Exploration: Europe and Asia – map on the page 453
European Exploration begins
Merchants of Italian city- states made fortunes bringing spices and other goods from Asia and northern Africa. In fact Italians controlled this trade when the Renaissance began. But other Europeans were interested in expanded trade.
The Crusades also drove Europe`s explorations. The desire to defeat the Muslims and spread Christianity remained strong, especially on the Iberian Peninsula (Portugal and Spain). Here Christians were fighting to remove Muslims who had arrived on the Iberian Peninsula in the 700s.
Portuguese Exploration
1394. Prince Henry the Navigator was born.
He becomes a driving force behind Portuguese exploration. Under his guidance Portuguise navigation and trade advanced significantly.
He took part in conquest of Ceuta in the North Africa and become its governor.
Ceuta was a rich Muslim trading city.
The capture of Ceuta gave the prince and his country a taste for the wealth that was available in trade.
First Portugal would have to break through or sail around Muslim domination in the region.
Exploring the African cost
Conquest of Ceuta also helped the Portuguese to learn more about the continent of Africa.
The conquest of Ceuta allowed Portuguese to have access to excellent maps of North Africa.
In 1419, Prince Henry decided to press Portugal`s exploration of the African coast.
He hired many of Europe`s best navigators, scientists, mapmakers, and shipbuilders and provided money for these journeys of discovery.
Over several decades these voyages pushed farther and farther down Africa`s western coast, establishing trade with the newly discovered areas.
Slave trading – In the mid 1400s Portuguese ships were returning to ports with African captives.
1460. Prince Henry died. He left behind a strong tradition of Portuguese exploration.
Bartolomeu Dias had taken part in explorations of Africa`s western coast.
In 1487, he left Portugal to find the southern tip of Africa.
In 1488 he succeeded in traveling around Africa’s southern tip, he named the tip the Cape of Storms. The name was later changed to the Cape of Good Hope.
Vasco De Gama
In November 1497, Vasco De Gama sailed around Cape of Good Hope and into the Indian Ocean.
In 1498 De Gama sailed into the port of Calicut in India. He was celebrated as a hero as home.
Navigation: The astrolabe was one of the devices that helped make possible the exploits of European ocean explorers. The mariner`s astrolabe made it possible for sailors to figure out their latitude.
Astrolabe was developed by the ancient Greeks. Muslim scholars helped perfect astrolabe technology. They also introduced astrolabe to Europe.
Columbus Sails under Spanish Flag
Christopher Columbus was born in or around Genoa, Italy in 1451. He become skilled sailor, he traveled to Portugal and later Spain.
He developed a plan to reach the lands of India and the East by sailing to the West.
Columbus believed that by sailing far enough to the west, a sailor would eventually arrive at the lands of the East.
Columbus tried to win support for his plan.
In 1492, Queen Isabella of Spain finally agreed to pay for the voyage.
1492, Columbus led three ships, the Nina, The Pinta, and the Santa Maria.
On October 1492, after ten weeks Columbus and his weary crew reached an island in the area now known as the Caribbean.
Columbus journey changed history. Instead of reaching Asia he reached the Americas.
The Santa Maria was the biggest and the flagship, or lead ship of Columbus`s fleet of three ships.
Other explorers look west
Europeans came to know the western lands Columbus had reached as Americas. The name can be traced to an Italian trader known as Amerigo Vespucci .
In the letter to the government official in Florence, Italy, Vespucci claimed to have taken part in four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean. He wrote that in 1497 he explored the coast of what is now South America. The name America soon appeared on a map and came into common use.
Columbus never gave up the idea that the lands he had reached were part of Asia.
By the early 1500s, however, Europeans knew that the Americas were not lands of the East.
Balboa Sees the Pacific.
In 1511, a Spanish explorer named Vasco Nunez de Balboa arrived on the Isthmus of Panama, what connects the continents of North and South America.
An isthmus is a narrow strip of land connecting two larger areas of land.
Balboa organized expedition to find a huge ocean and gold treasure on the south.
After nearly a month, his expedition reached the shores of a sea that stretched far into the distance. This great body of water was the Pacific Ocean.
Magellan`s voyage
In 1519, the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan set out to achieve Columbus`s unfulfilled goal of reaching Asia by sailing to the west.
In 1520, Magellan and three of his ships managed to reach Pacific.
In 1521, Magellan landed in the Philippines, where he was killed by native people.
In 1522, the crew pressed on and on the one remaining ship reached Spain.
The voyage of nearly three years was the first circumnavigation of the globe.
Circumnavigation means going completely around the earth especially by water.
Quest for the Northwest Passage
Many Europeans sought a shortcut through North America, as Magellan`s voyage showed just how hard it was to circle the globe.
European explorers, including England’s Henry Hudson, looked for such a shortcut for hundreds of years.
In 1900s ship successfully traveled from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean by sailing north of Canada.
A Sailors life at the sea
During lengthy voyages of exploration, sailors performed tiring physical labor, suffered from poor nutrition, and endured long stretches of boredom.
They were often lonely, surrounded by vast and sometimes violent seas, far from home and family, they suffered injuries from their work or from fights with other sailors.
Europeans in India and Southeast Asia
Portugal Gains a Foothold in India
In 1498 Vasco De Gamma`s voyage had reached the trading center of Calicut, India, but De Gamma left India empty handed.
Calicut traders had rejected the humble cloth, honey, and other trade goods he brought from Europe
The Portuguese soon returned, however.
In 1500, Pedro Alvarez Cabral set out for India.
It was a first Portuguese landing in an area that is now southeastern Brazil. Cabral claimed this land for Portugal.
Cabral eventually did reached Calicut, his effort to trade for spices went slowly. He had armed conflict with Arab traders that left many people dead.
In spite of the bloodshed, Cabral was able to establish a trading post in India.
In 1501, he returned to Portugal with a load of spices.
The Portuguese Empire Expands
Cabral` voyage was considered a great success. Soon Portugal was sending more ships to trade in Asia.
They were also sending armed forces; with these forces Portugal was able to gain control of many trading centers between the east coast of Africa and the west coast of India. Portugal succeeded in controlling the trade in the region.
In 1511 Alfonzo de Albuquerque led a mission to Malacca, located near the Spice Islands, which helped establish the Portuguese spice trade.
Portugal`s control was limited mainly to trade, he held very little territory.
Challengers to Portugal
Soon other European nations become interested in the region
The Dutch, people from Holland, soon challenged Portugal`s leading role in the East.
During 1500s, the Dutch were growing into an economic and military power in Europe.
They sought to control Portugal`s empire of Asian trading posts. Portugal was unable to defent those posts against more powerful Dutch.
In 1602, the Dutch East India Company was founded in Holland. The Dutch government gave this company a trade monopoly in Asia.
A monopoly is complete control of the trade in a market or product.
The Dutch East India Company became a powerful force in Southeast Asia. It had a base in modern day Indonesia; it established many new trading posts and relationships. The company developed close ties with Asian nations
English in Asia
England was also interested in Asian trade
In 1600, The East India Company was established in England.
He British East India Company competed with Dutch East India Company for a time.
First English drove out Portuguese. Throughout the 1600s, they enjoyed great success, replacing the Portuguese as the area`s leading trading power.
In the mid 1700s, the British were leading power in India.
Eventually, in the mid 1800s, India became a colony of Great Britain.
A colony is a territory ruled over by a faraway country.
Social Studies 