

## Key Terms and Concepts

- Atlantic states
- mercantilism
- trading-post empire
- territorial empire
- encomienda
- Treaty of Tordesillas
- joint-stock company
- Atlantic slave trade


Rivals on the World Stage - Atlantic states built competing empires