Download The Age of Exploration - Fort Thomas Independent Schools

The Age of Exploration
Causes of Exploration
• Renaissance ideas of humanism
and intellectual progress
• God: Reformation and CounterReformation create desires to
convert people to religions
• Gold: Desire for Luxury Goods and
Wealth
• Glory: Stood to become famous
(and rich!) off of exploration
• Advances in Technology
• Better navigation devices (compass)
• Shipbuilding improved (larger,
faster ships)
Who Started the Age of Exploration?
• Portugal: Prince Henry the
Navigator funded many expeditions
to the Atlantic Ocean and Africa
• Main Goal: Find a water route
around Africa to India
• Spain: Supported by King Ferdinand
and Queen Isabella
• Main Goal: Wanted to seek new
routes to the East (India and China)
• Other European Countries will
eventually start exploration
• England
• The Netherlands
• France
Consequences of the
Age of Exploration
• Colonialism
• one country taking over and
settling in land in another
region
• Starts a larger trend of
Europeans moving to the
Americas
• Columbian Exchange
• Global exchange of goods,
plants, animals and diseases
between the Americas and
Europe
The Columbian Exchange
From Europe, Africa, and Asia to
the Americas
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Cattle
Chickens
Donkeys
Horses
Pigs
Bananas
Sugary
Coffee
Diseases: Smallpox,
Influenza, Measles, Cholera
From the Americas to Europe
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Guinea Pigs
Turkeys
Beans
Chocolate
Corn
Potatoes
Pecans
Pineapples
Rubber
Tobacco
Tomatoes
Vanilla
Results of the Columbian
Exchange
• Crops native to Americas
became key parts of the
European Diet (Potato in Ireland
 later Potato Famine causes
many to die)
• Improves health of Europeans
and Asians b/c of better food
choices  Increase life
expectancy and population
growth
• New economic activities in
Americas (coffee plantations,
cattle ranches)
• Introduction of New Diseases
dramatically decreases Native
American population
Additional Consequences of
the Age of Exploration
• Impact on Native
American Population
• New diseases killed
millions of Native
Americans
• 90% of population dies
• Colonization leads to
need for more workers
• Creation of the
Atlantic Slave Trade
• Caused by decline in
Native American
population
• Needed greater work
force  look to Africa
• 15-20 million Africans
to Americas
CCOT Question (choose one)
1) Pick ONE of the following regions and analyze the
continuities and changes in the region’s connections
to the world trading systems from 1450 to 1750. Be
sure to explain how alterations in framework of
international trade interacted with regional factors to
produce continuities & changes throughout the
period.
• China, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, or Middle East
3) Analyze the social and economic transformations
that occurred in the Atlantic world as a result of new
contacts among Western Europe, Africa, and the
Americas from 1492 to 1750.