European Exploration and Conquest, 1450–1650

European Exploration and Conquest, 1450–1650
Chapter 14 European Exploration and Conquest, 1450–1650

Discuss this scene from the Japanese school depicting the arrival of Portuguese merchants landing in Japan and how the two cultures might have perceived one another.

I. World Contacts Before Columbus
A. The Trade World of the Indian Ocean 1. Trade Routes—Trade routes centered on cosmopolitan port cities in the Indian Ocean. Malacca was a port in the South China Sea that traded in Chinese porcelain, silk, camphor, Moluccan pepper, cloves, nutmeg, Philippine sugar and Indian textiles, copper weapons, incense, dyes, and opium. 2. The Chinese Economy—The Mongol emperors had opened China to the West (Marco Polo’s travels fueled western interest in the exotic Orient) and the population tripled to between 150 and 200 million by Nanjing was the largest city in the world with more than one million inhabitants. China had the most advanced economy in the world until the start of the eighteenth century.

A. The Trade World of the Indian Ocean 3. Chinese Voyages of Exploration—Admiral Zheng’s fleet sailed more than 12,000 miles, as far west as Egypt. The voyages, however, were discontinued because of renewed Mongol encroachments and court conflicts. 4. India—Trade between Mesopotamia and south Asia existed since the beginning of civilization. The Romans brought luxury goods and wild animals from India, and large amounts of pepper and cotton textiles from India were sent all over the world.

Admiral Zheng He Each ship was 400’ long and 160’ wide!

The Afro-Eurasian Trading World Before Columbus
The Indian Ocean was the center of the Afro-Eurasian trading world. After a period of decline following the Black Death and the Mongol invasions, trade revived in the fifteenth century. Muslim merchants dominated trade, linking ports in East Africa and the Red Sea with those in India and the Malay Archipelago. The Chinese Admiral Zheng He’s voyages (1405–1433) followed the most important Indian Ocean trade routes, hoping to impose Ming dominance of trade and tribute.

B. The Trading States of Africa 1. Empires and States—The Mamluk Egyptian empire, the state of Ethiopia, and Swahili-speaking East African city-states like Mogadishu, Mombasa, and Kilwa were prosperous and traded extensively with other cultures. 2. Trans-Saharan Trade Routes—In the fifteenth century, gold destined for Europe came from Sudan and Ghana to North African ports. Other overland trade routes ran through the powerful kingdom of Mali. 3. Slaves—Arabic and African merchants brought West African slaves to the Mediterranean to be sold in European, Egyptian, and Middle Eastern markets. Eastern Europeans were sent to West Africa as slaves, and Indian and Arab merchants traded slaves from East Africa.

C. The Ottoman and Persian Empires 1. Persian Safavids—Persian merchants traded in communities as far as the Indian Ocean, and Persia produced and exported large quantities of silk. Persians clashed with the Turkish Ottomans religiously and economically. 2. Turkish Ottomans—Sultan Mohammed II (r. 1451–1481) captured Constantinople in 1453, renamed it Istanbul, and put an end to the Byzantine Empire. The Ottomans expanded into the eastern Mediterranean, north Africa, and central Europe (as far west as Vienna), terrified the Europeans, and dominated trade routes to the East forcing Europeans to find new routes.

Arghhh…the harbor chain, the walls, the forts, the CANNON!

D. Genoese and Venetian Middlemen 1. European Trading Centers—Europe played a relatively minor role in the context of world trading systems. Venice and Genoa controlled the European luxury trade with the East in the late Middle Ages. 2. Venice—In 1304, Venice established relations with Mamluk Egypt, and Venetian merchants specialized in luxury goods (spices, silks, carpets) which they obtained from middlemen in the eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor. They exchanged eastern goods for European products (Spanish and English wool, German metal goods, Flemish textiles, silk), but eastern demand was low, forcing Venice to make up the difference by trading in slaves, firearms, and precious metals. 3. Genoa—Genoa was the ancient rival of Venice which dominated the northern route to Asia through the Black Sea. By the fifteenth century, Genoa became interested in finance and in the western Mediterranean. The city provided merchants, navigators, and financiers to the Iberian monarchs and ran sugar plantations on Portuguese islands in the Atlantic. 4. Slavery—Slavery was a large part of Italian trade. Italian merchants sold Balkan Christians to Egypt, and young girls were sold as servants or concubines. As the Ottomans took over the Black Sea region, Muslim prisoners, Jewish refugees, and black and Berber Africans were sold as slaves.

