20th Century American Perception Essay

“What would it be like to explore this New World, not only in books but on the ground? To take a pilgrimage through early America that ended at Plymouth Rock instead of beginning there? To make landfall where the first Europeans had, meet the Naturals, mine the past, and map its memory in the present? To rediscover my native land, the U.S. continent?” (Horwitz 7).

1.) The desire to find new trade routes to Asia was one of the motivations for European explorations. Europeans were seeking the wealth of Africa and Asia. They wanted profit, they wanted gold. The spice market was also a huge profit of trading and several countries tried to gain control of spice trade. Another motivation was God and religion. Europeans wanted to spread the teachings of the Gospel to other parts of the world. They believed it was their duty to spread the word of God. Lastly, land was another motivation for European explorations. Some rulers, especially the King of Spain, and the King of Portugal, wanted to claim as much land as they could. The more land and money a country owned, the better their chance of domination in Europe.

In the early 1400’s ,the Europeans began to have control over the world by setting colonies in the Americas, along the coast of Africa, and parts of southeast Asia. This is referred to as the Age of Exploration . This Age was  caused by advances in technology and it was motivated by the desire for glory, religion , and economic factors. The accomplishments of the European Age of Exploration were that ideas and goods were being exchanged, wealth allowed them better ships and navigation tools, and they had the chance to claim land and territories. These factors contributed in bringing a European Golden Age.

European exploration has been often remarked in history courses as a wonderful period in history; leading to the discovery of the Americas and many sellable goods. However, when looking at the effects on the indigenous peoples of the lands that were pillaged; it wasn’t necessarily as wonderful as once thought. European exploration has led to many positive discoveries and negative results. Whether it was all good or all bad is up to interpretation of the reader so, in the spirit of choices here are some positive and negative effects of European exploration.

Throughout early history, beginning with 1492, exploration was well on its way. European nations began heading west towards the New World in search of new trade routes to the East Indies. With support from kings through financial aid and moral guidance, a new peak was reached upon the arrival of Columbus in the Caribbean islands off the mainland of the Americas. Such an extraordinary event, future voyages were sent off to explore the rest of the New World by Spanish, French, and English ships and explorers. During these times of exploration, traveling nations encountered the Natives among the lands where they would then determine their future through alliances and conflicts. The settlement patterns, along with the attitudes of the American Indians that were encountered with by the Spanish, French and English exploration, can be compared and contrasted through the goals of these nations culturally and socially, and even through the opportunity for economic growth .

European nations in the 15th century began exploring new lands with three motives: religion, wealth, and glory. It was made possible by advances in naval fleet building and navigation, first pioneered by the Portuguese. Europeans began to be involved in extensive exploration, coming in contact with Africa, Americas and their prime target Asia. The main targets of the pioneering Portugese and Spanish was to find and alternate trade route for the Indies trade and also promote Christianity to the new lands. As the century unfolded, the search for newer territories to colonize and shortern routes to the exotic land of spices and silk became the initial driving force for the intensive early exploration by the Europeans .

The Renaissance and the Age of Exploration brought on new ideas, technology, and tools that allowed the Europeans to travel across sea. The Europeans traveled to Africa in search of grains, spices, ivory, gold and slaves. Upon further exploration they found China. In China they found what they were searching for, they found silk cloth, spices and goods. The Europeans wanted to gain power by expanding their empire and search for gold. New technology, firepower, greed, and curiosity drove the Europeans to explore western

*The Age of Exploration saw searches of wealth, new lands, and conversion of christianity. Europeans ed the first globe trading empires and would they would make trips to the western hemisphere.

The Age of Exploration contains both benefits and harms to the groups of people, animals, and land that is associated. The damaging effects of the Age of Exploration were directed, for the most part, upon the people and land of the New World. With the treasure and innovation brought by Europeans in their ships were the

Whenever you hear about the European Exploration, or ‘The Age of Discovery’’ you hear a lot about what the Europeans gained from it, while they did learn a lot from this and gather a lot of new resources they were not the only ones affected. The Age of Discovery affected more areas that just Europe, it also affected the Americas and Africa. To prove this we must first know what European Exploration is.

One of the main reasons European Exploration started snowballing is the fall of Constantinople. This reason itself is why European Exploration began. The Ottomans controlled all the sea trade in the eastern Mediterranean, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and the rest of North Africa, and the power extended into Europe also. After the fall of the great Ottoman Empire it had sparked curiosity into European explorers to discover new sea routes, lands, and territories. They were preparing for this moment and they took full advantage of it, and that was starting with Portugal. In “Document 3” the map describes “A map of exploration routes coming from Portugal. Rulers of Portugal began to fund voyages of exploration under the rule of Prince Henry, ‘The Navigator’ a nickname earned for his interest in new navigation technologies he brought to Europe from the Arab world.” In the map it had presented the new sea routes around the southernmost tip of Africa because they were attempting to find new routes to Asia. If the fall of Constantinople never happened and they remained with their power, the exploration would have never started up. Europe still would’ve been isolated in the Dark Ages with poverty, death, and overall a corrupt

now travel to the cinema in the family car. It was a big hit in the

European exploration wasn’t only entirely based of one motivation in the 15th and 16th century. Although many voyages of discovery were started in search of wealth, religion was also a big reason for exploring other continents. Religion wasn’t the main motivation for European exploration in the 15th and 16th century. Instead, the main motivation was economic motives, which was closely followed by religion, and to a lesser extent was technological developments.

     The Age of Exploration was a time of struggle and wealth for many European countries. The pursuit of a trade route to the Far East led many countries across the ocean, looking for the great spice cities that were rumored by Marco Polo. These countries knew that whoever found the shortest or best route would become rich, very quickly. Explorers from many European countries embarked on journeys that not even they had any clue where they were going. This search for the Far East led to many discoveries that would otherwise have never been found.

Theatrum Orbis Terrarum tells us much about the experience of modernity in the late sixteenth century. It demonstrates how those individuals at the time - who would consider themselves to be at the cutting edge of discovery - were documenting the world around them. Along with this expansion of boundaries came the expansion of knowledge and understanding; understanding of the nature of the world, its structure and formation, shown by this map’s relative accuracy and fullness. Whilst it is not perfect in its execution – Japan and the Americas are misshapen and Oceania has been incorporated into Antarctica – this map is the most accurate that had been produced at the time, and produced a respectable image of the world. This urge - to understand – is further evidenced by the fact that explorers continued to venture across the world: Tasman and Cook’s explorations revealing the continent of Oceania, and further expanding our knowledge of the world. According to Subrahmanyam, “the early modern period … is, in a fundamental way an age … of geographical redefinition” . The creation of Theatrum Orbis Terrarum was preceded by, and facilitated by, the discovery of the Americas by Columbus in 1492 and the circumnavigation of the world by Magellan in 1522. These two discoveries challenged commonly held notions at the time: Magellan proved conclusively that the world was round and not flat, and Columbus discovered an entire continent. These men on their voyages not only improved on the