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What Was the Age of Exploration?

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The Birth of the Age of Exploration

The discovery of the new world, opening the americas, the end of the era, contributions to science, long-term impact.

• M.A., Geography, California State University - East Bay
• B.A., English and Geography, California State University - Sacramento

The era known as the Age of Exploration, sometimes called the Age of Discovery, officially began in the early 15th century and lasted through the 17th century. The period is characterized as a time when Europeans began exploring the world by sea in search of new trading routes, wealth, and knowledge.

During this era, explorers learned more about areas such as Africa and the Americas and brought that knowledge back to Europe. Massive wealth accrued to European colonizers due to trade in goods, spices, and precious metals. Nevertheless, there were also vast consequences. Labor became increasingly important to support the massive plantations in the New World, leading to the trade of enslaved people, which lasted for 300 years and had an enormous impact on Africa and North America.

The impact of the Age of Exploration would permanently alter the world and transform geography into the modern science it is today.

Key Takeaways

• During the Age of Exploration, methods of navigation and mapping improved, switching from traditional portolan charts to the world's first nautical maps; the colonies and Europe also exchanged new food, plants, and animals. 
• The Age of Exploration also decimated indigenous communities due to the combined impact of disease, overwork, and massacres.
• The impact persists today, with many of the world's former colonies still considered the developing world, while colonizing countries are the First World countries, holding a majority of the world's wealth and annual income.

Many nations were looking for goods such as silver and gold, but one of the biggest reasons for exploration was the desire to find a new route for the spice and silk trades.

When the Ottoman Empire took control of Constantinople in 1453, it blocked European access to the area, severely limiting trade. In addition, it also blocked access to North Africa and the Red Sea, two very important trade routes to the Far East.

The first of the journeys associated with the Age of Discovery were conducted by the Portuguese. Although the Portuguese, Spanish, Italians, and others had been plying the Mediterranean for generations, most sailors kept well within sight of land or traveled known routes between ports.  Prince Henry the Navigator  changed that, encouraging explorers to sail beyond the mapped routes and discover new trade routes to West Africa.

Portuguese explorers discovered the Madeira Islands in 1419 and the Azores in 1427. Over the coming decades, they would push farther south along the African coast, reaching the coast of present-day Senegal by the 1440s and the Cape of Good Hope by 1490. Less than a decade later, in 1498, Vasco da Gama would follow this route to India.

While the Portuguese were opening new sea routes along Africa, the Spanish also dreamed of finding new trade routes to the Far East. Christopher Columbus , an Italian working for the Spanish monarchy, made his first journey in 1492. Instead of reaching India, Columbus found the island of San Salvador in what is known today as the Bahamas. He also explored the island of Hispaniola, home of modern-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Columbus would lead three more voyages to the Caribbean, exploring parts of Cuba and the Central American coast. The Portuguese also reached the New World when explorer Pedro Alvares Cabral explored Brazil, setting off a conflict between Spain and Portugal over the newly claimed lands. As a result, the  Treaty of Tordesillas  officially divided the world in half in 1494.

Columbus' journeys opened the door for the Spanish conquest of the Americas. During the next century, men such as Hernan Cortes and Francisco Pizarro would decimate the Aztecs of Mexico, the Incas of Peru, and other indigenous peoples of the Americas. By the end of the Age of Exploration, Spain would rule from the Southwestern United States to the southernmost reaches of Chile and Argentina.

Great Britain and France also began seeking new trade routes and lands across the ocean. In 1497, John Cabot , an Italian explorer working for the English, reached what is believed to be the coast of Newfoundland. Many French and English explorers followed, including Giovanni da Verrazano, who discovered the entrance to the Hudson River in 1524, and Henry Hudson, who mapped the island of Manhattan first in 1609.

Over the next decades, the French, Dutch, and British would all vie for dominance. England established the first permanent colony in North America at Jamestown, Va., in 1607. Samuel du Champlain founded Quebec City in 1608, and Holland established a trading outpost in present-day New York City in 1624.

Other important voyages of exploration during this era included Ferdinand Magellan's attempted circumnavigation of the globe, the search for a trade route to Asia through the Northwest Passage , and Captain James Cook's voyages that allowed him to map various areas and travel as far as Alaska.

The Age of Exploration ended in the early 17th century after technological advancements and increased knowledge of the world allowed Europeans to travel easily across the globe by sea. The creation of permanent settlements and colonies created a network of communication and trade, therefore ending the need to search for new routes.

