The Age
of Discovery
Why did European take to
the seas?
1. Gold & Natural
Resources
• Main reason
• Wanted luxury
goods
(introduced
during
Crusades)
• High demand
which means $
India
Textiles
(cloth)
Spices
Cinnamon
Incense
Pepper
Ceramics
(China)
Silk
Tea
Gold/Silver
Spices
China
What did Asia have Europeans wanted?
2. Spread Christianity
• Islam controlled all the trade
•
routes
Catholic nations wanted to spread
Catholicism in the wake of the
Reformation
3. Need to be
#1!
• Europeans
competed
for raw
materials,
territory,
and people
Remember: the 3 Gs
GOLD!
GOD!
GLORY!
The Explorers
Prince Henry the Navigator
• Founded school of navigation in
•
•
•
1418 that included an
observatory, ship building facility,
chapel, etc.
Goals of the school:
1. To invent & improve
navigational techniques
2. To sponsor expeditions to find
a route to Asia
3. To spread Christianity around
the world
Developed the caravel a larger,
faster boat (Nina & Pinta)
Sailed to part of African coast.
New Sailing Technology
Sextant
• Determines
latitude of a ship
Caravel
Vasco da Gama
• From
1487
Portugal
• First to sail
to India
around the
tip of Africa
(Cape of
Good
Hope)
Christopher Columbus
• Italian but sailed for Spain
• Did NOT discover US
• 4 voyages to the New World (1st
voyage sailed w/Nina, Pinta, and Santa
Maria)
• Landed on San Salvador & Hispaniola
• 3rd voyage landed on main land of
Venezuela
• Mistreated native population, many
died from disease
The exchange of plants, animals, and
ideas between Europe and the Americas.
The Columbian Exchange
• Opened interaction opened between
the Old (Europe, Asia, and Africa) and
New Worlds (the Americas)
• Named after Christopher Columbus
• Most significant item traded:
DISEASE! (50%-90% of Native
Americans wiped out)
• Crops: maize (corn), potatoes,
tomatoes
Hernan Cortes
• Spanish conquistador
• Took over the Aztecs in Mexico
Francisco Pizarro
• Spanish conquistador
• Helped Vasco de
Balboa “discover” the
Pacific
• Captured Peru and
founded capital city
of Lima
• Assassinated by a
rival
Ferdinand Magellan
• From Portugal but sailed for
Spain
• His crew was the first to
circumnavigate the globe via
South America 1519-1522
• Strait of Magellan
• Killed in the Philippines during
battle
Sir Francis Drake
• Sailed for England
• Completed the same voyage
as Magellan in 1577-1580
• Knighted by Queen Elizabeth
• Fought in the Spanish
Armada
• Died of a fever in Panama
Jacques Cartier
•Sailed for France
•Looked for a northern
route to Asia
•Explored the St. Lawrence
River that allowed France
to lay claims in Canada
The exchange of plants, animals, and
ideas between Europe and the Americas.
Major Impact of the
Columbian Exchange:
Slavery! Why?
Triangular Trade
• An actual trade route
• Makes a triangle:
Step ONE: Europeans take goods to
Africa (guns, ammo, copper, cloth) and
traded for Slaves
Step TWO: The MIDDLE PASSAGE
(slaves traded in Caribbean for sugar,
rum)
Step THREE: sugar, rum, and other raw
materials traded back in Europe...
Triangle Trade
The Commercial Revolution
• Period of European economic
expansion which began in the 16th
century
• Started with Europe’s discovery of
the New World
• Trade routes grew transforming the
European continent
• Europe changed from a local
economy to a global one.
• Led to mercantilism
Mercantilism
• An economic practice
adopted by European
colonial powers in an effort
to become self-sufficient
• Based on the theory that
colonies existed for the
benefit of the mother
country
Rules of Mercantilism
• Colonies were only allowed to
import from or export to the
European country that governed
them.
• All the goods produced by the colony
went to the mother country and then
the mother country would sell to
other countries at a huge mark-up.
• The colony got nothing. Everything
went to the mother country.
Mercantilism