1. Age of Exploration and Expansion
Three main reasons for expansion and exploration:
God: expansion of Christian beliefs
Gold: wealth, economic prosperity
Glory: power and prestige

2. Age of Exploration and Expansion
Why were the Portuguese and the Spanish the first major powers to explore?
Disadvantaged Geographically from trading with Asia, faced the Atlantic not the Mediterranean Sea
Ambitious rulers who wanted the wealth that the Italian merchants were gaining through trade with the Orient

3. Portuguese Exploration
Prince Henry (the Navigator)
Set up a school for mariners at Sagres (astronomers, geographers, mathematicians) to help sailors
Tried to find an Eastern route to the Orient
failures at Cape Bojador, Cape Nun cause discovery of Azores and Madiera Islands

4. Portuguese Exploration
Prince Henry (the Navigator)
Developed trading posts along the Western coast of Africa “Gold Coast”
Gold, Ivory, Slaves
Slave trade developed in 1441, expands for 300 years, ruins many West African tribes

5. Portuguese Exploration
King John II (1481)
Desired rich trading empire in Asia
Urged sea captains to explore further south in Africa searching for an eastern route to Asia
1488: Bartholomeu Dias rounds “Cape of Good Hope” realizing they found the eastern route to Asia

6. Portuguese Exploration
: Vasco da Gama Exploration
Establishes Eastern African trade outposts
Reached India May 1498, Calicut
1509: Portugal controls spice trade in Europe

7. Spanish Exploration
Reconquista: “Re-conquering” Spain from the Muslim threat
1492: Wanted to obtain a share of the spice trade in order to gain wealth and maintain power against the Muslim and Protestant threats

8. Columbus offers a western route to Asia
World based on Ptolemeic version of the world (smaller)
Knew land existed in western Atlantic (based on English fisherman’s testimony) thought that that land was Asia (not a new world)

9. Columbus offers a western route to Asia
Had a Crusader’s mentality (Chris-opher: Christ-bearer)
Convert “Indians”
Liberate Jerusalem

10. Columbus “discovers” America
Finds West Indies (Haiti, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Puerto Rico)
Carib Indians
Believed to his dying day he found the east coast of Asia
“Discovery” fuels rivalry between Spain and Portugal over control of “possessions”

11. Treaty of Tordesillas
Each country disputed the other’s rights to explore and possess new lands
Pope offered a compromise:
Portugal gains rights to lands east of the “Line of Demarcation” (all of the unpossessed land of the Eastern Hemisphere)

12. Treaty of Tordesillas
Spain gains right to lands west of the “Line of Demarcation” ( all of the New World, except Brazil)
Question: What’s wrong with this picture?