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Question to Consider: How does Ivan the Terrible use social status to maintain
control in the Russian Empire?
®
AP Analyzing Sources: Does it matter that the author is a German living in

Russia, not a Russian? Does it matter that his audience is ultimately leaders outside the
Russian Empire? Why?

DOCUMENT 3 The Court of Benin

We know little about the life of Pieter de Marees, who was most likely a merchant from
the major European trading city of Antwerp. Because of the account he published shortly
after his return from a journey, we are certain that he visited West Africa aboard a Dutch
ship and that his trip took place between November 1600 and November 1601. In this
extract from his account, Marees offers a detailed eyewitness description of the major
African city of Benin, which he visited during the journey.

Source: European merchant Pieter de Marees describing the king’s court in the West
African city of Benin, 1602.
The king’s court is very big and has inside it many large, square courtyards surrounded by
galleries, in which one always finds guards. I have gone so far into that court that I passed
through no less than four such large courtyards. Wherever I looked I saw other places through
the gates, and thus I went farther than any Dutchman has been which was into the stables
of the best horses, passing through a long corridor, so that it seems that the king has many
warriors, as I myself sometimes also saw at court.
The king also has many noblemen. When a nobleman comes to court, they come on
horseback. They sit on their horses as the women do in our country, and on both sides they
have a man to whom they hold on. . . .
The king has very many male and female slaves. . . . The king often sends out presents
(of food), which are carried in good order along the street.

Pieter de Marees, Description and Historical Account of the Gold Kingdom of Guinea (1602), trans. and ed. Albert van
Dantzig and Adam Jones (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 226–232.

Question to Consider: What role do wealth and social class play in the king’s court?
How do these things impact the government’s control?
®
AP Analyzing Sources: Who do you suspect is the primary intended audience for

this piece? Why?

Uncorrected proofs have been used in this sample. 249
Copyright © Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.

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