By the time the Black Death had stopped tormenting the people in Europe, and the
Renaissance was beginning to revive the Europeans passions for art and literature, science and
trade were also becoming much larger priorities to many people. At the time of the 15th century,
traders still had to load wagons and travel the Silk Road, thousands of miles from Europe to India
and China, and then back again. These caravans were large, expensive, and vulnerable to attack
by robbers, forcing the merchants to pay small armies themselves just to protect them. They
also had to pay wagon drivers, and feed the animals. All of this cut into the profits they would
make by trading goods between India and Europe. Ships, on the other hand, did not require any
food, and could not normally be attacked by robbers. Ships could also be quite large, making it
so that they could carry massive quantities of goods in a single trip.
There be Dragons (and other sailor’s stories)
The problem in the 1400’s, was that all ships sail with the wind, and were unable to sail
around Africa because the wind would blow against them. The only solution was to sail into the
ocean, something very few Europeans
were willing to do, since ships that
went into the ocean never came back.
Sailors
became
extremely
superstitious and believed that the
world ended and you could sail right of
the edge of the map, falling forever off
the earth. They also began to believe
in tales of sea monsters that would
destroy ships. In reality, the reason
Photo credit: blogspot.com
Sea monsters, as the ones seen on this map,
why the ships never came back was were
common on old maps, since many sailors believed that large monsters lived in
because they were too small, and the
the oceans to destroy all passing ships.
large storms that start in the ocean would overwhelm the small ships and destroy them. Since
nobody ever survived to tell the sailors the truth, they made up their own explanations for what
was happening.
Cristoforo Colombo
Known in America as Christopher Columbus, he was the first European to be prove that
there was a way to successfully sail across the Atlantic Ocean. Beside large ships, Columbus also
needed a way to tell where he was on the ocean. A new technology, called an astrolabe, allowed
sailors to calculate their position on the earth based on the stars. Since the stars don’t change
positions, they can be used as a map, making navigation on the ocean possible. He became
convinced that he would be able to find a faster way to get to India if he sailed west through the
Atlantic Ocean rather than going east, around Africa. Obviously, Columbus’ belief went against
the superstitious beliefs of his sailors. In 1492, Columbus succeeded in convincing Queen Isabella
of Spain to pay for his trip to India. Columbus left with 3 ships and began to sail west. After
weeks in the ocean, seeing no land, Columbus’ sailors were becoming nervous and wanted to
turn around. Just days before they mutinied and took control of the ship, land was spotted.
In his mind, Columbus had proved that the
world was round, you couldn’t sail off the end of the
map, and there was a much faster way to India. He
named the land he found the West Indies, and
began to call the indigenous people he found there
“Indians” since he was sure he had found India.
Columbus returned to Spain with proof of his
discovery, beginning a new era of sea exploration by
the European nations. He would take several more
trips to the “West Indies,” but Columbus would die
never realizing that his “West Indies” were actually
almost 10,000 miles away from India, and he had
actually discovered a new continent.
Vasco da Gama
Photo credit: Wikipedia.org
This map shows a map made in
1474 by a mapmaker named Toscanelli. The darker shaded regions
of the map are what he believed the world looked like. The light
outline of the Americas is added to show what the world actually
looked like. It was maps like this that led Columbus to believe that he
had found India on his trips.
Since Columbus never actually did discover a sea route to India, that honor actually goes
to a Portuguese explorer named Vasco da Gama. Da Gama successfully navigated a ship around
Africa and through the Indian Ocean all the way to India in 1497-1499. In order to make it to the
southern tip of Africa, da Gama had to follow the South Atlantic winds which took him almost to
South America. This trip took almost 3 months and 6,000 miles without seeing land. Depleted
of supplies, da Gama began to raid other
traders’ ships, stealing their supplies. Since
his ships had better technology, called
cannons that made them more powerful,
these raids were very successful. When he
finally arrived in India, da Gama did not have
enough goods to convince the local prince
that he was representing a European king,
and therefore was not taken seriously. Da
Gama ignored local sailor’s advice not to leave
Photo credit: Wikipedia.org
The map above shows the route taken during the winter because the winds were bad
by da Gama to reach India (Outward Route.) The arrows show how the winds
impacted the routes that Europeans had to take since their ships relied on sails to sail in the direction he wanted, and as a
and wind power.
result, it took him 4 months to reach Africa.
So many of his sailors were sick or dead that da Gama had to abandon one of his ships. When he
finally made it back to Portugal, almost 2 years after he had first left the country, despite the fact
that he had lost one of his three ships and half of his men, da Gama was a hero. He returned to
India a few years later with a large army which had better technologies like cannons and muskets,
and began to force the indigenous people to trade with him.
Reading Comprehension questions:
1. Why was it better to trade using ships than caravans?
2. What role did technological advancement play in making the Europeans successful in exploring and conquering?
3. What was the map that navigators like Columbus used when they were sailing on the ocean?
Write about it.
Pretend you just made it to India with Vasco da Gama on his 1 st journey to India. Write a letter home to
your parents telling them what your trip was like.