AP Euro -- Age of Exploration

Motives for Expansion

New novels detail New World adventures, religious zeal, and lucrative trade resources.

Marco Polo

Travels of Marco Polo details Eastern culture advancement and peaks European interest

Conquistador

explorer-soldiers of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires of the 15th and 16th centuries, especially in the Americas.

Advancements

Compass, axial rudder, astrolabe, Ptolemy’s classical maps.

Columbus

Italian explorer for Spain who starts the American conquests by Spain and Portugal in 1492

Treaty of Tordesillas

Splits the world map in half between Portugal and Spain with Portugal receiving Africa and Brazil, Spain receiving most of the New World

encomienda

in Spanish America, a form of economic and social organization in which a Spaniard was given a royal grant that enabled the holder of the grant to collect tribute from the Indians and use them as laborers.

viceroy

the administrative head of the provinces of New Spain and Peru in the Americas.

Hernan Cortes

Spanish Conquistador of the Aztec Empire who later seizes Mexico City or Tenochtitlan from Montezuma.

Dutch East India Company

1600, Joint-stock company in the East Indies that leads to success in Dutch colonization of the Spice Trade and Dutch financial superiority.

British East India Company

English joint-stock company who began to seize Indian territory leading into Clive’s Battle of Plassey

Columbian Exchange

The interchange of plants, animal diseases and human populations between the Old World and the New World.

Mercantilism

Economic philosophy calling for close government regulation of the economy.  Mercantilist theory emphasized building a strong, self-sufficient economy by maximizing exports and limiting imports.  Mercantilists supported the acquisition of colonies as sources of raw material and markets for finished good.  This favorable balance of trade would enable a country to accumulate reserves of gold and silver.

Putting-out system (Cottage Industry)

A preindustrial manufacturing system in which an entrepreneur would bring material to rural people who worked on them in their own homes.  For example, watch manufacturers in Swiss towns employed villagers to make parts for their products.  The system enabled entrepreneurs to avoid restrictive guild regulations.

Joint-Stock Company

A business arrangement in which many investors raise money for a venture too large for any of them to undertake alone.  They share the profits in proportion to the amount they invest.  English entrepreneurs used joint-stock companies to finance the establishment of New World colonies.

Bartholomew Dias

Sails around the tip of Africa and leads to new spice trade routes.