European Exploration and Colonization of the Americas Notes

Historical Causation and the Motivations for European Exploration

• Understanding the past involves analyzing the consequences of decisions through historical patterns of thought, specifically causation. Causation establishes why developments happen, recognizing that events are rarely the result of a single factor.
• European exploration was driven by a complex web of multiple causes, including:
  • The high value of Asian goods in European markets.
  • The blocking of traditional overland trade routes.
  • The desires of European monarchs to amass wealth and power.
• Beyond these primary factors, several additional socio-economic developments in early fifteenth-century Europe created the conditions necessary for global exploration.

Socio-Economic Resurgence and the Renaissance in Europe

• Early fifteenth-century Europe experienced a period of stabilization and growth after the devastation of the bubonic plague only a few generations prior.
• Factors contributing to European stability included:
  • Rising birthrates and a surge in population, which provided laborers for merchant vessels and military forces used to protect trade routes.
  • Improved climate and new agricultural approaches that increased the overall food supply.
  • Increased productivity and profits from agriculture and commerce, which allowed the wealthy to invest in the arts and luxury goods.
• The Cultural Renaissance:
  • The term Renaissance is derived from the French word for "rebirth."
  • This intellectual and cultural flowering began in the Italian city-states during the fifteenth century and spread throughout Europe during the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
  • It fostered dramatic changes in art, the cultivation of knowledge, and a questioning of traditional forms of authority.
• Political Unification:
  • Powerful rulers extended control over smaller principalities and city-states to form nation-states led by monarchs.
  • These states developed efficient systems of taxation and recruited larger military forces.
  • Urbanization increased as more people settled in cities, which evolved into vital commercial centers.
  • Technological advancement saw the adaptation of gunpowder into new types of weaponry.

The Shift Toward Atlantic Exploration

• As European elites prospered, a significant demand emerged for fine Asian manufactured goods and spices from India and China.
• Trade Route Competition:
  • Italian city-states and merchants controlled the primary trade routes through the Mediterranean.
  • Muslim rulers controlled minor pathways and the overland routes farther east to India and China.
• Direct Access Goals:
  • Portugal and Spain, effectively blocked from existing eastward routes, sought new paths to Asia to bypass Italian and Muslim rivals.
  • Explorers, missionaries, and merchants traveled to distant lands like Morocco, Turkey, and India, bringing back knowledge and trade goods.
  • This exchange of knowledge included advancements in astronomy, mapmaking, shipbuilding, and navigation, enabling sailors to venture into the uncharted Atlantic Ocean.

Portuguese Innovation and Global Trade Dominance

• Portugal, under the leadership of Prince Henry (known as Henry the Navigator), launched explorations of the African coast in the $1420s$ to find an Atlantic passage to India.
• Research and Recruitment:
  • Prince Henry gathered information from Arab astronomers, geographers, and craftsmen.
  • He recruited Italian cartographers and navigators to work alongside Portuguese scholars and sailors.
• Maritime Technology and Navigation:
  • The Caravel: A narrow, swift sailing ship invented by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century. It featured a narrow hull and could sail into the wind faster than traditional vessels.
  • Lateen Sails: Triangular sails (originally an Arab invention) that allowed ships to sail into the wind at an angle, increasing maneuverability.
  • Swiveling Wooden Rudder: Located behind the stern to improve steering.
  • The Astrolabe: A tool originally invented by Greek astronomers and sailors, used to identify distance and time based on the location of the sun and stars relative to the horizon. It allowed mariners to chart a straight line of latitude.
  • Development of state-of-the-art oceanic charts, maps, and astronomical tables.
• Portuguese Milestones:
  • $1482$: Construction of Elmina Castle, a trading post and fort on the Gold Coast in present-day Ghana.
  • Portugal began trading in gold, ivory, and enslaved people from West Africa.
  • $1487$: Bartolomeu Dias led a fleet that rounded the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa.
  • $1497$-$1499$: Vasco da Gama followed this route to India and returned with valuable cinnamon and pepper.
  • By the early sixteenth century, Portugal controlled the India trade, displacing Arab fleets and establishing fortified trading posts in the Indian Ocean, Indonesia, China, and Japan.

