The last topic focused how how the various land empires were established, but how did they rule these massive regions? Each one of the empires maintained power differently.
A lot of places used religion to justify their power. While others used monumental architecture to show their rule was legitimate (and they had money). Each ruler also collected taxes different.
It is important for this topic that you are able to:
(GOV) Explain how rulers used a variety of methods to legitimize and consolidate their power in land-based empires from 1450 to 1750.
Recruitment and use of bureaucratic elites, as well as the development of military professionals, became more common among rulers who wanted to maintain centralized control over their populations and resources
Bureaucratic elites or military professionals:
Ottoman devshirme
Salaried samurai
Rulers continued to use religious ideas, art, and monumental architecture to legitimize their rule.
Religious ideas:
Mexica practice of human sacrifice
European notions of divine right
Songhai promotion of Islam
Art and monumental architecture:
Qing imperial portraits
Incan sun temple of Cuzco
Mughal mausolea and mosques
European palaces, such as Versailles
Rulers used tribute collection, tax farming, and innovative tax-collection systems to generate revenue in order to forward state power and expansion.
Tax-collection systems:
Mughal zamindar tax collection
Ottoman tax farming
Mexica tribute lists
Ming practice of collecting taxes in hard currency
Askia Muhammad, 1143-1538
Songhai Emperor
Montezuma II, 1466-1520
Ruled the Aztecs at their peak.
Suleiman I, 1494-1566
Ottoman Sultan
Atahualpa, 1502-1533
Final Incan Emperor
Akbar the Great, 1542-1605
Mughal Ruler
Shah Abbas I, 1571-1629
Safavid Shah
Kangxi, 1654-1722
Qing Emperor
Peter the Great, 1672-1725
Russian Czar
Excerpt from the text in which the impact of the system on Christian population is discussed:
"What would a man not suffer were he to see a child, whom he had begotten and raised…carried off by the hands of foreigners, suddenly and by force, and forced to change over to alien customs, and to become a vessel of barbaric garb, speech, and piety and other contaminations, all in a moment? … Shall he lament his son because a free child becomes a slave, because being nobly born he is forced to adopt barbaric customs? Because he who is rendered so mild by motherly and fatherly hands is about to be filled with barbaric cruelty? Because he who attended matins in the churches and frequented the sacred teachers is now, alas, taught to pass the night in murdering his own people, and in other such things?"
You can read more by clicking the link above.
Considered by many critiques one of the most disturbing books with an ending everyone knows -- the Spanish conquistadors defeat the Aztecs. It is written chronologically, similar to a travel journal. del Castillo wrote the entire book in the first person.
Here is an excerpt from the text describing...well human sacrifice:
“There were some smoking braziers of their incense, which they call copal, in which they were burning the hearts of three Indians whom they had sacrificed that day, and all the walls of that shrine were so splashed and caked with blood that they and the floor too were black. Indeed, the whole place stank abominably… the walls of this shrine also were so caked with blood and the floor so bathed in it that the stench was worse than that of any slaughterhouse in Spain. They had offered that idol five hearts from the day’s sacrifices.”
de Leon is considered the "prince of the chroniclers of the Indies" and is cited often by scholars in their research. Similar to del Castillo, de Leon focused on chronicling his experiences with the Inca. In the text there is quite a bit of information about the Incan economy.
Here is an excerpt focusing on the topic of economics:
"It is told for a fact of the rulers of this kingdom that in the days of their rule they had their representatives in the capitals of all the provinces, for in all these places there were larger and finer lodgings than in most of the other cities of this great kingdom, and many storehouses. They served as the head of the provinces or regions, and from every so many leagues around the tributes were brought to one of these capitals, and from so many others, to another. This was so well-organized that there was not a village that did not know where it was to send its tribute. In all these capitals the Incas had temples of the Sun, mints, and many silversmiths who did nothing but work rich pieces of gold or fair vessels of silver; large garrisons were stationed there, and a steward who was in command of them all, to whom an accounting of everything that was brought in was made, and who, in turn, had to give one of all that was issued. ...The tribute paid by each of these provinces, whether gold, silver, clothing, arms and all else they gave, was entered in the accounts of those who kept the quipus and did everything ordered by the governor in the matter of finding the soldiers or supplying whomever the Inca ordered, or making delivery to Cuzco; but when they came from the city of Cuzco to go over the accounts, or they were ordered to go to Cuzco to give an accounting, the accountants themselves gave it by the quipus, or went to give it where there could be no fraud, but everything had to come out right. Few years went by in which an accounting was not made....
At the beginning of the new year the rulers of each village came to Cuzco, bringing their quipus, which told how many births there had been during the year, and how many deaths. In this way the Inca and the governors knew which of the Indians were poor, the women who had been widowed, whether they were able to pay their taxes, and how many men they could count on in the event of war, and many other things they considered highly important. The Incas took care to see that justice was meted out, so much so that nobody ventured to commit a felony or theft. This was to deal with thieves, rapists, or conspirators against the Inca.
As this kingdom was so vast, in each of the many provinces there were many storehouses filled with supplies and other needful things; thus, in times of war, wherever the armies went they drew upon the contents of these storehouses, without ever touching the supplies of their confederates or laying a finger on what they had in their settlements....Then the storehouses were filled up once more with the tributes paid the Inca. If there came a lean year, the storehouses were opened and the provinces were lent what they needed in the way of supplies; then, in a year of abundance, they paid back all they had received. No one who was lazy or tried to live by the work of others was tolerated; everyone had to work. Thus on certain days each lord went to his lands and took the plow in hand and cultivated the earth, and did other things. Even the Incas themselves did this to set an example. And under their system there was none such in all the kingdom, for, if he had his health, he worked and lacked for nothing; and if he was ill, he received what he needed from the storehouses. And no rich man could deck himself out in more finery than the poor, or wear different clothing, except the rulers and the headmen, who, to maintain their dignity, were allowed great freedom and privilege."