the age of exploration essay

The Age of Exploration Essay

Introduction, factors that favored exploration, key figures in exploration, the diminishing of the age of exploration, the importance of the age of exploration to geography.

Bibliography

Exploration had begun long before Christopher Columbus started off. Some studies indicate that the European explorers had discovered the New World before Columbus did in 1492. They note that the explorers of Viking Norsemen had already settled in northeast Canada around 1000 A.D. However, the exploration, or the settlement of the Viking Norsemen, had little effects on the lives of the Native Americans because these explorers soon sailed back across the Atlantic and to Europe.

After the age of the Viking Norsemen explorations, the Age of Exploration started at around the fifteenth century until the seventeenth century. Occasionally, some historians refer to this period as the Age of Discovery. It refers to the period when “Europeans began exploring the world by sea in search of trading partners, new goods, and new trade routes”. 1 Other Europeans wanted to discover much information about the new world. The pieces of information these explorers gathered during this period have been useful in enhancing geographical knowledge and understanding the world. We can only attribute this period with advancement and discoveries in human history.

Most individual explorers got sponsorship from their own countries. The states wanted to explore and establish themselves in the New World. Every territory the explorers discovered was claimed by the nations as their own, which is the main contribution of the explorers in the wide context during this period. The nations that sponsored their explorers included Spain, England, Portugal, Netherland, and France among others.

European explorers became the leading players in the discovery of the New World. There were a number of factors that favored their exploration efforts which included the following.

First, growth of commerce and towns in European nations gave incentives for explorations. Europeans looked for goods and luxuries such as spices and gold from Asian countries. They also wanted to show their cultures to others in foreign land. The development of towns led to changes in lifestyles as secular topics dominated, and geography and humanism were among them. Explorers wanted to challenge the existing knowledge in geography.

Second, we can also attribute explorations to the religious fervor in Europe. Most of the explorers, including Christopher Columbus, Magella, and Vasco da Gama, were Christians who believed in God’s guidance during their journeys. They believed that it was their obligation to spread Christianity and win converts in the new land. Europeans also had the notion that the world was their property. 2

Third, European explorers also found favors in the geographical locations of their countries. The extreme end position allowed ease of access to the East, which also encouraged trade among numerous middlemen. We can remember Ottoman Empire for establishing such strong trade routes with the East.

Some of the disadvantaged European nations had incentives to find new trade routes to the Far East because Muslim nations tended to dominate European trade. Europe also had a strategic position for exploring both Africa and other Asian countries. Still, they had the opportunities of setting voyage across Atlantic Ocean to America.

Fourth, the growth of the ship and navigation technologies encouraged Europeans to set voyages and discover the New World. The development of a compass gave sailors certainties regarding their directions. They could also calculate the latitude through the North Star and the sun using quadrants, astrolabes, and cross staff.

Technological innovations also led to the invention of a chronometer for even more accurate measurements. The ship development improved with varieties of choices and strong options to resist rocking and strong winds and waves. Shipwrights could choose from Mediterranean or Atlantic styles. Ships also had stern rudder and clinker-built hulls.

Maps also played significant roles in explorations. The medieval maps had little to offer explorers. However, there were advanced improvements in maps showing locations and coastal lines. Still, such maps (portolan charts) could only serve Europe. Most sailors used lore to guide their routes. They could read the movements of birds, observe changes in color of the water, vegetation, and skies. It was not until 1500 when some decent maps came along, but sailors guarded their information. 3

The governments of different nations had interests in foreign and new lands. Consequently, they funded and provided supplies for explorers willing to explore new areas. Explorers also had personal curiosities and interests to explore and discover unknown places.

Trade in luxury goods also encouraged exploration. During this very period, nations were interested in luxury goods like gold, silk, and spices among others. Most of these nations’ interests were to find new trade routes for luxury commodities. During the period of Ottoman Empire, Europeans had no access to most areas in the Far East. This action restricted European trade with the Far East.

People from Portugal were the first known explorers under Prince Henry, the Navigator during The Age of Exploration. These explorers traveled many and across wide areas. This is the time when sailors depended on portolan charts which only showed coastlines near land.

This implies that earlier explorers never had the opportunities of sailing away from the coastlines. However, Portuguese explorers moved further “into the sea and discovered island like the Azores in 1427”. 4 Portuguese explorers also had interests in West Africa, but they needed alternative routes so as to avoid the Sahara Desert.

Christopher Columbus was also famous during the Age of Exploration. Columbus’ interest was in establishing a trade route to Far East through trade routes in the west. The voyage landed him in America in 1492. Columbus shared the information with the rest of European nations. Pedro Cabral of Portugal followed and explored Brazil. This set the conflict between Portugal and Spain in claiming the new land and led to the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494. 5

There were also Captain Cook that went to Alaska mapping new areas and Ferdinand Magellan who tried to go “around the world in his attempts to establish trade route to Asia from the Northwest Passage”. 6

The Age of Discovery came to an end during the early periods of 17th century. This was the period after increased technological discoveries and easy navigation by Europeans across the globe. Traders established settlements along the coasts of newly discovered areas. This allowed for smooth trade and communication and marked the end of looking for trade routes.

Kidner and others note: “Though the Age of Exploration ended in the 17th century, it did not stop completely during this time”. 7 There were some areas that remained unexplored. These included Africa, some parts of Asia, eastern Australia, Antarctic, and Arctic.

Most of the explorations took place in efforts to find and establish new trade routes. However, the impacts of explorations affected geography significantly. Explorers who traveled to different destinations around the globe acquired new knowledge about the New World. Consequently, these explorers brought back with them this knowledge to Europe.

Explorers also met new people, new land, and new cultures. Such knowledge enlightened Europe about other existing cultures. Later, Europeans wanted to spread their domination to these new people, land, and cultures.

The Age of Exploration improved geographical knowledge in areas of mapping and portolan charts. For instance, Prince Henry the Navigator could sail away from the shorelines using a new nautical chart. This enabled the subsequent sailors to travel away from the land. This also resulted into the creation of the nautical map. It was the effort of explorers like Cabral, Columbus, and De Gama that polished the first nautical map.

The Age of Exploration improved geographical knowledge significantly. A number of people could study new areas and expand the existing knowledge about geography. Therefore, discoveries of the explorers formed the foundation of modern geography.

This period also set the pace for the European colonization and the spread Christianity. Slaves experienced the negative consequences of slavery, such as displacements, wars, starvation, and increased slave trade. Diseases also claimed several lives of slaves. The population of the natives also reduced dramatically as death and displacement resulted in a diminishing number of people.

Europeans also spread their culture of Christianity to other land and people. This made Christianity the world’s largest religion until today. Christianity became the main strategy of colonization Europeans used to capture new territories and form their colonies. 8

Casas Las De, Bartolome. Apologetic History of the Indies (1566): Sources of the West, Volume I. Edited by Mark A. Kishlansky New York: Pearson Longman, 2006.

Columbus, Christopher. Letter from the First Voyage (1493): Sources of the West, Volume I. Edited by Mark A. Kishlansky. New York: Pearson Longman, 2006.

Hugh, Thomas. Rivers of gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire, from Columbus to Magellan. New York: Random House, 2003.

Kidner, Frank et al. “Europe’s Age of Expansion 1450-1550”. Making Europe, People, Politics, and Culture, Volume I to 1790. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2009.

Schneider, Thomas. Brutal journey: the epic story of the first crossing of north America. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Co., 2006.

