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The Age of Religious Wars and European Expansion
Chapter 15
1. Discovery, Reconnaissance, and Expansion in 1450 – 1650.
- Discovery – Since there was a phenomenal advance in geographical knowledge
and technology.
- Reconnaissance – By 1650, Europeans had made a lot of preliminary
exploration and they had sketched fairly accurately the outline of the whole earth.
- Expansion – After the discoveries a lot of Europeans migrated to other parts of
the world.
2. The Overseas Exploration
- Vikings in 9th and 10th century – discovered Greenland and North America and
settled in Iceland, Ireland, England, Normandy, and Sicily.
- The Crusades – 11th to 13th century.
3. Portugal
- The location of Portugal was of great importance as it is situated on the
southwestern edge. Still insignificant as European land Portugal sought greatness in the
world of overseas.
- In 1499 Vasco da Gama reached India and brought spices and Indian clothes ti
Lisbon.
- By 1500 Portugal controlled the flow of gold to Europe.
- Later Lisbon became the entrance port for Asian goods into Europe.
4. Advances in Technology
- Canons were getting more and more advanced so they became small and light
enough to be used at sea.
- The ships used by Europeans were called galleys.
- The Portuguese developed the caravel, which was a lighter and smaller fitted
with canons. This stimulated the European expansion greatly.
- The magnetic compass enabled sailors to determine their direction and position
at sea.
- The Astrolabe permitted mariners to plot their latitude.
- Maps and sea charts were improving steadily.
5. Reasons for the expansion.
- Christianizing Muslims
- Renaissance curiosity about the physical universe
- Material profit – Gold, Spices.
6. Later Explorers
- Amerigo Vespucci (1454 – 1512) – The first to describe America as a separated
from Asia “New world”.
- Ferdinand Magellan (1480 – 1521) – Verified the theory that the earth was
round and proved how large it is.
- Hernando Cortez (1485 – 1547) – Conquered the rich Aztec Empire and
founded Mexico City as the capital of New Spain.
- Francisco Pizarro (1470 – 1541) – Crashed the Inca Empire and established the
Spanish viceroyalty of Peru.
7. Economy in Spain after the discoveries
- Population increase
- Prices were rising
- Spain had very high inflation rate and it was transmitted to all the European
countries.
8. The Colonies
Spain
- New Spain – Mexico and Central America
- Peru – originally was all the lands in continental South America
- New Granada – Venezuela, Columbia, Panama, and Ecuador
- La Plata – Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay
Portugal
- Brazil
9. Colonial Administration
- Military and civil authority exercised by a viceroy
- The viceroy presided over the audiencia
- The principle was that the colonies existed for the financial benefit of the home
country