European Exploration Religion

*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 early voyages by the Portuguese and Spanish were motivated by gold, trade and the spread of the Catholic faith through religious conversion. The voyages of a few adventurers show that the Spanish and Portuguese goals were to spread Catholicism, expand trade, and expand the kingdom of the Spanish and the Portuguese to the new lands they’ve discovered. These adventures were Christopher Columbus who attempted to find a new route to Asia to extend Spain’s trade and to colonize, Bartholomew Columbus and his successful founding of Santo Domingo, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca and his

Portuguese explorers fled to Western India looking for new goods. Later on, Christopher Columbus was ordered to convert people to the Christian religion on and expedtion. On this expedition, he explored new things. He brought back new ideas and rulers throughout Europe began to fund voyages. The goals of the Spanish Monarchs had changed becasue of his voyage. Not only did he convert people to the churches religion, but he gained and found new land and discovered many things. The Columbian

Religion was a motive for colonization. Many religious groups came to America for different reasons, but one they all had in common was because of religious intolerance. The Pilgrims came to America and wanted to separate church and state. while on the other hand, the Puritans only wanted to reform the church. The Quakers left Europe because they wanted to spread their beliefs to the colonists that were in America. All of these people wanted to have

Europe is a cultural region composed of a set of distinctive cultural traits that distinguish Europe from other regions. It is best defined by its human traits, behaviors and activities. The European continent is a non-physical continent and is a realm part of the Eurasian continent plate.

Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, Europeans launched transoceanic voyages of great importance both to the west towards the Americas and to the east towards Asia. The previous 800 years of European history had been dominated by medieval Christian church and the structure of the feudal system; however, with this new mindset that encouraged, among other things, a new spirit of adventure and curiosity that was brought along by the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution, Europeans became brazened in their adventuring and exploration. This period spanning from the sixteenth century until the nineteenth century marked an era in which European explorers and merchants discovered areas of the world yet unseen by Western Europe. Not

Long before Columbus the Europeans had been trading goods with the Far East. This all had stated with Marco Polo an Italian merchant who began a journey to Asia in 1271 (cite). The Asian islands especially China and India had abundance of spice, gold and silk making them an attractive destination for European nations to trade (cite). These valuable Asian goods had helped Europe make big profits for eras. However at the end of the 15th century, it was nearly impossible to reach Asia from Europe by land, because Arabs had dominated the trade routes through the Middle East, which had made traveling eastward very difficult (cite). Therefore European rulers wanted to find safer, and a faster trade routes to Asia so their economy could once again

According to the reading, some of the factors that could have led the early European explorers to explore overseas could have been to increase in power. I believe, this because the reading mentions that the Europeans knew that there were lands to their west. And as the reading mentions, the increase in trade especially with Asia and the African civilizations. It mentions that the rising volume of trade between Europe and North Africa. The increase of trade brought different ideas to different parts of Europe. But trade wasn't the only thing that was spread. Religion also became an important issue to the overseas explorations. The search for gold was also a big factor. And during that time period, the Muslins and the Italians had control of trading and therefore others like Spain and Portugal also wanted to find a different route to Asia. One of the biggest factors would have to be the want of wealth and power. Some explore couldn't imagine what it would be like to return to Europe with wealth and power. So, they took on the adventure and journey.

Europe’s geography allowed Europe to easily trade with other nations. “Geography provides a starting point for explaining European’s American empires. Countries on the Atlantic rim of Europe (Portugal, Spain, Britain, and France) were simply closer to the Americans than were any potential Asian competitors.” (Strayer 619). Europe

Another way Europeans were motivated by secular factors was they focused some of their time and attention the production of wealth and new technologies. The reason why I’m focusing on the production of wealth and new technologies is because although everyone was worried about creating this “marvelous society”, wealth and technology played a big role into their thinking. One important aspect of wealth was the idea of trade. Quickly after the major plague “Black Death” which quickly summarizes one half of the population of Europe was devastated. The plague almost always fatal, spread most rapidly in cities, where people were in close contact with each other. This led Europeans to a downfall because they couldn’t find the source or a cure to tackle this fatal plague. So what happened was they had to let people weigh it out and some died. After this tragic thing happening to society, Europeans now had to find another way to accumulate wealth and one way they accomplished it was by trading.

The European age of Exploration started for a large variety of reasons: to find a sea route to the spices of Asia, to create and control a greater empire, to expand their knowledge of the world, to spread their religion, and to find different precious metals and stones. A great majority of Europe was encouraged by this age and supported the action of exploration. Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain are a great example of being motivated by the idea of power. They wanted their country to grow and become a bigger empire, which is supported by their promises to Christopher Columbus (Doc 1). These promises encouraged Columbus to start exploring the world, and he eventually came across the New World. Here his religious motivations moved him to try and convert any Indian natives to Christianity and believed that for him to do this, he must trade with them in peace. However, this peace did not last very long and ended in a large disagreements and hostility between the two (Doc 2). Another motivation of the Spanish was said by Queen Isabella, before her death when she said, “Our principal intention, in soliciting from Pope Alexander VI the concession of the lands discovered and to be discovered was to convert their peoples to our holy Catholic faith…”(Doc 4). Her statement confirmed that her main motive for exploration was to spread her Catholic faith. This motivation influenced the positive views of the common people. They viewed the New World as a new start to their life and that it offers new opportunities to them (Doc 3).

The European Age of Exploration, a period from the early 15th century continuing into the 17th century, brought about expansion, technology, and nation building with explorer ships traveling the seas in a search for a new trading routes and new land. There was a multitude of motivations for the European nations want to fund explorers who desired to take on the challenges of exploration. Though the motives for exploration were different, in many ways they were the same. The rulers and leaders of the European nations had much the same main motivations driving the push for exploration. The driving motivations of European exploration were the acquiring of wealth, the want for glory, the search for new and ease of trade routes, the need of natural resources, and the spreading of religion.

Many things led to the European exploration. One thing that led to the exploration is that the desire to grow rich. They also wanted to spread Christianity. There was also many advances in sailing technology such as the compass. Those are some of the things that starts the European exploration.

In Europe, there was widespread support for overseas exploration, from three groups of people. The European rulers supported the voyages financially because they hoped the explorers would bring back precious metals and materials that could be sold and used to aid them in war. Along with the leaders, European traders hoped for benefits from the explorations such as, gaining precious trade goods and new suitable land for growing and selling crops, all with a high profit in mind. The final group of supporters were the religious leaders. They believed that through expansion, many new people would be available for conversion to Christianity. Also, they hoped that the missionaries might be able get in touch with an ally against the Muslims, named

Countries in Western Europe during the exploration age flourished due to their quick success by generating money from overseas lands in the Americas. The government of the exploration countries sent explorers to look for land to claim, convert people to their religious beliefs, and gold to mine. But, the natives had their own beliefs, land, and all the gold which inflicted a huge conflict between the Natives and Europeans. This caused the explorers and their crew to forcefully take their land and precious metals, and if they did not convert to Christianity they were killed. When the explorers came back with huge sums of gold and land they were praised by the kings and people of the country they were sailing for. Explorers were driven by God, gold, and glory. The most important factor of these three is gold because it was the main reason to pursue exploration in the new world, it funded more voyages, and led to competition between countries known as mercantilism.