1686 CE was the year in which a confrontation against the Mughal Empire sought by the relatively new head of English East India Company (EIC), Josiah Child, was launched in earnest, with the arrival in India of a fleet of 12 well-armed English Navy ships determined to impose the EIC’s conditions on the Mughals. (It … Continue reading 1686: England’s EIC starts a war. Russia loses terrain to China, wins against Ottomans. →

Two big developments in the history of Western imperialism in 1685 CE. France’s Louis XIV introduced his infamous ‘Code Noir’ to regulate treatment of the enslaved (and exclusion of Jews) from France’s colonies, in the Caribbean and elsewhere. And in England, King Charles II died; his very Catholic (and slave-trading) brother James took over, but … Continue reading 1685: France introduces its ‘Code Noir’. England has a succession crisis. →

1683 CE saw two events occurred, affecting three large land-based empires, that had significance for the power balance far beyond the borders of those empires. In Europe, the Habsburgs beat the Ottomans at Vienna, starting a long slow decline in Ottoman power (and giving the modern world, by some accounts, both the croissant pastry and … Continue reading 1683: Habsburgs beat Ottomans at Vienna. Mainland Chinese take Taiwan. →

The biggest news in West-European imperialism in 1682 CE was the French announcement of the establishment of Louisiana. It was very much bigger than today’s US state of that name (see sketch map at right.) France’s actual ability to hold and control large parts of this land-mass was very limited– see blow. But the establishment … Continue reading 1682: French found ‘Louisiana’. Peter (later ‘Great’) becomes tsar. Etc. →

In 1681 CE there were several notable developments in the continuing growth of West-European colonial networks worldwide. The grant that England’s King Charles II gave to William Penn to found (and own!) his own massive colony in mid-Atlantic North America was possibly not the most momentous. The English East India Company’s appointment of the self-made … Continue reading 1681: Charles II gives Wm. Penn a huge colony amid religio-political unrest in England. Etc. →

The major development in the history of imperialism/anti-imperialism in 1680 CE was almost certainly the large-scale uprising that members of various Indigenous-American Pueblos launched against the Spanish colonizers in the area of today’s New Mexico. In today’s bulletin I will pull together what information I have time for on that uprising, then quickly survey the … Continue reading 1680: Pueblo Uprising vs. Spanish in today’s New Mexico. A census in Barbados. →

In 1679 CE, the Mughal Emperor, Aurangzeb, took additional steps against the Hindus in his empire. In London, parliament tried to cut the king’s powerful brother James, Duke of York, out of succession because of his Catholicism. (They failed to do that but won another, more lasting victory.) In France, Louis’s engineers took a key … Continue reading 1679: Tensions rise in India, England. France builds a canal. Etc. →

In 1678 CE, the world of European imperialisms saw several developments of note. In Portuguese-controlled Brazil, the royal leader of an enclave of escaped, previously enslaved Kongolese tried to negotiate peace with the colonial authorities then faced an internal challenge. In Europe, the two empire-building powers France and the Dutch UP’s finally made peace after … Continue reading 1678: Formerly enslaved Kongolese run a free enclave in Brazil. Franco-Dutch treaty. Dutch war in Java. Etc. →

It’s a mainly-Anglosphere post again today. I’ll look at two main history-of-imperialism items from 1677: the marrying of James, the Duke of York’s daughter Mary to William of Orange, and the Treaty concluded between Governor Berkeley of Virginia with “several Indian Kings and Queens, &c.” of that area. In other world news, the Franco-Dutch war … Continue reading 1677: An Anglo-Dutch dynastic marriage. A Treaty in Virginia. →