Download How Did the Age of Exploration Begin?, pp. 103-108

H o w D i d t h e We s t e r n Wo r l d v i e w G r o w O u t o f t h e R e n a i s s a n c e ?
How Did the Age of
Exploration Begin?
As Portugal, France, Spain, and England became more powerful
united countries, many factors set them up to become the leading
players in the Age of Exploration:
• Each had an Atlantic coastline, which put them in the best
position to explore unknown parts of the world to the west.
• The monarchs of these countries financed overseas explorations,
hoping to establish independent connections with the Far East.
• The new ship designs, navigational tools, and navigational
information they gathered enabled explorers to sail to the
New World and other far-off lands.
New values favouring travel and exploration, increased
consumerism, and accumulation of wealth, fueled the race for new
trade routes. Portugal and Spain were especially anxious to find new
trade routes to the East. Their willingness to fund large expeditions
provided the motivation for wealthy merchants to do the same.
England and France joined the race to the New World after hearing
about the great wealth being accumulated by Portugal and Spain.
Portugal
In the early 1400s, Portuguese sailors headed south and east along
the western coast of Africa in hopes of finding a new route that
would allow ships to sail around Africa to India and China. They
were so successful in finding new trading areas that Lisbon became
Europe’s new trade capital.
Portuguese and Spanish Explorations, 1480–1550
PORTUGAL
SPAIN
Macau
Pacific
Ocean
Atlantic
Ocean
Indian
Ocean
Pacific
Ocean
consumerism: focusing
on collecting and using
material goods or products
Navigational Astrolabe.
This simplified astrolabe
was further developed in
Portugal in the 15th century,
allowing ships to sail
anywhere, day or night.
Portugal controlled and
administered the colony
of Macau, situated on a
narrow peninsula and
two islands off the
southeastern coast of
China, for 442 years,
before handing control
to China in 1999.
I wonder … why did
Portugal hand control of
Macau back to China?
N
E
W
0
5000 km
SCALE AT EQUATOR
S
Southern Ocean
Explorers from Portugal and
Spain began the European
Age of Exploration.
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O u r Wo r l d v i e w s
Chapter 3
In 1487, Bartholomew Diaz sailed along the coast of Africa and
was the first European to reach the Cape of Good Hope, the
continent’s southern tip. About ten years later, another Portuguese
explorer, da Gama, was the first European to cross the Indian Ocean
to India. He returned to Portugal with his ships full of valuable jewels
and spices. A sea route to the wealth of the East was now established.
Portugal defeated Arab strongholds in the area and set up trading
posts stretching along the coasts of Africa and into India. The
Portuguese gradually expanded eastward to China, establishing the
famous port city of Macau.
Spain
Vasco da Gama, 1524
Cristóbal Colón
(Spanish), or Cristoforo
Colombo (Italian), was
born in Genoa, Italy,
and is best known in the
English-speaking world as
Christopher Columbus.
In 1476, Columbus led
his first commercial
sailing expedition into
the Atlantic Ocean.
His ship was attacked
by French pirates off the
coast of Portugal and
burned. Some sources say
he swam ten kilometres
back to shore.
King Ferdinand and
Queen Isabella of Spain
Bidding Farewell to
Christopher Columbus at
His Departure for the Indies in
1492, Theodore de Bry, 1596.
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Spain was envious of Portugal’s wealth and power and decided to
send its own expeditions to the Far East. The pope had already given
Portugal the coasts of Africa and India, so Spain decided to find more
direct routes to Asia by sailing west across the Atlantic to China and
India. Spain and the rest of Europe, however, were unaware that two
continents, the Americas, lay between them and the Far East.
The Roman Catholic Church was very involved in the exploration of the new
lands since it wanted to spread Christianity. In 1493, the pope divided the
world outside of Europe between Portugal and Spain. Spain and Portugal did
not agree with the decision and reached their own agreement on how to
divide the world between them. It later proclaimed that the Roman Catholic
faith was the only Christianity allowed in the new lands.
H o w D i d t h e We s t e r n Wo r l d v i e w G r o w O u t o f t h e R e n a i s s a n c e ?
Columbus
Voyages of Christopher Columbus
M
In 1492, Columbus set sail from Spain
and after almost ten weeks at sea,
sighted an island that he believed was
close to Japan. In fact, it was an island
in the Caribbean. Columbus made
CUBA
three more trips to the Caribbean
HISPANIOLA
between 1494 and 1504, but never
Ca
rib
bea
reached mainland North America.
n Sea
ES
O
He still believed he had sailed all the
AM
ER
ICA
way to Asia. Explorations by others
convinced Europeans that Columbus
Pacific
Ocean
had, in fact, discovered a world
0
2000 km
previously unknown to Europeans.