1 Thomas Schneider, Brutal journey: the epic story of the first crossing of north America (New York, NY: Henry Holt and Co., 2006), 139

2 Christopher Columbus, Letter from the First Voyage (1493): Sources of the West, Volume I, ed. Mark A. Kishlansky (New York: Pearson Longman, 2006), 244-247.

3 Bartolome Casas Las De, Apologetic History of the Indies (1566): Sources of the West, Volume I, ed. Mark A. Kishlansky (New York: Pearson Longman, 2006), 251-255.

4 Thomas Hugh, Rivers of gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire, from Columbus to Magellan (New York: Random House, 2003), 280-289.

5 See note 1 above

6 See note 4 above

7 Frank Kidner et al, “Europe’s Age of Expansion 1450-1550”. Making Europe, People, Politics, and Culture, Volume I to 1790 (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2009), 348-379.

8 See note 7 above

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Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

Europe and the age of exploration.

Salvator Mundi

Albrecht Dürer

The Celestial Map- Northern Hemisphere

Astronomical table clock

Astronomicum Caesareum

Michael Ostendorfer

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James Voorhies Department of European Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

October 2002

Artistic Encounters between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas The great period of discovery from the latter half of the fifteenth through the sixteenth century is generally referred to as the Age of Exploration. It is exemplified by the Genoese navigator, Christopher Columbus (1451–1506), who undertook a voyage to the New World under the auspices of the Spanish monarchs, Isabella I of Castile (r. 1474–1504) and Ferdinand II of Aragon (r. 1479–1516). The Museum’s jerkin ( 26.196 ) and helmet ( 32.132 ) beautifully represent the type of clothing worn by the people of Spain during this period. The age is also recognized for the first English voyage around the world by Sir Francis Drake (ca. 1540–1596), who claimed the San Francisco Bay for Queen Elizabeth ; Vasco da Gama’s (ca. 1460–1524) voyage to India , making the Portuguese the first Europeans to sail to that country and leading to the exploration of the west coast of Africa; Bartolomeu Dias’ (ca. 1450–1500) discovery of the Cape of Good Hope; and Ferdinand Magellan’s (1480–1521) determined voyage to find a route through the Americas to the east, which ultimately led to discovery of the passage known today as the Strait of Magellan.

To learn more about the impact on the arts of contact between Europeans, Africans, and Indians, see  The Portuguese in Africa, 1415–1600 ,  Afro-Portuguese Ivories , African Christianity in Kongo , African Christianity in Ethiopia ,  The Art of the Mughals before 1600 , and the Visual Culture of the Atlantic World .

Scientific Advancements and the Arts in Europe In addition to the discovery and colonization of far off lands, these years were filled with major advances in cartography and navigational instruments, as well as in the study of anatomy and optics. The visual arts responded to scientific and technological developments with new ideas about the representation of man and his place in the world. For example, the formulation of the laws governing linear perspective by Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) in the early fifteenth century, along with theories about idealized proportions of the human form, influenced artists such as Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) and Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519). Masters of illusionistic technique, Leonardo and Dürer created powerfully realistic images of corporeal forms by delicately rendering tendons, skin tissues, muscles, and bones, all of which demonstrate expertly refined anatomical understanding. Dürer’s unfinished Salvator Mundi ( 32.100.64 ), begun about 1505, provides a unique opportunity to see the artist’s underdrawing and, in the beautifully rendered sphere of the earth in Christ’s left hand, metaphorically suggests the connection of sacred art and the realms of science and geography.

Although the Museum does not have objects from this period specifically made for navigational purposes, its collection of superb instruments and clocks reflects the advancements in technology and interest in astronomy of the time, for instance Petrus Apianus’ Astronomicum Caesareum ( 25.17 ). This extraordinary Renaissance book contains equatoria supplied with paper volvelles, or rotating dials, that can be used for calculating positions of the planets on any given date as seen from a given terrestrial location. The celestial globe with clockwork ( 17.190.636 ) is another magnificent example of an aid for predicting astronomical events, in this case the location of stars as seen from a given place on earth at a given time and date. The globe also illustrates the sun’s apparent movement through the constellations of the zodiac.

Portable devices were also made for determining the time in a specific latitude. During the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the combination of compass and sundial became an aid for travelers. The ivory diptych sundial was a specialty of manufacturers in Nuremberg. The Museum’s example ( 03.21.38 ) features a multiplicity of functions that include giving the time in several systems of counting daylight hours, converting hours read by moonlight into sundial hours, predicting the nights that would be illuminated by the moon, and determining the dates of the movable feasts. It also has a small opening for inserting a weather vane in order to determine the direction of the wind, a feature useful for navigators. However, its primary use would have been meteorological.

Voorhies, James. “Europe and the Age of Exploration.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/expl/hd_expl.htm (October 2002)

Further Reading

Levenson, Jay A., ed. Circa 1492: Art in the Age of Exploration . Exhibition catalogue. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1991.

Vezzosi, Alessandro. Leonardo da Vinci: The Mind of the Renaissance . New York: Abrams, 1997.

Additional Essays by James Voorhies

• Voorhies, James. “ Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) .” (October 2004)
• Voorhies, James. “ Francisco de Goya (1746–1828) and the Spanish Enlightenment .” (October 2003)
• Voorhies, James. “ Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) .” (October 2004)
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• Voorhies, James. “ Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946) and His Circle .” (October 2004)
• Voorhies, James. “ Fontainebleau .” (October 2002)
• Voorhies, James. “ Post-Impressionism .” (October 2004)
• Voorhies, James. “ Domestic Art in Renaissance Italy .” (October 2002)
• Voorhies, James. “ Surrealism .” (October 2004)

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A Brief History of the Age of Exploration

The age of exploration brought about discoveries and advances

Hulton Archive/Getty Images 

• Key Figures & Milestones
• Physical Geography
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The Birth of the Age of Exploration

The discovery of the new world, opening the americas, the end of the era, contributions to science, long-term impact.

• M.A., Geography, California State University - East Bay
• B.A., English and Geography, California State University - Sacramento

The era known as the Age of Exploration, sometimes called the Age of Discovery, officially began in the early 15th century and lasted through the 17th century. The period is characterized as a time when Europeans began exploring the world by sea in search of new trading routes, wealth, and knowledge. The impact of the Age of Exploration would permanently alter the world and transform geography into the modern science it is today.

Impact of the Age of Exploration

• Explorers learned more about areas such as Africa and the Americas and brought that knowledge back to Europe.
• Massive wealth accrued to European colonizers due to trade in goods, spices, and precious metals.
• Methods of navigation and mapping improved, switching from traditional portolan charts to the world's first nautical maps.
• New food, plants, and animals were exchanged between the colonies and Europe.
• Indigenous people were decimated by Europeans, from a combined impact of disease, overwork, and massacres.
• The workforce needed to support the massive plantations in the New World, led to the trade of enslaved people , which lasted for 300 years and had an enormous impact on Africa.
• The impact persists to this day , with many of the world's former colonies still considered the "developing" world, while colonizers are the First World countries, holding a majority of the world's wealth and annual income.

Many nations were looking for goods such as silver and gold, but one of the biggest reasons for exploration was the desire to find a new route for the spice and silk trades.

When the Ottoman Empire took control of Constantinople in 1453, it blocked European access to the area, severely limiting trade. In addition, it also blocked access to North Africa and the Red Sea, two very important trade routes to the Far East.

