Transcript The Age of Exploration

The Age of Exploration
Europe Asia and the Americas
Motivation
• Gold
• Glory
• God
Search for Spices
• Europeans desired
luxury goods and spices
from the East.
– Spices were very
expensive
– Food
– Medicines
– Perfumes
Trade routes
• Land routes between Europe and Asia were
unreliable.
– Threat from barbarians
– Muslim traders cut off the trade routes to the
East.
• Italian city states were the only ones granted trading
privileges with the Muslims
Search for new trade routes
• Hoping to bypass the Muslim and Italian
traders who controlled the rich Asian spice
trade, Europeans sought a new sea route to
Asia.
Advances in technology
• helped European explorers navigate the vast
oceans of the world.
Improved ships
• Caravel
• Carrack
• Rudders, masts,
weapons
Navigational tools
• Cartography –
– Improved maps
• Astrolabe and Quadrant
– Latitude
• Compass
• Directions
1400s- 1600s
• Age of Global Exploration
– Portugal
– Spain
– Netherlands (the Dutch)
– England
– France
Portugal in the 1400s
• Pioneers in exploration
• Superior military power.
• Began exploring the
African Coast.
• They controlled the
spice trade between
Europe and Asia for
most of the 1500s.
Prince Henry the Navigator
• Portuguese Prince
• Naval School at Sagres
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Built ships
Created maps
Studied astronomy
Developed tools
Trained men
Vasco de Gama
• Found the passage
around the Cape of
Good Hope to India.
• His discovery of this
route allowed Portugal
to dominate the spice
trade.
Christopher Columbus
• Financed by Ferdinand
and Isabella of Spain
• Searching for a sea
route west to Asia.
Columbus
• Pinta, Nina, Santa
Maria.
• Landed in the
Caribbean, though he
believed it was the
Indies
Americas
• Gold, silver and other riches.
• Led to numerous expeditions first from
Portugal and Spain and other European
countries.
Columbian Exchange
• Transfer of foods, diseases, animals from one
continent to the other as a result of
explorations
• 1494 The Treaty of Tordesillas divides the
world between Spain and Portugal for the
alleged purpose of spreading Christianity.
• Line of Demarcation determined by Pope
Alexander VI
Explorations continued
• Portugal and Spain led the way in overseas
exploration.
• Later, the English, French, and Dutch joined.
• Circumnavigation of the Globe
• Search for a northwest passage to Asia.
Problems at sea
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Storms
Rough waters
Tropical heat
Shipwrecks
Scurvy
Lack of drinking water
Impact of Explorations
• European supremacy in the world
– Imperialism
Impact of Exploration
Positive
• Global interdependence
• Increased trade
• Increased knowledge of the
Earth
Negatives
• Conflicts between regions,
countries and people
• Exploitation and destruction
of native peoples
• Slave trade