Age of Exploration
The Age of Exploration refers to the period from the 15th to 17th centuries when European powers embarked on voyages of discovery and colonization around the world. This era saw significant advancements in navigation, shipbuilding, and cartography, leading to the exploration and eventual colonization of the Americas, Africa, and Asia. The Age of Exploration had far-reaching impacts on global trade, culture, and geopolitics.
7 Key excerpts on "Age of Exploration"
eBook - ePub- Stephen Batchelor(Author)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- For Dummies(Publisher)
...The fifteenth century was the Age of Exploration, heralded in particular by the activities of two men: Vasco da Gama and Christopher Columbus. Sailing to the East: Vasco da Gama Vasco da Gama (1460–1524) was one of the first explorers of the Age of Discovery. Born in Portugal he was the son of a knight and probably studied mathematics. During his youth, Portugal was becoming an increasingly important trading power, particularly when the influence of Venice and other Italian cities began to fade after the fall of Constantinople and the loss of their trading colonies in the eastern Mediterranean. The Age of Discovery Columbus and da Gama were only two of the many Europeans who engaged in exploration during what historians refer to as the Age of Discovery. For about 150 years from the end of the fifteenth century, a whole group of people set out to explore the limits of the known world and chart and map its boundaries. The Crusades (see the chapters in Part III) had seen Europeans gain knowledge of Asia Minor and the Near East, but only as a by-product of a series of wars. The Age of Discovery saw people make even longer and more hazardous journeys just to find out more about the world they lived in. In a way, the boom in exploration that began in the late fifteenth century was quite natural. The Renaissance revived ideas about discovery and enquiry in terms of both science and philosophy, and as an extension, acquiring greater knowledge of the Earth’s surface became a passion for many people. Traders at this time were particularly interested in developing a single non-stop route between the Atlantic Coast of Portugal and India, and Vasco da Gama was the man who succeeded. During his life he made three voyages around the Cape of Africa to the East. Europeans knew about India – Alexander the Great had been there 1,700 years earlier – but da Gama’s triumph was to develop a route to the popular trading region of the Indian Ocean, a route that nobody had previously sailed...
eBook - ePub- Nicholas L. Waddy(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...9 The Age of Discovery, the Protestant Reformation, and the Wars of Religion, 1492–1648 Introduction In the late 1400s, Europeans began the process of exploring and colonizing large parts of the New World, Africa, and Asia. As a result, Europe’s knowledge of the rest of the world increased dramatically, as did European wealth and power. In 1517, however, a dramatic split began to develop in Western European Christianity, as Protestants left the Catholic Church, unleashing powerful religious animosities. Much of the prosperity gained through trade with and exploitation of the New World, Africa, and Asia, therefore, was squandered in generations of religiously motivated warfare. Today, while the conflicts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have largely been set aside, the religious division of Europe into a Protestant North and a Catholic South persists. In addition, the massive changes to Western Civilization caused by increased contact with Africa and Asia, and by the settlement of the Americas, are still unfolding and reverberating. Western Civilization today is essentially a world-straddling phenomenon, and this is largely a result of the spirit of discovery and conquest that seized Europe in the century and a half after Columbus’s first transatlantic journey in 1492. Spanish and Portuguese Exploration Before the sixteenth century, the hub of European trade was the Mediterranean region. It was Italian, Turkish, and Arab merchants who profited the most from the sale of African, Asian, and Middle Eastern luxury goods, especially textiles and spices, to rich Europeans in exchange for gold and silver. The wealth of the Mediterranean traders naturally caused jealousy among some Europeans, who longed for an alternative route to the markets of the East...
