Use the chart below to record the names of early

explorers under the country they represent. Also,

for each explorer, write their primary discovery.

Spain
Spain
::

European
European
Nations
Nations
And
And
Their
Their
Explorers
Explorers

Portugal:
Portugal: England:
England:
A Map of the Known World,
pre‐‐ 1492
pre
 Motives for European 
Exploration
1. Crusades Æ by-pass intermediaries to
get to Asia.
2. Renaissance Æ curiosity about other
lands and peoples.
3. Reformation Æ refugees &
missionaries.
4. Monarchs seeking new sources of
revenue.
5. Technological advances.
6. Fame and fortune.
Timeline of Exploration

Year and Event

Year and Event

Year and Event

Year and Event

Year and Event

Year and Event

Year and Event

 Overseas Exploration and 
Conquest
• Political centralization in Spain, France, and
England helps explain their expansion.
• Portugal led the expansion, seeking to
Christianize Muslims, import gold from
West Africa, find an overseas route to India
to obtain Indian spices, and contact the
mythical Christian ruler of Ethiopia, Prester
John.
• Beginning in 1415 the Portuguese sent their
ships further down the west coast of Africa
until they rounded the Cape of Good Hope
and reached India in 1497–1499.
• The Portuguese reached Brazil in 1500.
• The Portuguese fought Muslim rulers to
control the Indian Ocean and won.
 Technological Stimuli to 
Exploration 
• With the development of large
cannon and their placement on
heavy-hulled sailing vessels,
Europeans had a naval weapon
without parallel.
• Advances in navigation, such as the
compass and the astrolabe, helped
navigation.
New Maritime Technologies
Better Maps

Hartman Astrolabe
(1532)

Mariner’s Compass

Sextant
New Weapons Technology
 The Explorers’ Motives
• Overpopulation did not motivate the
explorers; Europe wasn’t overpopulated
at the time.
• The Crusading drive was one force
behind exploration.
• So too was a shortage of opportunity in
Spain for small-time nobles and
merchants.
• Government sponsorship encouraged
the voyages.
• Renaissance curiosity was a motive.
• Mostly, though, the explorers wished to
get rich, in part through the spice trade.
Prince Henry, the Navigator

School for Navigation, 1419

Museum of Navigation
in Lisbon
 Portuguese Maritime 
Empire
1. Exploring the west coast of
Africa.
2. Bartolomeo Dias, 1487.
3. Vasco da Gama, 1498.
Calicut.
4. Admiral Alfonso de
Albuquerque (Goa, 1510;
Malacca, 1511).
 Zheng He’s Voyages
He’s Voyages

In 1498, Da Gama reached

Calcutta, China’s favorite port!
 The Problem of
Christopher Columbus
• Columbus was an extremely religious
man.
• Columbus was very knowledgeable about
the sea.
• Columbus aimed to find a direct sea route
to Asia.
• Columbus described the Caribbean as a
Garden of Eden.
• When he settled the Caribbean islands
and enslaved their inhabitants, he was
acting as “a man of his times.”
Christopher Columbus 
[1451 ‐1506]
[1451‐1506]
Columbus
Columbus’’ Four Voyages
 Later Explorers
• News of Columbus’s voyage quickly spread
throughout Europe.
• The search for precious metals determined the
direction of Spanish exploration and
expansion.
• In 1519 Ferdinand Magellan, working for
Spain, rounded Cape Horn and entered the
Pacific Ocean, eventually circumnavigating
the globe.
• From 1519–1522 Hernando Cortés sailed from
Hispaniola to Mexico and crushed the Aztec
Empire of central Mexico.
• Francisco Pizarro conquered the Inca Empire
of the Andes between 1531 and 1536.
• Although wealth flowed into Lisbon and
Seville, in the end Flemish towns became the
bankers of Europe.
Other Voyages of Exploration
Ferdinand Magellan & the First 
Circumnavigation of the World:
Early 16cc
Atlantic Explorations

Looking for “El Dorado”

The First Spanish Conquests:
The Aztecs

vs.

