AP European History
AP European History
The Renaissance spirit of inquiry not only led to changes in religion, but also led Europeans to explore the outside world. Beginning in the fifteenth century, European nations undertook expeditions to find a direct water route to India, believing that control of the trade route with East Asia would bring vast wealth. Asian traders and Italian merchants from the city-states of Venice and Genoa held a monopoly on the existing trade routes and prices were very high. Many Europeans wanted to bypass the Mediterranean and trade directly with the East as a way to increase profits. Others sought fame and fortune and the titles that went with the exploration of new lands. Finally, some saw these expeditions as an opportunity to spread the glory of God.
Technological development during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries also contributed to this age of increased exploration. Notable improvements in map making and shipbuilding, which gave rise to the Caravel, a ship with both square and triangular sails that enabled it to sail more effectively against the wind than the square-rigged ships, enabled Europeans to sail farther than ever before. The Caravel also had an improved rudder that enabled it to achieve easier turns than earlier ships, plus a larger cargo area which enabled the Caravel to carry the amount of supplies needed for longer voyages. Navigational improvements, moreover, such as the mariner’s compass, the sextant, and the astrolabe, made ocean voyages less dangerous.
The financial capital that was needed to promote these explorations supported the need for strong leadership with the ability to centralize and consolidate power. This consolidation of power contributed to the rise of the absolute rulers who controlled every aspect of their respective governments. In France, the reign of Louis XI (1643-1715) symbolized absolutism at its height. There would be absolute rulers in Eastern Europe like Peter the Great of Russia but none would surpass the power of the French monarch. While France represented the classic model of absolutism, England provided the example of a constitutional parliamentary government, which defined the limits of the king. Spain, similar to France, developed a strong absolutist government, but had a short period of greatness, which ended at the close of the sixteenth century.
Historians have called the period from 1415-1650, the Age of Discovery. This term refers to the era’s phenomenal advances in geographical knowledge and technology. Portugal, situated on the extreme southwestern edge of the European continent, got a head start in overseas exploration before the rest of Europe. Prince Henry (1394-1460), the son of the Portuguese king, was called the Navigator because of the annual expeditions that he sent down the western coast of Africa. He established a school of navigation along the southwestern coast of Portugal. Prince Henry gathered mapmakers, ship builders, and trained captains at the school to help them perfect their trade. In 1415, he encouraged Portugal to search for a direct water route to India around the coast of Africa.
Some important Portuguese explorers were the following:
Bartholomew Diaz (1450-1500) In 1488, Diaz was the first man to sail around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa.
Vasco Da Gama (1469-1524) In 1498, Da Gama discovered an all-water route to India by sailing around the tip of Africa, and was the first European to reach India by water. By doing so, he showed it was possible for Europeans to obtain Asian goods without having to use an overland route. In 1502, on a second voyage, Da Gama returned home with Asian spices that were worth more than $1 million in gold and 60 times the cost of the actual voyage. This voyage generated a great deal of excitement in Western Europe.
Portugal gained control of the rich spice trade of the Indian Ocean by overpowering Muslim forts and deploying squadrons of naval ships to defeat the Arab fleets that patrolled the Indian Ocean. A scholar once commented that Christianity came to India on cannon balls. The Portuguese successfully mounted cannons on ships, using them in 1509 to blast open Goa, a port city on India’s west coast, and in 1511, Malacca, near modern Singapore. These battles ended Arab domination of the South Asian trade and established a Portuguese foundation for a trading empire for most of the 1500s. In capturing the port city of Malacca, the Portuguese seized the waterway that gave them control of the Spice Island, just west of New Guinea. Portugal’s control of these areas broke the old trade route from the East. In 1504, spices could be bought in Lisbon for only one-fifth of what it cost when they had been purchased from the Arabs and Italians.
The success of Portugal inspired Spain to gain a share of the rich trade with the East. However, the Spanish decided to try the westward route rather than down around the Cape of Good Hope to reach the treasures of the East. The Spanish were hoping to beat the Portuguese to the East, which Da Gama had not yet reached, and they also wanted to break the Muslim-Italian monopoly of the spice trade.
Some important Spanish explorers were the following:
Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) Convinced that he could reach Asia by sailing west, Columbus managed to persuade Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to provide three ships for a journey. In October 1492, after a 33-day voyage from the Canary Islands, Columbus landed in the Bahamas instead of the East Indies. Undeterred, he named the territory the “Indies.” In three subsequent voyages, Columbus explored the entire Caribbean islands.
Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521) In 1519, Magellan led several ships from Spain, rounded the southern tip of South America, and crossed the Pacific. However, Magellan became involved in a local war between two rival tribes and was killed in the Philippine Islands. By 1522, one of Magellan’s ships managed to return to Spain, thereby completing the first circumnavigation of the globe. Magellan’s voyage proved that the territory where Columbus landed was not part of the Far East but an entirely new continent. This new island group gave Spain a base from which to trade with China and spread Catholicism in Asia.
The Spanish also sent out conquistadors (or conquerors) who sought fame, wealth, and power in the unexplored lands in the New World. These included the following:
Hernando Cortés (1485-1547) Cortés landed in Mexico in 1519. By 1521, he had formed an alliance with the enemies of the Aztec and defeated the mighty Aztec Empire. The Aztecs controlled their vast empire of 38 provinces of central Mexico through terror. Their state religion, the Cult of Huitzilopochtli, which required human sacrifice, led to constant warfare against their neighbors in order to obtain sacrifices for these religious practices. When Cortés arrived in 1519, the provinces were in revolt against the Aztecs who were demanding higher tribute. Thus many of these subjugated people joined the Spanish against the Aztecs.
Francisco Pizarro (1476-1541) Between 1531 and 1533, Pizarro conquered the Inca Empire of Peru and established Spanish control in western Latin America.
Spain’s conquests were successful for the following reasons:
The results of Spain’s conquests in the Americas were the following: