Chapter 4.2

You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.- Christopher Columbus

4.2 Exploration: Causes and Events

What were the causes and effects of the state-sponsored expansion of maritime exploration?

Reasons why Northern Italian city-states did not pursue Atlantic exploration:�

• 1. Enjoyed well-developed trade with N. Europe, Indian Ocean and Black Sea.
• 2. Merchant princes of Venice and Genoa preferred to maintain current system of trade with Muslims in the East.
• 3. Their galleys powered by oarsmen were not suited to open ocean voyages.
• Individual Italians do play major roles in Atlantic exploration.

Role of European States in Maritime Exploration

• Era of Empire Building
• Conquests bring new wealth in taxes and fees to the kingdom.
• Trade opportunities abroad allow an outlet for growing population
• Conversion to Christianity will lead to papacy partially funding expeditions
• Riches like gold and silver

Reasons for State Sponsorship

• Too expensive to be done alone
• Gold and silver the european measurement of wealth by the 17th century
• Mercantilism- Economic policy adopted by Spanish, Portuguese, English and Dutch crowns to maximize the gold and silver coming into kingdom while minimizing the amount of products purchased from the outside
• Monarchs supported business ventures with military and naval power
• Competition becomes the enemy
• Monarchs often received 20% or more of all company profits- known as “the king’s fifth”

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After Henry the Navigator:

• In Portugal, privateers’ commercial interests provided faster results in exploration.
• Fernao Gomes- 1469 purchased the privilege of exploring 350 mi. of new coast a year for five years in return for a monopoly on trade he developed there.
• Discovered Sao Tome on the equator (would become major sugar source in 1500’s).
• Gold Coast- explored by Gomes and would later become the headquarters of Portuguese West African trade.

• Bartolomeu Dias- 1488 First to round tip of Africa into Indian Ocean.

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Vasco da Gama

• 1497-1498 first European explorer fleet to reach India.
• Stepping stone for expansion further East
• Was greeted coldly
• Would later return with warships and seize control

• Pedro Alvares Cabral-
• 1500 accidentally sighted eastern coast of South America on expedition to India. Led to Portuguese later claim on Brazil.

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Portugal in Southeast and East Asia

• Defeated Arab traders in battle and established a factory at Malacca- the gateway to China.
• Roman Catholic missionaries, Franciscans and Dominican priests follow.

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Early Missionaries in China

• Jesuits try to win over Chinese court elites.
• Matteo Ricci- Italian arrived 1582
• Adam Schall- German arrived 1619
• Both impressed Chinese with their learning, but failed to win converts among scholar-gentry
• Chinese viewed outsiders as barbaric and their goods inferior

Trading Post Empire

• To control trade Portuguese build a series of small forts from the Persian Gulf to western India.
• Goal to establish a monopoly on the spice trade in area.
• Charged all ships licence fee trading between Malacca and Hormuz
• Portuguese ships patrol area and only allow those with permits to trade.

Portuguese in India

• First to arrive like Vasco de Gamma were laughed at and greeted coldly.
• Seen as Christian intruders.
• Ottomans declare war in 1538 but are quickly defeated by superior Portuguese ships.

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Portuguese in India

• All shipping and trade came under control of Portuguese through conquest.
• Ports submit to rule or are attacked from the sea by Portuguese warships.

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Portuguese Weaknesses

Problems from within

• Portuguese control area for only 20 years
• The small nation lacked ships and workers to maintain a large trade empire
• Many Portuguese merchants ignored laws and traded independently
• Corruption by government officials

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Problems from outside

• By the 1600’s the English and Dutch begin to push Portuguese out of Indian Ocean
• Dutch captured Malacca in 1620 monopolizing spices
• English focus attention on India
• In Asia, contact with Japan ends in 1600’s when rulers outlaw Catholicism

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Nexus of Portuguese empire by 1600’s

Ferdinand Magellan

• Sailed for Spain
• 1519 First to sail under the Americas and across the Pacific.
• First to determine size of Pacific Ocean.
• Magellan dies there in 1522 but one of his ships makes it back to Spain becoming first to circumnavigate the world
• Video Magellan

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Spanish Philippines

Philippines annexed by Magellan in 1521 as part of Spanish territory

• Spanish return with navy and begin to colonize in 1564.
• Filipinos will fight against Spanish control but fail
• Manila becomes a Spanish commercial center
• Chinese and other merchants welcomed
• Leads to many Filipinos becoming Christians

The Lure of Riches

• Gold and silver drove many American explorers dreams although most found little.
• 20 years after Columbus arrived in New World, the Spanish almost went home.
• *Contact with the Aztecs and Incas changed everything
• In addition, using enslaved natives and later Africans, plantation crops like sugar, tobacco and cotton would soon generate huge amounts of wealth for europeans

Columbus’ journals and letters back to Spain over exaggerated the riches that he actually found!

