1625 CE was a year of transition in England, where King James I died in late March, and Netherlands, where Prince/Stadtholder Maurice of Nassau died in late April. Maurice’s role had been foundational to the emergence of a coherent, separate polity in Netherlands. In the months after these deaths, Dutch naval forces undertook serious assaults … Continue reading 1625: Successions in Netherlands, England. English investor acquires Barbados. →

In 1626 we can start to see many enduring aspects of the takeover by European colonial projects of many parts of the world. In the Caribbean island of St. Kitts, English and French settlers joined hands to plan and commit a genocide of the indigenous Kalinago people. In North America, a Dutch trader paid in … Continue reading 1626: Genocide & strategic hamlets in Americas. Spanish on Formosa. →

In 1627 CE, the usual kinds of colonial practices continued, of course, to be pursued around the world by the raiding/trading empires of Portugal, Spain, England, and Netherlands; and in Europe, the Thirty Years War continued to roil Central Europe while Spain and Netherlands continued to pursue their Eighty Years War. But today I’m going … Continue reading 1627: Succession in Mughal India →

In 1628 CE, a long-feared Chinese pirate, Zheng Zhilong first of all beat the Ming navy, then decided to become its admiral. In Sweden, a large crowd of citizens, along with most of the foreign ambassadors in Stockholm, watched from shore as King Gustavus Adolphus’s pet power-projection project, a 226-foot warship called Vasa, sank ignominiously … Continue reading 1628: A Chinese pirate turns admiral. Sweden’s navy humiliated. Constitional woes in England… →

1629 CE saw a deepening rift between England’s King Charles and the parliament. That made it a challenging year for the English investors and merchants who were trying to build a sustainable and above all profitable colonial presence in various distant continents but who now needed to navigate potentially perilous political shoals not only in … Continue reading 1629: English colonists navigate King-parliament rift; & news from East Asia. →

1630 CE was not marked by any big developments in the history of Western takeover of the world. It did bring the first of three terrible famine years to Western India and a small success for the Dutch in Brazil. Famine first. Western India famine of 1630-32 I have a few sources on this but … Continue reading 1630: Famine in Gujarat, Dutch colonizing success in Brazil →

In 1631 CE, nearly all the significant conflicts in the emerging world system were being waged at sea. The Iberians were conducting significant battles against the Dutch both in the North Sea and over near the coast of Brazil. Those rogues the Dutch-led pirates of Salé (Morocco) sacked the west-Ireland town of Baltimore. Meantime, over … Continue reading 1631: Iberians battle Dutch. English colonies see internal rifts. Etc. →

In 1632 CE, we see Portugal’s once large and robust-looking empire around the shores of the Indian Ocean continuing to crumble a little, especially with the Mughals’ expulsion of the position they had occupied for many decades in the area of Hooghly-Chinsurah (aka Hugli-Chuchura). They also got largely expelled from Ethiopia. The English were making … Continue reading 1632: Portuguese expelled from Hooghly, India. News from Americas, Europe, Ethiopia. →

In 1632 CE there were two notable developments in the story of the rise and maintenance of “the West”. Both featured contests among rival empires. In “Connecticut” (from the Mohegan word quonehtacut, meaning “place of long tidal river”), English colonists were challenging the Dutch empire’s claims to colonize it. In Liaoluo Bay, north of Kinmen/Quemoy … Continue reading 1633: Dutch-Chinese sea-battle raises key questions. & Connecticut. →

In 1634 CE, the Dutch, English, and Spanish empires all expanded their colonial grip on distant lands to some extent. In the interior of the North American continent, a French explorer Jean Nicolet may (or may not) have been the first European to to explore the area of today’s Wisconsin, pursuing the relentless search that … Continue reading 1634: Dutch, English, Spanish colonial growth →