Chapter 14 European Exploration and Conquest
John Cabot
Genoese merchant living in London, discovered Newfoundland, but English established no permanent colonies in the territories they explored
entrepôt
a trading post to which goods were shipped for storage while awaiting redistribution: example: Malacca
Cahokia
abandoned city near modern-day Saint Louis that had already risen and fallen by the time Columbus reached the Americas; had 10,000 people, ancestors of the Maya in the Yucatán peninsula, whose capital was Chichén Itzá
audiencia
board of twelve to fifteen judges that served as viceroy's advisory council and court of appeal
autonomous assemblies
established by English colonists to regulate local affairs; dominated by wealthy merchants and landowners but the common man had more say in politics than in England
capitancies
implemented by the Portuguese, hereditary grants of land given to nobles and lyal officials who bore the costs of settling and administrating the regions, later the Crown secured greater power, appointing royal governors
causes of european expansion
revival of population and economic activity after Black Death, greater demand for luxuries (especially spices), Ottoman control of trade routes, religious fervor, desire for glory and urge to chart new waters, lack of opportunity at home, growth of government power helped finance voyages, to escape poverty at home, continue a family trade, find better life as illegal immigrants in the colonies, improvements in shipbuilding and navigation,
Bolivia
silver discovered here
Admiral Zheng He
went on 7 expeditions with hundreds of ships as far away as Egypt; court conflicts and need to defend against renewed Mongol encroachment led to the abandonment of these expeditions after his death
French territories in the West Indies
Cayenne, St. Christophe, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Saint-Domingue; became centers for tobacco and then sugar production
Portugal's conquest of Ceuta in 1415
Ceutra=Arab city in Northern Morocco, marked beginning of European overseas expansion
Fall of Mongols to the Ming Dynasty in 1368
China entered a period of economic expansion and urbanization; population tripled; Nanjing was largest city in the world; Beijing was larger than any European city
William Shakespeare
English dramatist whose genius lay in his original characterizations, diversity of plot, and gift for language. Greatest masterpieces were his later tragedies including Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth which explore a wide range of human problems and are open to infinite interpretations. Othello, "Moor of Venice", black, reflects confusion about race during his time, presents Othello as a complex human figure, The Tempest highlights issue of race and religions, Prospero raises native Caliban, then enslaves him after attempted rape of his daughter Miranda
Amerigo Vespucci
Florentine navigator first to recognize new continent in letter called Mundus Novus (the New World), named after him
Bartolomé de Las Casas
Franciscan missionary, outspoken critic of Spanish brutality against indigenous peoples, asserted that Indians had human rights, through pressure of Spanish emperor Charles V abolished the worst abuses of the encomienda system in 1531
René-Robert Cavelier LaSalle
French explorer who descended Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, opening way for French occupation of Louisiana
Samuel de Champlain
French navigator and explorer, founded first permanent French settlement at Quebec in 1608, Ville-Marie (Montreal) founded 1642, population of New France small compared to English, but they were energetic traders and explorers, forged relations with Huron Conferderacy
Michel de Montaigne
Frenchman who founded skepticism and cultural relativism in his new literary genre- the essay, Essays consisted of short reflections based on ancient texts, experience as a government official, and his own moral judgement, wrote in French as opposed to Latin and wrote in a conversational tone, quickly translated and widely read
Jacques Cartier
Frenchman who made several voyages to explore St. Lawrence region of Canada, searching for a passage to the wealth of Asia, ended at rapids west of Montreal he hopefully named "La Chine"; when this hope failed French turned to trading beavers and other furs, bartered with local people, fishermen also competed with Spanish and English ships for cod around Newfoundland, thriving fish market in Europe developed due to Catholic prohibition of eating meat on Fridays during Lent
Sultan Mohammed II
Ottoman Emperor who captured Constantinople 1453, renamed Istanbul it became the capital of the Ottoman Empire; Ottoman expansion frightened Europeans who thought their armies were invincible; caused Europeans to look for new trade routes free of Ottoman control
Treaty of Tordesillas 1494
Pope Alexander VI helped settle Spanish and Portuguese claims in New World, gave Spanish everything to the west, Portuguese everything to the east, worked in Portugal's favor
India House in Lisbon
Portugal's office functioning much like the Spanish House of Trade
Bartholomew Diaz
Portuguese explorer wanted to "serve God and His Majesty, to give light to those who were in darkness and to grow rich as all men desire to do"; rounded Cape of Good Hope but forced to turn back due to storms
Vasco da Gama
Portuguese explorer who wanted "Christians and spices", used local Indian pilot to guide his expedition from East African coast to India, succeeded in rounding Cape of Good Hope, returned to Lisbon loaded with spices and samples of Indian cloth, failed to forge any alliances with local powers