Tobacco in Virginia

Cotton in Georgia

Sugarcane in the West Indies

Rice in South Carolina

Spanish Silver Across the Pacific

• The Chinese preferred silver as payment for their luxury goods.
• Heavily armed Spanish ships called galleons transported silver from Mexico across the Pacific to East Asia.
• Stopping in the Philippines first the ships became known as the Manila Galleons

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• Manila became a central exchange for New World silver being traded for silk, spices, porcelain and sometimes gold
• The Chinese switched from rice to silver as their main form of currency
• By the 1600’s silver was the dominant force in the global economy

Northwest Passage

• Spanish rivals claimed regions in upper North America by the late 1500’s in hopes of finding a northern passage to the East Asia trade routes
• The English and the Dutch finally found the Northwest Passage but being impassable 9 months a year it was not worth developing

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• Many explorers were lost forever when the winter sea ice closed in crushing their ships
• The Northwest passage was only passable from July to September!

French Explorations

• Sponsored by French government in the 15-1600’s
• Jacques Cartier- Sailed into the St. Lawrence River (border with present United States) and claimed area for France
• Samuel de Champlain would join Cartier and develop trade in valuable raw materials like furs, fish and lumber.
• The fertile lands convinced them that there was no need to go further to Asia

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• 1608 the trading post town of Quebec was created
• From Quebec, French explorers, traders and missionaries spread West

French Trading Posts

• Unlike the Spanish or English the French rarely settled down permanently
• They traded with native fur trappers and even married into native families
• The French would develop much better relations than the Spanish of English
• French settlements in New France grew slowly

*By 1754 there were only 70,000 French and over 1 million British in N.America

Jacques Cartier names Canada video

Coureurs de Bois

• “Runners of the wood”
• Leaders of the French expansion
• Frenchmen who lived among the natives
• Many married Amerindians
• Established fur trade relations with tribes
• Main item natives wanted - guns

English Explorations

• John Cabot- 1497 sent by king to look for northwest passage.
• Claimed Newfoundland south to the Chesapeake Bay
• English Navy not large enough to take and defend more territory at the time.

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Spanish Armada vs English Navy

In 1588, 130 Spanish warships sail to England to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I and replace her with a Roman Catholic King.

• The British know about attack and win.
• ⅔ of the Spanish Armada is destroyed
• England declares itself a major naval power and begins focusing on expansion into North America
• Spanish Armada attacks

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• British fleet smaller, faster, better-armed
• Spanish armada defeated.
• Many of the remaining Spanish ships were destroyed in a surprise storm that was celebrated by the English as a divine “Protestant wind”.
• Defeat of Armada

• Evolution of British Flag
• 1606 England conquered Scotland becomes Great Britain
• 1801 Great Britain conquered Ireland

Roanoke Colony

• Often called England’s “lost colony”
• 1585 and 1587 attempts ended in disaster
• No survivors ever found when English resupply ships arrive
• Amerindian attack, starvation or disease?
• Some Amerindian children begin to have lighter skin and blue eyes after Roanoke…..hmmm
• Video watch Roanoke

Jamestown

• 1607
• 1st permanent English settlement in Virginia.
• Founded by a joint-stock company.
• Horrible location!!
• Plymouth Colony follows in the North
• Within 15 years, Jamestown will lose 80% of population
• ………but it survived!
• Tobacco will be their first successful cash export crop

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Video watch Jamestown

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Dutch Exploration

• 1609 Henry Hudson sent to explore North America for a northwestern passage
• Sails into Hudson Bay and up the Hudson river trying to Reach China but fails.
• Dutch will claim Hudson River Valley and the island of Manhattan

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• On the tip of the island they found New Amsterdam - now called New York!

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I named more new places after myself than anyone!