A.d. 1501 to 1600

A.d. 1501 to 1600

Backward to A.D. 1401 to 1500

The beginning of this century marks a new period in world history, a transition from the land to communication by sea and it will be worth while to take a long look at the world at about 1501 (forgetting for the moment that Columbus and Vasco de Gama had already beaten the turn of the century) on the eve of a magnificent expansion. First of all, in the previous land oriented world, the races of man had remained essentially separated: Negroids concentrated in Subsaharan Africa and a few Pacific Islands (New Guinea); the Mongoloids in Central Asia, Siberia, the Far East and the Americas; the Caucasoids in Europe, North Africa and India; and the Astraloids in Australia and southern India. All this was soon to change with intercontinental migrations, triggered by the great sea voyages, as well as the continued land expansion of the Russians east into Siberia. In about 1501 the area occupied by the major civilizations was roughly equivalent to the area of cultivation, which was certainly less than 1/4 of the world's surface. Watermills were of great importance as a source of energy and this included the utilization of the tides in both Islam and the West.

The tempo of change after the sea voyages of this 16th century, although rapid in the Americas, was otherwise very slow. China and Japan remained intact and India held Europeans at arms length for another 250 years. However, along with the re-distribution of races, there was soon a diffusion of animals and plants, including the movement of horses, cattle and sheep from the old world to the new; tobacco, cotton, maize and potatoes (both "Irish" and "sweet") from the new to the old. Before 1500, Eurasian trade had involved mostly luxury goods, but after that the combinations of regional, economic specialization and improvement in sea transport made possible the gradual transformation into modern mass trade of bulky "necessities". The arquebus, the original, awkward, difficult to handle rifle, came into use early in the century. Progress with this weapon was more rapid in Europe than elsewhere. At the battle of Lepanto (1571) the Turkish galleys still had more archers than arquebusiers. (Ref. 260 ) The invention of printing in the last century helped to revolutionize medicine in this one, in that the wide circulation of medicinal texts shook off the effects of over a thousand years of Galen's influence. (Ref. 213 )

At the beginning of this 16th century, even ignoring western and central Europe, there were six dominant empires in the world, the richest and most populous being the Ming Empire of China. In addition there were the Mughal Empire in northern India and southeast Central Asia, the Persian Safavid Empire including most of the Arabian peninsula, the Ottoman Empire of southeastern Europe, Turkey, North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean and finally the somewhat overlapping Mali and Songhai empires of the southwest Sahara. Continuing the trend established in the time of the Roman Empire, the precious metals of the western world continued to leave for India and China in exchange for their textiles, spices and oriental "luxuries". In this century the money went in the form of Spanish pieces of eight. (Ref. 260 ) The map on the facing page is of interest concerning the exploration of the world, chiefly in this century.