European Exploration and Conquest (1450-1650)

Chronology

(1271-1295) Marco Polo travel to China. (1443) Portuguese established first African trading post at Arguin. (1492) Christopher Columbus lands in the America. (1511) Portuguese capture of Malacca from the Muslims. (1518) The Spanish king authorized slave trade to New World colonies. (1519-1522) Magellan's expedition circumnavigated the world. (1521) Cortés conquered the Mexica Empire. (1533) Pizarro conquered the Inca Empire. (1602) The Dutch East India Conpajy established.

Aztec Empire

A large and complex Native American civilization in modern Mexico and Central America that possessed advanced mathematical, astronomical, and engineering technology.

Ptolemey's Geography

A second-century-C.E. work that synthesized the classical knowledge of geography and introduced the concepts of longitude and latitude. Reintroduced to Europeans about 1410 by Arab scholars, its ideas allowed cartographers to create more accurate maps. The recovery of Ptolemy's Geography in the early fifteenth century gave Europeans new access to ancient geographical knowledge. This 1486 world map, based on Ptolemy, is a great advance over medieval maps but contain errors with significant consequences for future expansion. It shows a single continent watered by a single ocean, with land covering three-quarters of the world's surface. Africa and Asia are joined with Europe, making the Indian Ocean a landlocked sea and rendering the circumnavigation of Africa impossible. Australia and the Americas are nonexistent, and the continent of Asia is stretched far to the east, greatly shortening the distance from Europe to Asia via the Atlantic.

Caravel

A small, maneuverable, three-mast sailing ship developed by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century that gave the Portuguese a distinct advantage in exploration and trade.

Encomienda System

A system whereby the Spanish crown granted the conquerors the right to forcibly employ groups of Native Americans in exchange for providing food, shelter, and Christian teaching.

The Fifteenth-Century Afroeurasian Trading World

After a period of decline following the Black Death and the Mongol invasions, trade revived in the fifteenth century. Muslim merchants dominated trade, linking ports in East Africa and the Red Sea with those in India and the Malay Archipelago. Chinese admiral Zheng He's voyages (1405-1433) followed the most important Indian Ocean trade rulers, in the hope of imposing Ming dominance of trade and tribute.

Indians Working in a Spanish Sugar Mill

Belgian engraver Theodor de Bry publisher many images of the European exploration and settlement of the New World. De Bry never crossed the Atlantic himself, instead using images and stories by those who did. This image depicts the exploitation of indigenous people in a Spanish sugar mill.

Brass Astrolabe

Between 1500 and 1635 over nine hundred ships sailed from Portugal to ports on the Indian Ocean, in annual fleets composed of five to ten ships. Portuguese sailors used astrolabes, such as the one shown here, to accurately plot their position.

Seaborne Trading Empires in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

By the mid-seventeenth century trade linked all parts of the world except for Australia. Notice that trade in slaves was not confined to the Atlantic but involved almost all parts of the world.

What was Hernán Cortés' crucial advantage in his conquest of the Mexica Empire?

Cortés was able to exploit internal dissension within the Mexica Empire.

Which of the following characterizes the role of Europe in the system of world trade prior to the voyages of Columbus?

Europe was a minor outpost that produced few products desired by other civilizations.

The roots of the Commercial Revolution were in the commercial and defensive confederation known as...

Hanseatic League.

The European voyages of the fifteenth century were derived from a desire to share in the wealth of the...

Indian Ocean trade.

What did the Treaty of Tordesillas accomplish?

It divided the Atlantic Ocean, giving Spain control everything west of an imaginary line and Portugal everything east of the line.

Conquistador

Spanish for "conqueror," the Spanish soldier-explores, such as Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro, who sought to conquer the New World for the Spanish Crown.

Goods from the Global Economy

Species from Southeast Asia were a driving force behind the new global economy, and among the most treasured European luxury goods. They were used not only for cooking but also as medicines and health tonics. This fresco shows a fifteenth-century Italian pharmacist measuring out spices for a customer. After the discovery of the Americas, a wave of new items entered European markets, silver foremost among them. The incredibly rich silver mines at Potosì (modern-day Bolivia) were the source of this eight-reale coin struck at the mine during the reign of Charles II. Such coins were the original "pieces of eight" prized by pirates and as adventurers. Soon Asian and American goods were mixed together by enterprising tradesman. This mid-seventeenth-century Chinese teapot was made of porcelain with the traditional Chinese design prized in the West, but with a silver handle added to suit European tastes.

Treaty of Tordesillas

The 1494 agreement giving Spain everything to the west of an imaginary line drawn down the Atlantic and giving Portugal everything to the east.