The first of the journeys associated with the Age of Discovery were conducted by the Portuguese. Although the Portuguese, Spanish, Italians, and others had been plying the Mediterranean for generations, most sailors kept well within sight of land or traveled known routes between ports.  Prince Henry the Navigator  changed that, encouraging explorers to sail beyond the mapped routes and discover new trade routes to West Africa.

Portuguese explorers discovered the Madeira Islands in 1419 and the Azores in 1427. Over the coming decades, they would push farther south along the African coast, reaching the coast of present-day Senegal by the 1440s and the Cape of Good Hope by 1490. Less than a decade later, in 1498, Vasco da Gama would follow this route all the way to India.

While the Portuguese were opening new sea routes along Africa, the Spanish also dreamed of finding new trade routes to the Far East. Christopher Columbus , an Italian working for the Spanish monarchy, made his first journey in 1492. Instead of reaching India, Columbus found the island of San Salvador in what is known today as the Bahamas. He also explored the island of Hispaniola, home of modern-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Columbus would lead three more voyages to the Caribbean, exploring parts of Cuba and the Central American coast. The Portuguese also reached the New World when explorer Pedro Alvares Cabral explored Brazil, setting off a conflict between Spain and Portugal over the newly claimed lands. As a result, the  Treaty of Tordesillas  officially divided the world in half in 1494.

Columbus' journeys opened the door for the Spanish conquest of the Americas. During the next century, men such as Hernan Cortes and Francisco Pizarro would decimate the Aztecs of Mexico, the Incas of Peru, and other indigenous peoples of the Americas. By the end of the Age of Exploration, Spain would rule from the Southwestern United States to the southernmost reaches of Chile and Argentina.

Great Britain and France also began seeking new trade routes and lands across the ocean. In 1497, John Cabot, an Italian explorer working for the English, reached what is believed to be the coast of Newfoundland. A number of French and English explorers followed, including Giovanni da Verrazano, who discovered the entrance to the Hudson River in 1524, and Henry Hudson, who mapped the island of Manhattan first in 1609.

Over the next decades, the French, Dutch, and British would all vie for dominance. England established the first permanent colony in North America at Jamestown, Va., in 1607. Samuel du Champlain founded Quebec City in 1608, and Holland established a trading outpost in present-day New York City in 1624.

Other important voyages of exploration during this era included Ferdinand Magellan's attempted circumnavigation of the globe, the search for a trade route to Asia through the Northwest Passage , and Captain James Cook's voyages that allowed him to map various areas and travel as far as Alaska.

The Age of Exploration ended in the early 17th century after technological advancements and increased knowledge of the world allowed Europeans to travel easily across the globe by sea. The creation of permanent settlements and colonies created a network of communication and trade, therefore ending the need to search for new routes.

It is important to note that exploration did not cease entirely at this time. Eastern Australia was not officially claimed for Britain by Capt. James Cook until 1770, while much of the Arctic and Antarctic were not explored until the 20th century. Much of Africa also was unexplored by Westerners until the late 19th century and early 20th century.

The Age of Exploration had a significant impact on geography. By traveling to different regions around the globe, explorers were able to learn more about areas such as Africa and the Americas and bring that knowledge back to Europe.

Methods of navigation and mapping improved as a result of the travels of people such as Prince Henry the Navigator. Prior to his expeditions, navigators had used traditional portolan charts, which were based on coastlines and ports of call, keeping sailors close to shore.

The Spanish and Portuguese explorers who journeyed into the unknown created the world's first nautical maps, delineating not just the geography of the lands they found but also the seaward routes and ocean currents that led them there. As technology advanced and known territory expanded, maps and mapmaking became more and more sophisticated.

These explorations also introduced a whole new world of flora and fauna to Europeans. Corn, now a staple of much of the world's diet, was unknown to Westerners until the time of the Spanish conquest, as were sweet potatoes and peanuts. Likewise, Europeans had never seen turkeys, llamas, or squirrels before setting foot in the Americas.

The Age of Exploration served as a stepping stone for geographic knowledge. It allowed more people to see and study various areas around the world, which increased geographic study, giving us the basis for much of the knowledge we have today.

The effects of colonization still persist as well, with many of the world's former colonies still considered the "developing" world and the colonizers the First World countries, holding a majority of the world's wealth and receiving a majority of its annual income.

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3.3: European Voyages of Exploration: Intro

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The European Voyages of Exploration: Introduction

Beginning in the early fifteenth century, European states began to embark on a series of global explorations that inaugurated a new chapter in world history. Known as the Age of Discovery, or the Age of Exploration, this period spanned the fifteenth through the early seventeenth century, during which time European expansion to places such as the Americas, Africa, and the Far East flourished. This era is defined by figures such as Ferdinand Magellan, whose 1519–1522 expedition was the first to traverse the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean and the first to circumnavigate the globe.

The European Age of Exploration developed alongside the Renaissance. Both periods in Western history acted as transitional moments between the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Competition between burgeoning European empires, such as Spain and England, fueled the evolution and advancement of overseas exploration. Motivated by religion, profit, and power, the size and influence of European empires during this period expanded greatly. The effects of exploration were not only felt abroad but also within the geographic confines of Europe itself. The economic, political, and cultural effects of Europe’s beginning stages of global exploration impacted the longterm development of both European society and the entire world.

Empire and Politics

During the eighth century, the Islamic conquest of North Africa, Spain, France, and parts of the Mediterranean, effectively impeded European travel to the Far East for subsequent centuries. This led many early explorers, such as Vasco de Gama and Christopher Columbus, to search for new trade routes to the East. Previous travel accounts from the early expeditions of figures such as Marco Polo (during the late thirteenth century) encouraged many Europeans to search for new territories and places that would lead to the East. Ocean voyages were extremely treacherous during the beginnings of European exploration. The navigation techniques were primitive, the maps were notoriously unreliable, and the weather was unpredictable. Additionally, explorers worried about running out of supplies, rebellion on the high seas, and hostile indigenous peoples.

The Spanish and Portuguese were some of the first European states to launch overseas voyages of exploration. There were several factors that led to the Iberian place in the forefront of global exploration. The first involved its strategic geographic location, which provided easy access to venturing south toward Africa or west toward the Americas. The other, arguably more important, factor for Spain and Portugal’s leading position in overseas exploration was these countries’ acquisition and application of ancient Arabic knowledge and expertise in math, astronomy, and geography.

The principal political actors throughout the Age of Exploration were Spain, Portugal, The Netherlands, England, and France. Certain European states, primarily Portugal and The Netherlands, were primarily interested in building empires based on global trade and commerce. These states established worldwide trading posts and the necessary components for developing a successful economic infrastructure. Other European powers, Spain and England in particular, decided to conquer and colonize the new territories they discovered. This was particularly evident in North and South America, where these two powers built extensive political, religious, and social infrastructure.

Economic Factors

Before the fifteenth century, European states enjoyed a long history of trade with places in the Far East, such as India and China. This trade introduced luxury goods such as cotton, silk, and spices to the European economy. New technological advancements in maritime navigation and ship construction allowed Europeans to travel farther and explore parts of the globe that were previously unknown. This, in turn, provided Europeans with an opportunity to locate luxury goods, which were in high demand, thereby eliminating Europe’s dependency on Eastern trade. In many ways, the demand for goods such as sugar, cotton, and rum fueled the expansion of European empires and their eventual use of slave labor from Africa. Europe’s demand for luxury goods greatly influenced the course of the transatlantic slave trade.

