Topic 4.6 Notes – Internal and External Challenges to State Power from 1450 to 1750

Why Stronger States Faced Resistance

This topic is about a pattern you’ll see again and again. States centralized more power, and that created pushback.

• Stronger rulers wanted bigger armies and bureaucracies, so they taxed more heavily.
• They tried to reduce the independence of nobles, judges, peasants, frontier groups, and regional rulers.
• They regulated religion, forced labor, and migration more closely.
• In colonies, expansion often meant land seizure, slavery, tribute, and missionary pressure.

That cause-and-effect chain matters a lot on the exam:

state expansion and centralization → loss of autonomy and heavier burdens → resistance

Resistance could be:

• Internal when people already claimed as subjects rebelled
  • Fronde in France
  • Cossack revolts in Russia
  • enslaved resistance inside colonies
• External when neighboring powers, regional rulers, or colonized peoples resisted conquest
  • Ana Nzinga vs Portugal
  • Marathas vs Mughals
  • Indigenous resistance to settler colonies

Major Local and Regional Resistance Movements

These cases show that resistance came from very different groups, but the trigger was often the same. A state tried to reach farther and control more.

Fronde in France

From 1648 to 1653, nobles and the Parlement of Paris resisted new taxes and royal centralization during Louis XIV’s childhood. Cardinal Mazarin and Anne of Austria needed revenue after expensive wars.

• This was not a democratic revolution.
• The leaders were mostly elites defending their own privileges.
• The revolt failed, and that failure helped later absolutism under Louis XIV.
• Versailles later became a way to keep nobles close and under watch.

Cossack revolts against Russia

Cossacks were semi-independent military communities on the frontier. Many runaway peasants fled there. Russian expansion and stronger serfdom threatened that freedom.

• Stenka Razin’s revolt in 1670 to 1671 attacked officials, landlords, and tsarist authority.
• After suppression, the Russian state tightened control and reinforced serfdom.

Maratha resistance to Mughal expansion

Under Shivaji, the Marathas challenged Mughal authority in the Deccan.

• This was about regional sovereignty, taxes, forts, and power.
• Students often oversimplify it as Hindu vs Muslim. Religion mattered, but that alone does not explain it.
• Aurangzeb’s long campaigns drained Mughal resources.
• Over time, the conflict weakened the Mughal Empire and helped Maratha power grow after 1707.

Ana Nzinga’s resistance to Portugal

Ana Nzinga ruled Ndongo and Matamba in Angola and resisted Portuguese expansion and slave-raiding.

• She used diplomacy, warfare, conversion to Christianity, and alliance with the Dutch.
• She preserved sovereignty for decades.
• In 1656, peace recognized her rule in Matamba.

Indigenous Resistance to Colonial Rule

European colonization brought land loss, labor demands, and pressure to abandon local religion.

Pueblo Revolt

In 1680, Pueblo peoples in New Mexico rose against Spanish forced labor, tribute, and missionary pressure. Popé helped coordinate the revolt.

• The Spanish were expelled from Santa Fe and the region for about 12 years.
• Spain reconquered in 1692 under Diego de Vargas.
• After reconquest, Spain tolerated more Pueblo religious practice.
• This was one of the most successful Indigenous revolts in North America.

The map shows why this revolt mattered so much. It centers on the Rio Grande settlements in New Mexico, including Santa Fe and the pueblos tied to the uprising.

Pueblo settlements in colonial New Mexico

Metacom’s War

Also called King Philip’s War from 1675 to 1676, this was led by Metacom, a Wampanoag leader.

• Causes included English settler expansion, land loss, missionary pressure, and colonial court control.
• Indigenous forces attacked settlements, but colonists won with more manpower and Native allies.
• The result was devastating death, dispossession, enslavement, and faster English expansion.

The comparison to remember is simple. Both resisted colonization, but the Pueblo Revolt temporarily expelled colonizers, while Metacom’s War ended in harsher colonial domination.

Resistance by Enslaved People

Plantation slavery survived only through constant coercion, so resistance by enslaved people directly challenged colonial governments.

Maroon societies

Maroons were escaped enslaved people who built independent communities in remote areas.

• Palmares in Brazil was a major example. Its leaders included Ganga Zumba and Zumbi.
• Jamaica also had important Maroon communities.
• These societies offered refuge, fought colonial forces, and sometimes won treaty recognition.

Revolts in North America

• New York Slave Revolt of 1712 involved arson and attacks on colonists.
• Stono Rebellion in South Carolina in 1739 involved rebels marching south, likely toward Spanish Florida.
• Colonial governments answered with harsher slave codes, especially South Carolina’s Negro Act of 1740.

Patterns in Outcomes and Historical Significance

Resistance often failed militarily, but it still mattered.

The main AP World point is that stronger states never had total control. Local agency still shaped how empires ruled, compromised, expanded, or declined.