Studied by 5 peopleTags & Description
How did the exploration transform Europe
It transformed them from the solely agrarian Middle Ages to a commercial capitalist system
European centers of trade pre-exploration were in...
The Mediterranean
Venice during the Medieval period
became very wealthy/powerful - had an excellent navy, dominated the Mediterranean and Asian trade in slaves and luxury goods like silk and spices, played an important role in exploration of the New World; management of commercial enterprises (Sugar Plantations)
The Three G's of the Exploration (main motivations)
God - the desire to spread Catholicism (it was the 1400s so Protestantism didn't exist yet), Glory - the rise of nation states and competition for empires & trade, Gold - used to refer to general economic drive for exploration
Primary motive for the European Exploration
Economic
New Technologies for the Age of Exploration
Compasses for direction; quadrant and astrolabe for latitude; Portuguese Caravel: lighter/faster, can sail into the wind; Stern-post rudder: change direction; Lateen sail and rope riggings: efficiently maneuvered
Military technology of the Exploration
Horses, guns, gunpowder, and canons for protection against hostile ships and domination of indigenous peoples
Motives for the Portuguese exploration
Economic: sought all-water route to Asia (particularly India) to access and control the spice trade Religious: sought to find the mythical Prester John (a Christian king somewhere in the East) for an alliance against Muslims
Portolani (Maps)
Nautical charts
Prince Henry the Navigator
Set up a school of navigation for mariners in Portugal in 1419, financed expeditions along western African coast - led to slavery, Gold was found in West Africa (Gold Coast)
Portugal was the first European nation to dominate...
African slavery
Bartolomeu Dias (1450-1500)
Portuguese explorer who led an expedition to find a route to the Spice Islands around Africa; got to the Cape of Storms (eventually renamed it the Cape of Good Hope) but his crew threatened mutiny so they turned back; Proved that there was a route around Africa
Vasco de Gama (1496-1525)
First Portuguese explorer to get to India, brought back Indian goods (led to huge demand in Europe and was a huge blow to Italian monopoly of trade with Asia)
Admiral Alfonso de Albuquerque
A Portuguese explorer who destroyed Arab shipping and established Goa as the Portuguese headquarters; Conquered Malacca - brought an army, often slaughtered the Arab population and cut off the ears, limbs, & noses of men and women as a sign to not trade with them
Pedro Cabral
Claimed Brazil for Portugal in 1500
Amerigo Vespucci
Florentine navigator who explored Brazil and was perhaps the first European to realize that he had been to a new continent in the New World; America/the Americas were named after him due to his false claim in his letters that he was the first to see South America (Cabral had really done it a year earlier)
Christopher Columbus (1451-1506)
Italian explorer who sailed for Spain - sailed to the west; reached the Bahamas in 1492 thinking that he had found the Indies (West of India); made 4 expeditions that charted most of the major Caribbean islands and Honduras
Why did Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain finance Columbus' voyage
So they could compete with Portuguese expansion and because Columbus promised to convert anyone he encountered on the way to Catholicism
Treaty of Tordesillas (1494)
An agreement signed by the pope which declared that lands to the west of an imaginary line in the Atlantic Ocean belonged to Spain (most of the New World) and lands to the east of the line belong to Portugal (African slave trade and Brazil) - Spain got the better half
Vasco Nunez de Balboa
First European to reach Pacific via Isthmus of Panama (1513)
Ferdinand Magellan
Credited as the first to circumnavigate the globe (1519-1521) - didn't actually make it all the way around, was killed by the natives in the Philippines; charted the enormous size of the Pacific Ocean
Who best exemplifies Spanish conquests in the New World and why
Cortez - he demolished the Aztec empire with the help of smallpox and superior weapons
Conquistador
A Spanish conqueror of the Americas; they began creating Spain's New World by conquering indigenous people and colonizing territory
Francisco Pizarro
Spanish conquistador who conquered the Incan Empire by using internal conflicts (civil war) to his advantage
Encomienda System
Economic and social system that permitted Spaniards to collect tribute from natives and use them as laborers on plantations; Motive was for the Spanish gov. to reduce exploitation of indigenous people in the Spanish Empire, but laws against exploitation were poorly enforced - the system was basically slavery
Bartolome de Las Casas
A priest who wrote "A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies" to call out Encomienda system - helped to give Spain a reputation for misusing Christianity to kill natives, which Protestants often used in their arguments against Catholicism (even though they did the same thing)
What happened after Encomienda ended?