eBook - ePubWorlds Apart
A History of the Pacific Islands
- Ian C. Campbell(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Canterbury University Press(Publisher)
...CHAPTER THREE The Age of European Discovery T HERE IS NO sharp break between pre-European and European Pacific history. The coming of Europeans was sporadic, intermittent and protracted; it varied immensely in intensity and character. Meanwhile, Pacific islanders went about their affairs according to their normal mode of life: indigenous history-making did not cease, but it did begin to be recorded in writing, albeit unevenly and incompletely. European exploration of the Pacific was undertaken for complicated reasons, not for any single one. Indeed the word ‘exploration’, implying deliberate, systematic investigation, is itself misapplied to much of the process because many discoveries were simply incidental to the main purpose of the various voyagers. These multifarious purposes are part of the history of Europe since Renaissance times, when political, economic and intellectual ferment encouraged Europeans to go out into the wider world of which hitherto they had occupied only the fringe. Spanish beginnings At the end of the 15th century the Spanish discovered the New World of the Americas across the Atlantic and began to exploit its wealth; and Portugal had found the sea route to India by circumnavigating Africa. Between these two events, the Spanish and Portuguese had agreed to a division of their interests in the world by the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494. Spain claimed the western hemisphere, and Portugal the eastern. Within less than 20 years the Portuguese had a chain of trading posts or bases at strategic places in the Indian Ocean and as far as Canton in China. Lucrative though their American possessions were, the Spanish resented being shut out of Asian trade and a dispute arose as to where the Asian extension of the line of demarcation between these two powers fell. In 1521 Ferdinand Magellan became the first navigator to cross the Pacific, in a successful attempt to show that Spain could access Asia without traversing the prohibited Indian Ocean...
- Britannica Educational Publishing, Kenneth Pletcher(Authors)
- 2009(Publication Date)
- Britannica Educational Publishing(Publisher)
...Contarini, 1506, depicting the expanding horizons becoming known to European geographers in the Age of Discovery. Courtesy of the trustees of the British Museum; photograph, J.R. Freeman & Co., Ltd. In the 100 years from the mid-15th to the mid-16th century, a combination of circumstances stimulated men to seek new sea routes to the East. It was new routes—rather than new lands—that filled the minds of kings and commoners, scholars and seamen. First, toward the end of the 14th century, the vast empire of the Mongols was breaking up; thus, Western merchants could no longer be ensured of safe-conduct along land routes. Second, the growing power of the Ottoman Turks, who were hostile to Christians, blocked yet more firmly the outlets to the Mediterranean of the ancient sea routes from the East. Third, new nations on the Atlantic shores of Europe were increasingly interested in overseas trade and adventure. THE SEA ROUTE EAST BY SOUTH TO CATHAY Henry the Navigator, prince of Portugal, initiated the first great enterprise of the Age of Discovery—the search for a sea route east by south to Cathay. His motives were mixed. He was curious about the world; he was interested in new navigational aids and better ship design and was eager to test them; he was also a crusader and hoped that, by sailing south and then east along the coast of Africa, Arab power in North Africa could be attacked from the rear. The promotion of profitable trade was yet another motive; he aimed to divert the Guinea trade in gold and ivory away from its routes across the Sahara to the Moors of Barbary (now North Africa) and instead channel it via the sea route to Portugal. Expedition after expedition was sent forth throughout the 15th century to explore the coast of Africa...
eBook - ePub- Robert M Ziomkowski(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Research & Education Association(Publisher)
...CHAPTER 7 Early Modern Europe CHAPTER 7 EARLY MODERN EUROPE THE Age of Exploration During the Renaissance and Reformation, Europeans were embarking upon naval expeditions that looked beyond the confines of their world. The leaders in these voyages of discovery were the Portuguese and Spanish, who sometimes hired Italian captains. Prince Henry the Navigator. A Portuguese prince known as Henry the Navigator (1394–1460) gave the first major impetus to exploration by funding voyages of discovery and establishing a school for navigation at Sagres, which included an observatory. He also made improvements in shipbuilding, and the caravel was adopted as the favored vessel for exploration. Henry’s motives reflected military, religious, and economic concerns. His patronAge of Exploration began after he participated in the 1415 capture of Ceuta, a Muslim stronghold in North Africa across from the Strait of Gibraltar. He hoped that a more precise knowledge of African geography would help Christian forces to outflank the Muslims and thus gain a strategic advantage over them. He also hoped to make contact with a legendary figure named Prester John, who was rumored to rule a Christian kingdom in distant lands (possibly Ethiopia). More realistically, Henry thought to discover and convert pagans who lived on the edge of Muslim territories, thereby combining religious with military motives. Finally, Henry hoped to find deposits of gold and to generate wealth for Portugal by establishing a trade route to the Indies that could bypass the Mediterranean, which was dominated by the Italians and Turks. Portuguese Exploration. With the support of Prince Henry, Portuguese explorers discovered the Azores, Canary, and Cape Verde Islands in the Atlantic Ocean and followed the African coast as far as Sierra Leone near the equator. They established a lucrative trade in gold, ivory, and slaves...
