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A.P. European History Notes
Session 6: “1400-1800 :: The Age of European Exploration”
I.
Vocabulary
1. Bartolomeu Dias: early Portuguese explorer who summarized the
European motives for exploration “to serve God and His Majesty, to
give light to those who were in darkness and to grow rich as all
men desire to do.”
2. Prince Henry the Navigator: Son of the king and Portugal’s most
influential supporter of overseas exploration, Prince Henry helped
conquer the Muslim city of Ceuta in North Africa and subsequently
funded a navigation school on the southwestern coast of Portugal
where cartographers, instrument makers, shipbuilders, scientists,
and sea captains worked to perfect their trade.
II.
Europeans Explore the East
i. During the same period that Martin Luther was shaking up
the Catholic Church, Europeans were laying the foundation to
venture beyond their borders.
a. Encouraged by the Renaissance’s spirit of adventure
and equipped with new technological advances,
Europeans set out to explore the far reaches of the
world, the consequences of which changed the world
forever.
III.
Factors that Encouraged Exploration
1. Although 1400 – 1800 is considered “the Age of Exploration,” in
fact, Europeans had previously been in contact with the outside
world.
Davis & Bakkal, Adapted from World History: Patterns of Interaction. McDougal Little, 1999
i. Beginning around 1100 European Crusaders battled Muslims
for control of the Holy Lands in the Middle East.
ii. In 1275 Marco Polo made contact with Kublai Khan’s court in
China.
iii. However, real age of European exploration began after an
interesting nexus of circumstances converged.
2. Europeans seek Greater Wealth
i. During the Crusades, Europeans were introduced to Asian
spices and other luxury goods.
After the Crusades,
Europeans continued to demand nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon,
and pepper to flavor their foods.
ii. The extreme demand for these goods motivated European
merchants and traders make in-roads into the market for
these goods previously controlled by Muslims and Italians.
iii. Seeking to bypass the high fees charged by Italian middlemen, Europeans ventured out into the oceans to find a direct
route to Asia.
iv. Mercantilism
–
the
conscious
pursuit
by
European
governments of policies designed to increase national wealth
– became the dominant economic theory during the 17th
century.
a. Its primary objective was to create a favorable balance
of trade by increasing exports and decreasing imports.
b. Colonies are then sought to serve as a source of cheap
raw materials for the mother country, as well as to
provide markets for excess goods.
3. The Spread of Christianity
Davis & Bakkal, Adapted from World History: Patterns of Interaction. McDougal Little, 1999
i. Encouraged by the Great Commission, European nations felt
that they had an obligation to convert non-Christians
throughout the world.
ii. So in addition to obtaining goods from the peoples of Asia,
Europeans also sought to Christianize them, as shown by
Diaz’s quote.
iii. By 1550 Jesuit missionaries, such as Francis Xavier, were
taking the Gospel India and Japan.
iv. Unhappy with the Anglican Church, the English south
permanent settlements in North America early in the 17th
century.
4. Technological Advances
i. The advent of the Caravel, with its triangular sails that
enabled European ships to sail against the wind, made
previously impossible travel possible.
ii. The
astrolabe
Europeans
to
and
the
precisely
magnetic
determine
compass
their
enabled
location
and
accurately track their direction at sea.
5. The Population Explosion (to a much lesser extent)
i. Having been stagnated by the Black Death, European
population nearly doubled between 1500 and 1650.
ii. Cities grew much faster than the population as a whole, as
evidenced when London’s population quadrupled from 50k in
1500 to 200k in 1650.
IV.
Portugal Leads the Way
Davis & Bakkal, Adapted from World History: Patterns of Interaction. McDougal Little, 1999
1. Located on the Continental Europe’s Atlantic coast, Portugal led
European exploration, establishing trading posts along Africa’s
West Coast.
2. Motivated by his discoveries of large quantities of cinnamon,
cloves, silver, and gold, Prince Henry returned to Europe (from
Ceuta) determined to establish a navigational school to train
explorers to reach these sources of wealth in the east
3. Portuguese ships made their way down the Western Coast of
Africa, stopping to trade initially for gold and ivory, and
subsequently engaging in the trade for human souls.
4. In 1487 Bartolomeu Dias rounded the tip of Africa.
i. In 1498 Vasco da Gama reached the port of Calicut, India,
where his crew was amazed by the spices, silks, and gems of
the local shops. Da Gama returned to Europe to a hero’s
welcome.
V.