Chinese Porcelain This porcelain from a seventeenth century Chinese ship’s cargo, recovered from the sea, was intended for European luxury markets. Christie’s Images

II. The European Voyages of Discovery
A. Causes of European Expansion 1. Economics—The European population and economy were beginning to recover after the Black Death, and this created a demand for luxury goods, especially spices. 2. Desire for Spices—Spices such as pepper, nutmeg, ginger, mace, cinnamon, and cloves were introduced to western Europe in the twelfth century by the crusaders. They were used as flavorings, medicines, perfumes, and dyes among other things. 3. Religious Fervor—Passion ignited by the Christian reconquista in Spain and Portugal encouraged the spread of Christianity across the Atlantic. 4. Renaissance Curiosity—The Renaissance spirit fueled the desire to learn more about the physical universe (fascination with new people and places). Discovery offered the opportunity to serve God and the Spanish crown and to gain riches. The conquistadors (“conquerors”) were Spanish soldier-explorers who sought to conquer the New World for the Spanish crown.

A. Causes of European Expansion 5. Lack of Economic Opportunity at Home—Young Spanish men of the upper classes found economic opportunities limited following the reconquista and turned to exploration. 6. Government Power—Spanish and Portuguese monarchs were stronger than ever and had more financial resources at their disposal to fund expeditions. Competition between European monarchs and between Protestant and Catholic states encouraged exploratory activities as well. 7. Life at Sea—Life at sea was dangerous and overcrowded, and sailors were usually hungry and underpaid. They shared living quarters with horses, cows, pigs, chickens, rats, and lice. Some chose this life to escape poverty, continue a family trade, or search for a better life abroad. Sailors’ wives lived alone for years at a time, lost their husbands, and struggled to feed their families. 8. Interest at Home—In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, exploration (cosmography, natural history, geography) aroused much interest at home among the educated, and fictional stories entertained people caught in the spirit of discovery.

B. Technology and the Rise of Exploration 1. Stronger Ships—In the fifteenth century, the Portuguese developed a ship called the caravel that was better at negotiating the waters of the Atlantic than the traditional galley. It was a small, maneuverable, three-mast sailing ship that gave the Portuguese a distinct advantage in exploration and trade. 2. Improvements in Cartography—In 1410, Arab scholars reintroduced Europeans to Ptolemy’s Geography, a second-century C.E. work that synthesized the classical knowledge of geography and introduced the concepts of longitude and latitude, allowing cartographers to create more accurate maps. 3. New Technology—New inventions from the Arab, Indian, and Chinese worlds including the magnetic compass, astrolabe, sternpost rudder, and lateen sails all helped European explorers discover uncharted territory.

Nocturnal An instrument for determining the hour of night at sea by finding the progress of certain stars around the polestar (center aperture). National Maritime Museum, London

New Maritime Technologies Better Maps [Portulan]
Hartman Astrolabe (1532) Mariner’s Compass Sextant

Ptolemy’s Geography The recovery of Ptolemy’s Geography in the early fifteenth century gave Europeans new access to ancient geographical knowledge. This 1486 world map, based on Ptolemy, is a great advance over medieval maps but contains errors with significant consequences for future exploration. It shows the world watered by a single ocean, with land covering three-quarters of the world's surface and with Europe, Africa, and Asia as the only continents. Africa and Asia are joined, making the Indian Ocean a landlocked sea and rendering the circumnavigation of Africa impossible. The continent of Asia is stretched far to the east, greatly shortening the distance from Europe to Asia. Giraudon/ArtResource, NY

C. The Portuguese Overseas Empire 1. Favorable Geography—Its location on the Atlantic allowed Portugal to rise from being a backward marginal European nation to a pioneer in exploration. Favorable winds allowed passage to Africa, the Atlantic islands, and Brazil. 2. Henry the Navigator—Prince Henry the Navigator (1394–1460) sponsored annual expeditions down the western coast of Africa. The Portuguese were looking for military glory, to convert the Muslims, and to find gold, slaves, and an overseas route to the spice markets of India. They settled in Madeira, the Azores, Arguin, and Guinea and penetrated inland as far as Timbuktu. They controlled the flow of African gold to Europe by 1500. 3. Bartholomew Diaz and Vasco da Gama—These two explorers explored the African coast as far as the Cape of Good Hope and India, but they encountered problems with Muslim merchants who dominated the trading system in the Indian Ocean. The Portuguese eventually resorted to bombarding ports to gain entrance to these markets.