Ferdinand Magellan
Portuguese mariner sent by Charles V of Spain in 1519 to find a sea route to the spices of the Moluccas off southeast coast of Asia; sailed to Brazil, located treacherous straits named after him, after sailing through dubbed new ocean Pacific(Latin for peaceful) but soon realized his mistake; sailed towards Malay Archipelago(Philippines for Philip II of Spain); storms, disease, starvation, and violence devastated expedition, Magellan himself died in the Philippines, only 18 out of original 270 men returned to Spain from east by rounding Cape of Good Hope; first voyage to circumnavigate the world, took close to 3 years, revolutionized European's understanding of the world, much larger than Columbus had believed, demonstrated that the westward passage to the Indies was too long and dangerous
viceroyalties
Spain divided its New World Empire into these administrative regions: New Spain capital Mexico City, Peru capital Lima, and later New Granada capital Bogotá, and La Plata capital Buenos Aires; ruled by direct representative of Spain
encomienda system
Spanish Crown granted conquerors right to employ the Native Americans as laborers or demand tribute from them in exchange for providing food and shelter; supposed to teach Christianity and care for native peoples but actually a form of slavery- led to huge population losses
conquistador
Spanish word for "conqueror"; Spanish soldier-explorers such as Hernando Cortés and Francisco Pizarro, who sought to conquer the New World for the Spanish crown
Marco Polo
Venetian trader and explorer encouraged to do business with Mongol emperors, wrote about his travels and his encounter with the Great Khan which fueled Western fantasies, recounted splendors of Khan's court and city of Hangzhou
Francisco Pizarro
a Spanish conquistador who landed on northern coast of Peru and advanced across the Andes towards Inca Empire, executed Atahualpa, collected huge ransom of gold, took Cuzco taking immense amounts of silver and gold
The Travels of Sir John Mandeville
a firsthand account of author's travels in the Holy Land, Egypt, Ethiopia, the Middle East, and India and his service to the Mamluk sultan of Egypt and the Mongol Great Khan of China; stories were fictitious but inspirational nonetheless
Portugal
a small poor country primarily involved in fishing and subsistence farming; long history of seafaring and navigation; winds blew along coast to Africa, Atlantic islands, and Brazil; wanted military glory, conversion of Muslims, gold, slaves, and overseas route to India. Controlled flow of African gold to Europe
Afroeurasian trade
a world trade system that linked the products and peoples of Asia, Africa, and Europe in the fifteenth century; the Indian Ocean was the center
Hernando Cortés
accompanied by 600 men, 16 horses, and 10 cannon, launched attack on the Mexica Empire; landed on coast of the Gulf of Mexico 1519, soon visited by unarmed Mexica leaders bearing lavish gifts and news of their great emperor; forged alliance with Tlaxcalas and other subject kingdoms, occupied Cholula (second largest city/ religious capital) massacred thousands of inhabitants, November 1519 marched on Tenochtitlán, Montezuma welcomed Spaniards relying on advice from his state council, saw Spaniards as living gods; took Montezuma hostage, provoked uprising in which Montezuma was killed, a year later Cortés took Tenochtitlán and began taking the rest of Mexico
Catholic friars
among first Europeans to seek understanding of native cultures and languages as part in their efforts to render Christianity comprehensible to indigenous people
The Travels of Marco Polo
another popular book about travel tales a little more reliable than The Travels of Sir John Mandeville; Columbus took it on his voyage in 1492
Lisbon
became the entrance port for Asian goods into Europe, after Portuguese used bombardment and diplomatic treaties against Muslims to establish forts at Calicut, Malacca, Hormuz, and Goa
transatlantic slave trade
began in 1518 when Spanish emperor Charles V authorized traders to bring enslaved Africans to the Americas, Portuguese brought slaves to Brazil around 1500, by 1600 4,000 were being imported annually
Manila in the Philippines
center of Spanish seaborne trade, bridge between Spanish America and China
Jamestown
colony of Virginia founded by a private company of investors in 1607, struggled, first relying on Powhatan Confederacy for food, later gained steady footing by producing tobacco
China
controlled world trade in silver, demanded silver for their products and the payment of imperial taxes, thus it became the main buyer of silver, absorbing half the world's production, Japan and New Spain were the main suppliers
slavery
deeply entrenched in the Mediterranean, but not based on race, after Ottoman capture of Constantinople halted the flow of white slaves from the eastern Mediterranean to western Europe turned to sub-Saharan Africa
mestizo or métis
described people of mixed Native American and European descent, "mulatto" and "people of color" used to describe those of mixed African and European descent
Christopher Columbus (first voyage)
