Chapter 4 Notes

The Age of Exploration 1500-1800

Exploration & Expansion

Motives & Means

• Between 1500-1800 Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, England & France expanded into the rest of the world
• Why did they want to expand?
• Trade
• spices - needed to preserve & flavor food
• precious metals
• Adventures - read stories of Marco Polo
• spread religion
• God, Glory and Gold

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Section 1

• We will explore European exploration and expansion
• We can discuss the motivations behind European exploration; describe the routes and conquests of Portuguese and Spanish explorers; describe the accomplishments of European explorers

Motives and Means continued

• Ability to sail farther
• Caravel - a small, fast maneuverable ship that had a large cargo hold and usually three masts with lateen sails
• More accurate maps
• Increased knowledge of wind power

Portuguese Explorers

• Portugal started European exploration
• Went southward along southern coast of West Africa = Gold Coast
• Vasco da Gama sailed around the Cape of Good Hope (tip of Africa) to India
• He made bank on the spices he brought back to Europe

Portuguese Explorers continued

• Portugal returned and took spice trade from Muslims
• Soon moved into Melaka, thriving spice trade port
• Opened up door for Portuguese to take over the Moluccas, AKA Spice Islands

Spanish Explorers

• Spanish sailed westward
• Christopher Columbus thought he could reach Asia by sailing west
• reached Cuba and Hispaniola (thought Asia)
• during his 4 voyages explored all major Caribbean islands and Honduras

Spanish explorers continued

• Ferdinand Magellan - tried to reach Asia too
• First to circumnavigate the world

New lands to explore

• Treaty of Tordesillas - called for a line of demarcation extending from north to south through the Atlantic Ocean and the easternmost part of the South American continent
• Unexplored lands east of line = Portugal
• Unexplored lands west of line = Spain

New lands to explore continued

• John Cabot - Venetian seaman who explored the coastline of New England
• Amerigo Vespucci - Florentine sailed many places writing letters describing what he saw
• helped lead to the naming of America ( after Amerigo for new lands)

The Spanish Empire

• Conquistadors - Spanish conquerors - with people and resources established an overseas empire

Aztec Civilization Destroyed

• For a century, the Aztec ruled much of central Mexico
• Hernan Cortes and the Spanish forces came to Veracruz and marched to Tenochtitlan
• He made alliances with city-states as he moved
• Many city-states sick of Aztec rule

Aztec Civilization Destroyed Continued

• Montezuma (Aztec Monarch) welcomed Cortes to Tenochtitlan
• Never saw men on horseback, firearms, cannons or steel swords - advantage
• Tensions arose
• Spanish took Montezuma hostage
• Aztec revolted and pushed Spanish out

Aztec Civilization Destroyed Continued

• Aztec no natural immunity to European diseases - smallpox
• Spanish received new troops
• Soon city surrendered
• Spanish soon expanded their control to all of Mexico

Conquest of the Inca

• Francisco Pizarro landed on Pacific coast of South America
• Had weapons, gunpowder and horses
• Also lack immunity - smallpox
• even emperor died
• 2 sons both laid claim - civil war
• Pizarro took advantage of situation
• Inca’s arrows and spears vs. Spanish guns and cannons

Conquest of the Inca continued

• captured Inca capital
• established new capital for Spanish colony

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European Rivals

• Spanish and Portuguese threatened by European countries seeking new wealth
• English established trade
• Dutch created the West India Company - but soon went bankrupt

European Rivals Continued

• Early 17th Century - Dutch settled in NA - New Netherlands (later seized by England and renamed New York) on mouth of Hudson River up to Albany, New York
• English and French soon came in
• French colonized Canada and Louisiana
• English colonized Virginia and Massachusetts Bay

Mercantilism

• Mercantilism - set of principles that dominated economic thought
• prosperity of a nation depended on a large supply of bullion, or gold and silver
• Nations needed a favorable balance of trade - difference in value between what a nation imports and what it exports
• favorable balance = goods exported > those imported

Section 2

• We will explore the first global economic systems
• I can understand the places and regions involved in the Columbian exchange and the slave trade; identify the causes and effects of the European expansion into Africa

• to stimulate trade governments granted subsidies - payments - to new industries & improved transportation systems
• High tariffs - taxes - on foreign goods - Why?