He first asked the Portuguese king
in 1485 to sponsor him on a westward voyage to reach Asia, but was
turned down. No one in the Portuguese court believed that the Earth
was spherical, so they did not believe it was possible to sail westward
to the other side of the Earth. He next approached Queen Isabella
and King Ferdinand of Spain for support. After many years of
lobbying, he finally convinced them to support his venture in 1492.
SPAIN
Atlantic
Ocean
Voyages
1492–1493
1493–1496
1498–1500
1502–1504
N
E
W
S
Amerigo Vespucci
(1451–1512)
Although Columbus is credited as the European discoverer of the Americas,
North America and South America are named after Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian
merchant and mapmaker who, in 1501, was part of an expedition that explored
what is now the coast of Brazil. Cartographer Martin Waldseemüller first used
Vespucci’s name for the new continents.
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O u r Wo r l d v i e w s
Chapter 3
Magellan
indigenous: referring to
the original inhabitants
of a region
Ferdinand Magellan
fighting Indigenous people
on Mactan Island in 1521
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In 1519, Ferdinand Magellan explored the east coast of South
America. He discovered a passageway at the tip of South America,
now known as the Strait of Magellan, that led to another ocean,
as he had predicted. He named it the Pacific Ocean because of its
calm, pacifying waters. He continued sailing west across the South
Pacific until he finally reached some islands in Indonesia. There,
he learned other Europeans had already visited and realized that he
had reached the eastern part of Asia. Although Magellan was killed
in the Philippines, one of his five ships finally returned to Spain,
the first to successfully circumnavigate the globe.
H o w D i d t h e We s t e r n Wo r l d v i e w G r o w O u t o f t h e R e n a i s s a n c e ?
England
At the beginning of the 16th century, England was more interested in
trade within Europe and did not rush to fund exploration. One of the
few voyages supported by the monarchy was Giovanni Caboto’s visit
to Newfoundland in 1497, where he claimed parts of North America
for England. Known in English as John Cabot, he was the first
explorer since the Vikings, 400 years earlier, to reach North America.
It was not until the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in the last half
of the 16th century that the English showed any great interest in
exploration. Because Spain and Portugal had become so wealthy from
their claims in the New World, England decided it was time to focus
on expansionism — getting involved in exploration and conquest.
In 1560, a group of English merchants funded Martin Frobisher to
search for a northwest passage through the islands of northern
Canada to India and China because Spain and Portugal controlled
the other sea routes to the East. Between 1576 and 1578, Frobisher
and another explorer, John Davis, explored the North Atlantic coast.
Queen Elizabeth then sponsored colonies in the New World. By the
beginning of the 17th century, England had established more
colonies along the North American Atlantic Coast and in the West
Indies than any other European power.
Canada is becoming
more focused on its
northern waterways.
Each summer, Arctic
sea ice is melting
more than in the past
and the Northwest
Passage, searched for
by Frobisher, Davis,
and other explorers,
may be open for ship
traffic. Canada wants
to maintain control
over ship traffic
through its territory.
Martin Frobisher sails
down the Thames, passing
Greenwich Palace on his
expedition in search of a
northwest passage.
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France
In the early Renaissance, France was distracted by
its ongoing war with England and, for the first
half of the 16th century, its wars in Italy.
However, after Portugal and Spain found wealth
in the Americas, France decided it also wanted
some of the riches from the new lands. After a
French expedition to Florida was defeated by the
Spanish, the French monarchy decided to finance
expeditions to areas farther north and west. In
1534, Jacques Cartier sailed to the New World
and explored the St. Lawrence River as far as the
Haudenosaunee settlement of Hochelaga (the
location of present-day Montréal). He set the
stage for France’s future exploration and
colonization in the New World.
Jacques Cartier claiming land along the
St. Lawrence River for the king of France in 1534
REFLECT
AND
RESPOND
1. What values and beliefs were shown in the fact that Europeans thought
it was acceptable to divide the world and its inhabitants outside Europe
between Spain and Portugal?
2. How do you think Europeans reacted to their discovery that there were
entire continents that they had known nothing about? How would that
knowledge change their worldviews?
3. Use the Roundtable method to discuss one of the following:
a. How does the modern space program reflect a spirit of exploration?
Do you think there are also expansionist motives to the space program?
b. Is there evidence that modern governments have expansionist worldviews
similar to those of Western Europe during the Renaissance?
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