During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries small groups financed by private businesses carried out the first phase of European exploration. Members of the noble or merchant class typically funded these early expeditions. Over time, as it became clear that global exploration was extremely profitable, European states took on a primary role. The next phase of exploration involved voyages taken in the name of a particular empire and monarch (e.g., France or Spain). The Iberian empires of Spain and Portugal were some of the earliest states to embark on new voyages of exploration. In addition to seeking luxury goods, the Spanish empire was driven by its quest for American silver.

Science and Culture

The period of European exploration introduced the people of Europe to the existence of new cultures worldwide. Before the fifteenth century, Europeans had minimal knowledge of the people and places beyond the boundaries of Europe, particularly Africa and Asia. Before the discovery of the Americas, Europeans did not even know of its existence. Europeans presumed that the world was much smaller than it was in actuality. This led early explorers such as Columbus and Magellan to believe that finding new routes to the Far East would be much easier than it turned out to be.

Profound misconceptions about geography and the cultures of local populations would change very slowly throughout the early centuries of European exploration. By the sixteenth century, European maps started to expand their depictions and representations to include new geographic discoveries. However, due to the intense political rivalries during the period, European states guarded their geographic knowledge and findings from one another.

With the growth of the printing press during the sixteenth century, accounts of overseas travels, such as those of Marco Polo in the late thirteenth century, spread to a wider audience of European readers than had previously been possible. The Age of Exploration also coincided with the development of Humanism and a growing intellectual curiosity about the natural world. The collection and study of exotic materials such as plants and animals led to a new age of scientific exploration and inquiry. These initial surveys and analyses influenced future revolutionary developments in numerous fields of science and natural history in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Religious Factors

One of the tenets of Catholicism decreed that Christianity ought to be the universal religion and faith among all mankind. The Crusades in the centuries preceding the Age of Exploration exposed Europeans to new places, people, and goods. It also reflected the zealous nature of medieval Christianity and foreshadowed the fervent missionary work that would form a major part of all early global expeditions. The pope played an important and validating role in these voyages by sanctioning and encouraging worldwide exploration. This often included the approbation of enslaving Africans and indigenous peoples. Missionaries were frequently a part of the early expeditions of Spain with the aim of bringing Christianity to the native inhabitants. Europeans typically viewed indigenous populations as barbaric heathens who could only become civilized through the adoption of Christianity.

• The age of European exploration and discovery represented a new period of global interaction and interconnectivity. As a result of technological advancements, Europeans were able to forge into new and previously undiscovered territories. They understood this to be a “New World.”
• European exploration was driven by multiple factors, including economic, political, and religious incentives. The growing desire to fulfill European demand for luxury goods, and the desire to unearth precious materials such as gold and silver, acted as a particularly crucial motivation.
• The period of European global exploration sparked the beginning phases of European empire and colonialism, which would continue to develop and intensify over the course of the next several centuries.
• As European exploration evolved and flourished, it saw the increasing oppression of native populations and the enslavement of Africans. During this period, Europeans increasingly dealt in African slaves and started the transatlantic slave trade.
• European Voyages of Exploration: Introduction. Authored by : The Saylor Foundation. Located at : https://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/HIST201-3.1.1-EuropeanExplorationIntro-FINAL1.pdf . License : CC BY: Attribution

The Age of Exploration Essay

The desire to explore the unknown has been a driving force in human history since the dawn of time. From the earliest documented accounts, ancient civilizations have explored the world around them. Early adventures were motivated by religious beliefs, a desire for conquest, the need for trade, and an unsatisfying hunger for gold. The great Age of Exploration, beginning in the late 1400s, was an important era in the discovery and development of lands yet unknown to the Europeans. During this period, Europe sought new sea routes to Asia in pursuit of economic gain, increased glory, and opportunities to spread Christianity. Although these were motivations for explorers, the impact from the discoveries resulted in significant changes and …show more content…

They also encountered the Americas as well, They took the same stance as the Spanish towards the Natives and were very cruel to them. Unlike the Spanish though, Portugal focused more on agriculture than on conquest. They soon had many Sugar-cane plantations set up all over Northern South America. The Portuguese needed slaves to work these plantation, but instead of using the natives, they used blacks from Africa. Eventually, the triangular route they took to capture slaves and bring them to the New World became known as the Middle Passage. Although having initial success, the Portuguese empire soon experienced conflicts with the Netherlands and dropped back in the exploration race. Other nations of Europe had other things in mind than silver and gold when exploring the Americas. England, for example, had religious reasons as well for exploring. Their first claim over seas was located in New Foundland, which was discovered by John Cabot. The Enlish got off to a bad start though with the failure to settle Jamestown, Virginia. It was not until the Voyage of the Pilgrims, who were seeking Religious Freedom, that a permanent settlement existed there in the name of England. The new settlers got along well with the natives and even had a great Thanksging” among each other. The Pilgrims brought with them their religion and the spread of Christianity

Age Of Exploration Dbq Essay

Did you know that the Age of Exploration was one the most important time in history for the world. The Age of Exploration began in the early 1500’s in the nation of Portugal under leadership of Henry the Navigator. The first expedition to circle the globe was led by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. The causes of the Age of Exploration was to look for new trade routes and spread religion. The effects of the Age of Exploration were slavery and disease.

Reasons And Differences Of Spain And The Ming Empire

During the 15th and 16th century, exploration became the new norm of society. Each individual country had their own motives, reasons and goals regarding voyages across land and sea. For instance, Christopher Columbus, in the name of Spain, voyaged out to find an alternative route to Asia. The Portuguese, tried to increase their knowledge about trading. Moreover, while some traveled to increase their powers, Zheng He, of China, traveled to discover raw resources and generate more capital into China’s economy. If we compare the maritime policies of the kingdom of Spain and Portugal on the one hand and the Ming Empire on the other the differences in motives clearly outweigh the similarities between these two societies. For example, the Kingdoms of Spain and Portugal traveled to spread Christianity, to gain land, to rule over new subjects and to spread their power throughout the different continents, while as the Ming Dynasty was only interested in capital and new/raw resources.

During the Renaissance many people were curious about the world, and had a desire to trade. This led to the Age of Exploration, during this time many nations grew more powerful and influenced the world. Europeans started to explore the world for gold. However while on this journey many European explorers did things that were great. Such as taken away natives land and rights, killing and mistreating natives, and lastly bringing a disease that killed thousands. So you then start to ask should these people be remembered today even with all the bad things they’ve done and brought to the world. I believe that European explorers, conquistadors and settlers from the Age of Exploration should no longer be glorified and celebrated in Modern times.

