THE AGE

OF
EXPLORATIONS

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CAUSES
● European economy needed precious metals
(gold, silver) for the increasing industrial
production by the late 15th century
● The expansion of the Ottoman Empire made the
Levantine trade (controlled by Venice and
Genova) more expensive.
● Mediaeval had brought news about the wealth
of the East.
● Europeans started to seek new routes to India
and China
NAVIGATION AND SHIPBUILDING
● Late Middle Ages: technological advances were made,
new devices were used for navigation
ü The magnetic compass – helped determine
directions
ü Mechanical clocks – were used to tell the
speed of the voyage
ü The astrolabe – tell the position of the ship
with reference to stars
● Cartographers (e.g.Toscanelli) started drawing new
maps in which they showcased the fact that the
Earth was spherical
THE ASTROLABE
Toscanelli ’s Map 1474
Fra Mauro’s Map
15th century
NAVIGATION AND SHIPBUILDING
● New types of ships built in the 15-16th centuries:
Ø nimble caravel
Ø the strong and stable carrack
Ø the all-round-reliable galleon ship

● Portuguese sailors were helped by the work of Prince

Henry the Navigator who worked on the improvement of
the expeditions, he founded:
Ø shipbuilding works
Ø a nautical academy
Ø fundraising companies for expeditions
● All this helped Portugal to become a naval power by the
end of the century
CARRACK CARAVEL
 THE EXPLORERS
● Portuguese sailors started sailing south along the coast of
Africa
● They also reached Madeira, the Azores and the Cape Verde
Islands.
● The expeditions were often financed by Italian bankers
● In 1487, Bartolomeo Dias (also spelled Diaz) reached the
southern tip of Africa, which raised hopes in Portugal. (Dias
named the place Cape of Storms but King John renamed it
Cape of Good Hope.)
● Christopher Columbus, a Genoese sailor came up with the
idea of finding a new route to India by sailing westwards.
THE VOYAGE OF DIAS
 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
● Columbus was refused by the Portuguese for his
"crazy idea", so he went to Spain in the best
moment:
Ø Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand thought
that they should do all they could to catch
up with the Portuguese in finding rich Asian
resources of precious metals and spices.
Ø Columbus started his voyage in August
1492 and landed on the Bahamas (San
Salvador) in October
THE VOYAGES
OF
COLUMBUS
 EUROPEAN COLONIZATION
● The expedition of the Portuguese sailor Vasco
da Gama reached India and returned with
spices (1497-1499).
● The Portuguese dreams to find a sea route to
India had come true
● The Portuguese Magellan circumnavigated
the Earth (1519-1522).
Ø Despite the fact that he was killed
during the expedition, his team
completed the route in 1522
 THE VOYAGE
OF
VASCO DA GAMA
THE VOYAGE OF MAGELLAN
THE EUROPEAN EXPLORERS
● Europeans regarded the discovered territories as their own rightful
property.
● The explorers and conquerors simply took away what they found:
plants or minerals. Later they made plantations to grow grains, spices
or other plants that they could sell in Europe.
● The Portuguese created trade stations along the coastline of Africa
and the Indian Ocean
● The Spanish conquered huge territories and destroyed native
civilisations in the New World.
● The two Iberian states agreed on dividing the newly discovered
territory between themselves in the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494)
THE TREATY OF
TORDESILLAS
 CONQUISTADORS AND THEIR CONQUEST
● Ambitious soldiers and explorers were keen on
finding gold and riches in the New World.
● They subjugated the local population (Central
and South America ), who were
technologically inferior to the Europeans.
● After a successful conquest, they became
governors of the new territories, which were
claimed by the Europeans.
● Natives were considered inferior races, who
were to be ruled and Christianised.
 CONQUISTADORS AND THEIR CONQUEST
● In the Americas, the number of the natives
decreased constantly for several reasons in the
16th century
Ø Massacre, diseases (smallpox, measles)
Ø They were not used to the hard,
monotonous work the Europeans forced
them to do (especially in silver and gold
mines)
● When the Europeans found that Africans could
bear more, they began to get slaves from there.
As a result, intense slave trade developed across
the Atlantic Ocean
 CONQUISTADORS AND THEIR CONQUEST

Hernan Cortés, Spanish conquistador. Francisco Pizarro, a Spanish officer sailed to the New
With shrewd diplomacy and force, he World in 1502. He started his expeditions to South
occupied Tenochtitlan, the capital of the America in 1522. He heard about a land of gold from
Aztec empire and overthrew emperor natives, which made him move further and further in the
Montezuma. Andes Mountains. His expedition conquered the Inca
Empire in 1532-34
 NATIVE AMERICAN CIVILIZATIONS
THE AZTECS

● The Aztec Empire in the north of Central America (on

the Mexican Plateau) was in reality an alliance of
three big Aztec city-states, the biggest being
Tenochtitlán founded by the Mexica people.
● The Aztecs had their own paganistic religion,
agricultural system, calendar and writing.
● Internal conflicts made them an easy target for the
Spanish conquistador Cortés, who destroyed
Tenochtitlán in 1521.
 NATIVE AMERICAN CIVILIZATIONS
THE MAYAS