Overseas Exploration and Conquest, Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries
The voyages of discovery marked a dramatic new phase in the centuries-old migrations of European peoples. This map depicts the voyages of Ferdinand Magellan, Christopher Columbus, and Vasco daGama.

Christopher Columbus, by Ridolpho Ghirlandio
Christopher Columbus, by Ridolpho Ghirlandio. Friend of Raphael and teacher of Michelangelo, Christopher Columbus, by Ridolpho Ghirlandio. Friend of Raphael and teacher of Michelangelo, Ghirlandio (1483–1561) enjoyed distinction as portrait painter, and so we can assume that this is a good likeness of the older Columbus. Scala/ArtResource, NY

D. The Problem of Christopher Columbus 1. Columbus’s Goals—The Genoese mariner Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) won the financial backing of Isabella and Ferdinand in 1492 to find a direct ocean trading route to Asia. Columbus also wanted to circumvent Venetian domination of eastward trade and to spread Christianity as far as possible. 2. Discoveries—Columbus landed in the Bahamas (believing he was in the Indies) and in Cuba (thinking he was in China). He was searching for gold and found small villages of native Taino people wearing gold ornaments. This led him to believe gold was present in the region, and he returned to Spain to report his discovery. 3. Conquest—The Spanish conquered and colonized the New World over the next few decades. Columbus subjugated the island of Hispaniola and enslaved the indigenous peoples on his second voyage. He still believed he had discovered small islands off the Asian coast, not realizing he had discovered a vast continent largely unknown to Europeans.

E. Later Explorers 1. Amerigo Vespucci (1454–1512)—Vespucci was a Florentine explorer who recognized that America was a continent separate from Asia. Because of this, the continent was named after him. 2. Treaty of Tordesillas (1494)—Pope Alexander VI had Spain and Portugal sign the Treaty of Tordesillas that divided the Atlantic regions between the two countries to settle claims to the discoveries. Everything to the west of an imaginary line was given to Spain and everything east was given to Portugal. 3. Ferdinand Magellan (1480–1521)—Magellan was a Portuguese mariner who sailed for Spain in 1519 hoping to find a western passage to Asia. He died in a skirmish in the Philippines, but one of his boats returned to Spain in 1522, the first expedition to circumnavigate the globe.

Bellini: Procession in the Piazza San Marco
The Piazza San Marco was, and remains, the principal square of Venice. Located on the Grand Canal, it is home to Saint Mark’s Basilica and the palace of the doge, the officer elected for life by the city’s aristocracy to rule the city. Many Venetian festivals, like this procession recorded in 1496 by the great artist Gentile Bellini, took place in the square. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY

E. Later Explorers 4. John Cabot—Cabot was a Genoese merchant who undertook a voyage to Brazil for England in 1497, but discovered Newfoundland and reconnoitered the New England coast. 5. Jacques Cartier—Between 1534 and 1541, the Frenchman Cartier explored the St. Lawrence region of Canada, searching for a passage to Asia. Instead, the French found a new source of profit in the fur trade. The French also competed with Spanish and English fishermen over cod found in Atlantic waters that was salted and sold in European fish markets.

World Map of Diogo Ribeiro, 1529
This map integrates the wealth of new information provided by European explorers in the decades after Columbus’s 1492 voyage. Working on commission for the Spanish king Charles V, the mapmaker incorporated new details on Africa, South America, India, the Malay Archipelago, and China. Note the inaccuracy in his placement of the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, which are much too far east. This “mistake” was intended to serve Spain’s interests in trade negotiations with the Portuguese. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana

F. Spanish Conquest in the New World 1. Mexico—In 1519, conquistador Hernando Cortés (1485–1547) entered the Mexica Empire. Also known as the Aztec Empire, Mexica was a large and complex Native American civilization in modern Mexico and Central America that possessed advanced mathematical, astronomical, and engineering technology. Cortés succeeded in forging alliances with native peoples who had themselves been conquered and enslaved by the Mexicas. Because of the vacillations of emperor Montezuma II (r. 1502–1520) and the ravaging effects of smallpox, the Mexica Empire was defeated in 1521. 2. The Inca Empire—The Inca Empire was a vast and sophisticated Peruvian empire centered at the capital city of Cuzco that was at its peak from 1438 until It was a civilization that rivaled the Europeans in population and complexity. Conquistador Francisco Pizarro (ca. 1475–1541) took advantage of the fact that the empire had been embroiled in a civil war over succession and had been weakened by disease. Pizarro executed the ruler Atahualpa, and the city of Cuzco fell to the Spanish in The conquest led to decades of violence and resistance.

