European Exploration

Reasons for European Exploration

Resources and Fertile Land

Beginning with the Portuguese in the 1200s, the search for new resources to exploit and lands to cultivate commenced.

Portuguese sailors ventured far away from the coasts into the open Atlantic Ocean. They initially sought fish, seals, whales, timber, and lands where they could grow wheat.

By the 1300s, the Portuguese discovered the Azores, Madeira's Islands, and the Canary Islands, all of which had a climate ripe for Sugar cultivation. By the 1400s, Portuguese mariners established sugar plantations on many Atlantic islands.

Continuing Portuguese voyages also led to plantations on southern Atlantic islands such as Cape Verde, Sao Tome, and Principe.

Soon, other European nations, such as Spain and the Netherlands, followed the Portuguese example.

Controlling the Trade Market

In the early years of exploring new lands and resources (this would change after the rediscovery of the “New World”) the most desirable goal was establishing maritime trade routes to the markets of Asia.

By the 14th century, the wealthy classes of Europe regarded Asian spices, such as Indian pepper, Chinese ginger, cloves, and nutmeg, as expensive necessities. Merchants and European Monarchs realized that by offering direct access to Asian markets and eliminating Muslim intermediaries in Cairo and Constantinople, new maritime trade routes would increase quantities of spices and other Asian goods and create enormous profits.

Spreading Christianity

Christianity also drove Europeans into the larger world. Christianity is a missionary religion, as The New Testament specifically urged Christians to spread their faith.

Often peaceful, efforts to spread faith during the era of Mongol empires had traveled overland as far as India, Central Asia, and China. Yet the expansion of Christianity was by no means always a peaceful affair. In the 11th century, western Europeans launched a series of crusades and holy wars against the Muslims in Palestine, the Mediterranean, and Iberia (Spain).

Country

Explorers

Voyages

Portugal

Bartolomeu Dias

(1486-1488) Sails down Africa's west coast and round the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean.

Vasco da Gama

(1497-1499) Rounds the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean, sails up the east coast of Africa establishes a route to India and returns to Portugal.

Pedro Alvares Cabral

(1500 - 1501) Credited with the European discovery of Brazil in 1500, it embarks from Brazil to India.

Spain

Christopher Columbus

(1492-1493) Credited for the European discovery of the “New World”, and conducted several voyages around the Caribbean and Central America.

Hernan Cortez

(1519) Spanish conquistador credited with conquering the Aztec empire in present-day Mexico and claiming the territory for Spain.

Francisco Pizarro

(1532-1533) Spanish conquistadors are credited with conquering the Incan empire and claiming much of western South America for Spain.

Ferdinand Magellan (and Juan Elcano)

(1519-1522) He began a voyage to circumnavigate the planet. Magellan is killed during the journey, and Juan Elcano returns to Spain, having completed the journey with only 1 of 5 ships and 18 of 270 men surviving.

England

John Cabot

(1497) Credited with the earliest exploration of North America, in three voyages, in present-day Newfoundland.

Henry Hudson

(1607-1608, 1610) Hired by English merchants, Hudson conducted two expeditions of discovery under the English flag. The first was to find a northern passage to the Pacific Ocean, which led to his exploration of the eastern and north Canadian coasts and Greenland.

France

Giovanni de Verrazzano

(1524) Credited as the first European to explore the east coast of North America from present-day Florida and New York.

Netherlands (Dutch)

Henry Hudson

(1609) Between his voyages for England, the Dutch East India Company hired Hudson to sail north through the Arctic Ocean to connect with Asia; barred by Ice and his experience in the previous journey, Hudson decided to attempt to find a westward passage through North America. His voyage leads him to explore much of the mid-Atlantic region of the east coast of North America, from present-day Cape Cod to the Chesapeake Bay.

Effects on the New World

Effects on the Old World

• Spread of Old-World diseases to the indigenous populations

• The exchange, over time, of goods, crops, animals, and ideas between Europeans and the Indigenous people

• Introduction of the horse and other beasts of burden.

• Introduction of muskets, rifles, and gunpowder

• Collapse or conquer of significant civilizations such as the Aztecs and Inca

• Influence of European economic systems

• Spread of Christianity

• The exchange, over time, of goods, crops, animals, and ideas between Europeans and the Indigenous peoples

• Growing power and wealth among European Nations

• Increase in International Trade

• The beginnings of mercantilism and the Atlantic trade networks

• Competition between nations to control more colonies and increased militarism

• A growing need for raw materials

• Steady increase for enslaved labor as markets grew due to trade.