Exploration and Encounters

1
Exploration and Encounters

• Why would Europeans risk dangerous ocean voyages
  to discover sea routes to other parts of the
  world?

2
Quick Review!

• Renaissance in Europe 1400s to 1500s
• New ideas rebirth and development
• Renewed interest in classical ideas and culture
  (Greece and Rome)
• Changes in way of thinking
• Humanism focus on individual instead of group
  life
• Encouraged people to question the world around
  them

3
Early Exploration

• In the 1400s Europeans began to make oceanic
  voyages of exploration
• The Portuguese and Spanish were the first to
  establish global empires in 1500s
• The Dutch, English and French compete for
  colonies in Asia, Americas and Africa during the
  1600s-1700s
• Food, people, plants, animals, technology and
  diseases passed from continent to continent

4
Reasons for European Exploration

• Land routes to Asia were controlled by the
  Ottomans
• To gain direct access to Asian trade, Portugal
  and Spain looked for new oceanic routes
• Naval technology such as mapmakers or
  cartographers created better maps and charts
• Sailors learned to use magnetic compass
  determined direction and the astrolabe was used
  to figure out latitude at sea

5
Early Encounters

• In 1488, Bartholomew Dias, Portuguese, rounded
  the Cape of Good Hope at the Southern tip of
  Africa
• A decade later, Vasco da Gama traveled across the
  Indian Ocean to India
• 1492 Columbus, Financed by Spain, sailed west
  reaching the Islands in the Caribbean Sea Ship!
• Reasons for exploration were riches and the
  spread of Christianity

6
3 Gs

• Glory
• Gold
• God

7
Europeans Compete for Colonies

• Domination by one country of the political and/or
  economic life of another country is imperialism
• Mid-1600s the Dutch arrived in South Africa and
  established Cape Town
• Spain founded colonies in Southeast Asia and in
  the 1500s in the Americas
• Many Spanish Conquistadors or conquerors traveled
  to the Americas in search of gold and to spread
  Christianity

8
Exploration and Encounters Part II

• What were the three reasons for European
  Exploration?

9
Reasons for Spanish success

• 1.Used armor, horses and powerful weapons-guns
• 2. Disease brought by the Europeans killed
  millions of Native Americans (small pox)

10
Battle for North America

• Countries compete for Americas
• In the 1600s, the French settled in Canada
• In 1607, the English established Jamestown
  eventually growing into 13 colonies

11
Triangular Trade and Slavery

• In the 1500s, Europeans used a large number of
  Africans to satisfy the labor shortage on
  American plantation
• Trade involved Europe, Africa and the Americas
  was Triangular Trade
• Voyage from Africa to America on slave ships was
  called the Middle Passage Middle Passage
• Conditions were extremely horrible and cramped
• By the 1800s when slave trade ended, and 11
  million Africans had been sent to America

12
European Capitalism and Mercantilism

• Increased trade with colonies led to European
  capitalism- investment of money to make a profit
• Joint-Stock companies grew
• (trading companies)
• mercantilism - is building up national wealth by
  exporting more goods than the nation imports
• Colonies supplied the parent nation with raw
  materials and served as markets for its exports
  or finished goods

13
European Capitalism and Mercantilism Effects

• Nobles became less powerful because their wealth
  was based on land
• A powerful middle class would develop called
  merchants

14
Encomienda System

• Encomienda System
• System which allowed Spanish colonies to only
  trade with Spain
• Everyone had to speak Spanish
• Social class system

15
Columbian Exchange

• Worldwide exchange of people, goods,
  technologies, ideas and diseases
• Named after Christopher Columbus
• Brought changes worldwide with exchanging goods
  across continents