It is important to note that exploration did not cease entirely at this time. Eastern Australia was not officially claimed for Britain by Capt. James Cook until 1770, while much of the Arctic and Antarctic were not explored until the 20th century. Much of Africa also was unexplored by Westerners until the late 19th century and early 20th century.

The Age of Exploration had a significant impact on geography. By traveling to different regions around the globe, explorers were able to learn more about areas such as Africa and the Americas and bring that knowledge back to Europe.

Methods of navigation and mapping improved as a result of the travels of people such as Prince Henry the Navigator. Before his expeditions, navigators had used traditional portolan charts, which were based on coastlines and ports of call, keeping sailors close to shore.

The Spanish and Portuguese explorers who journeyed into the unknown created the world's first nautical maps, delineating not just the geography of the lands they found but also the seaward routes and ocean currents that led them there. As technology advanced and known territory expanded, maps and mapmaking became more and more sophisticated.

These explorations also introduced a whole new world of flora and fauna to Europeans. Corn, now a staple of much of the world's diet, was unknown to Westerners until the time of the Spanish conquest, as were sweet potatoes and peanuts. Likewise, Europeans had never seen turkeys, llamas, or squirrels before setting foot in the Americas.

The Age of Exploration served as a stepping stone for geographic knowledge. It allowed more people to see and study various areas around the world, which increased geographic study, giving us the basis for much of the knowledge we have today.

The effects of colonization persist as well, with many of the world's former colonies still considered the developing world and the colonizing nations the First World countries, which hold a majority of the world's wealth and receive a majority of its annual income.

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Visiting Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion?

You must join the virtual exhibition queue when you arrive. If capacity has been reached for the day, the queue will close early.

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

Europe and the age of exploration.

Salvator Mundi

Albrecht Dürer

The Celestial Map- Northern Hemisphere

Astronomical table clock

Astronomicum Caesareum

Michael Ostendorfer

Mirror clock

Movement attributed to Master CR

Portable diptych sundial

Hans Tröschel the Elder

Celestial globe with clockwork

Gerhard Emmoser

The Celestial Globe-Southern Hemisphere

James Voorhies Department of European Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

October 2002

Artistic Encounters between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas The great period of discovery from the latter half of the fifteenth through the sixteenth century is generally referred to as the Age of Exploration. It is exemplified by the Genoese navigator, Christopher Columbus (1451–1506), who undertook a voyage to the New World under the auspices of the Spanish monarchs, Isabella I of Castile (r. 1474–1504) and Ferdinand II of Aragon (r. 1479–1516). The Museum’s jerkin ( 26.196 ) and helmet ( 32.132 ) beautifully represent the type of clothing worn by the people of Spain during this period. The age is also recognized for the first English voyage around the world by Sir Francis Drake (ca. 1540–1596), who claimed the San Francisco Bay for Queen Elizabeth ; Vasco da Gama’s (ca. 1460–1524) voyage to India , making the Portuguese the first Europeans to sail to that country and leading to the exploration of the west coast of Africa; Bartolomeu Dias’ (ca. 1450–1500) discovery of the Cape of Good Hope; and Ferdinand Magellan’s (1480–1521) determined voyage to find a route through the Americas to the east, which ultimately led to discovery of the passage known today as the Strait of Magellan.

To learn more about the impact on the arts of contact between Europeans, Africans, and Indians, see  The Portuguese in Africa, 1415–1600 ,  Afro-Portuguese Ivories , African Christianity in Kongo , African Christianity in Ethiopia ,  The Art of the Mughals before 1600 , and the Visual Culture of the Atlantic World .

Scientific Advancements and the Arts in Europe In addition to the discovery and colonization of far off lands, these years were filled with major advances in cartography and navigational instruments, as well as in the study of anatomy and optics. The visual arts responded to scientific and technological developments with new ideas about the representation of man and his place in the world. For example, the formulation of the laws governing linear perspective by Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) in the early fifteenth century, along with theories about idealized proportions of the human form, influenced artists such as Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) and Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519). Masters of illusionistic technique, Leonardo and Dürer created powerfully realistic images of corporeal forms by delicately rendering tendons, skin tissues, muscles, and bones, all of which demonstrate expertly refined anatomical understanding. Dürer’s unfinished Salvator Mundi ( 32.100.64 ), begun about 1505, provides a unique opportunity to see the artist’s underdrawing and, in the beautifully rendered sphere of the earth in Christ’s left hand, metaphorically suggests the connection of sacred art and the realms of science and geography.

