Exploration Map
Exploration
• 1400s Europeans (first – Spain & Portugal) began
exploring in search for trade route to Asia
– Purpose: gold, glory, and God (spread Christianity)
• Caraval: new and improved
Ships (could sail fast & carried
roughly 130 tons of cargo)
Christopher Columbus
• 1492 (Italian but
sailed for Spain) in
search of an alternative
trade route to Asia (he
went west instead of
east)
• Landed in the
Caribbean (the
Bahamas) instead
(thought he was in
India) –he was looking
for gold
Gold, Silver
Corn, potatoes, beans, vanilla,
chocolate, pineapple, avocado
Tobacco, turkey
Wheat, sugar, rice, onion, coffee,
grapes, coffee
Horses, cows, pigs, sheep, honeybees
Small pox, measles, bubonic plague,
influenza, typhus, scarlet fever,
whooping cough
Enslaved Africans, malaria
Success
Failure
•1519 he set sail
for Spain
•First to
circumnavigate
the world (sail
around), but he
died during
voyage
• Proved world
was round
Hernando Cortes
•Spanish conquistador
(conqueror)
• Created Spanish
colonies in Mexico,
South America, & U.S.
• Went to conquer
Aztecs when he heard
of their wealth
• Cortes defeated with
guns, steel swords, ,
horses, and cannon
• Aztecs lost due to
smallpox outbreak
Smallpox
Francisco Pizarro-1532
• 1532—
Conquered the
Incas
• Captured the
Inca king; kept
the ransom $$,
then strangled
the king to
death
Vasco Da Gama
• Sailed around tip of
Africa to India (no
longer had to travel by
land)
• Came home with
spices, rare silks,
precious gems
The Atlantic Slave Trade
• Problem—finding enough workers able to survive
harsh working conditions in the colonies
• Solution-Slave Trade from Africa
• Slave Trade took away as many 15 million African
men and women over the next 300 years
Effects of Exploration
• The slave trade = 1600s European territories in the Americas
were based on agricultural that required laborers
– enslaved Africans planted and harvested sugar, tobacco, and
coffee (also worked silver mines)
– Africans were a better source of forced labor than native
Americans because they were strangers in America so they had
no allies nor could they hide
Slave Trade
• Triangular trade = sailed from Europe, Africa, to the
Americas
• Middle Passage = slave’s journey from Africa to the
Americas (b/c it was the “middle leg” of the triangle)
– Each slave was in a space of 4-5 ft. long, 2-3 ft. high/
chained together—could not stand nor lie at full length
– Many died of suffocating or disease
– 10-24 million brought over/ 1 in 5 died on journey
• Effects: gun brought to Africa; African tribes selling
enemy tribe members into slavery
Capturing Africans
Slave Ship
Auction
Triangular Trade
Effects:
1. Encouraged African warfare
2. Disrupted African Culture
3. Exchange of ideas and beliefs
Commercial Revolution p. 500
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Page # in Notebook_________
Define the following:
Commercial Revolution
Capitalism
Joint stock company
Mercantilism
Favorable balance of trade
Role of colonies in mercantilism
What changes happened in Europe as a result of
the Commercial Revolution?
Commercial Revolution
• exploration of land expanded Europe’s economy
• Nations were competing for markets and trade goods
• Extremely expensive to fund a voyage so…
• Joint-stock companies = merchants combined their $$ to
invest in exploration; sold stocks in the venture to enable
investors to share in the profits and risks of a voyage
– Funded the colonies in the Americas
Commerical Rev. Cont.
• Entrepreneurs = individuals who used $, ideas, raw
materials, and labor to make goods and profits
• Mercantilism = theory that said a state’s power
depended on its wealth (every nation’s goal was to
attain $)
• Balance of Trade = difference between what a
nation imports and exports (nations wanted to
export more than import)