The Impact Of Maritime Technology On The Age Of Exploration

People living the the 15th century had multiple reasons for venturing beyond its confinement of land. Scientific curiosity of the world played a major part in the advancement of naval travel, but it was not the main cause of exploration in these times. The Age of Exploration was sparked by Europeans wanting to find sea routes to East Asia, which they called the Indies. Merchants and crusaders were bringing goods to Europe from Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. These trade routes were controlled by the Muslims and the Italians. However, flaws

Spanish and English Exploration Essay

Spanish and English had similar motivations for exploration of the New World, such as gaining land, goods from the natives, and gold. However, their motivations also differ greatly. The Spanish conquistadors also gained slaves from the native people, as well as spreading the word of Christianity. The English settlers came to the New World to get away from the religious oppression in England and to practice religion freely, and to grow tobacco to send back to England. The Spanish gained much more land quickly because, upon landing in places like the Caribbean and Brazil, because of their conquering and enslaving of the natives. The English came to the New World much less prepared,

Essay Early European Exploration

European explorers first landed on the shores of what would later become North America more than 500 years ago. Not long after the first explorers had entered the "New World" they found out that they were not alone on this new frontier. Their neighbors in this new land were the Native Americans who had been there for centuries, virtually unaware of life outside the continent. Thus began an inconsistent and often times unstable relationship between the European settlers and the North American Indians. Two nations who had particularly interesting relationships with the Native Americans were the British and the French, both of whom took different approaches to their relations with the Indians economically as well

European Exploration Religion

Religion was not a major reason for European exploration because many of the European traders and travelers wanted to get rich by finding gold or some other valuable object, people wanted to travel to another place because of their country’s poverty, disease, or and economic backwardness, and also that the Europeans started traveling more ever since their technology and navigation was more developed.

Thesis Statement On The Age Of Exploration

*The Age of Exploration saw searches of wealth, new lands, and conversion of christianity. Europeans ed the first globe trading empires and would they would make trips to the western hemisphere.

Spanish Immigration Dbq Essay

The Spanish exploration of America brought many new foods, types of plants, and many forms of wealth to the European world. However, the wealth that was brought from the Americas came at a cost. The suffering and enslavement of the Native people and the transportation of Africans to America to be used as slaves alongside the Natives. Many motivations were used to support this extraction of wealth and treatment of the Natives and Africans, however two are easily verifiable. The Spanish colonization from 1492 to 1700 was motivated by religious conversion of all peoples in America and the desire for wealth and profit that had a significant impact on the lives of Native Americans and Africans.

Ap Euro Dbq Essay

The time period Europeans started to develop officially began in the 15th century and lasted through the 16th century. This period of time symbolizes the time of exploration when Europeans started to explore around the world by land in search of new trading routes, wealth, and knowledge. Many nations were in search of goods, however, the spark for exploration was the curiosity of the new routes for spice and silk exchanges. The impact of the Europeans development would affect the society permanently in the future. Therefore, religion was not the most important factor leading Europe to explore in the 15th and 16th centuries. Instead economics was the most important reason followed by religion and technological advances.

Essay On Age Of Exploration

During the 15th and 16th century, countries such as Portugal set out to find out more about the world in an era called the “Age of Exploration.” The explorers set out on voyages mainly to find sea trade routes to Asia. Vasco da Gama, Christopher Columbus, and Ferdinand Magellan were the explorers that made the most important breakthroughs. They used different boats, tools, and maps to help them explore.

Age Of Exploration Essay

The Age of Exploration was a time period that has had significant influences in the modern world. It was the moment in which Europe was brought out of the Dark Ages and into an era of discovery. The risks taken within the 15th and 18th century allowed both positive and negative outcomes to be introduced to the European Exploration. There were many motives for this era, and many outcomes came about. However, they were both negative and positive. To summarize the motives of this age, a simple combination can be stated. The main purposes of the Age of Exploration was God, Gold, and Glory.

Compare And Contrast The English Economic And Cultural Responses Towards Native Americans

The Spanish and the English both had similar economic and cultural responses towards the Native Peoples in North America during the time before seventeen fifty. Before fourteen ninety-two Europe was vastly over populated and many luxury goods were very expensive. This was because in places such as Spain and England almost all of the land had been used up. Also during this time, Portugal had control over the easiest waterway to Asia and getting goods such as spices and silks from there without going overseas took a lot of time and money. This lead to investors in Spain sending Columbus on a journey to find another way to Asia to the west instead of going around the tip of Africa.

The Age of European Exploration Essay

On the other side he discovered a vast body of water that he named "South

The Economic Causes Of The Age Of Exploration

Arising out of the “Dark Ages” was the very weak Europe. After taking death tolls from the black death which was devastating to the European population, and also poverty spread around the entirety of Europe, the population felt stuck. In the early 1400s, the Europeans began to set out and explore the world by settling colonies in the Americas, along the coast of Africa, and parts of India and Southeast Asia. This is referred or known as the Age of Exploration. The Age of Exploration was caused by advances in technology and it was powered by the motivation for glory, religion, economic factors, and much more. The push factors and the causes of European exploration lead to a numerous amount of accomplishments ranging from new colonies/territories to bringing in wealth. If the Europeans had not had some of the push factors the Age like the fall of Constantinople, Columbus discovering the “New World” and economic reasons European Exploration would have never begun, or it would’ve taken many more years.

Related Topics

• United States
• Christopher Columbus
• Indigenous peoples of the Americas

Did the Age of Exploration bring more harm than good?

From the 15th century, European navigators sailed in search of new routes, lands and opportunities for trade and exploitation, spreading and gaining knowledge, and transforming the lives of peoples they encountered. Here, six historians debate whether we should celebrate or condemn these trailblazers...

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Margaret Small: “The Age of Exploration paved the way for the globalised economies we see today”

For the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas, the potential benefits of contact with other peoples were far outweighed by the brutality of European conquest and colonisation, and the ravages of European diseases that cut a swathe through the populations. The experiences of the Taino of Hispaniola and the Beothuk of Newfoundland painfully demonstrate the harm brought about by the Age of Exploration: both were among the peoples the Europeans first encountered in the Americas, and both are now extinct. We have yet to even fully understand what was lost in this devastation.

This era also saw large-scale European involvement in the slave trade. By 1820, it’s thought that more than 10 million west Africans had found themselves unwilling slaves in the Americas. Their own societies were destabilised and depopulated. For them, the Age of Exploration undoubtedly brought more harm than good.

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For many Europeans, the answer was more often favourable. Europe was able to establish vast trading companies that frequently tapped into local trade systems and created a global commodities network. Conquest and colonisation drew wealth and power into the European sphere, allowing that region to assume a position of global dominance. In the process, Europe became richer than it had ever been before. Even some of the flora and fauna exchanged proved hugely profitable for Europe. Though the potato later became associated with the catastrophic Irish famine in the 1840s, the introduction of that one crop alone helped Europe sustain a huge labour force in the face of a massive population growth in the 18th century.

Considering the issue from a global perspective rather than a regional one, it becomes more of a philosophical question. The Age of Exploration provided opportunities for societies and cultures to interact; it brought all parts of the world into contact with each other, paving the way for the globalised economies we see today; it enabled a knowledge network to extend across the whole globe. In a sense, our modern world is built on the back of the changes introduced by the European Age of Exploration – so it becomes a question of judgement on the modern world.

Margaret Small is lecturer in early modern history at the University of Birmingham, with a focus on European exploration and colonisation in the 16th century

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François soyer: “the portuguese took the decisive first steps in the creation of a lasting european stranglehold on world trade”.

As the first monarchy to send explorers beyond the geographical limits of Europe, Portugal can claim the title of initiator of the so-called Age of Exploration. From 1415, Portuguese merchants and mariners explored the coasts of western Africa, reaching the Cape of Good Hope in the 1480s. Seeking to establish direct trade links with Asia, in 1497 a fleet under the command of Vasco da Gama sailed around the Cape to India, followed by yearly expeditions. From 1497 to 1510, the Portuguese established supremacy in the Indian Ocean, in the face of stiff opposition from Muslim and Hindu rivals. In 1500, the expedition of Pedro Álvares Cabral was blown off course on its way to India and reached the shores of Brazil.

