Exploration Study Guide
Use your notes, handouts and textbooks to help you answer these questions!
I.
Drivers of Change in First Global Age
 What were the five drivers of change?
 How was the Middle East and Asia ahead of Europe with regards to trade
in the early 1400s?
 How did Marco Polo help Europeans establish trade routes with Asia?
 Why did Europeans need to find a water route to Asia?
 How did the Caravels help European exploration?
 Who was Prince Henry the Navigator?
 Why did Spain look westward to find a route to Asia?
II. European Exploration
 What European nations were in competition for new lands and riches?
 How did the Renaissance encourage exploration?
III. Columbus
 What caused Isabella and Ferdinand to give Columbus funding after
rejecting him twice?
 What two theories inspired Columbus?
 In what year did he sail to the New World?
 Where did he first make landfall? Where did he establish the first
permanent settlement?
 How did Isabella react when Columbus brought back Native Americans to
Spain?
 What was Columbus’ penalty for the native people if they did not find
enough gold?
 What was the biggest threat to the native peoples?
IV. Columbian Exchange
 What is the Columbian Exchange?
 Which Western hemisphere food forms the cornerstone of cuisine in Italy?
 What color dye had peoples of the Americas developed that Europeans
desired? What was it made from?
 Which disease killed 50-90% of the Native American population in the
Western Hemisphere?
 How did the introduction of Christianity, tools, and guns change the lives
of Native Americans in the Western Hemisphere?
II.
Sugar and Slavery
 When did Europeans first develop a love of sugar?
 What is a plantation?
 Why did plantation owners want to find a source of cheap labor?
 Why did Europeans turn to Africa for labor? What role did Bartolome de
las Casas play in African slavery?

What dangers did plantation slaves face?
V. European Rivalry
 How did religious rivalries affect the race for American colonies?
 Why were England, France and Holland looking for a Northwest Passage?
 What did the Dutch and the French profit from in the New World? What
impact did their rivalry have on Native Americans?