Although the Museum does not have objects from this period specifically made for navigational purposes, its collection of superb instruments and clocks reflects the advancements in technology and interest in astronomy of the time, for instance Petrus Apianus’ Astronomicum Caesareum ( 25.17 ). This extraordinary Renaissance book contains equatoria supplied with paper volvelles, or rotating dials, that can be used for calculating positions of the planets on any given date as seen from a given terrestrial location. The celestial globe with clockwork ( 17.190.636 ) is another magnificent example of an aid for predicting astronomical events, in this case the location of stars as seen from a given place on earth at a given time and date. The globe also illustrates the sun’s apparent movement through the constellations of the zodiac.

Portable devices were also made for determining the time in a specific latitude. During the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the combination of compass and sundial became an aid for travelers. The ivory diptych sundial was a specialty of manufacturers in Nuremberg. The Museum’s example ( 03.21.38 ) features a multiplicity of functions that include giving the time in several systems of counting daylight hours, converting hours read by moonlight into sundial hours, predicting the nights that would be illuminated by the moon, and determining the dates of the movable feasts. It also has a small opening for inserting a weather vane in order to determine the direction of the wind, a feature useful for navigators. However, its primary use would have been meteorological.

Voorhies, James. “Europe and the Age of Exploration.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/expl/hd_expl.htm (October 2002)

Further Reading

Levenson, Jay A., ed. Circa 1492: Art in the Age of Exploration . Exhibition catalogue. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1991.

Vezzosi, Alessandro. Leonardo da Vinci: The Mind of the Renaissance . New York: Abrams, 1997.

Additional Essays by James Voorhies

• Voorhies, James. “ Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) .” (October 2004)
• Voorhies, James. “ Francisco de Goya (1746–1828) and the Spanish Enlightenment .” (October 2003)
• Voorhies, James. “ Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) .” (October 2004)
• Voorhies, James. “ School of Paris .” (October 2004)
• Voorhies, James. “ Art of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries in Naples .” (October 2003)
• Voorhies, James. “ Elizabethan England .” (October 2002)
• Voorhies, James. “ Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946) and His Circle .” (October 2004)
• Voorhies, James. “ Fontainebleau .” (October 2002)
• Voorhies, James. “ Post-Impressionism .” (October 2004)
• Voorhies, James. “ Domestic Art in Renaissance Italy .” (October 2002)
• Voorhies, James. “ Surrealism .” (October 2004)

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The Ages of Exploration

Age of discovery, age of discovery.

15th century to the early 17th century

The Age of Discovery refers to a period in European history in which several extensive overseas exploration journeys took place. Religion, scientific and cultural curiosity, economics, imperial dominance, and riches were all reasons behind this transformative age. The search for a westward trade route to Asia was one of the largest motivations for many of these voyages. Christopher Columbus’ voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in 1492 lead to the discovery of a New World, and created a new surge in exploration and colonization. World maps changed as European powers such as England, France, Spain, the Dutch, and Portugal began claiming lands. But there were also negative effects to the Europeans’ arrival in the New World. Europeans encountered, and in many cases conquered and enslaved, native peoples of the new lands to which they traveled.

Advancements in ships, navigational instruments, and knowledge of world geography grew significantly. Vessels of the Age of Discovery continued to be built of wood and powered by sail or oar, and, on occasion, both. Medieval navigational tools such as the compass, kamal, astrolabe, cross-staff, and the mariner’s quadrant were still used but became replaced by more effective tools. Newer tools such as the mariner’s astrolabe, traverse board, and back staff soon provided better navigational support in determining longitude and latitude. These tools, along with improved maps enabled explorers to travel the vast oceans as never before. The Age of Discovery created a new period of global interaction, and began a new age of European colonialism that would intensify over the next several centuries.

