Download Packet #17 Early Modern Era: The Age of Discovery The New World

Packet #17
Early Modern Era: The Age of Discovery
The New World Encounters—the 15th Century
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In this packet you will cover the Americas:
 The early impact of the Age of Discovery
 The Portuguese and the Spanish
o The Great Dying
o The Columbian Exchange
o Demographic changes as a result of trans-Atlantic encounters
The collision of cultures through trade:
 In the 300 years between Columbus’s voyages and the industrial revolution, three
kinds of trans-continental trade boomed. One was the salve trade from Africa to the
New World. Another was the export of huge amounts of gold and d silver from the
American mines to both Europe and Asia. The third and the only kind to last well into
the industrial age—was a boom in what have been called the “drug foods”: coffee, tea,
sugar, chocolate, tobacco, and later opium. (The World that Trade Created)
 This era saw the rise of various European Empires—the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch,
British, and French
New Technology: The Key to Power:
 European merchants and nobles became aware of the larger world around them
since 1100. The Crusades brought the knowledge of the Islamic world’s superior
economy and the goods that could be imported from Asia.
 The Mongol Empire, sped up exchanges between the civilizations of Asia, also
spurred European interest.
 Europe had many disadvantages: Viking invasions, the strength of the emerging
Ottoman Empire
 During the 15th century, a series of technological improvements began to change the
equation.
 Europeans developed deep draft, round hulled sailing ships for the Atlantic, capable
of carrying heavy armaments.
 The used and improved the Chinese compass.
 Mapmaking and other navigational devices improved as well.
 European knowledge of explosives, another Chinese invention, was adapted into
gunnery.
 Europe had an unprecedented ability to kill and intimidate.
What enabled Europeans to carve out huge empires an ocean away from their homelands?
Textbook pages 404-406
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The Portuguese lead the way:
 Why Portugal: Geographically, Portugal is located on the
Atlantic Ocean.
o Rulers were drawn to adventure
o A thirst for wealth
o Henry the Navigator: organized a series of
expeditions along the African coast.
 He financed annual expeditions down the
western coast of Africa to find a sea route to the
Indies, establish trade with Africa
o Portuguese sailors ventured around the Cape of Good
Hope in an attempt to find India, where direct contact would give Europeans
easier access to luxury cloths and spice. They rounded the cape in 1488.
o Vasco de Gama’s fleet of four ships reached India in 1498 (see map- the
voyage goes around the Cape of Good Hope).
 De Gama’s guns killed or tortured many Indian merchants to set an
example.
 The Portuguese set up posts on the African coast, India, and one
expedition, blown off course, landed in Brazil.
Technology—Look it up: How did the Caravel Ship impact the Portuguese and 15th
Century exploration?
The Spanish:
 After the Portuguese, the Spanish launched their own age of discovery.
 In 1492 the Reconquista was final over. Italian navigator Christopher Columbus set
sail for the westward route to India. He failed in reaching India but reached the
Americas. Columbus believed to his death that he had sailed to India.
o Ferdinand of Aragon and his wife Isabella of Castile: A number of
Christian kingdoms emerged in the Iberian Peninsula. By the mid 15th
century, Ferdinand and Isabella unified and sought to eliminate division in
the kingdoms of the peninsula. After the fall of Granada in 1492 to the
Muslims, Ferdinand and Isabella were willing to support the maritime
exploration of Christopher Columbus.
o In 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed for Spain and seemingly discovered a
trans Atlantic route to the Indies. This redoubled Portugal’s efforts.
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Ferdinand Magellan set sail westward in 1519 and passed the southern tip of
South America , sailed across the Pacific, and reached Indonesia in 1521 after many
hardships. It was the first trip around the world. Spain claimed the Philippines and
held it until the Spanish American War in 1898.
Spain emerged from this first phase of exploration with colonies in the Philippines,
the Pacific, and most of the Americas.
The impact was profound on the New World and the global economy
The Great Dying:
 The demographic collapse of Native American societies was a major impact of the
Age of Discovery.
 Considered “surely the greatest tragedy
in the history of the human species.”
 The greatest concentration of people
lived in the Andean and Mesoamerican
zones (Incas and Aztecs)
 Long isolation from the Afro Eurasian
world and lack of most domesticated
animals meant the absence of
immunities to Old World diseases, such
as smallpox, measles, typhus the flu,
malaria, and yellow fever.
 The population in the Caribbean islands
virtually vanished within fifty years of
Columbus’s arrival. The situation was
similar in North America.
 More than half the population would die
 The devastation occurred for 150 years.
The Columbian Exchange:
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The Columbian Exchange: After 1492 voyagers established connections through
the commingling of Old and New World plants, animals, and bacteria, commonly
known as the Columbian Exchange. It is one of the more spectacular and significant
ecological events of the past millennium. (Gilder Lehrman Institute website)
New World crops were spread rapidly via Western merchants.
American corn and sweet potatoes were taken up widely in China, the
Mediterranean, and parts of Africa.
In some cases these productive new
crops, along with local agricultural
improvements, triggered large
population increases.
About 30 percent of the foods
consumed in the world today come
rom plants of American origin. Corn
became a staple in the African diet.
Fried potatoes were being sold in
Paris by the 1680s (i.e. French Fries).
