Europeans Look Outward

Europeans Look Outward

In the early 1400s, economic competition led some European states to begin looking to gain direct access to goods and resources from other parts of the world. They knew that trade could bring wealth, and with wealth came power. The first of those states was Portugal.

The explorers who sailed south from Portugal along the western coast of Africa hoped to find gold, and they did. But some leaders and thinkers in Portugal, and in its neighbor, Spain, had a longer-term goal for these sailing expeditions.

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What was the main reason for European exploration?

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Both Portugal and Spain hoped that by sailing south, they could bypass the Muslim and Italian traders who controlled the luxury goods arriving in the Mediterranean from Asia and East Africa. They wanted direct access to those markets, and to profit from that trade.

Reasons for Exploration The pursuit of profit was the main reason for all European exploration. Two related motives, competitiveness and the craving for Asian goods, also played important roles.

Other factors, too, pushed European states to explore and expand. A new type of ship, the caravel, made it possible to sail against winds and currents and survive long voyages across stormy seas. It was on a caravel that Gil Eannes was able to sail around Cape Bojador. Curiosity about the unknown world and an adventurous spirit also motivated Europeans. In the Middle Ages, Europeans had thought of Jerusalem as the center of the world, with Africa, Asia, and Europe spread around it. By the 1600s, they had a more accurate view of the world.

​Religion was yet another prime factor for exploration. Europeans wished to bring Christianity to non-Christians because they believed that doing so would save those people’s souls. To accomplish this goal, the European nation-states and the Catholic Church established missions in Africa and Asia. Christians were also concerned about the growing power of another religion, Islam. They failed to weaken that power through the Crusades, the religious wars of the late Middle Ages. By the mid-1400s, a powerful Muslim empire led by the Ottoman Turks threatened to overrun Europe. The Ottomans would soon control all overland trade moving west into the Mediterranean Sea. By bypassing the Mediterranean gateway, Christian states in Europe could strike a financial blow against their enemy.

Portuguese Ships Reach India

​European monarchs and governments supported these voyages in the hopes of generating profits and gaining new territory. However, in Portugal, one of the king’s sons, Henrique, was more personally involved. Henrique sponsored the early explorations of the African coast and often helped plan and direct expeditions, earning him the title Prince Henry the Navigator. Though he did not join any voyages of discovery, Henry did help launch a steady stream of explorers who would eventually open a sea route that stretched around Africa all the way to India.

After sailing past West Africa’s Cape Bojador in 1434, the Portuguese kept exploring southward. Along the coast, they traded for gold, and they also looked for slaves. Initially, the Portuguese brought a small number of slaves to work in Portugal and Spain, where slavery had played a significant role for centuries. Unlike in the past, when they had obtained slaves through trade, the Portuguese began raiding villages to capture and carry off Africans. However, Africans fought back against raiding, which limited the practice. Additionally, local

African rulers frowned upon this, and the Portuguese realized that trading for slaves made better economic sense.

​By 1450, the Portuguese had begun actively bartering for slaves. To facilitate trade, the Portuguese established trade posts and forts at regular intervals along the African coast and joined local trade networks. These networks provided the Portuguese with access to enslaved Africans as well as to goods such as ivory, textiles, and copper. Muslim merchants and local African rulers would gather captives taken in raids in the interior and trade them to the Portuguese, usually for cloth but also for grain, silver, and horses.

The Portuguese trade posts attracted merchants away from the trans- Saharan routes that had been used to deliver gold and slaves to the Mediterranean. Moreover, in 1455, the pope granted the Portuguese exclusive trading rights along the west coast of Africa south of Cape Bojador. The Portuguese monarchs controlled this monopoly, but allowed others to pay for the right to trade in Africa. The Portuguese government profited from trade sponsored by the monarchy and from taxes on all goods and slaves brought to Portugal by other traders. In turn, Portugal used the profits to finance further voyages, build more trading posts and forts, and expand its trading network.

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During the second half of the 1400s, the Portuguese sent more expeditions down the western coast of Africa. By 1488, the first Portuguese sailor, Bartolomeu Dias, sailed around the southernmost part of Africa and into the Indian Ocean. Then, in 1498, Portugal’s Vasco da Gama reached India, establishing what would become a well-traveled route from Europe to the riches of Asia. On a voyage to India two years later, a fleet of ships under the command of Pedro Cabral sailed too far to the southwest while rounding Africa and encountered a previously unknown land. Cabral claimed that land—now known as Brazil—for Portugal.

​Early Exploration of the Americas

Several years before da Gama reached India, an Italian sailor named Christopher Columbus had a bold idea. Knowing that the world was round, he decided to sail west, directly across the Atlantic Ocean to get to the Indies. He believed that this westward route would be shorter and faster than the journey around southern Africa to Asia. He wrote, “Between the edge of Spain and the beginning of India, the sea is short and can be crossed in a matter of a few days.” Columbus persuaded Spain’s monarchs, Isabella and Ferdinand, to fund a voyage westward. Like the Portuguese, they wanted access to the silks and spices of the Indies without having to enrich the Muslims who controlled the trade routes from Asia to the Mediterranean.

In 1492, Columbus made his first voyage to the Americas. He left Spain in August with three ships—the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. Showing his skill as a sailor, he headed south to the Canary Islands, where he picked up the trade winds that blew westward across the Atlantic. On October 12, Columbus reached an island in the Bahamas, which he called San Salvador. He later sailed to Cuba and Hispaniola. Columbus called the native peoples he encountered Indians because he believed that he had reached the Indies, a belief he would maintain through three additional voyages.

Spain claimed the right to trade and settle in the lands Columbus had found. The pope, who was Spanish, supported their claim and granted them control of “all islands and mainland found and to be found . . . towards the south and west.” This vague language alarmed the Portuguese, who wanted to protect their rights in Africa and along the sea route around it. In response, the two countries negotiated the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494. This agreement drew an imaginary line from the North Pole, through the mid-Atlantic Ocean, across Brazil, to the South Pole. This “line of demarcation” gave Spain all rights to lands west of the line and gave Portugal all rights to lands east of the line.

​When the treaty was signed, the land mass on the other side of the Atlantic was largely unknown to Europeans and did not have a name. This changed in 1507 when a mapmaker split the lands into two continents and named the southern one “America” after Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian merchant and sailor. The name stuck and was gradually applied to both continents.

Vespucci had made at least two trips across the Atlantic—the first in 1499 for Spain and the second in 1501 for Portugal. After his second voyage, which took him to Brazil, he wrote a number of letters about what he saw. These letters convinced Europeans that the western lands were a “new world” rather than part of Asia.

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Which European state was the first to begin exploring?

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Spain

Portugal

England

France

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What was the goal of Portuguese and Spanish explorers sailing south along the western coast of Africa?

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Multiple Choice

Why did Europeans want to bring Christianity to non-Christians?

• To save their souls

• To gain new territory

• To establish trade networks

• To weaken the power of Islam

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What was the goal of Christopher Columbus' first voyage?

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To find a shorter route to the Indies

To explore the Americas

To establish trade with Asia

To conquer new lands for Spain

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What new type of ship made long voyages across stormy seas possible?

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Caravel

Galleon

Frigate

Sloop

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Which Portuguese explorer reached India by sailing around Africa?

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Who is credited with naming the southern continent 'America'?

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Christopher Columbus

Amerigo Vespucci

John Cabot

Jacques Cartier

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Which European country negotiated the Treaty of Tordesillas with Spain?

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What did the Portuguese establish along the African coast to facilitate trade?

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Missions

Trade networks

Trade posts and forts

Alliances with African rulers