Spanish Unification and the Reconquista

• Spain’s push for exploration followed a period of religious and political internal consolidation.
• Historical Conflict:
  • Muslim Spain was vibrant and tolerant from the eighth to the tenth century, followed by periods of Christian persecution.
  • Christians began the Reconquista (reconquering) of Spain after $1200$.
• Unification under the Monarchy:
  • $1469$: The marriage of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon sealed the unification of Christian Spain.
  • $1492$: Combined Spanish forces expelled the last Muslim conquerors from the Iberian peninsula at Granada.
• The Inquisition:
  • Established by Pope Gregory IX in $1232$ to eliminate heretical beliefs, the Spanish Inquisition was formally established in $1478$.
  • Isabella and Ferdinand used the Inquisition to promote Catholicism and create a unified national identity.
  • Approximately $200,000$ Jews were executed or expelled.
• Expansionist Goals:
  • Post-Reconquista, Spain used its military power and wealth to forge trade networks with North Africa and Asia.
  • A primary motivation for exploration became the intense desire to spread Catholicism to foreign lands.

Early Atlantic Voyages and Norse Exploration

• The first Europeans to reach the western Atlantic were Norsemen from Scandinavia.
• Late tenth century: Erik the Red reached Greenland.
• Leif Erikson: Erik's son led a party to North America, naming an area near the Gulf of St. Lawrence "Vinland."
• Settlement: A small Norse settlement was established around $1000$ C.E. and visited for centuries, though the Greenland settlements disappeared by $1450$.

Christopher Columbus and the Voyage of 1492

• Christopher Columbus, an Italian navigator from Genoa, proposed finding a western path to the Indies (South and Southeast Asia) to the Spanish court after Portugal and Italian states dominated existing routes.
• The 1492 Expedition:
  • Sponsored by Queen Isabella, Columbus departed on September $6$, $1492$, with three ships: the Ni
    a, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria.
  • The crew consisted of $90$ men.
  • They stopped at the Canary Islands before heading west.
• Miscalculations and Landing:
  • Columbus made errors in his calculations, believing Asia could be reached in about one month.
  • On October $12$, $1492$, land was spotted. Columbus named the island San Salvador (meaning "Holy Savior").
  • He encountered local residents he called "Indians," believing he was in the East Indies near Japan or China.
• Early Interactions:
  • Native inhabitants (the Taino people of the Caribbean) provided aid in exploring the area, likely to encourage trade.
  • Columbus visited Hispaniola and returned to Spain in March $1493$ with gold jewelry, captured and enslaved Native Americans, and stories of the region's wonders.

Territorial Division and the Papal Decree

• Because the Spanish monarchy was Catholic, the Pope conferred Spanish sovereignty over all lands claimed west of a line approximately $500$ miles west of the Cape Verde Islands.
• Treaty of 1506: A protest by Portugal led to a revised line farther west, granting Portugal control over what became Brazil, while Spain retained the rest of South America.
• This resulted in Iberians, rather than other Europeans or indigenous peoples, being recognized as the rulers of the Americas in the eyes of the Catholic Church.

Primary Source Perspectives: Columbus’s Journal and El Requerimiento

• Christopher Columbus’s Journal (October $12$, $1492$):
  • Describes the native people as having "handsome bodies," "good countenances," and short, coarse hair like a horse’s tail.
  • Notes they paint their bodies black, white, red, or other colors.
  • Claims they have no knowledge of iron or modern arms/weaponry; they cut themselves on swords out of ignorance.
  • Observes they use wands/darts with fish teeth at the end.
  • Claims they would be "good servants" because they are intelligent and quickly understand what is said to them.
  • Asserts they have no religion and could easily be converted to Christianity.
  • Plans to take six natives back to the Spanish Highnesses to learn the language.
• El Requerimiento (1513):
  • A document written in Spanish that conquistadors were required to read to Native Americans before hostilities.
  • It claims God created one man and woman (Adam and Eve) from whom all are descended.
  • It asserts God gave charge of all nations to St. Peter, the Pope, as the lord and head of the human race.
  • It claims a Pope donated the islands and mainlands to the King and Queen of Spain.
  • It demands that Native Americans acknowledge the Church as the ruler of the world and the Spanish monarchs as the lords of these lands.
  • Warning of War: If the inhabitants do not obey, the Spanish claim the right to enter powerfully, make war "in all ways and manners," take wives and children as slaves, and seize goods.
  • It concludes that any resulting deaths or losses are the fault of the inhabitants for not obeying, not the fault of the Spanish Highnesses.