AP
Eurpean
History
Age of Exploration and conquest
European nations were driven by commercial and religious motives to explore territories and establish colonies.
From the 15th through the 17th centuries, Europeans used their mastery of the seas to extend their power in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. In the 15th century, the Portuguese sought direct access by sea to the sources of African gold, ivory and slaves. By the 17th century Europeans had forged a global trade network that gradually edged out earlier Muslim and Chinese dominion in the Indian Ocean and the western pacific.
Mercantilism at base postulated increased royal control over both the internal and external economic policies of the state, it found easy acceptance among the "new" monarchies of the late fifteenth century and the sixteenth century. An example of this is the nation of Portugal. Manuel I was ruler in 1495-1521 and his successors embraced its tenets regarding bullion and colonies to help exploit their burgeoning Asian empire.
Cairo is the capital of the Mamluk Egyptian empire. Sharing in Cairo's prosperity was the African highland state of Ethiopia which was a Christian kingdom with scattered contacts with European rulers. Religious fervor was another important catalyst for expansion. The passion and energy ignited by the Christian reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula encouraged the Spanish and Portuguese to continue the christian crusade. Competition among European monarchs and between Protestant and Catholic state was an important factor in encouraging the steady stream of expeditions that began in the late fifteenth century.
Advances in navigation, cartography, and military technology allowed Europeans to establish overseas colonies and empires.
The Compass
The magnetic compass had been brought to Europe by the 10th century from China by Arab traders. The compass is the oldest instrument for navigation and has been a vital tool for navigators at sea for centuries. The magnetic compass enabled sailors to determine their direction and position at sea.
Portalani
Portalani's were maps developed by Arab navigators showing coastal outlines. It was used on a flat scale and was of no use during long voyages.
Astrolabe
The Astrolabe is an instrument that was invented by the ancient Greeks and perfected by Muslim navigators, was used to determine the altitude of the sun and other celestial bodies. It permitted mariners to plot their latitude,, that is, their precise position north or south of the equator.
Horses
Horses had a few jobs during the Exploration and Conquest. Horses were seen as ways to get around much as we see cars today they were used for transportation. They were also used as weapons by the Spanish while there was conflict between them and the New World Indians.
Guns and Gun Powder
Gunpowder had been brought from China. This was a main item that was being traded throughout the exploration and conquest. Guns were also very hot because they were light and more easy to carry which made it more convenient for people.
Europeans Established overseas empires and trade networks through coercion and negotiation.
Portuguese sailors began exploring the coast of Africa and the Atlantic archipelagos in 1418-1419, using recent developments in navigation, cartography, and maritime technology such as the Caravel, in order that they might find a route to the source of the lucrative spice trade. Over the following decades, Portuguese sailors continued to explore the coasts and islands of East Asia, establishing forts and factories as they went by.
The Spanish Empire also known as the Mexica Empire was once at its brightest. The Mexica Empire was ruled by Montezuma II from his capital at Tenochtitlan, now mexico city. This empire was larger than any European city at the time, it was the heart of a sophisticated civilization with advanced mathematics, astronomy, and engineering; a complex social system; and oral poetry and historical traditions.
For over a Hundred years, the Spanish and the Portuguese dominated settlement in the New World. There was a three-year loss of contact with England, the settlers were found to have disappeared; their fate remains a mystery. The Portuguese adopted similar patterns of rule, with India House in Lisbon functioning much like the Spanish House of Trade and royal representatives overseeing its possessions in West Africa and Asia. England's colonies followed a distinctive path. Drawing on English traditions of representatives government, its colonists developed their own proudly autonomous assemblies to regulate local affairs. Like their European neighbors, France and England initially entrusted their overseas colonies to individual explorers and monopoly trading companies.
By the early to mid-seventeenth century, Spain, England, France, and the Netherlands were all competing for colonies and trade around the world. Beginning in the late fifteenth century, explorers, conquerors, missionaries, merchants, and adventurers sought to claim new lands to colonize. It was only a matter of time before imperial rivals butted heads over land possession and trade routes. Competition for land grabs, settlement, trade, and exploration led to the growth of New World imperialism and the economic system of mercantilism.
Europe's Colonial expansion led to a global exchange of goods, flora, fauna, cultural practices, and diseases resulting in the destruction of some indigenous civilizations, a shift toward European dominance, and the expansion of the slave trade.
In Europe, these successes shifted economic power within Europe from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic states. In Asia, the Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch competed for control of trade routes and trading stations. Then the Columbian exhcnage came into place which started to bring new things and diseases. This set every one to want to start to exchange and trade things which brought good and bad to the New World.
The Columbian Exchange which brought animals, plants, and disease-created opportunities for Europeans and facilitated European subjugation an destruction of indigenous peoples, particularly in the Americas. European immigrants to the Americas wanted a familiar diet, so they searched for climatic zones favorable to those crops.
In 1453 the Ottoman capture of Constantinople halted the flow of white slaves from the eastern Mediterranean to western Europe. Portuguese explores began their voyages along the western coast of Africa, one of the first commodities they sought was slaves. In the year of 1444 the first ship returned to Lisbon with a cargo of enslaved Africans; the Crown was delighted, more shipments followed after that.
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