The Mexica Capital of Tenochtitlan

Doña Marina Translating for Hernando Cortés During His Meeting with Montezuma
In April 1519 Doña Marina (or La Malinche as she is known in Mexico) was among twenty women given to the Spanish as slaves. Fluentin Nahuatl and Yucatec Mayan spoken by a Spanish priest accompanying Cortes), she acted as an interpreter and diplomatic guide for the Spanish. She had a close personal relationship with Cortés and bore his son Don Martín Cortés in1522. Doña Marina has been seen as a traitor to her people, as a victim of Spanish conquest, and as the founder of the Mexican people. She highlights the complex interaction between native peoples and the Spanish and the particular role women often played as cultural mediators between the two sides. American Museum of Natural History,Image VC #31

G. Early French and English Settlement in the New World 1. English Settlements—The English settled mostly on the Atlantic coast, establishing the first colonies at Roanoke (1585), Jamestown (1607), Plymouth (1620), and Massachusetts (1630). The English eventually came into conflict with the indigenous inhabitants over land and resources, and they attempted to link their holdings in New England and in Virginia. 2. French Settlements—French explorer Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec in Montreal was founded in The French had a small colonial population compared to the British and Spanish, but the French were vigorous explorers and traders and explored at least thirty-five of the fifty states. 3. French Settlements in the West Indies—Cayenne, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Saint-Domingue were all islands occupied by the French and became centers of tobacco and sugar production.

A detail from an early-seventeenth-century Flemish painting depicting maps
A detail from an early-seventeenth-century Flemish painting depicting maps, illustrated travel books, a globe, a compass, and an astrolabe. Reproduced by courtesy of the Trustees, The NationalGallery, London

III. The Impact of Conquest
A. Colonial Administration 1. Viceroyalties—Four administrative units for Spanish possessions in the Americas were created and called viceroyalties: New Spain (capital at Mexico City), Peru (capital at Lima), New Granada (capital at Bogotá), and La Plata (capital at Buenos Aires). 2. Viceroy—Imperial governors presided over the audiencia (board of twelve to fifteen judges who served as their advisory council and court of appeal). Corregidores held judicial and administrative powers at the local level.

A. Colonial Administration 3. Brazil—In Brazil, the Portuguese implemented the system of captaincies, which were hereditary grants of land given to nobles and officials who bore the costs of settling and administering their territories. 4. France and England—The French crown had successfully imposed direct rule over New France and other colonies by the end of the seventeenth century. The king appointed military governors to rule alongside intendants and royal officials with broad administrative and financial authority. English colonists established their own autonomous assemblies to regulate local affairs dominated by wealthy merchants and landowners.

The Port of Banten in Western Java
Influenced by Muslim traders and emerging in the early sixteenth century's a Muslim kingdom, Banten evolved into a thriving entrepôt. The city stood on the trade route to China and, as this Dutch engraving suggests, in the seventeenth century the Dutch East India Company used Banten as an important collection point for spices purchased for sale in Europe. Archives Charmet/The Bridgeman Art Library

B. Impact of European Settlement on Indigenous Peoples 1. Indigenous Peoples—There were many different cultures, languages, and patterns of life before Columbus’s arrival, the largest being the Mexica (Aztec) Empire and the Inca Empire. Before 1492, the number of indigenous peoples numbered around 50 million. The Spanish settlers built haciendas (vast estates for grazing Spanish livestock), tropical sugar plantations, and silver mines. 2. The Encomienda System—The Spanish crown granted the approximately 200,000 Spanish settlers and conquerors the right to use the Native Americans as laborers (a legalized form of slavery, even if the Spanish were supposed to care for the natives and teach them Christianity).

