THE AGE OF EXPLORATION
SPICE ISLANDS
SPICE ISLANDS
• Objectives:
• Recognize how the desire for spices spurred early
exploration.
• Describe the Arab monopoly over the spice trade
and the involvement of Europeans.
SPICE ISLANDS
• The desire for spices lead to the Age of
Exploration. They were hard for Europeans to
get from Asia, they were also expensive.
Europeans’ desire to find a better way to get
spices from Asia led to the Age of Exploration.
SPICE ISLANDS
Marco Polo was a Venetian
Explorer who encouraged
exploration through
accounts of his travels.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
• Describe Indonesia’s landform?
• Indonesia is an archipelago stretching from the Malay Peninsula in Sourtheast Asia
to Australia. It contains more than 13,000 islands.
• How did the Spice Trade work?
• Arab traders sailed east to trading centers in India, Ceylon, and the Spice Islands.
After loading up with goods, they sailed around the Arabian Peninsula to Egypt,
where they sold their products to Venetian merchants in Cario and Alexandria.
Those merchants traveled back to Italy and sold the spices to Europeans.
• Why did Europeans resent the Venetians?
• They made huge profits on the spices they sold. Monopoly
MOTIVES AND MEANS
• By the mid-1400s, Europeans had several motives for
exploration. For one thing they wanted to gain access
to the spice-growing areas described by Marco Polo.
The Silk Road: an
overland trade route of
nearly 4,000 mountains
and deserts between
Asia and the Arab and
European cities near the
Mediterranean sea.
MOTIVES AND MEANS
Finding their way
Navigators used hourglass and sextant to
know where they were and where they were
going.
MOTIVES AND MEANS
Speed was measured by a log attached to a
rope. The rope had knots tied along it at
regular spaces. The sailor kept count as the
knots slipped through his hands. The
number of knots that were let out was used
to calculate speed.
MOTIVES AND MEANS REVIEW
1. Why were Europeans so eager to explore?
Europeans developed a taste for foreign goods, and they
thought that the prices charged for these by Arabs & Venetians
were too high.
2. What did many Europeans think about the religions of people
in distant lands?
Many felt that it was their duty to spread Christianity to people
who didn’t worship and believe as they did.
3. How did the design of caravels aid in exploration?
They had the sturdiness of the northern ships and the
maneuverability of the southern ships. Their masts were rigged
with lateen sails, hulls were sturdy and ships were large.
Caravel Sails
AN ARAB SECRET
During the Middle Ages, the spice trade was
controlled by the Arabs. Arab traders had
cornered the market.
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Section
Pioneers of the sea
Bartomlomeu Diax
Vasco da Gama
The Portuguese in East Africa
Pedro Alvares Cabral & Brazil
Sailing west to the East Indies
The First Encounter
Triumphant Return
The Treaty of Tordesillas
PORTUGUESE EXPLORATION
Prince Henry the
Navigator provided
leadership for the
Portuguese
exploration in the
1400s.
PORTUGUESE EXPLORATION
Bartolomeu Dias found
El Dorado at the
southern tip of Africa.
He found a route to the
Indian Ocean.
PORTUGUESE EXPLORATION
Vasco da Gama explored
almost the entire coast of
Africa.
PORTUGUESE EXPLORATION
Scurvy – a disease
caused by a lack of
vitamin C, which is
found in fresh fruits
and vegetables.
PORTUGUESE EXPLORATION
Pedro Alvares
Cabral set sail
from Portugal to
India and
discovered Brazil.
REVIEW QUESTIONS FOR PORTUGUESE
EXPLORATION
Who is considered responsible for Portuguese leadership in the ocean?
Prince Henry the Navigator, who had a strong desire to explore the oceans. He helped
design ships, draw maps, and teach navigation skills.
What did Bartolomeu Dias accomplish?
He found the route that led to the Indian Ocean when he traveled around the southern tip
of Africa, or what is now known as the Cape of Good Hope.
What challenges did Vasco da Gama encounter?
He ran into trouble with Arab traders in Mombasa and Mozambique who tried to seize
their ships.
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
Christopher Columbus
discovered the
Bahamas.
He called the people he
encountered Indians
because he thought he
had reached the East
Indies.
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
The royal standard is a
monarch’s flag.
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
The Treaty of Tordesillas
divided the land in the
western hemisphere
between Spain and
Portugal.
REVIEW FOR CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
What was Columbus’s goal on his first voyage?
He wanted to prove that you could reach East Asia by sailing west,
Did Columbus achieve his goal?
No, he didn’t know that the Americas stood between Europe and the East.
Although he though the land he reached was the Indies, it was in fact the
Bahamas.
What was the Treaty of Tordesillas?
An agreement between Spain and Portugal. All land west of an imaginary line
drawn from the North Pole to the South Pole. Everything west belonged to
Spain, and all the land east could be claimed by Portugal. Neither country
was to occupy any territory already in the hands of a Christian ruler.
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Section
After Columbus & The Conquistadors
Encomiendas & Bartolome de Las Casas
Ferdinand Magellan
Finding the strait
Jon Cabot & The Northwest Passage
Sir Francis Drake
The Spanish Armada
Building Colonies
Pursuing the Spice Trade
A SPANISH EMPIRE AND ITS CRITICS
Encomiendas were land
and labor grants that the
Spaniards set up to
encourage settlers in their
newly conquered lands.
Vasco Nunez de Balboah
A SPANISH EMPIRE AND IT’S CRITICS
Bartolome de Las Casas
Was a Spanish
missionary who tried to
end the enslavement of
Indians.
REVIEW OF A SPANISH EMPIRE AND IT’S
CRITICS
How was Hispaniola’s native population affected by European arrival?
In 20 years after the arrival of the Spaniards, the native population of Hispaniola went from one
million to 30,000. Most died from diseases brought by the Europeans.
Who opposed brutality against and enslavement of Indians? What was the system instituted by the
Spanish that encouraged enslavement.
Bartolome de Las Casas opposed these behaviors. The encomienda system encouraged
enslavement.
MAGELLAN’S VOYAGE
Magellan visited Canada,
Philippines, and the Pacific
Ocean.
Magellan found the
narrow strait near the
southern tip of South
America.
MAGELLAN’S VOYAGE
Circumnavigate
To travel
completely
around
something (as
the earth)
especially by
water.
REVIEW FOR MAGELLAN’S VOYAGE
What were the first disappointments on Magellan’s expedition?
The boats in Magellan’s feet began leaking, and a mutiny occurred only a week into the three-month
journey that took the fleet to the coast of Brazil.
What happened when Magellan and his crew reached the strait near the southern tip of South
America?
They tried to navigate the strait, but tall cliffs and violent tides made it difficult. It took more than a
month for the fleet to past through strait, and the crew of one ship mutinied.
What was the most important achievement of Magellan’s voyage?
His sailors sailed all the way around the world.
ENGLAND EXPLORES AND COLONIZES
John Cabot was one
of the first to seek the
Northwest Passage to
the Indies.
ENGLAND EXPLORES AND COLONIZES
The first English colony
in North Americas was
Roanoke Island.
The first permanent
English settlement in
North America was
Jamestown, Virginia.
ENGLAND EXPLORES AND COLONIZES
Explorers of North America
Giovanni da Verrazano
Jacques Cartier
Henry Hudson
ENGLAND EXPLORES AND COLONIZES
Jacques Cartier’s big mistake was he didn’t
realize that the Gulf of St. Lawrence was the
outlet of a great river.
Cartier claimed Louisiana,
Canada around Montreal,
and the Great Lakes for France.
REVIEW – ENGLAND EXPLORES AND
COLONIZES
What was John Cabot trying to find on his expedition?
A northwesterly route to the Spice Islands.
What new areas did Sir Frances Drake explore?
He sailed up the west coast of North and South America, all the way to Canada.
What was an imaginative battle tactic used by Drake during the Spanish Armada?
Drake and his “sea dogs” lit small ships on fire and sent them into the Spanish battle
formations. This scared the Spaniards, who broke formation because they were afraid the
ships were loaded with gunpowder and would blow up. The plan worked.
REVIEW – ENGLAND EXPLORES AND
COLONIZES
When and where was the first English colony founded on the North America, and who
founded it?
The first English colony was founded by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1585 on Roanoke Island off
the coast of North Carolina.
Who helped colonists at Jamestown to survive, and what crop did they teach the colonists
how to grow?
Indians taught the colonists how to grow tobacco, a crop native to North America.
FRANCE AND THE FUR TRADE
The king hired Giovanni da
Verrazano to explore North
America and look for a
passage to the east. He
was the first European to
sail up the Atlantic Coast of
the present day United
States.
FRANCE AND THE FUR TRADE
CartographerMapmaker
FRANCE AND THE FUR TRADE
The growth of
the fur trade
got France
interested in
building
colonies in the
land called
New France.
FRANCE AND THE FUR TRADE REVIEW
Who was the first European to sail up the Atlantic coast of America? What
important area did he find?
Verrazano ~ New York Harbor
Cartier made three trips to the New World. What areas did he explore?
Newfoundland, the St., the St. Lawrence River
How did French fur traders interact with the Indians?
The French made alliances with some Indians and helped them in their wars with
the rivals.
DUTCH TRADE
Henry Hudson
Sailed up a river
into what is now
New York State
and also found a
huge inland sea in
Canada.
DUTCH TRADE REVIEW
Where did the Dutch set up their main trade center? Why was this location significant?
On the island of Java in present-day Indonesia: it was close to the spices of the Molucca
Islands.
What sneaky tactics did the Dutch use to control the spice trade?
The Dutch carefully controlled the amount of spices available, sometimes destroying large
amounts of a spice if too much was available. They soaked nutmeg in lime juice to prevent
customers from growing their own.
What area did Henry Hudson explore?
The Hudson River, Hudson Bay in Canada.
SLAVERY
Europeans did not
invent slavery, but they
did use their power and
wealth to spread it on
such a vast scale that it
changed the lives of
millions of people.
SLAVERY
SLAVERY
SLAVERY
The Middle
Passage was
the trip from
Africa to the
Americas that
slaves were
forced to make.
REVIEW ~ SLAVERY
When did slaves first appear in present-day America?
In 1619, a Dutch ship arrived in Virginia and traded slaves on board for some food.
Why wasn’t slavery as popular in the colonies in the Northeast as in the South?
In the Northeast, the soil was not very good, and the winters were cold. These
conditions were not ideal for growing cash crops, so there was not need for a large
labor force.
What were conditions like on slave ships?
Slave ships were crowded and filthy. Slaves were not given enough room; they were
chained in place; temperatures in the hold were extremely hot; slaves were fed rice
and water and occasionally allowed up on deck for exercise; disease spread easily.