Animal husbandry became more
similar across the world as European
and Asian animals such as horses and cattle were introduced to the New World.
Old World to New World:
o Wheat, rice, sugarcane, grapes, and many garden vegetables and fruits, as
well as weeds, took hold in the Americas, where they transformed the
landscape and made possible a European diet and way of life. Horses, pigs,
cattle, goats, sheep transformed the Americas
New World to Old World: Corn, potatoes, spread to the Eastern Hemisphere. They
provided the nutritional foundation for the immense population growth that
became everywhere e a hallmark of the modern era.
o In Europe, calories derived from corn and potatoes helped push human
numbers from 60 million in 1400 to 390 million in 1900.
Food and animals are only a part of the Columbian exchange. Disease, slaves, and
Christianity are also major components of the exchange that revolutionized the world.
Latin America:
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The Spaniards and Portuguese came from societies long in
contact with peoples of other faiths and cultures in which
warfare and conquest were well-established activities.
American realities and the resistance of indigenous
peoples modified these traditions, nut by the 1570s much
of the Americas had been brought under Iberian control
(Iberian control refers to Spanish and Portuguese which
ruled from the Iberian peninsula)
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From 1492 to 1570 the New World witnessed a remarkable spurt of human
destruction and creation. During this century, vast areas of two continents and
millions of people were brought
under European control.
Immigration, commerce, and
exploitation of native
populations linked these areas
to an emerging Atlantic
economy. This process saw the
destruction of many American
Indian societies
New Spain: The new Spanish
Empire in the New World and
the Philippines.
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Pictured
The conquest of New Spain was not a unified mission; it was a series of individual
initiatives that operated with government approval. The conquest of the Americas
was two pronged—one directed at Mexico, the other at South America.
o Mexico: Hernan Cortes was a conquistador (warrior/leader of the Spanish
conquest of the Americas. Who led the mission to defeat the Aztecs. Cortes
enlisted the help of the enemies of the Aztecs. He captured and killed
Moctezuma II, the Aztec emperor. Mexico City replaced Tenochtitlan. By
1535 most of central Mexico was under the Spanish control.
o Francisco Pizarro led his men to the conquest of the Incan Empire, which
had been weakened by internal civil war. Fewer than 200 Spaniards and
some native allies brought down the great empire. By 1540 most of Peru was
under Spanish control.
Spanish success can be attributed to many reasons. Horses, firearms, steel weapons
(Guns, Germs and Steel!!) gave them a great advantage over stone technology and
the natives.
By 1570 the age of conquest was coming to a close.
The patriarchal family was readily adapted to Latin America, where large estates
and grants of American Indian laborers provided the framework for relations based
on economic dominance. The Iberian peninsula had maintained a tradition of
holding slaves.
Settlements in the Caribbean began with the discovery of Christopher Columbus.
The Encomienda System became the economic framework of the Caribbean.
o Grants of Indian laborers made to Spanish conquerors and settlers in
Mesoamerica and South America; basis for earliest forms of coerced labor in
Spanish colonies. The holder of the grant of Indians was the encomendero.
He was responsible for their Christian conversion.
Political: To rule, Spain created administrative institutions: the governorship, the
treasury office, and the royal court of appeals staffed by professional magistrates.
Dominican missionaries represented the Church built their first cathedral in
Hispaniola (present day Dominican Republic) and a university.
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With the high mortality of the native population, African slaves were brought in for
labor.
Dominican friar Bartolome de Las Casas (1484-1566) led the religious mission to
end the abuses of the Spanish towards the natives.
An emerging Hierarchy:
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Distinctive social order grew up, replicating the Spanish class hierarchy.
o The Top: Colonial settlers of pure Spanish blood, born in Spain. They are
known as Peninsulares
o Spaniards born in the Americas: Creoles
o Mestizo: emerging mixed race population. The product of unions between
Spanish men and Indian women. Rooted in the sexual imbalance among
Spanish men and women (1:7 male to female ration in Peru).
 Mixing of blood was encouraged by Spanish crown (only to high
Indian families).
 Cortes fathered children from Moctezuma’s kin.
 Mestizos became a MAJORITY of the population
 Many Spaniards looked down on mestizos.
o Indians: Pure indigenous were at the bottom of the hierarchy.
Sugar Colonies: Sugar decisively transformed Brazil and the Caribbean. Growing
sugar is labor intensive. The Indian population had mostly died off. Sugar planters
turned to Africa and the Atlantic slave trade for its workforce. The majority of
African captives transported across the Atlantic, 80 percent, ended up in Brazil and
the Caribbean.
o African slaves changed the demographic of the sugar colonies. From the 16th
century through the 1800s, a substantial majority of Brazil’s population was
either partially or wholly of African descent.
o Substantial racial mixing
o Mulattoes: the product of Portuguese-African unions
Slavery emerged differently in the North American colonies (to be discussed in a later
packet).
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SOCIAL
Economic
Vocabulary
Henry the
Navigator
Cape of Good Hope
Vasco De Gama
Caravel Ship
Ferdinand and
Isabella
Definition
POLITICAL
New
Spain
Environmental
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Christopher
Columbus
Ferdinand
Magellan
Great Dying
Columbian
Exchange
New Spain
Hernan Cortez
Conquistador
Pizarro
Encomienda
System
encomendero
Peninsulares
Creoles
Mestizo
Sugar Colony