Download Chapter 15, Part I (p - Church History

Chapter 15, Part I (p.544-552)
Exploration and Missionary Movements
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During the Wars of Religion in the 16th century, the Church began the greatest missionary
expansion of her history
o Came about through through the efforts of a relatively small number of
missionaries who believed that “God desires the salvation of everyone”.
 Reached Asia, Africa, and the New World
Missionary expeditions followed the wake of new explorations throughout the world
o 1487 – Portuguese sailor Bartholomew Dias rounded the southern tip of Africa
opening a new way to India
o 1492 – Christopher Columbus went in search of a westward water route to India
 discovered the New World in the Western Hemisphere
Before the 16th century, the predominant avenue of trade for Europe was the
Mediterranean Sea
o Attempts to trade via other seas were hindered by disputes about the size of the
earth and claims that the ocean southwest of Gibraltar was unnavigable
 Also stories of sea monsters, boiling water
 World was filled with superstition and fairy tales
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Late 15 century – number of factors began to change
o Dominance of trade in the Mediterranean by Italian city-states
 Brought back exotic goods from the Crusader Kingdoms
o Ottoman Turks conquered the last of these Crusader Kingdoms
 With the fall of Byzantium, trade with the East became more difficult and
costly
 Costs of silks and spices increased dramatically, and the farther
West one went, the higher the prices rose
 High prices did not lessen the demand for these goods
 In order to keep supplies up, western states such as Portugal and
Spain began to look for alternative routes to bypass Turkish and
Italian states.
o During the Renaissance, the power of monarchs was becoming centralized
 As modern nation-states slowly took shape, princes began to accumulate
the resources necessary to fund new exploratory voyages.
 Encouraging merchant trade also increased tax revenue – allowed states to
fund even more explorations
I. Henry the Navigator
A. Prince Henry the Navigator
1. Brother of the king of Portugal
2. Helped advance the technical innovations needed to explore uncharted land
i. opened a school for navigation where cosmographers and mathematicians
improved the quality of maps, charts, and navigational techniques.
a. The school developed an efficient sail ship (the caravel) which allowed
pilots to sail against the wind and through high waves
b. Also participated in the innovation of the compass and astrolabe, which
allowed pilots to navigate and plot courses on the open sea
3. The result of all this innovation was that by the mid-15th century, Henry’s men were
sailing farther along the African coast than any other explorers before
i. Brought back gold, ivory, spices, and slaves
II. The Route to India
A. Exploration
1. 1487 – Portuguese sailor Bartholomew Dias sailed down the western coast of
Africa and mistakenly rounded Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, thereby entering the
Indian Ocean
i. Voyage showed that it was possible to reach Indian by sailing around the tip of
Africa
a. Enabled him to bypass the Muslim-controlled land route
ii. Dias was not able to explore this route in depth due to dwindling supplies and a
mutinous crew. Returned to Lisbon.
2. 1496 – Another Portuguese sailor, Vasco de Gama, set out to sail around Africa with
larger vessels that carried more supplies and handled difficult weather better.
i. Storms and wind almost forced de Gama all the way to the coast of Brazil
a. Westerly trade winds brought him rapidly around Africa
ii. Reached Calcutta in May, 1498.
B. Portuguese Supremacy
1. Due to the explorations of Dias and de Gama, Portugal established a commercial
empire in Asia based out of the Indian ports of Goa and Malacca
i. 1543 – trade was initiated with Japan
ii. 1556 – trading post of Macao in China opened
2. Portugal became the first European nation to establish a worldwide trading empire
i. success opened trading waters for the future Dutch and English empires
3. Portuguese exploration along the coast of Africa would also accidentally bring
Pedro Alvares Cabral to Brazil.
III. Columbus and the Discovery of the New World
A. Competition Between Spain and Portugal
1. By the time Christopher Columbus arrived at the Spanish court with a proposal to
sail West to India, Spain was ready to begin competing with Portugal.
i. In addition, the Muslims had been driven out of Spain that year (1492) and
Queen Isasbella wanted to take advantage of Spain’s new unified strength.
B. Columbus
1. Had already proposed his voyage to the Portuguese but had been turned down
i. Portuguese were committed to opening a route to India around Africa
ii. Spain, on the other hand, needed a new route to compete with Portugal.
