The fifteenth and seventeenth centuries marked the flourishment of both the Ottoman and the English Empires. With Suleyman the Lawgiver leading the Ottomans, the empire was at its’ height. Similar to the European Renaissance, Suleyman encouraged the studying of history, astronomy, poetry, mathematics and architecture, allowing the empire to learn and grow. In the beginning, the English struggled largely. The people were more focused on finding gold and other goods that they didn’t plant enough crops, so many starved. The Ottomans gained control of the Bosphorus Strait and the North African Coast, giving them many trade routes, while the English Colonies traded with their original home across the Atlantic. The Ottoman Empire and the English Colonies differ in their …show more content…
A great deal of expansion in the Ottoman Empire led to people from many different religions living in this empire. Suleyman allowed people to worship other religious communities, and to keep the peace, treated them as millets. They allowed each millet to practice whichever religion, with a head of each millet to report to the Sultan. This allowed them to avoid conflict. Suleyman also encouraged art, literature, and education, and looked to other places such as Arabia and Persia for inspiration and style. The English colonies were very different. They wanted to populate their new home, and pushed out the natives to make more room for their people and tobacco crops. The settlers thought the Native Americans to be “heathens without faith” and “agents of the Devil,” causing many disputes. The natives shared cruel views of the settlers. The aggression between the two groups led to war. The Powhatan tribe killed around 350 Jamestown settlers, and the English responded by slaughtering hundreds of native people. The English and the Ottomans had completely different views of the different people surrounding