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Around the World in Not Quite Eighty Days
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“Spanish and Portuguese investors began their first overseas imperial venture in
what historians refer to as the Mediterranean Atlantic, the expanse of ocean
connecting the Iberian Peninsula and the Azores, Madeira, Canary, and Cape Verde
island groups. While trading for gold with West Africans, they discovered the
Canary and Madeira island groups could produce sugarcane, having the requisite
hot, wet climate and abundant wood fuel. A group of people known as the Guanche
were the only occupants, found only in the Canary Islands. A Stone Age
agricultural people isolated for thousands of years, they numbered about 100,000
around 1415, when they became the first victims of Spanish and Portuguese slave
raiders. The Guanche became the first people to be driven to extinction by
European imperialism. Arduous slave labor on sugar plantations and warfare took
a heavy toll, but above all the Guanche died from what epidemiologists term virgin
soil epidemics – exposure to diseases for which there was no built-up resistance.
Millions of the peoples of the Americas, Australia, Oceania, and sub-Arctic Asia
would later fall in the same fashion. As the Guanche perished, African slaves took
their place. Small numbers of African slaves had been part of the Mediterranean
labor force since the early Roman Empire, but now their numbers increased. In the
last decades of the 15th century, about 1,300 African slaves per year found their way
to Europe, mostly to Portugal and Spain, and about 500 per year to the Atlantic
islands.
The Mediterranean Atlantic became Europe’s launching point to the rest of the
world. With Vasco da Gama’s voyage farther south, around Africa’s Cape of Good
Hope and across the Indian Ocean in 1498, Portuguese mariners established a sea
route to India and East Asia. Spanish, Dutch, and later French and English
merchants and mariners followed. These seagoing connections intensified biological
and demographic interaction among Europeans and Asians of all kinds.
Christopher Columbus, too, left from the Canary Islands. His second voyage to
Hispaniola in 1493 included 17 ships, some 1,500 men, numerous livestock, plants
(particularly sugarcane roots), seeds, tools, and unintended parasites (which
included diseases), rats, mice, and weeds. His voyage began, in effect, a biological
invasion, a replacement of indigenous American species with Eurasian and African
types – plants, animals, diseases, and, of course, people.” ~ Experiencing World
History
1- Where did Spanish and Portuguese investors first begin their overseas
imperial ventures?
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2- What did the Europeans discover while trading for gold with West Africans?
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3- Discuss the European impact on the Guanche.
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4- Who took the place of the Guanche?
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5- Compare the voyages of Vasco da Gama and Christopher Columbus.
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Notes:
I. Before the Late Fifteenth Century
A. Exploration before late fifteenth century was largely limited to land travel
B. Yes, Mediterranean/Indian Ocean trade routes but linked up to land routes
C. Eager to eliminate Muslim middlemen and discover more efficient routes
D. These “floating empires of the wind” soon controlled major shipping routes
E. Increase in European trade encouraged by Hanseatic League and Crusades
II. Portugal
A. Led the way because: strategically situated near the coast of Africa, and led
by a royal family that supported exploration (Prince Henry the Navigator)
B. In 1488, Bartholomew Dias rounded the tip of Africa (which became known
as Cape of Good Hope)
C. In 1497, Vasco da Gama circumnavigated Africa and went to India
III. Spain
A. Shortly thereafter, Spain, recently unified under Isabella and Ferdinand,
financed Columbus in1492  a voyage to the east by going west
B. Columbus’ error thought India and China located where Americas were
IV. Treaty of Tordesillas
A. By 1494, Portugal and Spain were already fighting over land
B. Treaty of Tordesillas established a line of demarcation on a longitudinal
(north-south) line that runs through western Atlantic Ocean
