1. The Search for Spices

2. Objectives Understand European motivations for exploring the sea.
Analyze early Portuguese and Spanish explorations
Examine how did Portugal’s eastward explorations lead to the development of a trading empire
Describe European searches for a
direct route to Asia.

3. Why did Europeans Cross the Sea?
As Europe’s population recovered from the Black Death, the demand for trade goods grew.
Crusades added luxury goods and demand increases
Europeans wanted spices.
European merchants wanted direct route to Asia.
Some voyagers still wanted to crusade against the Muslims.
Others were inspired by the Renaissance spirit to learn about distant lands.

4. Use of Spices Preserve food Add flavor to meat
Make medicine and perfume.
Primary source of spices – Moluccas or Spice Islands in modern day Indonesia.

5. Traders
Italian & Muslim merchants controlled trade routes between Europe and Asia.

6. New Maritime Technologies
Hartman Astrolabe (1532)
Used to measure the angles of the sun and stars above the horizon and determined latitude.
Mariner’s Compass
First used by the Chinese, showed direction
Sextant
Using the height of the stars above the horizon to determine latitude and longitude
Cartography
More accurate maps and charts
Caravel
A new lighter, faster ships that combined the square sails of the Europeans with triangular sails of Arabs. Could travel long distance.

7. Portugal Leads the Way
Led by Prince Henry “The Navigator,” Portugal expanded and explored along the coast of Africa.
Created a school for sailors and the first organized trip to sail around Africa and on to the east.
Henry gathered cartographers and scientists.

8. Portugal Leads the Way
They redesigned ships, trained sea captains, and prepared maps.
Henry inspired explorers and sponsored voyages.
Portugal hoped to Christianize
the Africans and find a
route to Asia.

9. Portugal Leads the Way
Believed if they could control Africa they could get to the
sources of spice the Muslims and Italians controlled.

10. Portugal Leads the Way Bartholomeu Dias
In 1488, Bartholomeu Dias rounded the southern tip of Africa, later called the Cape of Good Hope because it opened way for sea route to Asia.

11. Portugal Leads the Way Vasco da Gama
First to establish a sea route to India from Europe.
In 1497, Vasco da Gama reached the spice port of Calicut in India.
In his first trip lost 2/4 ships and most of his sailors died (18/250 survived) due scurvy – A disease caused by the lack of vitamin C.
The Portuguese seized key ports around the Indian Ocean to create a vast trading empire and become a world power.

12. Henry died in 1460, but Portuguese navigators continued his quest.
1488 – Bartholomeu Diaz rounded the southern tip of Africa.
1490 – Vasco de Gama sailed around Africa and after 10 months reached India.
Vasco de Gama later helped Portugal claim a vast trading network.

13. Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus – explored a western route to the Indies.
An Italian Catholic from Genoa
He knew the world was round made two mistakes:
Underestimated the circumference
Did not account for two continents
On August 3, 1492 he sailed west from Spain with three ships.

14. Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain
Portugal refused to sponsor him.
Columbus persuaded King & Queen of Spain to finance the journey.
Granted Columbus three ships to find a shorter route to Asia
Nina
Pinta
Santa Maria

15. October 12, 1492
He reached the Caribbean Islands thinking he was in the Indies.

16. Conquest in The Americas
First encounters
Good relation soon evaporated.
Conquistadors: conquerors
Carried disease:
Small Pox
90% population died.

17. Conquest in The Americas
Hernan Cortés
Landed on the Mexican coast in 1519.
Cortés arranged alliances with discontented neighbors who hated the Aztec.
The Aztec emperor, Moctezuma thought Cortés the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl. He offered tribute to Cortés and welcomed him to Tenochtitlán.
When relations grew strained, the Aztecs drove the Spanish
out of Tenochtitlán.
In 1521, Cortés returned and captured and demolished
Tenochtitlán.

18. Conquests In America Pizarro in Peru - 1532 Was inspired by Cortez.
Pizarro lied and used trickery to destroy the Incas.
Using Incan allies just like Cortez, Pizarro slaughtered thousands of natives and took Atahualpa (their leader) prisoner for a ransom.
Reasons for Victory
Superior military technology
Divisions and discontent among the Native Americans
Disease

19. Naming the New World
The Western Hemisphere was named “America” in 1507 by German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller
Italian sailor Amerigo Vespucci wrote reports about the “New world”
Mapmaker labeled region America
Islands Columbus explored became known as West Indies

20. The Treaty of Tordesillas - 1494
When Columbus returned, Spain and Portugal both rushed to claim the lands Columbus had explored.
Line of Demarcation- Established by Pope Alexander VI.
East of line belonged to Portugal, West belonged to Spain.

21. Vasco Nunez de Balboa
In 1513, Spanish explorer discovered a passage though Panama to the Pacific Ocean – he called it the South Sea.

22. Magellan Maps the Eastern side of South America
Rounds the tip of South America
named the strait of Magellan

23. The War in the Philippines
Magellan crosses the Pacific and lands in the Philippines – March 1521
Magellan befriends a local leader and helps him fight a war with their neighboring tribe
Magellan died in the fighting

24. Magellan's crew Returned to Spain
The first crew to circumnavigate the globe
Circumnavigate – travel around the world

25. Other Explorers
English, Dutch & French searched for a northwest passage to Asia
John Cabot discovered Newfoundland. Claimed it for England
Jacques Cartier explored the St. Lawrence River.
Henry Hudson sailed for the Dutch, explored what would become known as the Hudson River.