A Mixed-Race Procession

The Incas used drinking vessels, known as keros, for the ritual consumption of maize beer at feasts. This kero from the early colonial period depicts a multiracial procession: an Inca dignitary is preceded by a Spanish trumpet player and an African drummer. This is believed to be one of the earlier visual representations of an African in the Americas.

How did the encomienda system function?

The Spanish crown granted conquerors the right to employ or defend tribute from groups of Native Americans in exchange for providing food and shelter.

Life in the Age of Discovery

The arrival of the Portuguese in Japan in 1453 inspired a series of artworks depicting the namban-jin, or southern barbarians, as they were known. This detail from an early-seventeenth-century painted screen shows Portuguese sailors uploading trade goods from a merchant ship.

Colombian Exchange

The exchange of animals, plants, and diseases between the Old and New Worlds.

How did Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe affect Spanish colonization?

The great distance of the Pacific convinced the Spanish to abandon efforts to trade in Asia and develop their American colonies instead.

Spanish Atrocities in the New World

The illustrations provided by Theodor de Bry to accompany Bartolomé de Las Casas' Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies depict atrocities committed by the Spanish in their conquest and settlement of the Americas. De Bry, a converted Protestant, thereby contributed to the "Black Legend" of Spanish colonization.

Viceroyalties

The name for the four administrative units of Spainish possessions in the Americas (New Spain, Peru, New Granada, and La Plata).

"Black Legend"

The notion that the Spanish were particularly ruthless and cruel in their conquest and domination of the Americas, an idea often propagated by Spain's rivals.

The Port of Calicut in India

The port of Calicut, located on the west coast of India, was a center of the Indian Ocean spice trade during the Middle Ages. Vasco da Gama arrived in Calicut in 1498 and obtained permission to trade there, leading to hostilities between the Portuguese and the Arab traders who had previously dominated the spot.

"Within a few days after our departure from every such town, the people began to die . . . . [B]y report of the oldest men in the country [this had] never happened before . . . . [The people] were persuaded that it was the work of our God." This quote from Thomas Hariot's report refers to what effect of European colonization?

The spread of European disease among Native Americans.

Inca Empire

The vast and sophisticated Peruvian empire centered at the capital city of Cuzco that was at its peak from 1438 until 1532.

Overseas Exploration and Conquest in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries

The voyages of discovery marked a dramatic new phase in the centuries-old migrations of European peoples. This world map depicts the voyages of the most significant European explorers of this period, while the inset map shows Spanish and Portuguese colonies of the eighteenth century.

How did the English and French seek a route to East Asia?

They sought a northwest passage across North America.

Detail from the Catalan Atlas, 1375

This detail from a medieval map depicts Mansa Musa, who ruled the powerful West African empire of Mali from 1312 to 1337. Musa's golden crown and scepter, and the gold ingot he holds in his hand, testify to the empire's wealth as well as to the European's mapmakers' in the precious metals mined in the area.

Phillip II, ca. 1533

This portait by Phillip II as a young man and crown prince of Spain is by the celebrated artist Titian, court painter to Phillip's father, Charles V. After taking the throne, Phillip became another great patron of the artist.

The Mexica Capital of Tenochtitlan

This woodcut map was published in 1524 along with Cortés' letters describing the conquest of the Mexica. As it shows, Tenochtitlan occupied an island and was laid out in concentric circles. The administrative and religious buildings were at the heart of the city, which was surrounded by residential quarters. Cortés himself marveled at the city in his letters: "The city is as large as Seville or Cordoba . . . There are bridges, very large, strong, and well constructed, so that, over many, ten horsemen can ride abreast . . . The city has many squares where markets are held . . . There is one square . . . where there are daily more than sixty thousand souls, buying and selling. In the service and manners of its people, their fashion of living was almost the same as in Spain, with just as much harming and order."

What motivations for exploration by Europeans are expressed in the following two quotes? Bartholomew Diaz: "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." Hernán Cortés: "I have come to win gold, not to plow the fields like a peasant."

accumulating wealth and converting indigenous populations to Christainity.

Which of the following was a major motivation for European exploration?

desire for material profit.

Bartolomé de Las Cases asserted that the Indians...

had human rights.

Mercantilism was an economic development where countries desired to...

have a favorable balance of exports to imports.

What did Columbus believe he had found when he arrived in the Caribbean?

islands off the coast of Japan.

At the time of his death, Columbus believed the islands he found were...

off the coast of Asia.

What group of people benefited the most from large price increases in the sixteenth century?

the middle class.