● They lived in the central regions of Central America,

especially, on the Yucatan Peninsula and the highland
of the Sierra Madre
● These people were famous for their developed arts
and their surprisingly good understanding of
mathematics and astronomy
 NATIVE AMERICAN CIVILIZATIONS
THE INCAS

● The Inca people lived in the west of South America along the
Andes
● They had developed road and courier system and an advanced
terrace agriculture system, calendar and writing
● They had a social economic system that functioned mostly
without money or any other type of currency
● They were also facing internal conflicts at the time, which
helped the Spanish conquistador Pizzaro in his conquest
PRE-COLUMBIAN CULTURES
AZTECS
 A NEW SYSTEM IN GLOBAL TRADE
● The most important consequence of the colonisation was the development of the
Transatlantic economic system, -"triangular trade" on the Atlantic Ocean.
● The three points of this triangle were the following:
Ø Western Europe - imported precious metals, raw materials and later cash crops
(tobacco, sugar, cotton) from the Americas and exported finished goods, textile and
into Africa
Ø the Americas from where precious metals and raw materials were exported to
Europe, and to where slaves were forcibly brought from Africa
Ø the Western coast of Africa - sold slaves to Europeans to work on their American
plantations in exchange for money, manufactured goods
 A NEW SYSTEM IN GLOBAL TRADE

● Later, with the English colonization the Transatlantic

trade was further changed;
Ø the English colonies became industrial
centers
● The development of global trade is often called the
first era of globalization; however, it must be seen
that this trade was very much one-sided and based on
colonial exploitation
 SHIFT IN EUROPEAN TRADE

● First, it was only Portugal and Spain who took part in the new
trade system, but later they were joined by other European
nations in exploration and colonisation.
● The Netherlands, France and England started to build their
own colonial empires through the 16th-17th centuries.
● As a consequence, the economic centre of the continent shifted
from Northern Italy (i.e. Venice and Genoa) to cities closer to
the Atlantic Ocean: London, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Lisbon,
Seville
 THE COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE

● The Columbian exchange was the widespread

transfer of plants, animals, precious metals,
commodities, culture, human populations,
technology, diseases, and ideas between the New
World (the Americas) and the Old World (Europe,
Asia, Africa) in the late 15th and following centuries.
● The various types of imported livestock and crops
led to increases in food production in the Old
World.
● Also, the Europeans realized the business potential
in New World cash crops, such as cotton or tobacco
 THE EMERGENCE OF BANKING
● Banks had existed in Europe since the Late Middle Ages; they mostly did not deal with
lending money, but with keeping money in secure vaults.
● Later, however banks started to provide loans
● The bank gave a loan to a merchant who wanted to invest in a new trade partnership or
to a nobleman who wanted to open a new workshop.
● The bank did not only ask the debtor to pay the exact same mount of money back, but
also charged a fee, called the interest.
● The emergence of lending contributed significantly to the development of the capitalist
economy, as the loans could be used as capital that could be invested in economic activity
 THE EMERGENCE OF BANKING

● By the 16th century, banks had become

widespread in Western Europe. The most
famous banker families were the Medici in
Florence, and the Fuggers and Welsers from
Augsburg

Bartolomeo Welser
 THE EMERGENCE OF BANKING

● By the 16th century, a new economic system developed

in the Europe: capitalism.
● The emergence of global trade, lending by banks, and
the circulation of money in Europe made large-scale
investments possible.
● Capital (either in the form of precious metals or loans)
could be invested in the developing industry or in
lucrative trade connections
Jakob Fugger
 THE APPEARANCE OF WORKSHOPS
● The growing population in Western Europe meant that numerous people were forced
to leave the countryside and find work in the growing towns and cities.
● This cheap labour and the growing demand for industrial goods led to a new method of
manufacturing: workshops (Hun: manufaktúra).
● Workshops used division of labour (i.e. specialization), which meant that one worker
was only responsible for only a small part of the work process.
● The workshops led to the decline of guild in Western Europe as they could create
cheaper handcrafted products in large quantities
 JOINT-STOCK COMPANIES
● The Age of Exploration also meant that trade could be a lucrative business.
Ø However, a long voyage to the New World was a highly expensive venture.
● Banks often provided loans for such ventures, but also a new form of association developed:
joint-stock companies.
Ø Effectively, several wealthy people put their capital together to form the stock of a
trade company.
Ø These people became shareholders in this company, because they were owners of
one part (share) of the company.
● These shareholders focused on the success of the company, in the form of the return on
investment - how much profit they can make from the original investment into the company
 CONTINENTAL DIVISION OF LABOUR

● The food supply of the growing Western European population had to

be covered by importing agricultural products from Eastern Europe.
This demand for grain (grain boom) led to agriculture becoming a
more lucrative business in those regions
● The land-owning nobility of the East realized the potentials of this
new order and focused heavily on agricultural production.
● They expanded their lands (demesne) over their serfs' lands,
increased the serfs' burdens (socage) and even restricted their right
to move.
 CONTINENTAL DIVISION OF LABOUR

● All of this led to a division of labour in Europe:

Ø the eastern countries produced foodstuff to be sold to Western
Europe, while the West paid in money or in crafted products.
● This also meant that the East and the West started to develop in markedly
different ways:
Ø while in the West, feudalism was slowly replaced by capitalism, which
brought about new forms of power;
Ø the East remained strongly feudal and the social order of the Middle
Ages remained dominant