Fernando Cortez Montezuma II
 The Economic Effects of Spain’s
Discoveries in the New World
• During the 1500s and 1600s there was a huge
influx of precious metals into Spain from its
American colonies.
• Population increase in Spain and the
establishment of new colonies created greater
demand for goods in Spain. The economy could
not meet the demands. Together with the influx
of specie, this led to inflation.
• Inflation caused the Spanish government to go
bankrupt several times.
• Payment of Spanish armies in bullion created
inflation throughout Europe, which greatly hurt
nobles on fixed incomes.
The Death of Montezuma II
Mexico Surrenders to Cortez
 The First Spanish Conquests:
The Incas

vs.

Francisco Pizarro Atahualpa
Slaves Working in a 
Brazilian Sugar Mill
Administration of the Spanish 
Empire in the New World

1. Encomienda
or forced
labor.
2. Council of
the Indies.
Viceroy.
New Spain and Peru.
The Columbian Exchange
• The most important changes brought by
the Columbian voyages may have been
biosocial in nature.
• Flora, fauna, and diseases traveled in
both directions across the Atlantic.
• New World foods became Old World
staples.
• Domestic animals were brought to the
New World.
• European diseases ravaged Amerindian
populations.
• Sailors and settlers brought syphilis back
with them to Europe.
 Impact of European 
Expansion
1. Native populations ravaged by
disease.
2. Influx of gold, and especially
silver, into Europe created an
inflationary economic climate.
[“Price Revolution”]
3. New products introduced across
the continents [“Columbian
Exchange”].
4. Deepened colonial rivalries.
The “Columbian Exchange”
The “Columbian Exchange”
™ Squash ™ Avocado ™ Peppers ™ Sweet Potatoes
™ Turkey ™ Pumpkin ™ Tobacco ™ Quinine
™ Cocoa ™ Pineapple ™ Cassava ™ POTATO
™ Peanut ™ TOMATO ™ Vanilla ™ MAIZE
™ Syphilis

™ Trinkets
™ Liquor
™ GUNS

™ Olive ™ COFFEE BEAN ™ Banana ™ Rice

™ Onion ™ Turnip ™ Honeybee ™ Barley
™ Grape ™ Peach ™ SUGAR CANE ™ Oats
™ Citrus Fruits ™ Pear ™ Wheat ™ HORSE
™ Cattle ™ Sheep ™ Pigs ™ Smallpox
™ Flu ™ Typhus ™ Measles ™ Malaria
™ Diptheria ™ Whooping Cough
 Cycle of Conquest & 
Colonization

Explorers
Conq
uista
dores

Official
European

s
ie
Colony

ar
on
si
is
M
Perm
anen
Sett t
lers
 Treasures
from the Americas!
Trans‐Atlantic Slave Trade
Trans‐Atlantic Slave Trade
 The 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.
275,000 enslaved Africans exported
to other countries.

3. Between 16c & 19c, about 10 million

Africans shipped to the Americas.
 European Slavery and the
Origins of American Racism
• Before the 1400s virtually all slaves in Europe
were white.
• The Ottoman conquest of Constantinople cut
off slaves from the Black Sea region.
• With Portuguese voyages to West Africa and
the occupation of the Canary and Madeira
islands, slavery hooked up with sugar culture.
• Native Americans did not survive long under
conditions of slavery and forced labor.
• The Spaniards brought in enslaved Africans as
substitutes.
• Modern racism against blacks had its origins in
medieval Christian theology and to a lesser
extent, medieval Arab views of the peoples of
sub-Saharan Africa.
Slave Ship

“Middle Passage”
““Coffin”
Coffin” Position Below Deck
 African Captives
Thrown Overboard

Sharks followed the slave ships!
European Empires in the Americas
 The Influence of the Colonial 
Catholic Church

Our Lady of
Guadalupe
Guadalajara Cathedral

Spanish Mission
The Treaty of  Tordesillas, 1494 & 
The Treaty of Tordesillas, 1494 & 
The Pope ’s Line of Demarcation
The Pope’s Line of Demarcation
Father  Bartolome de Las 
Father Bartolome Casas
de Las Casas

New Laws Æ 1542

 New Colonial Rivals
1. Portugal lacked the numbers and
wealth to dominate trade in the
Indian Ocean.
2. Spain in Asia Æ consolidated its
holdings in the Philippines.
3. First English expedition to the
Indies in 1591.
Surat in NW India in 1608.
4. Dutch arrive in India in 1595.
New Colonial Rivals
New Patterns of World Trade