Why did Europeans begin to embark on voyages of discovery and expansion at the end of the fifteenth century?
The Europeans were motivated to embark on voyages for discovery had many motives. One motivation was to find the “fantastic lands” described in works such as the Travels of Mandeville and the legends of the magical kingdom of Prester John. Columbus even took a copy of Marco Polo’s Travels with him on his voyages. The most important motive was economic. The conquests of the Ottoman Turks had cut the Europeans off from trade with Asia. The overland trade routes were controlled by the Arab Muslims who functioned as “middle men” who marked up the prices of spices and other goods coming from Asia. Therefore, many Europeans became interested in finding a sea route to Asia which would by-pass these intermediaries. In addition, the Portuguese and the Spanish had been fighting to expel the Muslims from Portugal and Spain for many years. Consequently, the Spanish and the Portuguese became religious zealots and consequently sought to convert other non-Christians they encountered. In addition, advances such as navigation charts (portolani) and the recently translated edition of Ptolemy’s Geography made navigation easier. New developments in ships, such as the axial rudder and lateen sails, allowed sailors to sail against the wind while the compass and astrolabe made navigation easier.
How did Portugal and Spain acquire their overseas empires, and how did their empires differ?
The Portuguese voyages of exploration started with Prince Henry the Navigator’s exploration of the west coast of Africa. In addition to exporting African slaves to Europe, the Portuguese found large deposits of gold which enriched their nation. This success spurred further exploration, this time to India when Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope allowing the Portuguese access to the east coast of Africa and India and the highly profitable spice trade. They eventually set up trade as far as China, but did not colonize these regions. Their superior ships enabled them to easily defeat their Arab and Indian competition but eventually they were out-matched by other Europeans. The Spanish sought access to the Asian spice trade by sailing west instead of around Africa, not realizing how large the earth was and how far the distance would be. Columbus therefore believed when he “discovered” the Americas, that he had arrived in India (and therefore referred to Native Americans as Indians). This discovery inspired many other European voyages, including the Portuguese. Competition between the Spanish and the Portuguese led to the Treaty of Tordesillas which divided the “New World” between Spain and Portugal. While the Portuguese did not colonize Africa or India, the Spanish did colonize the Americas. Their introduction of new diseases decimated the Native population and they made alliance of some tribes in order to conquer the stronger Aztecs. The Spanish instituted the encomienda system
which allowed the Spanish to use the native Americans as laborers, essentially enslaving them to work in mines and on plantations. The work, disease (especially smallpox) and hunger killed millions.
How did the arrival of the Dutch, British, and French on the world scene in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries affect Africa, India, Southeast Asia, China, and Japan? What were the main features of the African slave trade, and what effects did it have on Africa?
The African slave trade has existed for centuries. When the Portuguese arrived on the West coast of Africa, they began to export slaves to Europe. However, compared to the later period, the numbers of slaves was fairly small and mostly replaced existing European slaves who served as domestic servants. However, once the Americas were discovered, the introduction of sugar plantations led to the rapid expansion of the slave trade. The trade between the Americas, Africa and Europe was called the triangular trade. African slaves were purchased from Africans by Europeans in exchange for manufactured goods such as guns. The trip from Africa to the Americas was called the middle passage and was characterized by inhuman conditions which led to high mortality rates. An important effect of the slave trade was that it encouraged warfare among various African groups as they sought to obtain more slaves.
While the Portuguese had been an important power during the early period of the Age of Exploration, as a small nation they had difficulty holding onto their colonial holdings. This allowed financially stronger countries such as Britain and the Netherlands (Dutch) to take control of some of the Portuguese holdings such as those in India and islands in Southeast Asia. While the Portuguese had dominated these areas for some time, they had never taken complete control of their holdings. The Dutch take control of places such as Java while the British fought with the French to control India. In China, the Qing dynasty began to weaken just as the British began expanding. They set up a trading post in Canton in order to export silk and tea. The Chinese were determined to keep the Europeans confined in Canton but the British began to move into other cities which created conflict. In Japan, the work of Jesuit missionaries offended the Japanese and led to a backlash against Europeans, including merchants.
How did European expansion affect both the conquerors and the conquered?
Key issue: The Columbian Exchange (we’ve gone over this extensively. Refer back to the chart from the DBQ which is a good summary)
In addition, missionaries (mostly Catholic) converted Indians , sometimes forcibly.
What was mercantilism, and what was its relationship to colonial empires?
Mercantilism describes the economic conditions during the 17c that were created by a set of economic assumptions. The first was that the total volume of trade was unchangeable (in other words, more trade could not be created, therefore each nation had to fight for the biggest piece of the world trade that they could get). The second key assumption was that the power and prosperity of a nation was directly correlated to the amount of gold it had. Therefore, the goals of mercantilists was to create a favorable trade balance (ie: exporting more than they imported). To do this, the government should create policies which protect domestic industries such as putting high tariffs on imported goods (which encourages people to buy domestic products instead. The role colonies played in this system was as suppliers of inexpensive raw materials and consumers of more expensive finished products which would then be paid for with bullion. For example, the British bought cotton from the American south for very low prices because the southern colonies were not allowed to sell to anyone else. At the same time, the Americans could not buy products such as tea from countries other than Britain and this monopoly led to high prices. In both cases, this is leading to a favorable balance of trade for Britain.
What did Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton contribute to a new vision of the universe, and how did it differ from the Ptolemaic conception of the universe?
In the Ptolemaic or geocentric conception, the earth is at the center of the universe which is made up of a series of transparent concentric spheres. Astronomers found that this conception did not explain the precise paths of the heavenly bodies and looked for further explanations for this. Copernicus was the first astronomer to come up with the heliocentric or sun-centered conception which better explained observations. Copernicus argued that the earth was revolving around the sun while also rotating on its axis. Brahe compiled detailed observations of the movements of the stars and planets. Kepler, Brahe’s assistant, later used Brahe’s observations to argue to create the 3 laws of planetary motion which stated that the orbits of the planets were elliptical rather than circular and that the speed of a planet is greater when it is closer to the sun. Finally Galileo developed the telescope and used his observations to confirm Copernicus’ heliocentric conception. Because his ideas challenged Christian orthodoxy and Aristotle’s views, he was called before the Inquisition. After being told not to support Copernicus’ ideas, Galileo wrote his Dialogue which was written so that he could claim not to be supporting these ideas and was written in the vernacular (Italian) and was therefore more widely read than Copernicus. He was forced to recant these ideas before the Inquisition. Newton came up with 3 laws of motion which he argued also applied to planetary bodies and explained that the universe was a regulated machine. He argued that math could explain all motion in the universe. The key idea was the universal law of gravitation which explains why the planets do to go off in straight lines but orbit around the sun.