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European History/Exploration and Discovery

• 1 Introduction
• 2 Causes of the Age of Exploration
• 3 Portuguese Roles in Early Exploration
• 4.1 Prince Henry (1394–1460)
• 4.2 Bartolomeu Dias (1450-1500)
• 4.3 Vasco da Gama (1460–1524)
• 4.4 Pedro Álvares Cabral (1467–1520)
• 4.5 Ferdinand Magellan (1480–1521)
• 4.6 Francis Xavier (1506 –1552)
• 5.1 Francisco Pizarro (1529-1541)
• 5.2 Christopher Columbus (1451-1506)
• 5.3 Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521)
• 5.4 Vasco Nuñez de Balboa (1475-1519)
• 5.5 Hernando Cortés (1485-1547)
• 5.6 Bartolomé de las Casas (1484-1566)
• 5.7 Juan Ponce de León (1474-1521)
• 6.1 Sir Francis Drake (1540-1596)
• 6.2 John Cabot (1450-1499)
• 7.1 Rene-Robert de La Salle
• 7.2 Father Jacques Marquette
• 7.3 Louis Jolliet
• 7.4 Jacques Cartier (1491-1551)
• 7.5 Samuel de Champlain (1567-1635)
• 8.1 Willem Barentsz (1550-1597)
• 8.2 Henry Hudson (1565-1611)
• 8.3 Willem Janszoon (1571-1638)
• 8.4 Abel Tasman (1603-1659)
• 9 Results of the Age of Exploration

Introduction

During the fifteenth and the sixteenth century the states of Europe began their modern exploration of the world with a series of sea voyages. The Atlantic states of Spain and Portugal were foremost in this enterprise though other countries, notably England and the Netherlands, also took part.

These explorations increased European knowledge of the wider world, particularly in relation to sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas . These explorations were frequently connected to conquest and missionary work, as the states of Europe attempted to increase their influence, both in political and religious terms, throughout the world.

Causes of the Age of Exploration

The explorers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had a variety of motivations, but were frequently motivated by the prospects of trade and wealth. The earliest explorations, round the coast of West Africa , were designed to bypass the trade routes that brought gold across the Sahara Desert . The improved naval techniques that developed then allowed Europeans to travel further afield, to India and, ultimately, to the Americas.

The early explorations of Spain and Portugal were particularly aided by new ship designs. Prior to the fifteenth century Spain and Portugal largely relied on a ship known as the galley . Although galleys were fast and manoeuvrable, they were designed for use in the confined waters of the Mediterranean, and were unstable and inefficient in the open ocean. To cope with oceanic voyages, European sailors adapted a ship known as the cog , largely used in the Baltic and North Sea , which they improved by adding sail designs used in the Islamic world. These new ships, known as caravels , had deep keels, which gave them stability, combined with lateen sails , which allowed them to best exploit oceanic winds.

The astrolabe was a new navigational instrument in Europe that borrowed from the Islamic world, which used it in deserts. Using coordinates via the sky, one rotation of the astrolabe's plate, called a tympan , represented the passage of one day, allowing sailors to approximate the time, direction in which they were sailing, and the number of days passed. The astrolabe was replaced by the sextant as the chief navigational instrument in the 18th century. The sextant measured celestial objects in relation to the horizon, as opposed to measuring them in relation to the instrument. As a result, explorers were now able to sight the sun at noon and determine their latitude, which made this instrument more accurate than the astrolabe.

Portuguese Roles in Early Exploration

In 1415, the Portuguese established a claim to some cities (Ceuta, Tangiers) on what is today the Kingdom of Morocco , and in 1433 they began the systematic exploration of the west African coast. In August 1492, Christopher Columbus , whose nationality is still today subject to much debate, set sail on behalf of Ferdinand and Isabella whose marriage had united their crowns forming what is still today the Kingdom of Spain, and on October 12 of that same year, he eventually reached the Bahamas thinking it was the East Indies . In his mind he had reached the eastern end of the rich lands of India and China described in the thirteenth century by the Venetian explorer Marco Polo.

As a result, a race for more land, especially in the so-called "East Indies" arose. In 1481, a papal decree granted all land south of the Canary Islands to Portugal, however, and the areas explored by Columbus were thus Portuguese territories. In 1493, the Spanish-descendant Pope Alexander VI , declared that all lands west of the longitude of the Cape Verde Islands should belong to Spain while new lands discovered east of that line would belong to Portugal. These events led to increasing tension between the two powers given the fact that the king of Portugal saw the role of Pope Alexander VI Borgia as biased towards Spain. His role in the matter is still today a matter of strong controversy between European historians of that period.