Colonizers/Spaniards started looking to African slavery
What was the first European nation to settle in south Africa
Dutch Republic
Dutch East India Company
Government-chartered joint-stock company that controlled the spice trade in the East Indies; Sought to end influence of Portuguese in Africa and Spice Islands, set up a base in southern Africa to supply food and materials to ships en route to the Spice Island
Boers
Dutch farmers who settled in southern Africa
Results of Portugal introducing slavery to Brazil to farm the sugar plantations
Due to demand and need for large quantities of labor for sugar plantations in Brazil and Caribbean Islands, by 1800 Africans made of 60% of Brazil's population and 20% of the U.S. population
How did sugar plantations fuel the slave trade?
Lots of labor went into working sugar plantations, which caused to a low life expectancy for slaves leading to their continued exploitation because they were rapidly replaced as they died
What was fundamentally the basis of the New World economy?
Slavery, particularly sugar plantations
Triangular Trade
A three way system of trade during 1600-1800s - Africa sent slaves to America; America sent Raw Materials, sugar, tobacco and cotton to Europe; Europe sent Guns and Rum, textiles , and other manufactured goods to Africa
Middle Passage
A voyage that brought enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to North America and the West Indies (bottom leg of Triangular Trade)
Effects of slave trade on Africa
destroyed civilizations, caused depopulation, increased warfare between tribes, introduced gun/gunpowder
Longterm effects of slave trade on Europe
Slavery remained acceptable until Quakers started an abolitionist movement in the 1770s (coincided with Enlightenment); slavery was outlawed by Britain in 1807
What happened to much of Portugal's original conquests
They were mostly seized by France, Spain, or England; they lost the Spice Islands to the Dutch
England and the exploration
They came into exploration relatively late, controlled India (British East India Company), made trade deals with China and had presence in Jamaica
British East India Company
A joint stock company that controlled most of India during the period of imperialism. This company controlled the political, social, and economic life in India for more than 200 years.
English conquests in North America
John Cabot - was sponsored by Henry VII to find alternative route to China, claimed Newfoundland; Henry Hudson - English explorer who sailed for the Dutch, Hudson River and New Netherlands/ New Amsterdam (Dutch were eventually kicked out by the British which changed it to New York); By the end of the 1600s England dominated the Eastern seaboard of the U.S.
First permanent English settlement
Jamestown, Virginia in 1607
Massachusetts Bay Company
combined economic interest and religious freedom; by 1600 had a population of 40,000
French exploration conquests
Parts of India, West Indies, French North America: Jacques Cartier who was in search of Northwestern Passage, first explorer to sail up the St. Lawrence River
Samuel de Champlain
Founded Quebec in 1608
Racial hierarchy of colonial Latin America
1 - Peninsulares (people born in Spain, often 2nd born sons) 2 - Creoles (people of European descent born in the colonies) 3 - Mestizos (people of mixed Native American and European descent) and Mulattoes (people of mixed African and European descent) 4 - Native Americans and people of African descent
Why was it often 2nd born European sons who came to the colonies?
Because the firstborn inherited everything, so the colonies gave 2nd borns a way to make a name for themselves
Catholic missionaries in the New World
Converted by word and by the sword (mostly by the sword), built hospitals and schools
The Columbian Exchange
The exchange of plants, animals, diseases, and technologies between the Americas and the rest of the world following Columbus's voyages In the Americas there was new agriculture, livestock (pigs, goats, sheep, and chickens) as a new source of protein, catastrophic loss of life due to disease and slavery (sugar plantations), smallpox was the biggest killer; Old world contributions included wheat, sugar, rice, coffee; Plains Indians developed horse-based culture (profound impact)
What crop was probably the most significant to the Columbian Exchange and why?
