EUROPE EXPLORES!

European Exploration In the late 1400s, trade, technology, and the rise of strong kingdoms led to a new era of exploration. Spurred on by the Renaissance.

Reason # 1 Spices! Wanted access to new, exotic spices from The Indies (China, Japan, India).

Why Spices? There was no refrigeration in Europe. Bland diet of potatoes: wanted to spice things up.

Getting Spices Land travel was slow, expensive, and inefficient. Traveling by sea would be more efficient, so they wanted to find a new route. The question is…which way to go?

Reason #2 Searching for Riches. Europeans believed Asia was filled with gold, silver, and precious stones.

Why gold? Europeans loved to fight wars and conquer other countries. Also, they wanted to continue exploring new lands. They needed money to do all of this.

Reason #3 Expand their knowledge. Europeans had no idea what the rest of the world looked like.

Why expand their knowledge? After learning about new ideas during the Renaissance, many Europeans had a thirst for knowledge. They wanted to continue learning about the world and they could only do this through new explorations

Expand Knowledge Europeans are about to learn just how big the world really is.

Reason #4 Expansion of Empires! European rulers constantly wanted to expand their territory – finding new lands would help them do this.

Why expand empire? Spain and Portugal were especially interested in expansion. They wanted to use the natural resources of conquered lands and use the inhabitants as slaves. This led to constant competition with each other.

Reason #5 Competition / Nationalism European countries need to prove their superiority by discovering more than their neighbors.

Reason #6 Religion Wanted to help bring Christianity to the rest of the world.

Why Christianity? European Christians thought it their Christian duty to spread religion to new lands. This provided a noble, selfless reason for expansion

Reason #7 Eliminate the middle man. Europeans wanted to find their own, independent trade routes.

Why New Trade Routes? Before their new expeditions, Europeans had to go through other people, like Muslims, in order to get exotic goods. They wanted to cut out this middleman.

Reason #8 Because they could. New technologies and inventions allowed them to travel in ways that they couldn’t before.

New Technologies In the 14 th century, Europe gained access to the astrolabe, which allowed them to determine latitude. By this time, Europeans figured out how to use a compass as a means of navigation.

New Technologies A new type of ship was also invented to make exploration easier and safer. The Caravel allowed for faster travel and easier maneuverability. This made sea exploration and eventually trade more efficient.

Reason #9 Maps 1200 years before the time of exploration, Claudius Ptolemy drew maps of the world that looked different than what Europeans thought of the world.

Discovered Maps The invention of the printing press allowed people to gain access to Ptolemy’s maps. Seeing these new maps made people curious about whether Ptolemy’s ideas about the world were correct.

Question of the day…Must restate questions in answers… Explain how exploration leads to colonization? What reasons would people want to settle in different areas?