devout Christian increasingly haunted by messianic obsessions later in life; viewed himself as divine agent meant to spread Christianity; controversial figure- brave explorer/exploiter of Native Americans; had worked as a mapmaker, familiar with compass. 33 day voyage to Caribbean- "The Enterprise of the Indies" backed by Spanish monarchy, Columbus would be viceroy of any land he might discover and promised 1/10th of material rewards, landed in Bahamas which he named San Salvador which he thought were small islands off the coast of Japan, described natives as handsome, peaceful, and primitive people whose body paint reminded him of Canary Island natives, thought they would make good slaves and could easily be converted to Christianity; sailed to Cuba thinking it was the mainland near coastal city Quinsay, sent small embassy inland to locate city but they found only small villages; news of his voyage spread all over Europe
Protestant Dutch
engaged in a long war for independence from Spanish Catholic overlords, joining of Portugal to Spanish crown in 1580 gave Dutch a reason to attack their economic competitor, emerged as a free nation and worldwide seaborne trade power, initially built on spices; in exchange for helping Indonesian princes in local squabbles with the Portuguese, Dutch won broad commercial concessions; gained control of western access to the Indonesian archipelago and later acquired political dominion
global economy
entire world linked through seaborne trade, opening of that trade brought into being three successive commercial empires: the Portuguese, the Spanish, and the Dutch
Venice
established formal relations with sultan of Mamluk Egypt, opening operations in Cairo; specialized in spices, silks, and carpets; most important spice was pepper; traded Spanish and English wool, German metal goods, Flemish textiles, and silk cloths but Eastern demand for such items was low. Venetians developed shipping industry, trade in firearms and slaves which they traded for precious metals
Columbian exchange
exchange of animals, plants, and disease between Europe and the New World; Spanish introduced sugar, rice, bananas, wheat, grapes, olives, horses, cattle, sheep, dogs, pigs, chickens, and goats. Other plants such as the dandelion arrived unintentionally; Native Americans did not domesticate animals for food or travel except for alpacas and llamas in the Inca Empire.
Roanoke
first English colony founded in North Carolina in 1585, settlers disappeared
Christopher Columbus (second voyage)
forcibly subjugated the island of Hispaniola and enslaved natives, brought settlers, agricultural seed and livestock. Revolt broke out against him and his brother, royal expedition sent to investigate returned the brothers to Spain in chains, cleared of wrongdoing but territories remained under royal control; man of his times, never realized his achievement
racial inequality
fostered by slavery over time, Africans seen as distinct from and inferior to Europeans, black skin became equated with slavery and sin
Plymouth and Massachusetts
founded by Pilgrims 1620 who arrived on the Mayflower; founded by Puritans- religious disputes led to dispersion of settlers into Providence, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Haven, Catholics had settlement in Maryland and Quakers in Pennsylvania
Dutch East India Company
founded with the intention of stealing the spice trade from the Portuguese
native population decline
from roughly 50 million in 1492 to about 9 million in 1700
New Netherland
governed by New Amsterdam, hampered by lack of settlement and weak governance and was captured by British in 1644; Dutch efforts to colonize North America less successful
Council of the Indies
guided royal policy and served as the highest court for colonial affairs
Genoa
had dominated the northern route to Asia through the Black Sea, sponsored expedition into Atlantic in search of India but it failed. Genoese shifted focus from trade to finance and from Black Sea to western Mediterranean; later provided their skilled merchants, navigators, and financiers to Iberian monarchs; ran many sugar plantations established by Portuguese on Atlantic islands; sought new supplies of slaves in the West taking Guanches, Muslim prisoners, and Jewish refugees from Spain and later black and Berber Africans
Royal African Company
held a monopoly over the slave trade from the English crown
corregidores
held judicial and administrative powers at the local level
magnetic compass and astrolobe
helped mariners plot their position accurately
kingdom of Mali
important player on overland trade route; gained prestige from ruler Mansa Musa's famous pilgrimage to Mecca
Inca Empire
isolated Peruvian civilization, extensive roads, capital Cuzco, had been weakened by disease, possibly smallpox and had been in civil war over succession, Atahualpa won control over empire after 5 years of fighting, he sent envoys inviting Spanish in Cajamarca, wanting to lure Spanish into a trap, but instead he was ambushed and captured, then executed
Pedro Alvares Cabral
landed on coast of Brazil and claimed it for the Portuguese
haciendas
large estates carved out by Spaniard for grazing livestock
Mexica Empire
later called Aztecs, ruled by Montezuma II from capital Tenochtitlán (now Mexico city), heart of sophisticated civilization; required constant warfare with neighbors to secure captives for religious sacrifice and laborers for agricultural work
Prester John
legend about a Christian nation in Africa held by Europeans; believed in a mythical king said to be the descendant of one of the three kings who visited Jesus after his birth
House of Trade
located in Seville, controlled the flow of goods and people from Spain to the colonies
Martin Frobisher
