1371-1435
Each ship was 400’ long and 160’ wide!

In 1498, Da Gama reached Calcutta,
China’s favorite port!

1.
Islam & the Spice Trade  INDIA
2.
A New Player

Europe
Marco Polo, 1271
Expansion becomes a state enterprise
 monarchs had the authority & the resources.
Better seaworthy ships.
3.
Chinese Admiral Zheng He & the
Ming “Treasure Fleet”

Motives for European Exploration
1.
Crusades
 by-pass intermediaries to get to Asia.
2.
Renaissance  curiosity about other lands and peoples.
3.
Reformation  refugees & missionaries.
4.
Monarchs seeking new sources of revenue.
5.
Technological advances.
6.
Fame and fortune .

OR MORE SIMPLY
PUT…….
• GOD !
• GOLD !
• GLORY !

New Maritime Technologies
Better Maps [Portulan]
Hartman Astrolabe
(1532)
Mariner’s Compass
Sextant

A Map of the Known
World, pre- 1492

School for Navigation, 1419

1.
Exploring the west coast of A frica.
2.
Setting up Trading Posts/Rest stations the Entire T ime
3.
Bartolomeo Dias, 1487 1 st to get around tip of A frica… (Cape of Good
Hope)
4.
Vasco da Gama, 1498 1 st
India to city of Calcutta. to get to

Other Voyages of
Exploration

[1451-
1506]

Columbus’ Four Voyages

The “Columbian Exchange”
 Squash
 Turkey
 Cocoa
 Peanut
 Avocado
 Pumpkin
 Pineapple



Peppers
Tobacco
Cassava
 TOM ATO  Vanilla
 Syphilis
 Sweet Potatoes
 Quinine
 POTATO
 M AIZE
 Olive
 Onion
 Grape
 Citrus Fruits
 Cattle
 Flu
 Diptheria
 COFFEE BEAN  Banana
 Turnip  Honeybee
 Peach
 Pear
 SUGAR
CANE
 W heat


Sheep
Typhus
 W hooping Cough
 Pigs
 Measles
 Trinkets
 Liquor
 GUNS
 Rice
 Barley
 Oats
 HORSE
 Smallpox
 Malaria

Ferdinand Magellan & the
First Circumnavigation of the World:
Early 16 c

Atlantic Explorations
Looking for “El Dorado”

The Treaty of Tordesillas,
1494 &
The Pope’s Line of Demarcation

Cycle of Conquest &
Colonization
Explorers
Official
European
Colony!

The First Spanish
Conquests:
The Aztecs vs.
Fernando Cortez Montezuma II

The Death of Montezuma
II

• 1519 Cortes able to take over with only 600 men.
• Thought Cortes was some sort of
God
• 3 advantages of Spaniards:
– Superior Weapons (Gunpowder)
– Help of Native Rival Tribes
– Diseases (Smallpox and Measles)

The First Spanish
Conquests:
The Incas vs.
Francisco Pizarro Atahualpa

• Stretched from Southern Mexico to Northern
Central America
• 1200 B.C. – 400 B.C. Greatest Times
• Trade linked their states together. Cacao
( Chocolate Bean) main currency
• Slash and Burn Agriculture
• Polytheistic
• Made Human Sacrifices; Pierced own bodies to make blood sacrifices
• Most Advanced writing
• Wrote in Hieroglyphics
• Mysteriously Disappear!

Forced policy of the
Spanish Empire in the New
World
1.
Encomienda or forced labor.
2.
T hought to be a good source of labor, but too many Natives die of diseases.
3.
W here will the Spaniards get someone to do the backbreaking work for them?

Slaves Working in a
Brazilian Sugar Mill

Treasures from the Americas!

The Slave Trade
1.
Existed in A frica before the coming of the
Europeans.
2.
Portuguese replaced European slaves with
A fricans.
Sugar cane & sugar plantations.
First boatload of A frican slaves brought by the
Spanish in 1518.
275,000 enslaved A fricans exported to other countries.
3.
Between 16 c & 19 c , about 10 million A fricans shipped to the Americas.

The Colonial Class System
Peninsulares
Creoles
Mestizos Mulattos
Native Indians Black Slaves

• Peninsulare Spaniard born in Spain
• Creole - Pure blooded Spaniard born in colony
• MestizoMixed blooded Spanish and
Native
• Mulatto - Mixed blooded Spanish and
African
• African Slaves
• Native Americans

“Middle Passage”

African Captives
Thrown Overboard
Sharks followed the slave ships!

European Empires in the
Americas

The Influence of the
Colonial Catholic Church
Guadalajara Cathedral
Spanish Mission
Our Lady of
Guadalupe

Father Bartolome de Las Casas
New Laws  1542

New Colonial Rivals
1.
Portugal lacked the numbers and wealth to dominate trade in the Indian Ocean.
2.
Spain in Asia  consolidated its holdings in the Philippines.
3.
First English expedition to the Indies in
1591.
Surat in NW India in 1608.
4.
Dutch arrive in India in 1595.

New Colonial Rivals

Impact of European Expansion
1.
Native populations ravaged by disease.
2.
Influx of gold, and especially silver, into Europe created an inflationary economic climate.
[ “Price Revolution” ]
3.
New products introduced across the continents [“Columbian
Exchange”].
4.
Deepened colonial rivalries.

5. New Patterns of World
Trade