The Columbian Exchange

• The Columbian Exchange - the exchange of plants and animals between Europe and the Americas
• Examples?
• Effects?
• Horses
• Population

The Columbian Exchange

• Encomienda - right of landowners to use Native Americans as laborers
• What many Spanish settlers did
• put to work in gold/silver mines & sugar plantations
• forced labor, starvation and disease
• Catholic Monks converted and baptized
• Native American social and political structures replaced with European ones
• as Spanish and Native American’s married - created roots in both cultures

European Rivals in the East

• Dutch - East India Trading Company - pushed Portuguese out of spice trade in SE Asia
• England gained complete control of India after the Seven Years War -

The Atlantic Slave Trade

• European age of exploration changed the world
• some cases destroyed civilizations
• impact on societies and trade patterns
• led by Spain and Portugal - established trading posts and colonies
• Colony - is a settlement of people living in a new territory, linked with the parent country by trade and direct government control

Slave trade

• Primary market for enslaved Africans was SW Asia - domestic servants
• changed when colonization of the Americas and sugarcane plantations - large agricultural estates
• required lots of labor
• Native Americans couldn’t supply labor - many died of diseases

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Growth of the Slave Trade

• Triangular Trade - the pattern of trade that connected Europe, Africa and Asia and American continents
• European ships carried guns and cloth in exchange for slaves
• slaves taken to Americas where they were sold and tobacco, molasses, sugar and raw cotton bought and sent to Europe

Growth of Slave trade continued

• Middle Passage - the journey of slaves from Africa to America
• many died enroute
• many died of disease once arrived due to lack of immunity

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Sources of Enslaved Africans

• First slaves were prisoners of war
• bought from African merchants
• obtained from nearby coastal regions
• demand rose
• had to move more inland to find victims
• King Afonso of Congo - troubled of impact on his society
• depopulation
• corruption

Effects of the Slave Trade

• depopulation in areas
• deprived African communities of youngest and strongest men and women
• increased warfare

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Effects on Benin

• Benin in West Africa
• was brilliant and creative society
• population declined, warfare increased
• people lost faith in their gods and arts deteriorated
• human sacrifice more common
• became corrupt and brutal place
• took years to rediscover previous society

• Use of slaves from Africa acceptable in European society
• Why?
• inferior beings
• Society of Friends - AKA Quakers - condemn slavery

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Colonial Latin America

Social Classes

1. Peninsulares - top - Spanish and Portuguese officials born in Europe and held all important govt. positions
2. Creoles - descendants of Europeans born in Latin America - controlled land & businesses

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Section 3

• We will explore colonial Latin America
• I can draw conclusions about how the Spanish and Portuguese profited from their colonies in the Americas; understand the development of Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the Americas

Social classes continued

3. Multiracial groups

• Mestizos - European and Native American offspring
• Mulattoes - African and European offspring
• other groups of offspring between Mestizos and Mulattoes
• socially inferior to peninsulares and creoles

4. Imported enslaved persons and conquered Native Americans

Economic Foundations

• Natural Resources
• Gold
• Silver
• farming
• Supply of labor
• Encomienda system - a system of labor the Spanish forced Native Americans to pay taxes and provide labor and in return landowners were expected to protect them - only led to abuses
• Native Americans were forced to pay tribute and provide labor
• Mita - used in Peru- allowed authorities to draft native labor to work in silver mines

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• Extraction process had damaging effects on the environment
• deforestation, overgrazing, over cultivation

Economic Foundations Continued

• Trade
• Gold
• Silver
• sugar
• Tobacco
• diamonds
• animal hides
• In return Europeans supplied manufactured goods

State and Church

• Portugal - Brazil - Governor General
• Spain - Mexico/Peru - Viceroys
• Spanish and Portuguese rulers wanted to Christianize the new populations
• Built missions, cathedrals, hospitals orphanages, and schools
• taught reading, writing and arithmetic
• Juana Ines de la Cruz - nun who urged women be educated