AP World History Unit 3 Drill 6

Question 1. Which of the following best describes the main purpose of the devshirme system as presented in this decree?

• A) To punish Christian subjects by forcibly removing them from their families as a form of collective taxation throughout the empire's Christian provinces
• B) To create a hereditary military aristocracy drawn from the empire's Christian populations and their heirs
• C) To recruit and train administrators and soldiers personally loyal to the sultan, bypassing hereditary noble families ✓
• D) To forcibly convert all non-Muslim subjects of the empire to Islam as a condition of imperial citizenship

Explanation: C is correct. The decree describes boys being educated in palace schools and trained "for service in my household and armies", men who owed their position entirely to the sultan rather than to noble birth or family connections. This is the defining political logic of the devshirme: creating a loyal corps with no independent power base. A is wrong, the decree frames the system as an opportunity for advancement, not a punishment; the sultan calls it "the foundation of my invincible military." B is wrong, this directly contradicts the devshirme's design; it created a meritocratic corps loyal to the sultan, explicitly bypassing hereditary aristocracy; positions could not be passed to sons. D is wrong, the system involved converting selected boys, not mass conversion of all Christian subjects; the empire continued to tolerate non-Muslim communities under the millet system.

Question 2. The sultan's framing of the devshirme as a path through which "the ablest men of my realm, regardless of their origins, may rise to the highest offices" most likely served which purpose?

• A) To legitimize a coercive system by emphasizing opportunity and merit rather than forced conscription and religious conversion ✓
• B) To document the system neutrally for the historical record of the imperial chancery, without persuasive intent for inclusion in the imperial archives
• C) To recruit European Christian allies by demonstrating Ottoman religious tolerance toward Christian subjects
• D) To warn hereditary Ottoman nobles that their privileges would soon be transferred to devshirme recruits

Explanation: A is correct. Imperial decrees serve political functions, not neutral documentation. By emphasizing meritocracy and opportunity rather than coercion and separation from families, the sultan constructs a legitimizing narrative around a practice that Christian families often experienced as traumatic. The language, "ablest men," "highest offices," "justice and order", is the language of justification, not description. B is wrong, imperial decrees are not neutral records; they serve political and ideological functions. C is wrong, the decree is addressed to internal administrators, not European powers or potential allies. D is wrong, the decree does not mention hereditary nobles and does not frame the devshirme as a challenge to existing elites; it focuses on service to the state and the sultan.

Question 3. The devshirme system is best understood in the context of which broader pattern in early modern land-based empires?

• A) The Ottoman adoption of European Renaissance ideas about individual merit and humanist education brought in by Italian palace advisors
• B) The broader pattern of recruiting professional bureaucratic and military elites to reduce dependence on hereditary nobles and centralize power in the ruler ✓
• C) The Ottoman response to Portuguese naval dominance in the Indian Ocean, which required rapid expansion of the standing army
• D) The spread of Enlightenment ideals about religious tolerance that influenced Ottoman administrative policy in the sixteenth century

Explanation: B is correct. The AP World History CED identifies the recruitment of bureaucratic elites and professional military forces as a defining feature of land-based empire administration in the 1450–1750 period. The Mughal mansabdari system, the Chinese examination system under the Ming, and the Ottoman devshirme all reflect the same pattern: rulers seeking to centralize authority by creating cadres loyal directly to the state rather than to regional noble families. A is wrong, the devshirme predates and is independent of European Renaissance humanism; it reflects Islamic and Byzantine administrative traditions. C is wrong, the devshirme was a domestic administrative institution unrelated to Indian Ocean naval competition. D is wrong, the Enlightenment emerged in the 17th–18th centuries, more than a century after this decree.

Question 4. The Ottoman devshirme system most closely parallels which of the following practices in another early modern empire?

• A) The Spanish encomienda system, which granted conquistadors rights over indigenous labor in exchange for military service to the crown
• B) The European feudal system, in which lords exchanged hereditary land grants for the sworn military loyalty of their vassals and heirs
• C) The Incan mit'a system, which required subjects to provide rotating labor service to the state for public works and military campaigns across the empire's many subject provinces
• D) The Mughal mansabdari system, in which officials received ranked imperial appointments and salaries rather than inheriting land or titles ✓

Explanation: D is correct. The Mughal mansabdari system created a ranked corps of officials who served at the emperor's pleasure and derived their authority from imperial appointment rather than hereditary right, directly parallel to devshirme graduates who staffed Ottoman administration and the Janissary corps. Both systems gave rulers a loyal bureaucratic-military elite independent of traditional noble families. A is wrong, the encomienda granted hereditary-like rights over labor, which is closer to the feudal model the devshirme was designed to circumvent. B is wrong; European feudalism is the structural opposite of what both the devshirme and mansabdari systems were designed to replace; feudal lords held independent power through hereditary land rights. C is wrong, the mit'a was a rotating labor tax system, not a mechanism for recruiting professional administrators loyal to a central ruler.

Question 5. Which development most directly undermined the political logic of the devshirme system after 1700?

• A) Janissary soldiers became a hereditary, self-perpetuating caste that resisted imperial reform and periodically deposed sultans, inverting the system's original purpose ✓
• B) The Ottoman Empire converted to Christianity following sustained European diplomatic pressure, making the Islamic training component of the devshirme obsolete through an imperial decree
• C) European powers forced the Ottomans to abolish the devshirme through a series of treaties protecting the rights of Christian minorities within the empire
• D) The Mughal Empire's conquest of Ottoman territory ended the devshirme by replacing it with the mansabdari system after a series of western campaigns

Explanation: A is correct. By the late 17th and 18th centuries, the Janissaries, originally the loyal professional soldiers created by the devshirme, had become a hereditary, self-perpetuating corps that resisted military modernization, extracted economic privileges, and periodically overthrew sultans who threatened their interests. This is the precise opposite of the system's original purpose: instead of loyal servants of the sultan, they became an entrenched power bloc that constrained imperial authority, the classic pattern of institutional decay. B is wrong, the Ottoman Empire did not convert to Christianity. C is wrong, the devshirme was phased out largely through internal Ottoman decisions and the Janissaries' own institutional entrenchment, not European diplomatic pressure. D is wrong, the Mughals never conquered Ottoman territory.