2. Queen Isabella accepted Columbus’ proposal and funded his voyage.
C. Columbus’ Idea
1. Confident that by sailing westward across the ocean, he could reach the opposite
side of the world
i. Familiar with the world of 2nd century geographer, Ptolemy, who proposed
that the known world was part of one Eurasian land mass that stretched halfway
around the Northern hemisphere
2. Columbus believed that by sailing westward across the ocean, he could arrive at the
easternmost reaches of this landmass.
i. Had read Marco Polo’s The Description of the World and was convinced that
the great cities of China were part of a large archipelago off the far eastern
coast of Asia
a. believed this group of islands could be reached by sailing 2,400 miles
west of Spain across the Atlantic
D. Columbus’ First Voyage
1. August 3, 1492, Columbus set sail with three ships and a crew of 90 men financed
by the Spanish crown – with little risk to Spain
2. Sailed westward into the unknown ocean
i. Had underestimated the size of the Earth by nearly 7,000 miles
a. Spent an unexpected three months at sea
3. October 12, 1492 – land was sighted
i. Had not found a new route to India – he had discovered the Bahamas
E. Aftermath
1. Upon his return to Spain, Columbus received a hero’s welcome
i. Insisted, until the end of his life, that he had found the passage to Asia
2. Discovery set off a frenzy of exploration to the New World
i. Spanish and Portuguese explorers began following Columbus’ routes,
expanding into the new territory
ii. Spain and Portugal were in direct competition for new lands
a. Before blood was shed, Pope Alexander VI was called upon in 1493
to negotiate a division of the discovered lands
1. Pope drew up the “Line of Demarcation”
i. ceded to Spain all newly discovered lands 100 leagues
west of the Azores and beyond
ii. ceded to Portugal all newly discovered lands east of
this line
2. The Line of Demarcation would give Spain the vast majority
of the Americas
IV. Expansion of Exploration
A. Continued Exploration
1. Spanish discovery of the New World resulted in expansion and trade in the
Americas and beyond
2. Spain continued to look for a sea route to India
i. sent Fernando Magellan westwards around South America and across the
Pacific Ocean in 1519
a. Magellans’ ship would be the first European vessel to
circumnavigate the globe
1. Helped to determine the broad outlines of the world
b. Magellan also claimed the Philippines for the Spanish Empire
1. Spanish missionaries were sent there to Christianize the
population.
ii. Conquistadors were sent to the Americas to help establish and secure
Spanish landholdings
a. conquered the Americas and the great Aztec and Incan empires
3. France, the Netherlands, and England joined in the exploration of the New World
during the 16th century
i. French fur trappers sailed from the northern coast of North America to the
Great Lakes and down the Mississippi River
a. carved out a new commercial empire in the forests of North
America
4. Both the Dutch and English established colonies on North America’s Atlantic coast
V. Social Consequences of Exploration
A. Commercial Revolution in Europe
1. Known as the Columbian Exchange
i. traders brought new goods and materials back to Europe that eventually
helped secure a better standard of living
a. New foods – like the potato, squash and new kinds of beans –
increased the available food supply for the common laborer
b. The increased supply of gold and silver from the Spanish lands
would help Spain become a world power
2. Growing trade in America helped the leaders of Europe break local guild
monopolies
i. Enabled them to increase control over vast resources of capital
3. Countries created national economies
4. A middle class made up of bankers and merchants began to replace the older
aristocracy
5. Countries adopted a new economic system – mercantilism – to manage the
demands of trade
i. Based on the idea that a nation could best obtain wealth and power by
exporting more goods than it imported
ii. As a result, nations tried to produce enough goods to satisfy all of their
own needs while leaving a surplus to export abroad.
a. The discovery of the New World supported this economic
system because nations now had access to colonies that could
provide necessary raw materials for producing a large surplus
of goods
b. Led to the creation of trading empires in the New World.
B. Economic Transition
1. These economic developments did not happen overnight and did not occur
smoothly
i. Increased importation of gold from America caused widespread inflation
in the 16th century
ii. Those countries that did not have access to new trade routes began to
lag behind the economies of Spain and Portugal
a. England resorted to piracy of Spanish ships to increase their
wealth
b. Germany and Austria, which were rich agricultural states,
could not keep up with the newly established colonies and
reacted by creating a system of serfdom that dramatically
reduced the cost of peasant labor
1. Bound the peasants to the land on which they
worked
2. Reduced generations of peasants to poverty
3. Would last until the 19th century in lands east
of Germany and Austria
i. would plant the seeds of discontent
that would make the society ripe for
the introduction of communism
C. Drawbacks of Mercantilism
1. Many suffered from the labor demands of mercantilism
i. Portugal needed to fill a falling labor supply and introduced slavery into
the European economy
a. Their use of slave labor would spread to other European nations
as mercantilism became dependent on slave labor
b. African slavery lasted as a major industry throughout Europe
until the 18th century
ii. In the Americas, Indians suffered as well
a. Disease brought by Spanish conquerors wiped out major
portions of the indigenous population
b. Millions died from epidemics such as small pox and
measles