C. Everything to east = Portugal - To west = Spain
V. More Competition
A. Soon, England, Netherlands, and France launched their own expeditions
B. Cost and risk associated with these expeditions made it necessary for
explorers to rely on backing of strong and wealthy states
C. Colonialism and expansion of trade routes contributed to rise of nationalism
VI. Other Explorers
A. Amerigo Vespucci explored South Americarealized continent not part of
Asia; Americas named for him
A. Ferdinand Magellan In 1519, crew continued after he was killed in
Philippines and became first to circumnavigate globe
B. Henry Hudson  In 1609, sailed for Dutch looking for a northwest passage
to Asia; explored Hudson River
VII. Technologies for Exploration
A. Sternpost rudder (invented in China during the Han Dynasty)
B. Lateen Sails (allowed ships to sail in any direction regardless of wind)
C. Astrolabe (portable navigation device helped determine latitude)
D. Magnetic Compass (borrowed from Chinese, through trade with Arabs)
E. Inventions converged on one continent (Europe) largely through trade
F. Europe: fiercely competitive about trade routes, newly wealthy, increasingly
organized under strong leaders, and imagination of Renaissance
VIII. Conflict in Europe
A. Dutch: successful in the competition with Iberian peninsula…had an efficient
merchant ship (the flyboat)…challenge Portuguese control in East Indies
B. But Netherlands became entangled in a series of wars with France and
England, and lacked manpower and resources to compete
C. England and France became supreme in commercial rivalry of 1700s
D. Seven Years’ War began in America (Americans call it French and Indian
Wars) but soon spread to Europe  British won North America and India
E. Deciding factor in the colonies was superior strength of the British navy
IX. Summary
A. Changes in Western Europe affected all classes, but none so profoundly as
bourgeoisie (middle classes…capitalist classes)
B. A new class of merchants, ship-builders, tradesmen and others appeared living in and around Europe's old medieval towns in 15th century
Complete the Graphic Organizer Below:
Changing Relations: Western Europe, Exploration, and Wealth
Changes in Trade and
Travel in Western
Europe Before and After
the Late Fifteenth
Century: Causes /Effects
(Think Motivation and
Technology)
The European
Explorers and
Explorations to
Remember:
Changing Relations
within and between
Western European
societies:
Questions:
 Describe travel and trade before the fifteenth century.
 What factors encouraged European exploration?
 Describe factors for Portugal’s lead in the Age of Exploration.
 What were the causes and effects of the Treaty of Tordesillas?
 Describe the technologies that promoted exploration.
 How did the Age of Exploration increase conflict in fragmented Europe?
 Discuss the causes and effects of the Seven Years War.
1. Which of the following
established a line of demarcation
separating Spanish and
Portuguese claims in the New
World?
(A) Treaty of Versailles
(B) Edict of Nantes
(C) Treaty of Westphalia
(D) Treaty of Tordesillas
(E) Luther’s 95 Theses
2. Which European power won the
colony of Indonesia away from
the Portuguese in the seventeenth
century?
(A) England
(B) Spain
(C) France
(D) Holland
(E) Italy
3. Which colony was claimed by
Spain as a result of Ferdinand
Magellan’s circumnavigation of
the globe in 1519-1521?
(A) Madagascar
(B) Hispaniola
(C) Mexico
(D) The Philippines
(E) Canary Islands
4. Which event outside the West
contributed to creating an
opening for the West to move to
the core of a global maritime
trade network?
(A) Ming reversal of treasure ship
voyages in 1433
(B) Fall of the Byzantine Empire
after the Ottoman sacking of
Constantinople in 1453
(C) Mongol destruction of
Abbasid power in 1253
(D) Collapse of Mongol power in
the mid-fifteenth century
(E) All of the above
5. Which of the following can be
characterized as outside the world
network of trade in 1450?
(A) Ireland
(B) Scandinavia
(C) East Africa
(D) Mesoamerica
(E) The Philippines
6. Which is an example of a new
disease Europeans were exposed
to as a result of interaction with
the peoples of the New World?
(A) Measles
(B) Mumps
(C) Smallpox
(D) Acquired immunodeficiency
syndrome (AIDS)
(E) Syphilis
Thesis Statement: Comparative: Chinese and European Views of Exploration
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