Download exploration after Renassance

TP: Students will be able to analyze information to further understand the motives that led European countries to Golden Age of Exploration.
Essential Question:
Why did European Nations engage in exploration post Renaissance?
How was the European Renaissance a catalyst for exploration?
VOCABULARY:
Mercantilism
Exploration - GRAPHIC ORGANIZER
MOTIVE
Explanation
Proof
Connection
Wealth
Expansion/glory competition
Religion
Scientific knowledge
Other
Document 1
http://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/HIST201-3.1.1-EuropeanExplorationIntro-FINAL.pdf
Document 2
Economic and political motives. Long before the sixteenth century the Crusades had introduced European people to the goods and luxuries of the East.
Some goods, such as spices, became necessities, but they were becoming increasingly costly. They had to be transported over long and sometimes
dangerous overland routes, and several middlemen each took their profits before the goods reached European merchants. What Europeans needed was a
new, less costly route to Asia. Before the route was actually traversed, however, a New World was opened for conquest. This led to intense economic and
political rivalry among European powers to see who could first secure the prizes it offered and who could hold the others away. Individuals went to the
“New World” for many reasons, but most commonly to seek their fortunes. Young Spaniards expected to get rich through ventures connected to land and
commerce. Indentured servants looked optimistically toward the end of their terms of service, when they could obtain land of their own and become
independent.
Religious motives
For rulers and common people alike, religion was also a powerful motive. Even the Catholic rulers of Spain, Portugal and France were bent on building
empires and gaining wealth, they were also sincerely committed to converting the heathen peoples of the world. The Spanish conquerors in the New
World were required to take priests with them on every expedition. The English and Dutch were just as committed to spreading the Protestant gospel,
and actively encouraged missionary enterprise among Native Americans. Some colonists went to America specifically to escape restrictions on their
religious practices at home. They sought places where they could worship freely according to their own forms and consciences.
Adventure and Myth
Love of adventure, curiosity and a fascination with the possibility of locating peoples and places popularized in the mythology of the time were also
factors. Some searched for Prester John, a legendary Christian king believed to rule somewhere in Africa. Others were fascinated by fables of exotic
peoples – some with tails, others with no heads but with faces emerging from their chests. There were also tales of Amazon women on the mythical island
of California, of a fountain of youth in Florida, of exotic plants and animals, and of the seven golden cities of Cibola. On a more realistic level, explorers
also returned with accurate descriptions of plants, animals and people (Columbus brought many examples back with him from his first voyage).
Technology
Technological innovation contributed significantly to European expansion, for it finally made venturing farther out to sea more practical. Ships became
faster and more maneuverable. By the fifteenth century the use of the magnetic compass had become widespread. Other important developments
included the astroble, a device for observing the position of the sun and stars, and the quadrant, which measured the altitude of these heavenly bodies.
Techniques for map making and charting the seas also continually improved.
MOTIVATIONS OF EXPLORERS: “GOD, GOLD AND GLORY”
Background information from Cicero
During the centuries leading up to the 1st Age of Globalization, 1450-1650, the major commercial nations of Christian Europe were in strong
economic competition with the countries of Islamic North Africa and the Middle East. This competition goes back at least as far back as the 8th
century A.D., as Islamic countries began to expand economically and militarily, invading and occupying parts of Spain in 763. The Crusades added to
this competition as Muslims and Christians actually fought to control Palestine, and Europeans learned to want the many desirable consumer
goods that the Muslims could market through their contacts with Asia. This struggle for dominance continued off and on for centuries. Trade
between Europe and the Mideast steadily increased, and European traders in the Mediterranean gained access to the Asian trade through
Constantinople.
When the Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453, however, they were able to control the trade between Europe and the Middle East and the
Orient. The Orient provided spices and other luxury items that the Europeans craved. Controlling Constantinople, the Muslims could name their
price. Western Europeans responded by seeking alternative routes to the Far East. They tried sailing south around Africa or west across the
Atlantic. The transatlantic voyages of discovery by Spain, France, Britain, the Netherlands, Russia and Sweden had as one of their main goals, the
discovery of a sea route to Asia, or once they were aware of the Americas, the “Northwest Passage,” a water route through North America to the
Pacific.
At around the same time, European kings began ramping up their efforts to justify their increasing power by seeking religious support for their
legitimacy. That meant that people who were not members of the dominant church, the Roman Catholic, might not accept the authority of the king
either. Starting in 1492, the Spanish king and queen, Ferdinand and Isabella, had ordered all Muslims and Jews to convert to Catholicism or leave
the country. Those who became Catholics but didn’t really mean it were often arrested and “questioned” by the infamous Spanish Inquisition, a
church-based court that tortured many suspected secret Muslims and Jews, killing many of them. After a while, the Spanish had the religious unity
they wanted.
This drive to make Christianity the universal religion of the European nations carried through to their exploration and colonization of the Americas.
European colonizers, especially Spain and France, made a big commitment to sending missionaries to America to convert the natives to
Catholicism, so that they could achieve salvation, and also so that they would accept the claims to absolute power made by the kings of France and
Spain.
The second big motivator for the European explorers was the hope that it would result in finding and acquiring gold and other sources of wealth.
Unlike today, Europeans in the 16th and 17th century were not as prosperous as Middle Easterners in terms of wealth. They hoped the new routes
they took to the west would open the door to wealth that would make them the economic equal of the Middle Eastern merchant-princes. This was
the motive behind the long parade of the Spanish treasure fleets from South and Central America back to Spain with their golden cargoes.
The most fatal attraction for the European explorers was what we might loosely call “glory.” Individuals with seafaring knowledge, courage and
perhaps some good connections at court could have an opportunity to rise from middle class obscurity to heroic status if their voyages went well.
The dream was a strong one, though the reality was much less pleasant in most cases. Among the explorers, it was just as likely they’d be lost at
sea, murdered by their own crews, killed and maybe eaten by Native Americans, die of some tropical disease, or be sabotaged by political enemies
at home than that they’d be honored as heroes. Though their names have lived on, most of them didn’t live to enjoy it.
One of the conclusions that someone might draw from study of the European voyages of exploration was that the people involved were motivated
to act by a combination of factors, some of which were very idealistic or altruistic goals and some of which were very self-centered and based in a
desire for wealth or power. For some people, the idealistic goals were the overriding interest. There were Spanish missionaries, like Fr. Bartolomeo
de las Casas, who was outraged by the brutal treatment of American Indians by the Spanish, and did all he could to put an end to it, even speaking
out against his own countrymen. Others were strictly in it for the money or the power.
For many more, both the selfish and the charitable motives were operating together in the same people. The Spanish conquistador might be a
most pious member of the Catholic Church and feel quite justified in killing Indians who refused to become Catholics. He might also plunder their
gold to turn over to his country, Spain, as his patriotic duty. He would feel no pangs of conscience accepting a portion of the gold he takes from the
Indians as his pay. It had been common practice for centuries that a soldier’s pay was what he could pillage from the lands he invaded.