Lecture Notes: Chapter 1–7 Introduction to European Exploration, Mercantilism, and the Columbian Exchange

Overview and Guiding Questions

• Focus of today: Western Europe (especially the West) as the starting point for exploration and empire in the 1400s, leading into broader imperial expansion.
• Guiding question: Why do Europeans begin exploring, and why do they start setting up empires in the 1,400s? How do these explorations and empires relate to broader trends and to specific nations like France, England, and Portugal?
• Contextual framing: Context means the trends and themes surrounding an event. By about 1400, the Atlantic world (Americas, Europe, Africa) begins to take shape through exploration and empire-building.
• Key regional balances in 1400: Americas (Aztec and Indian empires are significant in other lectures), West Africa (Mali is dominant; Songhai rising around 1500), Asia (briefly referenced; main dynasties at their height in this period not the focus here), and Western Europe (no major empire yet).

Western Europe in 1400: Fragmentation and Opportunities

• Western Europe is fragmented; the focus is on the western portion of the continent.
• The question is what changes in Western Europe will lead to exploration and empire.
• The broader context includes multiple preconditions: Renaissance, new technologies, stronger centralized states, and global trade pressures.

The Renaissance: Rebirth of Learning (1400s–1600s)

• Bridging concept: Renaissance = rebirth of learning and knowledge lost during the Middle Ages.
• Timeframe: roughly 1400 through the 16 ext{th} centuries.
• Causes and effects:
  • Survival rates in Europe improve, enabling more investment in learning and exploration.
  • Rediscovery and relearning of Greek and Roman knowledge (geometry, philosophy, history, science).
  • Rediscovery includes Ptolemy's geography and classical texts like Plato and Aristotle.
  • Knowledge previously lost in various domains (e.g., Roman architecture, aqueducts, Roman concrete) begins to re-enter Europe.
• Class context:
  • Society is highly stratified by class: middle merchants and nobility have most access to education and wealth; peasants remain primarily focused on survival.
  • The Renaissance is not evenly distributed; literacy and education are concentrated among the upper classes.
• Relevance to exploration:
  • A broader mind-set shifts toward learning about the wider world, mapping, and spreading knowledge.
  • This mindset blends with technological changes to enable exploration.

Technology, Knowledge, and the Spread of Information

• Gutenberg printing press (movable type): developed in the mid-14th century, roughly 1440 ext{ to } 1450.
  • Before printing: books were handwritten; very few books existed and literacy was limited.
  • After printing: mass production of books, widespread literacy, and faster dissemination of knowledge.
  • Impact on exploration: maps, geography, travel accounts, and encyclopedic knowledge become more accessible.
  • Quantitative note: the first 50 years after the printing press saw more books produced than in the previous 1000 years combined.
• Other connections:
  • News and ideas spread more rapidly, fueling curiosity about distant lands and peoples.
  • The press supports the distribution and updates of geographic knowledge (Ptolemy’s geography evolves with new discoveries).
  • Example: The Adventures of Marco Polo (written in the 13th century, widely circulated after printing) shapes European expectations about Asia, influencing later exploration despite questions about factual accuracy.
• Practical link: printed material enables standardized knowledge, better navigation, and shared myths or expectations about distant lands.

Navigation, Maps, and Maritime Technology

• Ships and sailing technology:
  • Development of ships with triangular sails increases maneuverability and effectiveness on the open ocean.
  • Emphasis on distinguishing between coastal navigation and open-ocean capabilities.
• Latitude and longitude:
  • Efforts to determine latitude are easier than precise longitude measurements in this period; accurate longitude measurement (chronometer) would come later, in the 1700s.
  • Knowledge of geography and navigation supports more confident voyage planning and mapping.
• Practical implications:
  • Better navigation enables longer voyages, columbuses toward the Atlantic, and the mapping of new routes.
  • Geographic knowledge supports colonial claims and mercantilist strategies.

The Rise of the Nation-State and Political Centralization

• Definition: a nation-state is a political unit with sovereignty over defined territory.
• Feudal context: earlier Europe operated under a feudal system with dispersed power among nobles; centralized authority was limited.
• Shifts by the 1400s:
  • Consolidation of power begins, forming stronger nation-states.
  • Early consolidations: Kingdom of Spain (mid-1400s), Portugal (early consolidation), followed by France and England.
• Significance for exploration and empire:
  • Centralized states can organize taxes and fund expeditions.
  • Stronger national authority facilitates the creation of overseas empires and control over distant colonies.

Europe, Asia, and the Drive to Trade with Asia

• Longstanding desire to trade with Asia (silk, spices, tea) persists for millennia; by the 1400s, connections to Asia via older routes had become unstable or disrupted.
• Asia’s commodities of interest:
  • Silk, tea, cinnamon, pepper, other spices, and precious fabrics.
  • Most of these goods are produced in Asia and sought by European elites.
• Early European players and routes:
  • Italian city-states (e.g., Venice, Florence, Milan) gain early access to Asian goods via Mediterranean routes and the Silk Road ports.
  • They sell goods at retail prices to Europeans, not wholesale, creating different profit margins for various buyers.
• Mercantilist motivation linked to Asia trade:
  • A central belief that wealth comes from precious metals and controlled trade rather than pure exchange means.
  • Gold is highly valued; silver often acceptable but less desired; copper money exists in some places but gold is hegemonic in Europe.
  • If a state controls gold sources or other valuable resources, it can set higher prices for others and leverage power over rivals.
• Strategic outcome:
  • Need to secure colonies to obtain raw materials (e.g., sugar, timber, furs) and to provide markets for manufactured goods.
  • Colonies reduce reliance on foreign suppliers and enable a closed economic system (mercantilist ideal).
• Portugal and Spain as catalysts:
  • Portugal begins around the Atlantic coast, circumnavigating Africa toward Asia, then returning with new knowledge and goods.
  • Spain supports Columbus’s voyage to the Atlantic as part of expanding access to Asian trade routes.
• Interconnectedness: Renaissance mindset, new technologies, centralized states, and Asia trade collectively fuel exploration and empire-building.

The Columbian Exchange: The Atlantic Trace and Its Global Impact

• Columbus’s 1492 voyage marks the start of sustained Atlantic contact, not the first contact with the Americas.
• Significance of sustained contact:
  • Establishes permanent, ongoing exchange across the Atlantic among Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
  • This exchange reshapes diets, populations, ecosystems, and global trade patterns.
• Pre-Columbian isolation and post-Contact reality:
  • After the last Ice Age, the Americas were largely isolated from the rest of the world; the Columbian Exchange breaks that isolation.
  • Note on earlier Norse/Viking contact: sporadic, not sustained.
• Major exchanges (intentional and accidental):
  • Food crops and animals moved: tomatoes and potatoes to Europe; grapes also move to different regions; horses and other herd animals introduced to the Americas (previously absent in the Americas post-Ice Age).
  • In Europe: introduction of New World crops like tomatoes and potatoes reshapes cuisines (e.g., Italian and Irish dishes becoming centered around these crops post-1492).
  • In the Americas: horses, cattle, pigs, and other Old World animals transform Indigenous economies and societies (e.g., the Comanche adopting the horse and reorganizing social structures around horse-based hunting and warfare on the Great Plains).
• Demographic impacts:
  • European populations benefit from new foods, leading to population growth and improved survival.