Chapter 6, Section 1 Exploration and Expansion

1. Chapter 6, Section 1 Exploration and Expansion * Since the Middle Ages, Europeans had been attracted to Asia because of the vast quantity of spices, silks, and other goods they were importing from that region. * By the early 1400s, Europeans had acquired new technologies (the astrolabe, the compass, lateen sails, & the caravel) which made long-distance travel across the ocean possible. * Prince Henry the Navigator sponsored Portuguese fleets that sailed along the western coast of Africa * In 1488, Bartholomeu Dias rounded the tip of Africa looking for a route to India. * In 1498, Vasco da Gama’s four Portuguese ships that rounded the southern tip of Africa made it to the port of Calcutta in India. Da Gama returned with a cargo of spices & made a profit of several thousand percent. * In 1510, Alfonso de Albuquerque set up a Portuguese port at Goa, on the western coast of India.

2. * As the Portuguese sailed east to reach Asia, the Spanish sailed west. * In the mid-1400s, Christopher Columbus, an Italian navigator, became interested in sailing across the Atlantic to reach Asia. * In 1492 Spain’s King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella agreed to finance Columbus’s expedition. * Columbus & his three ships sailed from Spain in August 1492, & after a long trip across the Atlantic landed on what is today San Salvador Island in the Bahamas. * Columbus called the Taino people he met Indians because he thought he had reached the Indies. He also found the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola. Columbus eventually made 4 trips to the New World & went to his grave believing he had discovered a new passage to Asia. * In 1493 an imaginary line of demarcation running north-to-south down the middle of the Atlantic was established that gave Spain control of everything to the west and Portugal control of everything to the east. * Spain & Portugal validated the line of demarcation in 1494 by signing the Treaty of Tordesillas.

4. * Explorers from many countries joined the race to the Americas. * Venetian John Cabot explored the New England coastline for England in 1497. * The Americas were named after Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci. * In the early 1500s, Spanish conquistadors began taking control of large amounts of territory in the Americas. * Hernan Cortes conquered the Aztec Empire and its emperor Montezuma in 1521. * Francisco Pizarro conquered the Inca Empire and its emperor Atahualpa in 1533. * The Spanish established the encomienda system as a way to grant land to Spanish colonists throughout their new colonial territories. The encomenderowas to protect the Native Americans & work to convert them to Christianity, although most simply used the natives as laborers. Ultimately, the result of contact between Spanish and Native Americans led to a decline in population of Native Americans. * The Catholic Church became a primary force in colonizing the southwestern part of America for Spain.

5. * The Columbian Exchange was the complex interactions between peoples and environments started by European colonists in the Americas. * The crew of Ferdinand Magellan became the first known people to circumnavigate the globe when they returned to Spain in 1522

6. * At the beginning of the seventeenth century, England and the Netherlands entered the trading scene. * The English began trading in India and Southeast Asia. * The English established Jamestown (1607) and the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630) during the early 1600s. * The Dutch formed the East India Company and West India Company to compete for trade in Asia and the Americas. The Dutch colony of New Netherlands was in present-day New York. * The Dutch commercial enterprise in the Americas ended in the late 1600s. * By 1700, England had established a colonial empire along North America’s eastern seaboard.

7. * The establishing of colonies by European nations during this time played a vital role in the theory of mercantilism, a set of principles that dominated 17th century economic thought. * According to mercantilism, a nation’s prosperity depended on a large supply of gold and silver because that gave a country a favorable balance of trade.

8. Chapter 6, Section 2Africa in an Age of Transition * European expansion affected Africa with the dramatic increase of the slave trade. * The demand for slaves rose dramatically with the European voyages to the Americas & the planting of sugar cane there. In 1518, the first boatload of slaves were brought directly from Africa to the Americas. * The slave trade became part of the New World economy’s triangular trade, which connected Europe, Africa, and Asia, and the Americas. * The Ibo society produced more slaves than practically any other in Africa. * Many slaves died on the Middle Passage, the journey to the Americas from Africa. * King Afonso of Congo converted to Catholicism and attempted to stop the slave trade in his kingdom.

9. Chapter 6, Section 3Southeast Asia in the Era of the Spice Trade * In 1500, mainland Southeast Asia was relatively stable, but conflicts did erupt between the emerging states. * Between 1500 and 1800, the Vietnamese took control of the Mekong delta from the Khmer kingdom. * While the mainland states of Southeast Asia were able to successfully resist European domination, the islands of Southeast Asia were coveted by European rulers and merchants because the spice trade there was enormously profitable.