Exploration and Colonization

Motives, Means, Adventurers, Administration, Results

Psalter map, 13th century

Medieval T-O map

Johannes Schöner map, 1520

Motives

Desire for wealth (gold, silver, silks, spices, profits to avoid Ottoman/Arab middlemen)

Missionary (Prince Henry, Jesuits) Glory (conquistadors) Curiosity

Means

Navigational Advances (compass, astrolabe, quadrant, dead reckoning, caravel/lateen sail, problem of longitude)

Organization (requires….) Centralized States (Portugal, Spain, no Italy) Determination (Columbus, Magellan) Military Technology (cannons, steel, etc.)

Explorers and “Ruthless People”

Prince Henry “the Navigator” (Sagres) Columbus (4 voyages) Vasco de Gama (1000% profit) Magellan Cortez and Pizarro St. Francis Xavier (and de Las Casas) fate of Balboa, Hudson, Pizarro, Magellan,

Cabot

Control

Spain--most centralized of all powers Council of Indies (Seville) Vice-Royalties and Captaincies-General Audiencias Encomienda (leads to exploitation/slavery) Catholic Church and missionaries de las Casas and reforms of 1542

“A Tectonic Shift in History”

Dietary Changes---”Columbian Exchange” Disease and Slavery (native pop. Disaster) National Rivalries Increase (later…

commercial wars) New Views of the World European sense of superiority and also

relativism