The Age of Discovery

1095 to 1500s

Roots of Discovery

• Pope Urban II• Order the Crusades 1095• Contact and Commerce• Wealth to Italian City-states• Funds Renaissance• New Technology

Marco Polo

• 1295– 20 year Sojourn in China

• Book inspires travel and exploration– Led to the discovery of a cheaper route to the

East.

Portugal…

• 1450 the Caravel was introduced– Allowed for travel down the African coast

• Allowed for contact with African Gold – 2/3rd of Europe’s supply

• Trading Posts – Gold and Slaves

• Adopted Arab and African practices– Set the standard for new world

Lets Push On…A Quest for a New Route to the Indies!

• Henry the Navigator • Bartholomew Diaz 1488• Vasco da Gama 1498• Pedro Cabral 1500

Henry the Navigator

–Encouraged Portuguese exploration.

Bartholomew Diaz

– (Found a water rout to Asia)– Rounded southern tip of Africa to search for

route to Asia

Vasco de Gama

– (Found a water rout to Asia)– Reached India: brought treasures creating

European thirst for Eastern Goods. – Opened door for Portugal’s Eastern empire

Pedro Cabral

–Discovered east coast of Brazil during 2nd failed voyage to India

–Brazil will become a colony

Spain enters the Search!• Columbus 1492 (Italy)• Amerigo Vespucci (Maps)• Treaty of Tordesillas (1494)

Christopher Columbus

• A successful failure!• Born in Italy.• Completed four voyages across

the Atlantic.

Amerigo Vespucci

– 1501-02: detailed his exploration in Brazil– German geographer honored Vespucci’s false

claim to have been the first to travel to Brazil– Named the new area “America”

Treaty of Tordesillas

• Spain secured claim• New World Divided

– Portugal: Brazil and territory in Africa and Asia

– Spain: dominated North and South America

– Spain never had access to slave trade

• France and England reject the treaty

Gold, Silver, Corn, Potatoes, pineapples,

tomatoes, tobacco, beans, vanilla,

chocolate, syphilis

Wheat, sugar, rice, coffee, horses, cow

s,

pigs, smallpox, m

easles, bubonic plague,

influenza, typhus, diphtheria, scarlet fever

Slaves

Spanish Conquistadors

• Vasco Balboa 1513• Ponce De Leon 1513• Magellan 1519-22• Cortes 1519-21• Pizarro 1532• Coronado 1540-42• De Soto 1541

Vasco Balboa 1513– Discovered the Pacific Ocean off of Panama.– Crossed the Isthmus of Panama.– Settled on Hispaniola.

Ponce De Leon

– Discovered Florida, seeking the fountain of youth.

Ferdinand Magellan– Sailed around South America but killed by

natives in the Philippines

Hernan Cortez– Conquered the Aztecs – Montezuma's envoys thought

Cortes was God Quetzalcoatl.

Francisco Pizarro

– Vast amounts of gold and silver.

Francisco Coronado

• Visited New Mexico and the Southwest• Wanted to find the mythical Seven

Cities of gold

Hernando De Soto

• First European to cross the Mississippi River.

• First Governor of Panama.

Spanish Accomplishments

• 200 Cities• 2 Universities• Control of Millions of Indians

Characteristic of the Spanish Empire

• “God, Gold and Glory”• Intermarriage with Indians• Centralized Authority • Feudal Society

French Colonization

• Verrazano and Cartier• Champlain, Quebec 1609• Marquette and La Salle 1673• Outpost and Trade• Good relations with Indians

Verrazano and Cartier– Sailed coast from Carolina to Maine.– Explored up the St. Lawrence River

Champlain, Quebec 1609

– “Father of New France” – 1 Year after the English founded Jamestown

in Virginia

Marquette and La Salle 1673

–Sailed down Great Lakes–Sought to prevent Spanish

expansion into Gulf of Mexico region

Obstacles to French

• Barred Huguenots• Canada Difficult Climate• Feudal Land System

What about the Native Americans?• Population• Arrived 40,000 years ago on the Bering Strait and spread

to the tip of South America• Spoke 100s of different languages, religions and cultures

and inhabited America.• Between 4000 to 1500 BCE created permanent farm

villages that would dominate Peru, Central Mexico and Northeastern Mexico

• Aztecs, Incas, and other “semi-sedentary”

Different Views

• Work– “Women’s Work”

• Matrilineal and Matrilocal society• Property• Religion