The Portuguese Fleet Embarked for the Indies
This image shows a Portuguese trading fleet in the late fifteenth century, bound for the riches of the Indies. Between 1500 and1635, over nine hundred ships sailed from Portugal to portion the Indian Ocean, in annual fleets composed of five to ten ships. British Museum/HarperCollins Publishers/The Art Archive

B. Impact of European Settlement on Indigenous Peoples 3. Native Population Losses—Losses among natives stemmed from disease (no resistance to smallpox, typhus, influenza), overwork (because of forced labor), malnutrition, starvation, infant mortality, and violence. Spanish emperor Charles V abolished the worst abuses of the encomienda system in Indigenous populations fell from 50 million people in 1492 to around 9 million by 1700. 4. Missionaries—Franciscan, Dominican, and Jesuit missionaries converted the indigenous people, taught them European methods of agriculture, and established missions. Conversion entailed a complex process of cultural exchange where Catholic friars sought to understand native cultures and language to render Christianity comprehensible to native people. As a result, Christian ideas and practices in the New World took on a distinctive character.

C. Life in the Colonies 1. Women—Women helped create new identities and perpetuate old ones. Unions were formed between explorers and native women who were used as translators and guides. When European women were brought in (British colonies, Spanish mainland colonies), new settlements retained European culture with some local input. When European women were not brought in, local populations largely retained their own cultures. 2. European Cultural Attitudes—The English drew strict bounds between civilized and savage and segregated their colonies from the native peoples. The French, in contrast, encouraged French traders to form ties with native peoples and to marry them (assimilation was the solution to the problem of low immigration levels). 3. African Women—Four-fifths of the female newcomers to the Americas were African. Mulattoes were those of mixed African and European origin. Mestizos were people of Native American and European descent. In Spanish, Portuguese, and French colonies, children born of African women and European masters were often freed, whereas in English colonies, they were less likely to be freed.

D. The Columbian Exchange 1. The Columbian Exchange—The Columbian exchange consisted of animals, plants, and diseases exchanged between the Old and the New Worlds. 2. Plants and Animals—From Europe to the New World came sugar plants, rice, bananas, grapes, wheat, olives, and unintentionally, dandelions. Native Americans had no native animals for food (aside from turkeys and game). Europeans introduced horses, cattle, sheep, dogs, pigs, chickens, and goats to the New World. 3. Disease—The most important form of exchange was the catastrophic illnesses from Europe which can be seen as an extension of the Black Death in the 1300s. Thus, the world after Columbus was unified by disease, trade, and colonization.

Saint Diego of Alcala Feeding the Poor ( ) by Bartolome Esteban Murillo, the first dated European depiction of the potato in art.

IV. Europe and the World After Columbus
A. Sugar and Slavery 1. Slavery in the Mediterranean World—Slavery was deeply rooted in Mediterranean culture, but in 1453, the Ottoman Empire cut off the flow of white slaves from the Eastern Mediterranean even as the Iberian reconquista diminished the supply of Muslim slaves. Mediterranean Europe turned to sub-Saharan Africa for slaves. 2. Portuguese Slavery—Between 1490 and 1530, Portuguese merchants worked with local leaders in Africa who provided them with slaves captured in warfare with neighboring powers (10% of Lisbon’s population consisted of slaves). 3. Sugar and Slavery—Sugar was originally a luxury item native to the South Pacific, but it was later grown in the Canary Islands and Madeira. It was very difficult to produce, requiring constant backbreaking labor. At first, native islanders were forced to work the sugar plantations, and then black slaves made up the steady stream of manpower needed for efficient sugar cultivation.

A New World Sugar Refinery, Brazil
Sugar was the most important and most profitable plantation crop in the New World. This image shows the processing and refinement of sugar on a Brazilian plantation. Sugar cane was grown, harvested, and processed by African slaves who labored under brutal and ruthless conditions to generate enormous profits for plantation owners. The Bridgeman Art Library/Getty Images

A New World Sugar Refinery, Brazil
“The Sugar Works,” French West Indies, 17th century. [Pierre Pomet, A complete history of drugs. Written in French by monsieur Pomet … (London, 1748, 4th ed.), facing p. 57]

A. Sugar and Slavery 4. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade—The Spanish king Charles V allowed traders to bring African slaves to New World colonies beginning in The Portuguese brought slaves to Brazil in England’s Royal African Company held a monopoly over the slave trade in the second half of the seventeenth century. 5. Conditions—Conditions on slave ships were horrible, and most deaths were caused by dysentery due to poor quality food and water (20% mortality rate). Over 10 million African slaves were brought across the Atlantic from 1518 to 1800 (of whom 8.5 million disembarked), while only 2 to 2.5 million Europeans migrated to the New World during this period.

Seaborne Trading Empires in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
By the mid-seventeenth century, trade linked all parts of the world, except for Australia. Notice that trade in slaves was not confined to the Atlantic but involved almost all parts of the world.

