While Constantinople was being sacked by the Ottomans in 1453, changing the most key trading hub in the world to the Islamic stronghold of Istanbul, Europe was suffering from the unjust role of monarchs. With exploration to the Americas and West Indies beginning in 1492. Europeans had various reasons for departing their homelands and going to settle in the new world, including religious, commercial, and developmental reasons.
For commercial reasons, countries such as such Spain were struggling and looking for new ways to earn money that would make them rich. In a letter to De Torres from Columbus, he said he should be considered a captain who has conquered warlike new people to take over land and acquire gold. (Doc. 5) For countries such as
European exploration was a time period in European history when European countries explored and discovered new parts of the world. The desire to grow rich and spread Christianity alongside advances in sailing technology lead to European exploration. European countries wanted the same success in trading with Asia as Italy, so they sought a direct trade route to Asia to bypass the Italian merchants who sold their goods from Asia at unreasonable prices. The spread of Christianity also led to European exploration because they believed it was their sacred duty to convert non-Catholics, which led to discovering new people and converting them. Lastly, advances in sailing technology, such as the caravel, astrolabe, and compass, led to European exploration by allowing for longer voyages and greater distances being able to be crossed.The desire to grow rich, spread Christianity, and advances in sailing technology led to European exploration.
Gold & Silver: Gold and silver was the main reason of oversees exploitation and conquests for the money it provided for the Spanish empire. Brutal and violent acts were done to possess the metals. France, England, and Dutch also got the goods by stealing from Spain.
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
During the sixteenth century Spain had control over land in the Caribbeans and America that was ten times the size of Spain. One of the most famous conquerors was a man by the name of Cortes. His first target was the Aztec Empire one of the richest empires in America. After a very bloody battle Cortes successfully conquered the empire “converting” its people to Christianity and taking their gold. From this Cortes became on of the richest men in the world. This event inspired many others to do the same with many choosing the life of a conquistador to find their riches in the new world. The amount of conquistadors started to make Spain worry if they were to try and rule New Spain and that they were killing more Indians instead of converting
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 .
Between 1948 and 1959, there was much opposition to Apartheid after its execution in 1948 by the National Party. Due to the apartheid laws being of a racial legislation, primarily promoting white supremacy and the discrimination of Black and colored individuals throughout South Africa, there would be no doubt that some form of opposition would be present. The opposition came in forms of the ANC and PAC primarily, two resistance parties in support of the improvement of Blacks throughout South Africa. Despite this however, it could be argued that their opposition was primarily unsuccessful due to their lack for de jure change in the system.
A priest named Father Hidalgo revolted against Spain. Hidalgo fought against the injustices of the colonial system. He asked others, “Will you recover the lands stolen three hundred years ago from your forefathers by the hated Spaniards? … Will you defend your religion and your rights as true patriots?” (doc E). Hidalgo questioned others and encouraged them to fight with them to get their rights back that they had originally lost. According to Juan Pablo Viscardo, a Creole, Spain created “restrictions on travel and commerce” (doc C) which kept America from the rest of the world. Viscardo also explains that it forced America to “sell our (America’s) products at artificially low prices and buy what we need at artificially high prices” (doc C). If America is buying at high prices and selling at low prices, how do they make the money they need to grow as a country and prosper? The Creoles wanted more economic control because it had been growing and the Creoles wanted their rights
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
Beginning in the 15th Century, nations such as Spain, Portugal, Germany, Britain, and the Netherlands started exploring for new lands and colonizing them. Driven for power, trade, or expansion, many European powers colonized the New World. Yet when looking at the Muslim contemporaries, the Ottoman, Persian and Mughal Empires did not set sail for new land like their Western counterparts. Why did the Muslim world not partake in exploration and colonization of the New World, despite having equivalent wealth and technology? Factors limiting the Ottoman and Mughal Empires colonial participation include, their status as large, land based countries with significant resources and prosperous trade within their empires, resulting in little need to
There were many motives, expectations, problems, and awards that associate with the age of European expansion. During that time, your average citizen sought wealth, religious zeal, and fame, while the nations' leaders were after superiority over their fellow nations. Each European nation sought to be wealthier and more powerful than their neighbors. These factors were the motivators of the age of expansion in Europe. With their motives, European nations sought to achieve an all-water route to Asia, so that they may bypass the Ottoman middle-man, spread Christianity, obtain large amounts of valuable goods, such as Gold and Ivory, and, obviously, expand their empire. However, numerous problems arose as time went on. Diseases that wiped out entire
Trade was the first motive for European exploration. During the 15th and 16th centuries, the Italians and Muslims had control of the Mediterranean. Because of this, countries such as Portugal lacked access to Asian trade routes, since they lacked the resources to break through “the Italian dominated trade of the Mediterranean” (Arnold 4) Such countries were forced to explore and expand in order to find new routes around the world to reach Asia, causing them to search for goods and trade beyond their borders, acquiring land and resources along the way, which in turn expanded European trade and economy. Another factor was Europe's search for new trade. European merchants discovered that they could no longer sell their merchandise in Asia and Africa, as many of their products were deemed inferior to their African and Asian counterparts. They attempted to sell “crude woollen cloth in Asian markets accustomed to fine silks and calicoes” (Arnold 3) The Europeans needed a new market, motivating them to send explorers such as
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
There were Spain, England, France, Russia and China expeditions that visited all parts of the Ocean including Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Ocean basin. Europeans were not the only people who were explored the larger world. In the1400 and 1800, European sailors, explorers and adventures launched series of exploratory voyages to explore the world and brought them to almost to all the earths water. The explorers, conquerors, missionaries, merchants, and adventurers sought to claim new lands to colonize, new land for possession and control trade routes. In the following, I will discuss the differences between the motivations of the Europeans’ expansion of the New World and develop empires whereas the societies of Asia and Africa did not.
The Spain’s source of power is its Navy, thus they used this to colonized smaller countries and continue its competition with other European colonizers(Wanlass, 1952). The strong desire
Europeans in the late fifteenth century were driven to explore. Shipping by sea was becoming popular. In the 1400s many European monarchs faced a problem, as they tried to import spices and silks from China and India, they were threatened by the Ottoman Empire who controlled Eastern Europe as well as the Venetian traders who economically ruled the Mediterranean Sea with high tariffs. To avoid being subservient to the Ottomans and Venice, the monarchies of Spain and Portugal, as well as other European countries began commissioning fleets of trading ships to find a route to Asia circumventing those locations. The Europeans discovered that by traveling below Africa through the Cape of Good Hope they could reach Asia without much problems. These ships needed to find places to port and the Europeans began setting up port cities along the African coastline. Originally when the Europeans moved into Africa they inhabited the