17th century

The 17th Century: Century of the Telescope (Millennium) 7 of 10

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The 17th Century: Century of the Telescope _________________________________________________________________ England: Gentlemen Scientists In the 17th century, science transformed our view of the universe. Isaac Newton was the revolution's spokesman. "If I have seen further it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants," he proclaimed. Newton's giants were scientific heroes who sought to explain the order of the universe, previously known only to God. Science enabled them to examine its secrets. They found that the universe obeyed simple laws, intelligible to the human mind. Inquiry and new technology extended the reach of the senses: Unheard sounds became audible; the moons of Jupiter became visible. Science explained the pull of gravity, the force that bound the cosmos. _________________________________________________________________ North America: Atlantic Opportunities In 1606, King James of England granted a charter to open up the Americas, proclaiming "They shall and may begin their first plantation and seat of their first abode and habitation at any place on the coast of Virginia." The Virginia Company's advertising campaign had assembled a hundred potential colonists, a motley collection of aristocratic second sons, soldiers, treasure hunters -- but no farmers and no women. The native Americans did not feel threatened when this small band of ill-adapted Europeans settled on an isolated, uninhabited site. _________________________________________________________________ Brazil: Slave Trade In the 17th century, Western civilization was black as well as white, African as well as European. Slaves recreated African lives in the Americas. To fuel a new burst of European colonization, more than 1.5 million blacks were shipped to the New World by the end of the 17th century. They were imported to replace native labor, wiped out by the settlers' diseases. The land was known as purgatory for Europeans, but hell for Africans who chopped and crushed the canes and sweated over the boilers in the refineries. Slaves who survived for 10 years would see half their fellow workers die. Rules for slave masters in 1663 recommended correction for those who fell out of line: "After being well flogged he should be pricked with a sharp razor or knife and the wounds rubbed with salt, lemon juice and urine." _________________________________________________________________ Holland: Venice of the North The 17th century Netherlands was a damp smear of a country barely rising from the North Sea. Foreigners called it the "buttocks of the world." But this unpromising land would become one of the century's greatest successes. It became the center of the farthest-flung empire the world had ever known, where the profits of a worldwide transfer of resources were banked. The key to Dutch success was an audacious new trade route: non-stop from Europe, wide of the southern tip of Africa, across the Indian Ocean through a belt of perilous seas to the Sunda strait and the Spice Islands. The Dutch East India Company sailed to distant shores bringing back the world's spices -- nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon. The trading advantage conferred by this faster route was considerable, but as their resources grew the Dutch boosted their advantage by using force to divert trade into their hands: They seized the emporia of their European rivals and bombarded native states into cooperation. _________________________________________________________________ China: Tide of Science Until the 17th century, China's science and technology were unchallenged. Now a new threat was about to reverse the trend of centuries. China was a meticulously ordered society with a powerful emperor at its head. Each year he issued an official calendar. Dates for planting and harvesting were ordained in a world at war by cosmic forces. But the emperor's ability to predict the seasons was failing. The spring rains were late. Crops failed. Peasants starved. Jesuit missionaries from Europe offered the emperor a solution. They came to China with new mathematics, astronomical instruments and an apparent novelty, a clock. The Jesuits learned the language and adopted Chinese names and dress. Their technology was welcomed. But their religion was suspect. Some were imprisoned, but they were saved when the emperor remembered the clock. When it stopped, only the Jesuits knew how to get it working again.