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The impact of the Portuguese Age of Discovery on modern world history cannot be overstated. On an economic level, it initiated a revolution in world trade. Spices and other Asian goods that had previously transited to Europe via the Islamic world were now directly imported by Portuguese (and later by Dutch and British) ships. To this was later added the lucrative flow of sugar and diamonds from Brazil. The Portuguese thus took the decisive first steps in the creation of a lasting European stranglehold on world trade. In turn, this ensured European economic prosperity and global political hegemony until the 20th century.

But the human toll was very heavy. The Portuguese position in Asia was precarious and dependent upon the calculated use of military force and violence against competitors – for example, the slaughter of the Muslim population of Goa. Most importantly, the Portuguese initiated the transatlantic slave trade. The Portuguese and other Europeans oversaw the forced removal of millions of west Africans, and their dispatch to the mines and fields of the Americas – men and women whose blood, sweat and lives contributed to the enrichment of European empires. In the end, the answer to the question of whether the era brought more harm than good depends on whether we approach it from the perspective of the self-proclaimed European explorers or the peoples (Asian, African and American) with whom they came into contact.

François Soyer is senior lecturer in history at the University of New England at Armidale, New South Wales, Australia

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Graciela Iglesias-Rogers: “Exploring entails entanglements of all sorts; some are desirable, others not”

In early February this year, scientists announced the discovery of a vast hidden network of towns, farms and highways beneath the trees of a remote Guatemalan jungle. The finding suggests that about 1,200 years ago the region supported a Maya population of up to 20 million people – roughly equivalent to half of Europe’s population at the time. A game-changer for archaeologists, this breakthrough highlights a weakness in the set question: there is no such thing as an ‘Age of Exploration’. It is inherent in human nature to look out into the unknown. This discovery underlines the fact that we have been exploring since time began: the earliest inhabitants of the Americas did it, expanding their territories; the Spanish Conquistadors and later adventurers did it; and humans will continue doing it in the future.

Archaeologists had assumed that Maya cities were isolated and self-sufficient; now it seems that a far more complex, interconnected society flourished. Yet this discovery owes much to the pioneering scientific expeditions of Ramón Ordóñez (1773), José Antonio Calderón (1784), Antonio del Río (1786), Alexander von Humboldt (1803–04), José Luciano Castañeda (1805–07) and, crucially, Juan Galindo (1831–34). Galindo was no great scientist; the Dublin-born son of an English actor, he set off for the Americas to volunteer in the Latin American wars of independence, and became governor of the Guatemalan department of Petén.

Uniquely positioned to navigate through the Hispanic-Anglosphere, his greatest contribution consisted of vivid accounts of Maya ruins, published in London and New York. His reports captured the imaginations of many people, including John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood who, between 1839 and 1842, followed his trail to become founders of Classic Maya studies. Exploring entails entanglements of all sorts; some are desirable, others not. The latest discovery adds credibility to the theory that societal dynamics linked to the depletion of natural resources explain the collapse of the Classic Maya around AD 900. Laser pulse technology, instead of machetes, allowed the stripping away of tree canopy from aerial images to reveal the ancient civilisation underneath, thus proving that exploration and natural and heritage preservation can be compatible activities.

Graciela Iglesias-Rogers is senior lecturer in modern European and global Hispanic history at the University of Winchester

Emma Reisz: “Disease was largely an accidental means of conquest – but was devastating in its effects”

During the Age of Exploration, Europeans connected the world into a single navigational system, triggering an era of imperial competition as European states expanded across the globe through trade, colonisation and coercion. This produced many of the global interconnections that underpin the modern world – but these were established at a vast human cost, paid by some populations and not others. Benefits such as access to new foods and luxuries, and to new scientific knowledge, accrued disproportionately (but not exclusively) to Europeans.

Conversely, the harms were mostly experienced by the rest of the world. The slave trade was the most egregious example, enriching Europe and its colonists through the suffering of Africans. Disease was largely an accidental means of conquest but was devastating in its effects, as infections endemic to the Old World ravaged populations in the Americas and Australasia. It was not certain at the start of the 15th century that Europeans would dominate global maritime networks. The expeditions of Chinese admiral Zheng He along the rim of the Indian Ocean (1405–33) had much in common with those of Henry the Navigator on the other side of Afro-Eurasia. When Vasco da Gama arrived in east Africa in 1498, his sailors were mistaken by the locals for Chinese.

By the mid-15th century, though, the Ming court had abandoned maritime expansion, and Chinese proto-colonialism around the Indian Ocean ended. Zheng He’s expeditions had comparatively little impact on world history, whereas the maritime route from Europe to India that da Gama established transformed global trade. Had early globalisation been Sino-European rather than solely European, the ratio of harms to benefits might have been no more equitable for the rest of the world, however. In 1411, Ming forces overthrew the Kotte king in Sri Lanka, and in a c1431–33 inscription Zheng He boasted that “the countries beyond the horizon and from the ends of the earth have all become [Chinese] subjects”. Europeans were not unique in seeking to profit from maritime expansion – though in the early modern world they were uniquely successful in doing so.

Emma Reisz is lecturer in history at Queen’s University Belfast

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Glyn Williams: “Pacific islanders adopted new ideas and techniques from European explorers”

The second Age of Exploration, extending over the long 18th century, was most notable for Europe’s expansion into the Pacific – or, as Alan Moorehead saw it in his influential 1967 book The Fatal Impact, Europe’s ‘invasion’ of the vast ocean and its 25,000 islands. Following the voyages of Cook and his contemporaries in the second half of the 18th century, Tahiti became the geographical and emotional centre of Polynesia, praised by the French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville as “the happy island of Cythera... the true Utopia”. In time, these idyllic impressions were modified as evidence was found throughout the Pacific of human sacrifice, infanticide and cannibalism, and by the end of the century few argued that the islands should be left untouched by European contact.

This came at a cost: the lives of the inhabitants of the Pacific, from Hawaii in the north to New Zealand in the south, were disrupted by the uncontrolled activities of whalers, traders and beachcombers, themselves often the rejects of society. They used the islands for victualling and refitting, using as payment the lethal combination of firearms and liquor. The only protective influence came from missionaries – but their presence, too, had a profound effect on the islands’ traditional societies.

This ‘fatal impact’ thesis has remained compelling, but in recent decades its conclusions have been challenged by scholars – anthropologists as well as historians – working with local rather than European sources. Islanders gradually came to be seen not as helpless victims of technologically superior newcomers but as participants in a process of mutual exploitation. This collaboration was seen most clearly in the emergence of three island kingdoms: Tahiti (ruled by Pomare), Hawaii (ruled by Kamehameha) and Tonga (ruled by Taufa‘ahau). The details of how these centralised kingdoms emerged differ, but each of these rulers used European alliances to strengthen his position. More generally, islanders adopted new ideas and techniques; in renowned New Zealand historian Kerry Howe’s words, they “proved adaptable, resourceful, and resilient”. The arrival of Europeans marked a turning point in Pacific history but, despite population losses from disease and warfare, it did not have in the long term the catastrophic impact once suggested.

