4.2 Exploration: Causes and Effects

The Role of states in Maritime exploration (causes)

• European States were seeking to expand

  • authority (Glory)

  • their christian faith (God)

  • control of riches (Gold)

• States sponsored the expensive voyages for possible profit.

Causes of exploration

• the desire to bypass Ottoman-controlled trade routes for Asian luxury goods (spices/silk)

• Acquire precious metals (gold/silver) for mercantilism

• spread Christianity

• political rivalry

Portuguese in Africa and India - Effects

• Portuguese wanted a route to African gold

  • Began importing enslaved African by sea, replacing overland slave trade

• landed on India in 1498

  • claimed territory

  • ports in India were key in portuguese trade in Indian Ocean trade

Portuguese in Southeast and East Asia

• When Portuguese traders arrived at China’s docks, Roman Catholic missionaries worked to gain converts among the Chinese people

• Jesuits then followed later

  • ex) Matteo Ricci

  • failed to win converts as scholar-gentry found them barbaric

Spanish In the Philippines

• Annexed the Philippines in 1521

• Manila - Spanish commercial center in the area

• Because of Christian European presence, many Filipinos became Christian.

Trading post empire

• Empire based on small outposts, rather than control large territories

• Maintaining and capturing a colony was expense, so Portuguese used trading posts to build economic wealth instead.

Christopher Columbus

• credited with “discovering the New World” in 1492

• His journeys helped increase the interest in discovery/exploration

Vasco Da Gama

• Portuguese explorer

• landed in India in 1498

Jacques Cartier Samuel de Champlain

• French explorers

• Jacques Cartier

  • Claimed Canada for the French

• Samuel de Champlain

  • discovered the valuable goods and rich resources available in the Americas

  • rich in fur

• Quebec