The resolution to this occurred in 1494 at the Treaty of Tordesillas , creating, after long and tense diplomatic negotiations between the Kingdoms of Spain and Portugal, a dividing line 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. Portugal received the west African Coast and the Indian Ocean route to India, as well as part of the Pacific Ocean waterways, while Spain gained the Western Atlantic Ocean and the lands further to the west. «Unknowingly», Portugal received Brazil. King John II of Portugal, however, seems to have had prior knowledge of the location of that Brazilian territory, for in the difficult negotiations of the Treaty of Tordesillas he managed, in a move still open for debate amongst historians of the period today, to push the dividing line further to the west, making it possible to celebrate the official discovery of Brazil and the reclaiming of the land only in 1500, already under the auspices of the treaty.

Important Portuguese Explorers

Prince henry (1394–1460).

Prince Henry "the Navigator" financially supported various voyages. He created a school for the advancement of navigation, laying the groundwork for Portugal to become a leader in the Age of Exploration.

Bartolomeu Dias (1450-1500)

Bartolomeu Dias , the first European to sail around the Cape of Good Hope , also found that India was reachable by sailing around the coast of the continent. As a result, trade with Asia and India was made considerably easier because travellers would no longer have to travel through the Middle East. Thus, there was a rise in Atlantic trading countries and a decline in Middle East and Mediterranean countries.

Vasco da Gama (1460–1524)

Vasco da Gama was the first to successfully sail directly from Europe to India in 1498. This was an important step for Europe because it created a sea route from Europe that would allow trade with the Far East instead of using the Silk Road Caravan route .

Pedro Álvares Cabral (1467–1520)

On April 21, 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral accidentally discovered Brazil while seeking a western route to the Indies. He first landed in modern-day Bahia.

Ferdinand Magellan (1480–1521)

Magellan was a Portuguese explorer sailing in a Spanish expedition, and was the first person to sail the Pacific Ocean and around South America. He attempted to circumnavigate the globe but died in the Philippines, although his crew successfully completed the voyage. One of his ships led by Juan Sebastian Elcano, who took over after Magellan died, made all the way around the globe!

Francis Xavier (1506 –1552)

Francis Xavier was a Spanish missionary, born in the castle of Xavier, a village near the city of Pamplona, from where he has his name. He was a member of the nobility and during his student years in Paris he became friends with Ignacio de Loiola with whom he would found the Jesuit Order He travelled extensively around Africa, India, the South Pacific, and even Japan and China.

Early Spanish Explorers

There were a number of other important explorers that were involved in the Age of Exploration.

Francisco Pizarro (1529-1541)

Pizarro was a Spanish explorer who militarily fought and conquered the Incan people and culture, claiming most of South America for Spain. He gained immense gold and riches for Spain from the defeat of the Incan empire.

Christopher Columbus (1451-1506)

Columbus , an explorer thought to be of Genoa (Italy), who after many unsuccessful attempts at finding patronship, explored the possibility of a western passage to the East Indies for the Spanish crown. Due to miscalculations on the circumference of the world Columbus did not account for the possibility of another series of continents between Europe and Asia, Columbus discovered the Caribbean in 1492. He introduced Spanish trade with the Americas which allowed for an exchange of cultures, diseases and trade goods, known as The Grand Exchange , whose consequences, good and bad, are still being experienced today.

Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521)

Magellan was a Portuguese explorer who served the King of Spain, and was the first person to sail the Pacific Ocean and around South America. He attempted to be the first to circumnavigate the globe but was killed in the Philippines. His crew managed to successfully complete the voyage under the leadership of the Spanish Juan Sebastian del Cano. His parents had died when he was ten years old and he was sent to Lisbon in Portugal when he was twelve.

Vasco Nuñez de Balboa (1475-1519)

Balboa was a Spanish conquistador who founded the colony of Darién in Panama. He was the first to see the Pacific Ocean from America, and he settled much of the island of Hispaniola .

Hernando Cortés (1485-1547)

Cortés was a Spanish conquistador who assembled an army from the Spanish Colonies consisting of 600 men, 15 horsemen and 15 cannons. Using the assistance of a translator, Doña Marina , he assembled alliances with discontented subdued tribes in the Aztec empire. Through decisive use of superior weapons and native assistance, also the help of European disease which had already wrecked native populations, successfully conquered the Aztecs capturing Montezuma II , the current emperor, the city of Tenochtitlan and looting large amounts of Aztec gold.

