Age of Exploration

Cause of the Age of Exploration

The influence of the Renaissance.

Marco Polo’s stories of the wonders of the East.

A need for new Trade Routes.

Competing European states, build empires and expand.

New portolan maps.

New equipment: the astrolabe, quadrant, compass, log and line

New ships: caravels with lateen sails and new carvel-built hulls.

The innovations allowed Portuguese explorers, like Da Gama, to sail around Africa and Spanish explorers, like Columbus, to sail across the Atlantic.

South America’s major indigenous civilisations fell to Spanish conquistadores: the Aztec to Cortés and the Incas to Pizzaro.

The indigenous population was decimated, both by violence and by European diseases.

Indigenous cultures were destroyed.

Christianity spread in the New World. as the indigenous people converted in large numbers.

The slave trade between Africa the Americas and europe became established.

New animals, farming methods and technology reached the New World.