made three voyages in and around the Canadian bay that now bears his name, brought back ore to England but it proved to be worthless
intendant system
mid-1700s, reform-minded Spanish king Charles III adopted this system for the Spanish colonies
dysentery
most common cause of death for enslaved Africans, caused by poor quality of food and water, crowding, and lack of sanitation. 20% of slaves died during the Atlantic passage
South China Sea
most developed area in the Indian Ocean
sugar
originally an expensive luxury that only the very affluent could afford, but population increases and monetary expansion led to an increased demand, native to the south pacific taken in ancient times to India where farmers learned to preserve cane juice as granules, traveled to China and the Mediterranean where Crete and Sicily had the warm and wet climate needed for growing, difficult and demanding crop to produce for profit, planted by hand, had to be harvested rapidly, growing season virtually constant, invention of roller mills increased demand
King Ferdinand of Spain
recognized Indians seemed "very frail" and that "one black could do the work of four Indians" in 1511
Ptolemy's Geography
reintroduced by Arab scholars in 1410; written in second century C.E. by Hellenized Egyptian, synthesized geographical knowledge of the classical world- depicting world as round, introducing latitude and longitude, but also contained crucial errors- world much smaller than it is
unions with native women
relied on as translators and guides to form alliances with indigenous powers; children from these unions in Portuguese, Spanish, or French colonies were free people of color, in English colonies masters were less likely to free children they fathered with female slaves
"Of Cannibals"
reveals impact of overseas discoveries for Michel de Montaigne, rejected notion that one culture is superior to another
captaincy of Bahia
site of capital, Salvador, home to governor general and other royal officials
Virgin of Guadalupe
sixteenth-century apparition of the Virgin Mary in Mexico city, became a central icon of Spanish-American Catholicism
caravel
small, light, three-mast sailing ship developed by the Portuguese to replace the galley; held more cargo, more maneuverable
Aristotle's argument about slavery
some people naturally destined to be slaves
Noah's curse on Canaan
son of Ham, Canaan and his descendants cursed by Noah to be the "servants of servants" because Ham defied ban of sexual relations on the ark, these people lived in North Africa and Cush
Taino people
speakers of Arawak language, inhabitants of Hispaniola who Columbus called "Indians", used hand gestures to tell of gold and a great king nearby
first worldwide traders
the Portuguese, from bases at Goa and Malacca carried goods to Macao in South China Sea, then sailed to Nagasaki and Manila; traded slaves throughout Asia
silver
true source of Spanish wealth, huge source found at Potosí (in Bolivia) in an area conquered from Inca Empire, from Potosí and the mines at Zacatecas and Guanajuato in Mexico armed Spanish convoys transported precious metals to Spain, but steady population increase causing increased demand Spanish economy couldn't meet demands, led to widespread inflation; silver did not cause initial inflation, but exacerbated the situation, severely strained government budgets
Dutch West India Company
with support of United Provinces, transported thousands of Africans to Brazil and the Caribbean to work on sugar plantations; destroyed hundreds of Spanish ships, seized Spanish silver fleet in 1628, and captured portions of Brazil and the Caribbean
Philip II and his successors
wrote off the state debt, undermining confidence in the government and leaving economy in shambles, paid foreign debts and armies in silver bullion spreading inflation to the rest of Europe, people living on fixed incomes such as nobles were badly hurt, those owing fixed sums of money such as middle class prospered becauses debts were easier to pay, food costs rose sharply and poor fared worst of all
Prince Henry the Navigator
younger son of the king of Portugal, supported study of geography and navigation and sponsored annual expeditions down the western coast of Africa; under his direction began settling islands of Madeira and the Azores, founded Arguin in North Africa, forts on Guinea coast all the way to Timbuktu
Calicut and Quilon
Indian cities which became thriving commercial centers
Ethiopia
a Christian kingdom with scattered contact with European rulers
causes of native american population losses
disease (smallpox, influenza, typhus, etc), forced labor, malnutrition, reduced fertility rates, high infant mortality rates since children separated from mothers, starvation, and violence in warfare
Swahili-speaking city-states
on east coast of Africa; traded ivory, rhinoceros horn, tortoise shells, and slaves for textiles, spices, cowrie shells, porcelain, and other goods; Cities like Kilwa, Malindi, Mogadishu, and Mombasa became known for their prosperity and culture
Mamluk Egyptian Empire
one of the most powerful empires in Africa until taken over by Ottomans in 1517; capital Cairo was a center of Islamic learning and religious authority and a hub for Indian trade goods
Mansa Musa
reportedly came to throne of Mali when previous king failed to return from naval expedition of Atlantic Ocean, made a famous pilgrimage to Mecca 1324/25
Persian Safavids and Turkish Ottomans
two rival nations that dominated the Middle East; Persia was Shi'ite Muslims, Ottomans were Sunni Muslims