eBook - ePubWestern Civilization: A Global and Comparative Approach
Volume I: To 1715
- Kenneth L. Campbell(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The Age of European Expansion, ca. 1550–1650 In the second half of the sixteenth century, the rivalry between Catholicism and Protestantism extended overseas. In the initial push toward overseas expansion, both the Portuguese and the Spanish officially proclaimed the spread of Christianity their top priority. A dozen members each from the Franciscan and Dominican orders followed Cortés to Mexico in the 1520s intent on ensuring the conversion of the Indians and defending them from oppressive treatment. With the spread of the Reformation in Europe, Catholic orders made a great effort to increase the number of Catholics worldwide. The Jesuits concentrated their efforts on Asia precisely because of the large population there that offered the possibility of increasing the numerical superiority of Catholics over Protestants. Protestant missionary efforts did not approach the scale of the Catholics in this period, partly because Protestants had their hands full defending their interests in Europe and in part because they lacked the religious orders that played such an important role in Catholic missions. However, the continuation of European exploration and expansion after 1550 was mainly carried out under the auspices of the national states for political and economic reasons. The English and the French focused their efforts primarily upon North America beginning in the 1530s and intensifying around the beginning of the seventeenth century, though both hoped to find new passages to the East with an eye toward the lucrative spice trade. In the early seventeenth century the newly independent Dutch succeeded in gaining a significant portion of the spice trade and emerged as a commercial power in the East Indies. European influence was felt throughout the Americas and significant parts of Africa and Asia, including increased contact with China, India, and Japan. Japan provides a good basis for cross-cultural comparisons with Europe during this period...
eBook - ePubThe History of Christianity
The Age of Exploration to the Modern Day
- Jonathan Hill(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Lion Scholar(Publisher)
...CHAPTER 1 A NEW Age of Exploration The Renaissance saw western Europeans taking a great and renewed interest in the world beyond Europe. This was partly spurred by the remarkable expedition of Marco Polo, a Venetian who, in the late thirteenth century, travelled east to Mongolian-ruled China and upon his return wrote a best-selling book about it. People across Europe were galvanized: inspired by his exploits and hoping to better them, they planned new journeys of discovery. There were fabulous prizes to be won. India, with its riches, especially in spice, was one such. Somewhere beyond India, tales spoke of an even richer land called Cathay. Explorers were also spurred by tales of the great empire of Mali in West Africa, a Muslim state where there was so much gold that the king used a huge nugget of it to tie his horse to. In fact, Mali really did have a major gold trade, which was conducted by camel caravan over the Sahara Desert with the Maghreb (Muslim northwest Africa, that is, modern Morocco and Tunisia). Since the Maghreb also traded with Christian Europe, this meant that much of the gold current in late medieval Europe came from African mines. In 1324 the king of Mali, Mansa Musa, made a famous pilgrimage to Mecca during which he stopped off in Cairo. Travelling with a retinue of thousands, the king gave away so much gold during his stay that he flooded the market and depressed prices for some years. Europeans were entranced, and the Catalan Atlas, made in Spain some years later, depicts the African emperor upon his throne, holding an enormous nugget of gold. Most intriguing of all, however, was the mysterious legend of Prester John. Dating from the twelfth century, the story concerned a Christian kingdom, ruled by a priest (or ‘prester’) somewhere in Asia, or possibly Africa (medieval Europeans were rather hazy about where one continent stopped and the other started)...
