Transoceanic Encounters and
Global Connections
©2011, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
1
Portuguese Exploration
Originally for fishing
Land hunger
Discovery of Azores, Madeiras Islands
Acquisition of land to plant sugarcane
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2
The Lure of Trade
Maritime routes to Asia
Spices, silk, porcelain
Silk roads more dangerous since spread of bubonic plague
Prices, profits increase
Indian pepper, Chinese ginger increasingly essential to diet of European wealthy classes
African gold, ivory, slaves
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3
Missionary Efforts
Franciscan, Dominican missionaries to India, central Asia and China
Violent efforts with crusades, reconquista
©2011, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
4
The Technology of Exploration
Chinese rudder introduced in twelfth century
Square sails replaced by triangular lateen sales
Work better with cross winds
Navigational instruments
Knowledge of winds, currents
The volta do mar
“Return through the sea”
©2011, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
5
Wind and Current Patterns in the World’s
Oceans
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6
Portuguese Breakthroughs
Prince Henry of Portugal (1394-1460)
1488, Bartolomeu Dias rounds Cape of Good
Hope, enters Indian Ocean basin
Promoted exploration of west African coast
Established fortified trading posts
Storms and restless crew force return
Vasco da Gama reaches India by this route, 1497
By 1500, a trading post at Calicut
©2011, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
7
Christopher Columbus (1451-1506)
Believed Earth was smaller
Estimated Japan approximately 2,500 miles west of
Canaries (actually 10,000 miles)
Portuguese kings do not fund proposed westward trip Fernando and Isabel of Spain, Italian bankers underwrite voyage
Discovers Bahamas, Cuba
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8
Hemispheric Links
Columbus tries three times, never reaches Asia
But by early sixteenth century, several powers follow
English, Spanish, French, Dutch
Realization of value of newly discovered
Americas
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9
European Exploration in the Atlantic
Ocean, 1486-1498
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10
Circumnavigation of the Globe
Vasco Nuñez de Balboa finds Pacific Ocean while searching for gold in Panama, 1513
Distance to Asia unknown
Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521) not supported by Portuguese, sails in service of Spain
Sails through Strait of Magellan at southern tip of
South America
Crew assailed by scurvy, only 18 of 250 sailors return to Spain from journey
Magellan killed in local political dispute in Philippines
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11
Exploration of the Pacific
Spanish build Philippines-Mexico trade route
English, Russians look for northwest passage to
Asia
Most of route clogged by ice in Arctic circle
Norwegian Roald Amundsen completes route only in twentieth century
Sir Frances Drake (England) explores west coast of North America
Vitus Bering (Russia) sails through Bering Strait
James Cook (England) explores southern Pacific
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12
European Exploration, Cook’s Voyages in the
Pacific Ocean, 1519-1780, and Magellan’s Voyages
©2011, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
13
Establishment of Trading-Post
Empires
Portuguese first to set up trading posts
Not to establish trade monopolies, rather to charge duties Afonso d’Alboquerque major naval commander
Fifty by mid-sixteenth century
Architect of trade duties policy; violators would have hands amputated
Yet Arab traders