Transcript Age of Exploration

World Trade before Exploration
Causes of European Exploration
1. Ottoman conquests (14th & 15th c.)
closed trade routes  bypass
intermediaries to get to Asia
2. Renaissance  curiosity about
other lands and peoples
3. Reformation  refugees &
missionaries
4. Surge in population growth c.
1450  growing demand for Asian
trade goods & lack of
opportunities at home
Motives for European Exploration
1. “God”  religious zeal, taking
Asian trade away from Muslims
& converting non-Christians
2. “Glory”  desire for conquest,
adventure, fame & fortune
3. “Gold”  Monarchs seeking
new sources of revenue & new
sources of gold to pay for Asian
goods
New Maritime Technologies
Better Maps
[Portolani]
Hartman Astrolabe
(1532)
Mariner’s Compass
Sextant
New Maritime Technology
A Map of the Known World,
pre- 1492
Prince Henry, the Navigator
School for Navigation, 1419
Prince Henry, the Navigator
School for Navigation, 1419
Portuguese Maritime Empire
1. Expolred west coast of Africa 
trade in gold, ivory & slaves
2. Trading posts in India & SE Asia
 desire to control spice trade
3. Guns & seamanship = Portuguese
success
4. Only New World Colony  Brazil
5. Portugal lacked the numbers &
wealth to dominate trade in the
Indian Ocean.
T he Treaty of Tordesillas, 1494 &
T he Pope’s Line of Demarcation
Spanish Cycle of Conquest &
Colonization
Explorers
Official
European
Colony!
Administration of the Spanish
Empire in the New World
1. Encomienda
or forced
labor.
2. Council of
the Indies.
Viceroy.
New Spain and Peru.
3. Papal agreement 
monarchs allowed to
control church
T he Colonial Class System
Peninsulares
Mestizos
Native Indians
Creoles
Mulattos
Black Slaves
T he Influence of the Colonial
Catholic Church
Guadalajara
Cathedral
Spanish Mission
Our Lady of
Guadalupe
T he “Columbian Exchange”

Squash

Avocado

Peppers

Sweet Potatoes

Turkey

Pumpkin
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Tobacco

Quinine

Cocoa

Pineapple

Cassava

POTATO

Peanut

TOMATO
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Vanilla
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MAIZE

Syphilis
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Trinkets
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Liquor
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GUNS
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Olive

COFFEE BEAN
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Banana
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Rice

Onion
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Turnip

Honeybee

Barley

Grape

Peach

SUGAR CANE
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Oats

Citrus Fruits

Pear

Wheat

HORSE

Cattle

Sheep

Pigs

Smallpox

Flu

Typhus

Measles

Malaria

Diptheria

Whooping Cough
Spanish Colonial “Castas” System
Peninsulares
Mestizos
Native Indians
Creoles
Mulattos
Black Slaves
New Colonial Rivals
Mercantilism
1. Amount of Buillon (gold & silver) = Nation’s
Wealth = Political Power over Rivals
2. Goal = national economic self-sufficiency
3. Requires a favorable balance of trade (exports ›
imports)
4. Essential industries encouraged through subsidies
& tax credits
5. Colonies would provide captive markets for
manufactured goods & sources of raw materials.
6. Trade is a “zero-sum” game.
T he “Price Revolution”
1. Influx of gold, and especially silver, into
Europe created an inflationary economic
climate.[“Price Revolution”]
2. Hurt those on fixed incomes & the poor,
but helped those in debt (traders &
merchants)
T he Slave Trade
1. Existed in Africa before the coming
of the Europeans.
2. Portuguese replaced European slaves
with Africans.
Sugar cane & sugar plantations.
First boatload of African slaves
brought by the Spanish in 1518.
3. Between 16c & 19c, approx. 10-12
million Africans shipped to the
Americas.
Slave Ship
“Middle Passage”
“Coffin” Position Below Deck
Slave Trade & European
Attitudes on Race
Juan de Pareja
Oluadah Equiano
“[The Slave Trade] lasted the better
part of four centuries… the
forced migration of fifteen million
Negroes, besides causing the
death of perhaps thirty to forty
million others in slave raids,
coffles, and barracoons. What it
produced in Africa was nothing but
misery, stagnation, and social
chaos.”
- Daniel Mannix & Malcolm
Cowley, Black Cargoes (1962)
“The horrors of the Middle Passage
have been exaggerated…The age
which had seen the mortality
among indentured servants saw no
reason for squeamishness about
the mortality among slaves, nor
did the exploitation of the slaves
on the plantations differ
fundamentally from the
exploitation of the feudal peasant
or the treatment of the poor in
European cities”
- Eric Williams, Capitalism and
Slavery (1944)