Bartolomé de las Casas (1484-1566)

Las Casas was a Spanish priest who advocated civil rights for Native Americans and strongly protested the way they were enslaved and badly treated. He wrote A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies and De thesauris in Peru .

Juan Ponce de León (1474-1521)

Juan Ponce de León was a Spanish conquistador hailing from Valladolid, Spain. He had served as the Governor of Puerto Rico when he started his own expedition in 1513, discovering Florida on March 27 of the same year and reaching its eastern coast on April 2. He called the land Florida (Spanish for flowery), either because of the vegetation he saw there, or it was Easter (Spanish: Pascua Florida ) that time. De Leon then organized subsequent voyages to Florida; the last one occurring in 1521 when he died.

English Explorers

Sir francis drake (1540-1596).

Sir Francis Drake was a letter of marque, one who is a privateer, for Britain during the time of Queen Elizabeth I . Though he is most remembered for helping command the English fleet against the Spanish Armada , he also spent many years in the Caribbean and successfully circumnavigated the world between 1577-1580.

John Cabot (1450-1499)

John Cabot, originally Giovanni Caboto was born in Genoa, Italy.

French Explorers

Rene-robert de la salle.

LaSalle was born in Rouen, France. He originally studied to be a Jesuit, but left the school to find adventure. He sailed to a French colony in Canada and became a fur trader. Indians told him of two great rivers (the Mississippi and Ohio). He made several explorations of them. He died when his men revelled in about 1687.

Father Jacques Marquette

Marquette was born in Laon, France, in the summer of 1637. He joined the Jesuits at age seventeen. The Jesuits told him to go be a missionary in Quebec. He founded missions all over the place. He explored many rivers. He died, age 38.

Louis Jolliet

Jolliet was born in a settlement near Quebec City. He was going to be a Jesuit priest, but abandoned these plans. He explored many rivers with Marquette. His place and date of death is unknown.

Jacques Cartier (1491-1551)

Jacques Cartier was an explorer who claimed Canada for France. He was born in Saint Malo, France in 1491. He was also the first European, not just the first Frenchman to describe and chart Saint Lawrence River and Gulf of Saint Lawrence. He made three important voyages. He died in Saint Malo, in 1551, aged 65.

Samuel de Champlain (1567-1635)

Samuel de Champlain was the "Father of New France". Founded Quebec City and today Lake Champlain is named in his honor.

Dutch Explorers

In the late 16th century Dutch explorers began to head out all over the world.

Willem Barentsz (1550-1597)

On June 5, 1594 Barentsz left the island of Texel aboard the small ship Mercury, as part of a group of three ships sent out in separate directions to try and enter the Kara Sea, with the hopes of finding the Northeast passage above Siberia. During this journey he discovered what is today Bjørnøya, also known as Bear Island.

Later in the journey, Barentsz reached the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, and followed it northward before being forced to turn back in the face of large icebergs. Although they did not reach their ultimate goal, the trip was considered a success.

Setting out on June 2, 1595, the voyage went between the Siberian coast and Vaygach Island. On August 30, the party came across approximately 20 Samoyed "wilde men" with whom they were able to speak, due to a crewmember speaking their language. September 4 saw a small crew sent to States Island to search for a type of crystal that had been noticed earlier. The party was attacked by a polar bear, and two sailors were killed.

Eventually, the expedition turned back upon discovering that unexpected weather had left the Kara Sea frozen. This expedition was largely considered to be a failure.

In May 1596, he set off once again, returning to Bear Island. Barentsz reached Novaya Zemlya on July 17. Anxious to avoid becoming entrapped in the surrounding ice, he intended to head for the Vaigatch Strait, but became stuck within the many icebergs and floes. Stranded, the 16-man crew was forced to spend the winter on the ice, along with their young cabin boy.

Proving successful at hunting, the group caught 26 Arctic foxes in primitive traps, as well as killing a number of polar bears. When June arrived, and the ice had still not loosened its grip on the ship, the scurvy-ridden survivors took two small boats out into the sea on June 13. Barentsz died while studying charts only seven days after starting out, but it took seven more weeks for the boats to reach Kola where they were rescued.

Henry Hudson (1565-1611)

In 1609, Hudson was chosen by the Dutch East India Company to find an easterly passage to Asia. He was told to sail around the Arctic Ocean north of Russia, into the Pacific and to the Far East. Hudson could not continue his voyage due to the ice that had plagued his previous voyages, and many others before him. Having heard rumors by way of Jamestown and John Smith, he and his crew decided to try to seek out a Southwest Passage through North America.