Velazquez, Juan de Pareja, 1650

B. Spanish Silver and Its Economic Effects 1. Silver—In the sixteenth century, silver from the Americas was the source of Spain’s incredible wealth. Between 1503 and 1650, 35 million pounds of silver and 600,000 pounds of gold entered the port of Seville. 2. Inflation—Inflation was caused by an excess of demand over supply (Spain had expelled some of its best farmers and businessmen). An abundance of silver exacerbated, but did not cause, the inflation. Inflation eventually spread to all other European countries, leading to sharp price increases between 1560 and 1600. 3. Globalization—It was not Spain but China that controlled the world trade in silver. The Chinese absorbed half the world’s production of silver to produce their goods and pay imperial taxes.

C. The Birth of the Global Economy 1. The Portuguese Empire—The Portuguese controlled the sea route to India in the sixteenth century with bases in Goa, Malacca, Macao and traded with China, Japan, and the Philippines. They traded horses, slaves, copper, hawks, peacocks, textiles, sugar, spices, gold, ivory, and silver. 2. The Spanish Empire—The Spanish Empire in the New World was a land empire, but the Spanish built a seaborne empire centered at Manila in the Philippines (the bridge between Spanish America and China). The Spanish traded silver for Chinese silk extensively, but after 1640 the Spanish silk trade declined because of Dutch imports. 3. The Dutch Empire—By the end of the seventeenth century, the Dutch had become a free nation and a worldwide seaborne trading power. They traded in spices (pepper, cloves, nutmeg) and won concessions and access to Indonesia. The Dutch challenged the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean and the Spanish in North and South America and took over portions of the trans-Atlantic slave trade beginning in the 1640s.

Philip II, ca 1533 This portrait of Philip II as a young man and crown prince of Spain is by the celebrated artist Titian, who was court painter to Philip’s father, Charles V. After taking the throne, Philip became another great patron of the artist. Scala/Art Resource, NY

V. Changing Attitudes and Beliefs
A. New Ideas About Race 1. Dehumanizing Africans—In spite of the myth of Prester John, Europeans came to see Africans as pagan heathens, Muslim infidels, or beasts. 2. Racial Inequality—The institution of slavery led to belief in racial inequality. Europeans developed ideas to justify slavery and argued that enslavement benefited Africans by bringing the light of Christianity to heathen peoples. Africans were seen as wholly inferior to Europeans, even to Jews, peasants, and the Irish. Black skin was equated with slavery as Europeans believed blacks were destined by God to serve them as slaves. 3. Justifications—Aristotle argued that some people were naturally destined for slavery and the Bible spoke of the curse of Ham. In the eighteenth century, science began to define “race” as biologically distinct groups of people whose physical differences produced differences in culture, character, and intelligence.

B. Michel de Montaigne and Cultural Curiosity 1. Skepticism and Cultural Relativism—Decades of religious strife, war, and the discovery of new peoples led some people to question whether total certainty is possible (skepticism) and to deny that some cultures are superior to others (cultural relativism). 2. Essay—New literary genre developed by the Frenchman Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592). His essays were short reflections drawing on his reading of ancient texts, his experience as a government official, and his own moral judgment. They were widely read throughout Europe in the early modern period and inaugurated an era of doubt.

C. William Shakespeare and His Influence 1. Works—Shakespeare was a dramatist who lived during the reign of Elizabeth I and her successor James I. His works include comedies and historical plays, but his most famous works were his tragedies including Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth. They explore a range of human problems and are open to multiple interpretations. 2. Shakespeare and Race—In Othello, the title character is a “Moor of Venice” (could refer to a Muslim of North African origin or to a sub-Saharan African, reflecting confusion over racial and religious classifications). In The Tempest, Caliban is portrayed as a dark-skinned island native best-suited for slavery. This reflects the religious and racial complexities of Shakespeare’s day.

Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus - his most bloody revenge tragedy.
The brothers Saturninus and Bassianus are in contention for the Roman emperorship. Titus Andronicus, Rome's most honoured general, returns from wars against the Goths with their queen, Tamora, her sons and her lover, Aaron the Moor, as captives. Her eldest son is sacrificed by Titus; she vows revenge. In the "Peacham drawing" we see what is probably, from the left, two soldiers, Saturninus, Tamora, two of Titus' sons, and Aaron.

European Exploration and Conquest, 1450–1650

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