Glyn Williams is emeritus professor of history at the University of London, and author of books including Naturalists at Sea: Scientific Travellers from Dampier to Darwin (Yale, 2013)

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Julia McClure: “The idea of the ‘Age of Exploration’ whitewashes history, giving a more noble and scholarly appearance to an age of imperialism”

This is a trick question. It embeds European explorers between the 15th and 17th centuries in a noble narrative of discovery, giving the false impression that they travelled beyond their localities for the expansion of human knowledge. Columbus’s ‘discovery’ of America in 1492 is often taken as the starting point for the so-called ‘Age of Exploration’ – a point of departure that signposts four ideological problems.

First, taking 1492 as a threshold contributes to the Eurocentric project of modernity that, among other things, overlooks the intellectual vibrancy and transcultural exchanges of the global Middle Ages, from the technological advances of Song-dynasty China to the golden age of Islamic science. Second, the Columbus expedition was not motivated by the expansion of knowledge but by the acquisition of resources – and when the hoped-for riches did not materialise, Conquistadors looked to the people and the natural resources of the Americas as a source of wealth.

Third, the ‘discovery’ of the ‘New World’ did not mark an epistemological rupture; Columbus went to his grave quite unaware that he had stumbled upon a new continent. Many of the ‘explorers’ who followed in his footsteps did not discover something new but, rather, encountered fragmented versions of themselves, their desires and ambitions. The nomenclature of the Americas betrays how late-medieval imaginations ordered the New World: for example, the Amazon took its name from Greek mythology.

Finally, the ‘Age of Exploration’ construct has prioritised European perspectives and knowledge. What of the Amerindians looking back at the Europeans exploring their world? Many aspects of their histories have yet to be told. The idea of the ‘Age of Exploration’ does more harm than good, because it whitewashes history, giving a more noble and scholarly appearance to what was actually an age of imperialism. Europeans may have increased their knowledge of the flora, fauna, and topographies of the world in this period, but they often did so at the expense of indigenous knowledge and value systems. Whatever the orientations of new histories of global knowledge, we must never overlook the critical relationship between knowledge and power.

Julia McClure is lecturer in history at the University of Glasgow, and author of The Franciscan Invention of the New World (Palgrave, 2016)

This article was first published in Issue 9 of World Histories magazine, in April/May 2018

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The Age of Exploration Essay Example

Introduction

In this essay, I will be telling you about the age of exploration, and how it affected the lives of all of the people living in that time. The age of exploration was when the  European nations started traveling around the globe discovering new places to colenolenis. The age of exploration began in 1400 and went on until 1600. Some of its most famous explorers were Christopher Colombus and Henry Hudson.

What were the causes of the age of exploration?

Some of the causes of the age of exploration were religion, Economy/gold, glory

Religion, all of the sailors who were traveling were religious some of the events ad active priests whose task was to spread the religion of Christianity around the globe. That's why most of America is Christian. Some of the countries that sponsored the salers wanted to get more gold that they can use for their profit and sponsor other explorers. Another cause to explore was Glory, the explorers wanted to discover some new place and come back to their home country as heroes and sometimes they were even given some kind of positions in the government

Effects of the Age of Exploration on the modern earth

Some of the things that the age of exploration caused were good but weren't so good.

Some of the possessive effects of the Age of Exploration were that New places were discovered and colonized that made the discovery of the Colombian trade system. But there also were a bunch of bad parts like the way we treated the natives and how we brought the smallpox disease to their country, murdering a lot of the native population. The Colombian trade system was a trade route system that brought things such as diseases, honey bees, grains, etc to America, and things from America such as turkey Tobacco, tomatoes, Maize/corn to Europe. It also spread the Christian religion further.

But there were also negatives to them like the way that we used to treat the native Americans who were there before us. We would do gruesome and horrific things to their population, LIke for example if we suspected them of stealing we would cut their hands off and tie them on a string and make them wear them on their bodies. Also, the sailors who sailed there ad viruses such as smallpox, what they didn't know was that our organism had an immune system to these viruses but there's waste so that pretty much wiped out their population

Who were some of the most famous explorers in the age of exploration

One of the explorers in the age of exploration was Christopher Columbus, who discovered America even though he didn't know about it. Henry Hudson, who was looking for the northwest passage to China and Japan, found the direct route to North America. And Samuel De Champlain, who made the first colonies of France, which were Canadian Quebec and Louisiana←( named after King Louis the XIV ). Christophe Columbus was Italian But he sailed for the Spanish monarchs. He was looking for a direct route to India, Whilst sailing to where he thought was India one of his crew members screamed “Tierra, Tierra '' making him think that they already arrived in India while he landed in the Bahamas. Because of that, he started calling the natives who lived there Indian. Henry Hudson was an English explorer who sailed on behalf of the dutch. Henry was looking for the northwest passage. While he was there he found what was now known to be New York. Knowing that wasn't China or japan He cognized it, naming it the new Amsterdam. The route that he took was the Direct route to North America and it would be used by other Nations. Samuel De Champlain was a French explorer sailing with his home country. He had around 29 trips around the Atlantic ocean. While on one of his trips he came across Canada, he straight away made a colony there calling it French Quebec, later he went deeper into North America and found Louisiana.

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Home — Essay Samples — Arts & Culture — Italian Renaissance — The 3 Gs Age Of Exploration

The 3 Gs Age of Exploration

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The Age of Exploration

The Age of Exploration, also known as the Age of Discovery, refers to the era between the 15th and 17th centuries that was marked by the exploration of the sea by Europe to find new trading routes. Its influence has forever altered the environment and is noticeable to this day, changing the geography of the world into what it is at present. A variety of innovations, including riches, glory and faith, led to the Age of Discovery.

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First, obviously, the most important of the three factors was money. Since they believed discovery would make them richer, Europeans decided to explore. They felt, for example, that they would be able to exchange one by one with the Asian Spice Islands. The islands were the source of some of the valuable spices that Europeans could only obtain by buying from the Muslim middlemen. It meant that a new sea route had to be discovered.

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Secondly, the desire for national and personal glory drove the desire for exploration. Many individual explorers of the time desired to be glorified for discovering new sailing routes and or new lands since they also wanted wealth from these new territories. On the other hand, for the ruling European monarchs of the time wanted to get the glory for ruling the nations with vast empires overseas. Individual explorers and leaders wanted to gain status and bragging rights.

Lastly, the age of exploration was encouraged by religion. Europeans of the time were mostly Christians and thought that its only Christians who would make it to heaven. Therefore, they thought it was their obligation to spread God’s word to the non-Christians. They saw this as a way to God’s glory while also saving souls. Thus, the religious motives contributed the desire for exploration.

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Age Of Exploration Essay

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Age Of Exploration Dbq Essay

The Renaissance was the rebirth of classical Greek and Roman art, literature, and culture. New philosophies formed such as individualism, the idea that humans are capable of great things. This was accompanied by the wish to spread Christianity, and a spirit for riches. With these desires and advancements in ships, a new age of adventure was introduced. From sailing to new worlds and trading across the globe, the Age of Exploration brought riches and destruction. The impact of the Age of Exploration was overall more negative on the indigenous cultures of Africa, the indigenous Americans, and Europe . This was due to the disruptions in their population, society, land, and all aspects of life within these civilizations. However, the effect this …show more content…

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New technological developments in ships helped Europe expand its territory to other continents. A letter to Christopher Columbus from the rulers of Spain revealed that he had sailed the seas to discover and conquer new land for Spain. If he succeeded in this task and spread Christianity, not only would he be rewarded, but the rest of Spain would be too (Document 1). This letter is most likely true due to the fact that it was written by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, who were funding Christopher’s exploration. The main goal of the Age of Exploration was to get more money and territory and to spread Christianity. Columbus was eventually able to achieve this. His discovery opened the door to new trade routes, food, and plants. It also marked the start of transatlantic colonization. Though, religion wasn’t just being spread to the West. It was also introduced to the East in Africa. According to Diego Cam in Document 2, the King of Congo was delighted to see the European faith. Churches were built, and the King, along with thousands of his followers, were baptized. It is important to note that the author was a Portuguese explorer, was the one trying to spread Christianity, and could have lied about the encounters. Nevertheless, the new foundation of faith in Congo gave the church more power and gave them influence in places outside of Europe. Additionally, the

Europeans were one of the lucky people who benefited from the Age of Exploration. They found new trade routes and made more money off slaves. The Age of Exploration was a good time period for the Europeans. The Asians also benefited from the Age of Exploration. The AsiansAsains also started to make more money from trade and slaves.

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Spain arrived in the Americas unexpectedly and Portugal wanted to go through Africa to shorten the route to India’s spices but in each case they caused damage to the culture and the people living in the discovered regions. That being said, the Europeans, in both cases, damaged the previously unexplored land, in different ways and levels of extremity. When Portugal went into Africa they enslaved a total of 12 million people (Stearns). and brought in foreign goods that made an impact on their culture. In the Americas, Spain brought disease and advanced warfare that the Native Americans could not compete with.

The Age of Exploration was a period from fifteenth century to sixteenth century, during which European explorations thrived. Technological innovations and sailing techniques made expansion easier for the Europeans. The Europeans settled and conquered many lands. The Spanish and the Portuguese started the first wave of exploration. Traveling around the tip of Africa, the Portuguese established trade with countries in the Middle East and broke the Arab and Muslim hold on the market.

Christopher Columbus Greed Essay

The first Europeans came to South America and the Caribbean searching for the East Indies and stumbled across a new world in which they would ravage and dismantle the Native people’s previous way of life. The explorers came with the goal to spread Christianity, but also sought the fortune that the new land would bring European voyagers stumbled across a vast landscape full of flourishing societies, not just roaming tribes, and they saw nothing more than opportunity for their own greed. This greed would lead to the once self-sufficient people becoming slave workers before eventually disappearing from the region altogether. Spanish royalty gave explorer Christopher Columbus the power to travel east in exploration to gain wealth for Spain and

Age of exploration Dbq 90% of the Native Americans population was killed by European colonizers’ harsh treatment. These colonizers came during the Age of Exploration which was a time when Europeans, especially Spaniards, came and enforced very harsh treatment on Native AmericansWhen the Europeans were coming over they were searching for gold,land and other resources that Europe did not provide. Due to the Europeans the native americans were exposed to warfare,disease,and had their resources taken from them which made them suffer badly. The first reason the Native Americans suffered was disease.

Differences Throughout The Age Of Exploration

The Spanish, being mainly or entirely Catholic, brought their religious views to the New World. The Spanish used force in their attempt to convert all indigenous people. The natives that did not convert were killed, tortured or both. The Spanish saw this as cleansing the natives of their old ways and allowing them to be reborn. The southern

What Are The Negative Effects Of The Columbian Exchange On Native Americans

The Negative Impact of the Columbian Exchange on Native Populations The impact of the Columbian Exchange raises the question of who was most affected by this period in history. While it may be argued that both the Natives and Europeans experienced consequences, this essay sheds light on how the Natives suffered the greatest impact. European explorers arrived in search of resources and land, leading to the transmission of devastating diseases that decimated Native populations. Additionally, cultural diffusion resulted in the decline and extinction of the Native's religious beliefs.

Age Of Exploration DBQ

Yet, modern times never focus on what problems the Europeans caused in their process to discover new land. They killed people, used many people as slaves, and spreaded many diseases all in search of new land and wealth. They destroyed the peace that maintained before they arrived to the land they explored. They tore apart many civilizations in order to build their own on top of it. The Age of Exploration was a time of corruption.

Sugarcane In The Columbian Exchange

Europeans came to the New World with three intentions: gold, glory, and God. The spread Christianity to the Native Americans, but in turn, they did not adapt the Native American’s customs. It helped make Christianity a global religion. Because it was almost forced into the New World, Christianity overruled Islam as well as other religions.

World Trade Patterns

Christianity had remained over the centuries a missionary religion. The Catholic Church took this responsibility seriously, and as a result, Europe was overwhelmingly Catholic by 1450. Portugal was the first European kingdom to explore other lands. For most of the 16th century, the Portuguese dominated the Indian Ocean trade. Europeans conquered and claimed the territories and greatly increased their prosperity and power, and Christianity spread to a whole new hemisphere.

Eurocentrism: A Political Cartoon Analysis

The Indigenous peoples of various continents confronted troublesome decisions when the imperialist forces colonized their territories. And regardless of where the contact occured, the result was calamitous for Indigenous individuals. Although this policy brought forward numerous ideological thoughts and arrivals of educational learnings, as mentioned in the statement. Not only concentrating on the positive effects, including intrinsic ideas and educational factors, that the Europeans had adapted on to the nations. But also considering the devastating impacts to achieve colonization, such as, indigenous land and resources taken over and the introduction of the influx of deadly diseases and illnesses, which they had no immunity to.

How Did The Europeans Affect Native Americans

Throughout the late 1400’s and the 1500’s, the world experienced many changes due to the discoveries of new lands and peoples that had been never been visited before. The new-found lands of the Americas and exploration of Africa by the Europeans led to new colonies and discoveries in both areas. It also brought different societies and cultures together that had never before communicated, causing conflict in many of these places. While the Europeans treated both the Native Americans and West Africans as inferior people, the early effects they had on the Native Americans were much worse. Beginning in the late 1400’s, many different European explorers started to look for new trade routes in the Eastern Hemisphere in order to gain economic and religious power.

The Columbian Exchange

When Columbus came to the Americas in search of land for his king, he also came to claim land for God” (Spreading Religion in the Age of Exploration). The Europeans spread Christianity, and it became very popular among the colonies of the New World. “Roman Catholicism was the official religion of Spain, so the Spanish conquistadors sought to spread Catholicism throughout their colonies, in addition to accumulating wealth and power” (Spreading Religion in the Age of Exploration). The Spanish missionaries worked very hard throughout the Americas and attempted to evangelize Native American groups.

Benefits Of The Age Of Exploration

The Age of Exploration, occurring in late 1400’s to the early 1600’s brought many new trade goods to Western Europe. Europe made many advances as a society, countries discovered new and exciting things, and trade boomed. The discoveries made in this age led to new connections that changed how Europeans saw the world. Without the Age of Exploration, even America as it is known would never have existed. Explorers went on thrilling, yet often dangerous, voyages, bringing back exotic goods to be later traded.

Positive And Negative Effects Of American Colonization

While the colonization of the America’s was negative for many reasons such as the spread of illnesses, and the forcing of religion upon natives, it was also beneficial to the Native’s because it allowed them to have better weapons and to have different foods and goods in their lives. The Europeans exposed the Natives to many new diseases once they colonized the new areas they discovered. The Europeans greatly impacted the family life and religion of the inhabitants of the areas they found. There was also a lot of exchange going on during the conquest of the Americas because the Natives were excited by the new gadgets they had never seen before that the Europeans brought over.

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