Spanish Exploration
1. Envious of Portugal’s trading posts along the West African coast,
the Spanish monarchs had long desired a direct route to Asia’s
treasures.
i. Conquests of the Aztecs by Hernando Cortes and the Incas
by Francisco Pizarro bolstered Spain’s treasury.
ii. In 1492, Christopher Columbus convinced Ferdinand and
Isabella to finance his bold plan to reach India by sailing –
you got it – WEST.
iii. Not to be outdone, E.G. Nerdenbachum, of French acclaim,
tried desperately to dig his way to China through the Earth’s
Core. No word yet as to his success or failure, but word on
Davis & Bakkal, Adapted from World History: Patterns of Interaction. McDougal Little, 1999
the street has it that he had about as much luck as Steve
Irwin with that manta-ray. But I digress.
iv. In October of 1492, Columbus landed in the Caribbean.
a. Dude was really convinced that he was in India, so he
mis-diagnosed the locals and gave them a name which
has subsequently become very non-PC. So we now call
them First Americans, (or as I refer to them - poor
disease infested, land taken away from, reservation
living, intermingled with every subsequent ethnic group,
but still denied your rightful place in the history
textbooks and excluded from any significant SOL
content strand so we skip right over your history and
move on to British colonization-Americans).
b. Tensions grew as Portugal thought Columbus had
claimed for Spain lands that had previously been
discovered by the Portuguese. So Pope Alexander VI
established a line of demarcation via the Treaty of
Tordesillas
VI.
Trading Empires in the Indian Ocean
1. After da Gama’s voyage, European nations clashed as they
competed to establish trading outposts along the shores of South
and Southwest Asia (the Middle East).
2. Portugal’s Trading Empire:
The Portuguese built a thriving
trading empire throughout the Indian Ocean after da Gama’s
voyage.
i. By 1509, they had taken control of the spice trade previously
dominated by Muslims.
Davis & Bakkal, Adapted from World History: Patterns of Interaction. McDougal Little, 1999
ii. In 1510, the Portuguese captured the city of Goa, located on
India’s west coast, and made it the capital city of their trading
empire.
iii. In 1511, Alfonso de Albuquerque led a Portuguese fleet
that seized control of the city of Malacca and the Straits of
Malacca. This waterway gave them control of the Moluccas,
an island network that would come to be known as the Spice
Islands.
iv. Having cut out the Italian and Muslim middle men,
Portuguese merchants brought Asian luxuries to Europe at
20% of the previous cost, affording much wanted goods to
larger and larger amounts of people. The increased demand
then served to spur further exploration from other European
nations.
3. Ferdinand Magellan led an expedition to the Philippines in 1521,
claiming the islands for Spain.
i. By 1565, Spanish settlers inhabited the islands.
ii. By 1600, several European nations had begun to explore
Asia in attempts to establish their own trading empires in the
East.
VII.
The Portuguese are Driven Out
1. By 1600, the English and the Dutch (the Netherlands) both posed a
threat to Portuguese domination of the Indian Ocean market.
2. Equipped with the world’s largest fleet of ships, the Dutch (with
help from Britain) wrestled control of the Asian region from the
Portuguese.
Davis & Bakkal, Adapted from World History: Patterns of Interaction. McDougal Little, 1999
3. The Dutch and English then competed with one another for control
of the region.
i. The Dutch East India Company had more wealth and
power than England’s East India Company, although each
could coin money, make treaties with foreign powers, and
raise their own armies.
ii. The Dutch expelled the British from the region and
established themselves as the dominant force in Asia with
trading headquarters at Batavia on the island of Java. From
there, they seized the Port of Malacca and the Spice Islands
from Portugal. By 1700, the Dutch ruled large portions of
Indonesia and they controlled the Cape of Good Hope in
Africa.
iii. The influx of goods from Asia transformed Amsterdam,
capital of the Netherlands, into a thriving commercial center.
iv. Not to be outdone, the English concentrated its commercial
energies on India, where they successfully traded for fine
cloth.
v. Ever the copycat, France created its own East India company
and established a small outpost in India by the 1720s. Per
usual, the French company did not make a huge profit,
providing comedians the world over with yet another
opportunity to point out that France is not really worth
mentioning in the same breath with the other great European
powers, much less the United States. But again, I digress.
VIII. China Rejects European Outreach
Davis & Bakkal, Adapted from World History: Patterns of Interaction. McDougal Little, 1999
1. Although Europeans establish several port cities throughout Asia,
their influence did not penetrate deep into continental Asia, with
particularly minor impact on China and Japan.
IX.
Long Term Consequences of European Thought on Exploration
1. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Europeans developed a quasi
caste system whereby people, usually as members of groups, were
ranked from highest to lowest relative to their power, wealth, or
status.
2. This view will have an immeasurable impact on the peoples in
which Europeans come in contact during exploration – particularly
the African and Native American people groups.
3. As you already know, European diseases killed approximately 25
million Native Americans (roughly 80%). Native Americans were
seen as an inferior people group. Coupled with their distinctly
different views on land ownership and their penchant for warring
amongst one another, Native Americans easily fell prey to
subjugation and enslavement.
4. High mortality rates among Native Americans necessitated another
labor force to work the sugar plantations in Brazil and the
Caribbean, as well as to cultivate cash crops of rice, tobacco, and
indigo in the American colonies.
As such, Europeans began
transporting slaves from Africa to the Americas.
Davis & Bakkal, Adapted from World History: Patterns of Interaction. McDougal Little, 1999