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Age of
Exploration
By: Colette Spencer
NMBHS
Reasons for Exploration
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1. search for resources
2. establish sea trade routes to Asia
3. desire to expand Christianity
“God, Gold and Glory”
Why did Exploration Begin at This Time?
• 1. National gov’ts encouraged it
– Only ones rich enough to afford it
• 2. Wanted spices, silks, cotton, gems, etc.
– Middleman was expensive
• 3. Renaissance encouraged improvement & curiosity
• 4. New inventions helped navigation
– Triangular sails, rudder, magnetic compass,
astrolabe
• 5. New knowledge of winds and currents
• 6. Rediscovered Ptolemy’s map -1409
– Had believed the earth was round
The Explorers
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Portugal was first
Prince Henry the Navigator – 1394-1460
Sent explorers along coast of Africa
Found several islands where they built sugar
plantations
• Got slaves from Africa to work on them
• Set up trading posts in Africa
• Bartholomeu Diaz – 1487 –
first to make it around Cape
of Good Hope (Africa)
• Vasco Da Gama – 1497 –
first to reach India (used
Indian pilot)
– Lost pilot, men and several
ships on way back
– Brought back cinnamon and
pepper
– Cargo profit still was 60 times
the cost of the expedition
• Portuguese then built trading posts in India
• By late 15th cent. England and the Netherlands
had sent mariners into Indian Ocean
• Columbus – 1492 – sailed for Spain
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Located all major islands in Caribbean
Encountered the Taino – he called them “Indians”
Spaniards very brutal with natives – slaves
Diseases devastated natives
• Hundreds of Spanish, Dutch, French and English
mariners followed over the next 100 yrs.
• All searching for passage to India
• Instead found a place for new economic
opportunities
• Balboa – 1513 – crossed isthmus of Panama
• First to sight the Pacific
• Ferdinand Magellan – 1519 – first to
circumnavigate the globe
– He was killed in Philippines
– Only one ship – 18 men returned to Spain
• Sir Francis Drake – west coast of NA
• Many searching for NW Passage
• 1700’s James Cook – Australia, New Zealand,
Sandwich Islands
Trading Post Empires
• Mid 16th cent. – Portugal had 50 trading posts b/w
Africa & Asia
– Controlled much of the Indian Ocean
– But not able to control for long
• English and Dutch got in the game
• Eng. more interested in posts in India
• Dutch in S. Africa and islands of Malaysia
• Both used joint stock companies to maximize profit
– English East India Comp.
– United East India Comp. (VOC)
• Funded by rich private merchants but supported by
gov’ts.
• Both companies made great profits bringing back
spices
• Both contributed to the creation of a global trading
network
Europe in SE Asia
• FR, ENG, NETH, SP and POR conquered native peoples
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Mostly in the islands
Also built empires
Established colonies
Set up gov’ts.
• Didn’t conquer big, powerful states like China & India
• Spain conquered the Philippines
– Manila quickly b/c busy trading port
– Asian goods shipped out to the New World and gold came
back
– Eventually converted the land to one of the most Roman
Catholic places in the world
• Dutch conquered the islands of Indonesia –
including Java
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Controlled most of the spice trade out of the islands
Controlled islands by making alliances with locals
Less concerned with ruling
More concerned with spice trade
Competition
• Exploration & expansion led to conflict b/w European
powers
• Competed for trade and markets in Indian Ocean and
SE Asia
• Also had conflict in Caribbean & Americas
• English pirate & privateers often attacked Spanish
galleons
Columbian Exchange
• Global diffusion of plants, foods, animals, humans and
disease
• Involved lands w/drastically different items
• Eur exploration began biological exchange that
permanently altered humans and nature
Diseases
• Disease brought huge losses to indigenous people in
Americas
• Smallpox, measles, influenza, etc.
• People had no immunity
• Smallpox usually only affected kids in Eur
• No threat to Eur society b/c it didn’t kill many adults
• In 1519 – smallpox killed as much as 90% of Aztec
empire – 17 mill down to 1.3 mill
• By this time SP conquerors had imposed their rule
• Politics, society and culture of Mexico’s people gone
or under SP control
• Sometimes diseases attacked distant societies
even when they had no contact with Eur
• Pacific islands hit as hard as Americas
• These epidemics were the worst demographic
disaster in history
• More than 100 million may have died
Food & Animals
• In long run, the CE increased rather than
decreased pop b/c of spread of food & animals
• From Old World to New World:
– Coffee beans, wheat, citrus fruit, cows, horses,
sugarcane, honey bees, bananas, chickens, disease
• From New World to Old World:
– Potatoes, beans, maize, tomatoes, peanuts,
pineapples, cacao, tobacco, vanilla
– maize & potatoes increased calories
– Tomatoes and peppers increased vitamins
– Beans added protein
• CE created surge in population around world
• By 1500 – Eur was recovering from plague – 425
million
• By 1600 – pop increased by 25%
• Increased slower in next 100 yrs.
• But 1700’s increased faster than ever – 900 million
• CE also involved spread of humans by transoceanic
migrations
• Voluntary and forced (slavery)
• 1800’s saw largest migration of Europeans ever
• To Americas, S. Africa, Australia and Pac. Islands
Origins of Global Trade
• Eur merchant mariners
created a global trading
system
• Eur countries est. colonies
in Americas & Caribbean
• Eur manufactured goods
traveled to the NW in
exchange for silver, gold,
sugar & tobacco
• Manila galleons (SP), from 1565 to 1815, carried
Asian luxury goods across Pacific to Mexico
• Exchanged them for silver to take back to
Philippines
• Most of silver went to
China to meet growing
demand
• Some luxury goods to the
New World were sold to
the Spanish ruling elite
• Most though crossed
Central America, then the
Atlantic to Spain
Environmental Effects
• As result of global trade, some animals became
commodities
• Fur-bearing animals, esp. the beaver
• Some almost driven to extinction
• Also harvested many deer, cod, whales, etc.
• By late 16th cent. there was the never ending
human exploitation of world’s natural and agr.
resources
• Mass markets around the world competed for the
most precious commodities – coffee, tea, sugar &
tobacco