Potatoes because they were a robust crop (they could grow basically anywhere) so they could easily feed and supplement the growing population
Price Revolution
period in European history during the 1500s when inflation rose rapidly due to growth in population that increased demands and an influx of gold and silver from the New World; Inflation stimulated production (producers got more money), prices went up but wages stayed the same, bourgeoisie gained more wealth, landed aristocrats raised rents to prosper, and poor people remained poor
What was most subject to price increases during the Price Revolution
Foodstuffs, particularly wheat as first noticed in the Mediterranean (Spain, Italy, southern France)
How did inflation affect the standard of living in Europe?
It caused a decline in the standard of living for most of Europe, especially wage earners like agricultural laborers and salaried workers in urban areas
Who else benefitted from the price revolution
Commercial and industrial entrepreneurs because of rising prices, expanding markets, and relatively cheap labor costs
What do some historians regard the profit inflation as a stimulus for
the growth of capitalism
What three areas did the flourishing trade of Europe in the 16th century revolve around?
The Mediterranean in the south, the Low Countries and Baltic region in the north, and central Europe whose inland trade depended on the Rhine and Danube Rivers
What happened to these three areas as overseas trade expanded?
The Atlantic seaboard began to link their trading areas together making the whole of Europe more a integrated that was more vulnerable to price shifts
Who came to monopolize European and world trade
The Dutch because of their cheaper and faster ships
joint-stock company
A company made up of a group of shareholders; Each shareholder contributes some money to a company controlled by a board of directors and receives dividends on their investment/some share of the company's profits and debts
Where were enormous profits also being made at this time
In shipbuilding and mining & metallurgy where technological advancements like the use of pumps and new methods of extracting metals from ore proved highly successful
What was the mining industry closely tied to in the 16th century
Family banking firms (Ex: the Fuggers; In exchange for arranging large loans to Charles V, Jacob Fugger was given a monopoly on silver, copper, and mercury mines in Habsburg possessions; Fuggers eventually went bankrupt at the end of the 16th century when the Habsburgs defaulted on their loans); by the 17th century banking firms were no longer able to many sources needed for expanding commercial capitalism and new institutions arose to take their place
Bank of Amsterdam
Created as a deposit and transfer banking institution in the Netherlands & the Amsterdam Bourse/Exchange where the trading of stocks replaced exchange of goods; by the 17th century the Amsterdam Exchange had emerged as the hub of the European business world
Despite the growth of commercial capitalism...
Most of the European economy still depended on agriculture
At least 80% of Europeans still worked on land (serfdom in western Europe was basically gone but many peasants still owed a variety of feudal dues to the nobility)
European peasants saw little to no improvement as they faced increased rent fees and higher prices imposed by the state
Mercantilism
An economic theory that believed
The total volume of trade was unchangeable
States should protect their economies by following certain practices (hoarding precious metals, implementing protectionist trade policies, promoting colonial development, increasing ship building, supporting trading companies, and encouraging the manufacturing of products to be used in trade)
It was desirable to achieve a favorable balance of trade in which exported goods had higher value than imported good (promoted an flux of gold & silver payments)
The prosperity of a nation depended on a plentiful supply of bullion
To encourage exports governments should stimulate a protect export industries in trade by granting trade monopolies, encouraging investment in new industries through subsides, importing foreign artisans, and improving transportation systems by building roads, bridges, and canals
Colonies were valuable sources of raw materials
State intervention in some aspects of the economy was desirable for the sake of the national good (government regulations to ensure superiority of export goods, construction of roads & canals, and the granting of subsidies to create trade companies all came from gov. involvement in economic affairs) The goal was to for nations to be SELF-SUFFICIENT
Bullion
gold and silver
What made transoceanic trade rewarding
the value of goods - the Dutch, English and French were bringing back products from colonies that were still largely consumed by the wealthy but were beginning to make their way into the lives of artisans and merchants
What goods were becoming more readily available to European consumers
Pepper and spices from the Indies, West Indian & Brazilian sugar, and coffee & tea from Asia
Trade within Europe remained strong throughout the 18th century as...
wheat, timber, & naval stores from the Baltic, wines from France, wool & fruit from Spain, and silk from Italy were exchanged (along with many other products) - however this trade only increased slightly while overseas trade boomed
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