The Age of Exploration

The Age of Exploration Begins•People were curious about unexplored lands

•Countries competed against each other to gain control of new land’s resources and trade routes

• The wealthy & powerful sponsored voyages of exploration to try and find the quickest route to Asia • They wanted control of the spices, gold, ivory, and

other valuable goods

• Improved shipbuilding and navigation tools allowed for long sea voyages

Portugal Sparks Exploration•Mid 1400s- Start the Age of Exploration

trying to find new routes for trade

•Prince Henry the Navigator- supported shipbuilders, mapmakers, inventors, & expeditions to explore the African coast

• Ferdinand Magellan- captained the first crew to circumnavigate (sail around) the world• Proved for certain the world was round• Killed in the Philippines ; never made it home

Magellan’s Route Around the World

Spain Sponsors Christopher Columbus

•1492-Columbus made multiple voyages to the New World; producing detailed maps of the Caribbean islands and the coastline of Central America

•He was trying to find a westerly water route to Asia

Spanish Explorers in Central America•1521- Hernan Cortes led

his conquistadors to invade and crush the Aztecs in Central America (Current day Mexico City)

•1535- Francisco Pizarro led his troops against the Incas in South America (Peru & Andes Mountains)

Cortes’ route into Central America from the island of Cuba

France, England, & the Netherlands• England hired Italian explorer John Cabot to explore & gain new

information on the New World in 1496 & 1497• He claimed part of Canada for England & helped establish a strong

English presence in North America

• France sent Jacques Cartier to find a northwestern water route to Asia to establish a new trade route• 1534- he sailed to St. Lawrence River in North America

• Henry Hudson, an Englishman, sailed for the Dutch to find a route to Asia too.• 1609- he sailed to New York Harbor and up the Hudson River & claimed

the land around the Hudson for the Dutch East India Company (Hudson’s exploration is responsible for American settlement)

Quick Facts to Know• The Portuguese were the first to accomplish sailing

around the globe

• Ferdinand Magellan was the fist person to lead a voyage that sailed around the globe

• Jacques Cartier sought a route to Asia & explored the St. Lawrence River in the process

• Italian John Cabot began England’s exploration of the New World

Reasons for Exploration • European exploration can be summed up in one

phrase: “God, glory, and gold”

• Trade had moved from the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean (Remember the fall of the Songhai in West Africa due to this move in trade at the Atlantic ports?)

• Search for the Northwest Passage: a water route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans

Cape of Good Hope•1488- Portuguese explorer

Bartolomeo Dias became the first European to sail around the Cape of Good Hope (the southern tip of Africa)

•1498- Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and on to the coast of India- establishing the first water trade route between Europe and Asia

• This arrival of Portuguese explorers resulted in the growth of the African slave trade

The Strait of Magellan•1519- Portuguese explorer Ferdinand

Magellan left Spain with five ships

•He navigated his fleet around the southern tip of Africa

• The route he mapped is called the Strait of Magellan & is still used by today

•One ship returned to Spain three years later without Magellan who was killed by natives in the Philippines

Quick Facts to Know• Explorers sailed for “God” because they wanted to

spread Christianity to the savages

• European powers were interested in developing water trade routes in order to establish the quickest way to trade with Asia

• European explorers were searching for a Northwest Passage to find a water route that connected the Atlantic and Pacific oceans

• Explorers wanted sail for “glory” to make their nations proud of them

Effects of Cultural ExchangeThe Columbian Exchange:

•One of the largest exchanges between the cultures

• Europeans were introduced to new plants, animals, and foods in these new lands

• European products, foods, and diseases made their way to the newly explored lands

• Slave trade grew

Sugar, Coffee, & Tobacco

• Three cash crops that were introduced to Europe and became widely popular

•All three required huge plantations to produce these crops

•Native Americans were first enslaved to work on these plantations in the New World, but most died quickly from disease or simply ran away

• This led to the use of Africans who were raided from their villages along the Atlantic coast of Africa by the Dutch

Triangular Trade• Triangular Trade: slave trade across the Atlantic ocean;

trade that brought manufactured goods to Africa. They traded cloth, weapons, and rum for gold and slaves

•African slaves shipped to plantations in the Americas to work

•Middle Passage: what became known as the route that slaves were taken by ships to the Americas; they were packed in the hulls of ships like sardines. Many became sick and died before ever reaching the Americas. Slaves who survived were sold to work on the plantations

Facts to Know• European powers became interested in the slave trade

because they needed workers to work in the field in the Americas

• Tobacco was a crop that was exchanged from the Americas to Europe in the Columbian Exchange

• The Triangular Trade was the trip across the Atlantic that delivered 12 million African slaves to the Americas

• Smallpox was a disease that Europeans accidentally introduced to the American natives

Links to Videos

• History Comes Alive: Age of Exploration Video (21:26)

• The Great Age of Exploration (29:57)- video quiz included