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Age of Exploration and the World

Economy

Chapter 16

Unit 4: 1450-1750

Reasons for Exploration

• God, glory, and gold motivated exploration

• Better ships, instruments and improved mapsmade voyages possible

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Portuguese Exploration

• 1st Europeans to sail around the Cape of Good Hope in 1488and reach India in 1497

• Landed in Brazil in 1500 after ship was blown off course

Spanish Exploration

• Christopher Columbus landed on the island of Hispaniola in 1492.

– Four further voyages but never landed on the mainland.

• Ferdinand Magellan was first to circumnavigate the globe in 1522

– Crew completed the journey after he was killed in the Philippines

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Northern Europeans

• England’s defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 shifted naval power in Europe

• Joint-stock companies allowed individuals and the government to invest in overseas exploration and trade– Dutch and British East India

Companies

Columbian Exchange

• Exchange of products and pathogens across the

Atlantic

– From Americas to Europe: Potatoes, maize, tobacco,

cacao

– From Africa to Americas: Slaves, rice, sugar, bananas

– From Europe to Americas: textiles and smallpox

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Mercantilism

• Colonies provided raw materials for manufacture in the mother country– Mercantilism always benefits the

mother country

• Coercive labor systems, including plantation and encomienda systems were used to increase agricultural output without cost

Latin America• Treaty of Tordesillas

divided the Americas between Spain and Brazil

• Spanish conquest of the mainland launched from Cuba

• Very few Europeans in charge of large numbers of natives and slaves

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North America

• British and French colonists had more direct ties to Europe and its ideals

• French and Indian War: Extension of the Seven Years War fought in continental Europe– Britain gained controlled of

all land east of the Mississippi River

Asia

• European demand for Asian goods was high

– Gold and silver were the only currency accepted

• China and Japan adopted closed country policies which limited trade and foreign influence until the nineteenth century

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Coastal trade

• Outside the Americas, trade was conducted

from stations in port cities

– Dutch established the Cape colony in South Africa

to supply ships

– British establish a foothold in Calcutta, India