After crossing the Atlantic Ocean, his ship, the Halve Maen (Half Moon), sailed around briefly in the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, but Hudson concluded that these waterways did not lead to the Pacific.

He then sailed up to the river that today bears his name, the Hudson River. He made it as far as present-day Albany, New York, where the river narrows, before he was forced to turn around, realizing that it was not the Southwest Passage.

Along the way, Hudson traded with numerous native tribes and obtained different shells, beads and furs. His voyage established Dutch claims to the region and the fur trade that prospered there. New Amsterdam in Manhattan became the capital of New Netherland in 1625

Willem Janszoon (1571-1638)

Early in Willem's life,1601 and 1602, he set out on two trips to the Dutch possessions in the East Indies. On November 18, 1605, he sailed from Bantam to the coast of western New Guinea. He then crossed the eastern end of the Arafura Sea, without seeing the Torres Strait, into the Gulf of Carpentaria, and on February 26, 1606 made landfall at the Pennefather River on the western shore of Cape York in Queensland, near the modern town of Weipa. This is the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent. Willem Janszoon proceeded to chart some 320 km of the coastline, which he thought to be a southerly extension of New Guinea.

Willem Janszoon returned to the Netherlands in the belief that the south coast of New Guinea was joined to the land along which he coasted, and Dutch maps reproduced this error for many years to come.

Janszoon reported that on July 31, 1618 he had landed on an island at 22° South with a length of 22 miles and 240 miles SSE of the Sunda Strait. This is generally interpreted as a description of the peninsula from Point Cloate to North West Cape on the Western Australian coast, which Janszoon presumed was an island without fully circumnavigating it.

Abel Tasman (1603-1659)

In 1634 Tasman was sent as second in command of an exploring expedition in the north Pacific. His fleet included the ships Heemskerck and Zeehaen. After many hardships Formosa (now Taiwan) was reached in November, 40 out of the crew of 90 having died. Other voyages followed, to Japan in 1640 and 1641 and to Palembang in the south of Sumatra in 1642, where he made a friendly trading treaty with the Sultan. In August 1642 Tasman was sent in command of an expedition for the discovery of the "Unknown Southland", which was believed to be in the south Pacific but which had not been seen by Europeans

On November 24, 1642 Tasman sighted the west coast of Tasmania near Macquarie Harbour. He named his discovery Van Diemen's Land after Anthony van Diemen, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. Proceeding south he skirted the southern end of Tasmania and turned north-east until he was off Cape Frederick Hendrick on the Forestier Peninsula. An attempt at landing was made but the sea was too rough; however, the carpenter swam through the surf, and, planting a flag, Tasman claimed formal possession of the land on December 3, 1642.

Tasman had intended to proceed in a northerly direction but as the wind was unfavourable he steered east. On December 13 they sighted land on the north-west coast of the South Island, New Zealand. After some exploration he sailed further east, and nine days later was the first European known to sight New Zealand, which he named Staten Landt on the assumption that it was connected to an island (Staten Island, Argentina) at the south of the tip of South America. Proceeding north and then east one of his boats was attacked by Māori in waka, and four of his men were killed.

En route back to Batavia, Tasman came across the Tongan archipelago on January 21, 1643. While passing the Fiji Islands Tasman's ships came close to being wrecked on the dangerous reefs of the north-eastern part of the Fiji group. He charted the eastern tip of Vanua Levu and Cikobia before making his way back into the open sea. He eventually turned north-west to New Guinea, and arrived at Batavia on June 15, 1643.

With three ships on his second voyage (Limmen, Zeemeeuw and the tender Braek) in 1644, he followed the south coast of New Guinea eastward. He missed the Torres Strait between New Guinea and Australia, and continued his voyage along the Australian coast. He mapped the north coast of Australia making observations on the land and its people.

From the point of view of the Dutch East India Company Tasman's explorations were a disappointment: he had neither found a promising area for trade nor a useful new shipping route. For over a century, until the era of James Cook, Tasmania and New Zealand were not visited by Europeans - mainland Australia was visited, but usually only by accident

Results of the Age of Exploration

The Age of Exploration led, directly to new communication and trade routes being established and the first truly global businesses to be established. Tea, several exotic fruits and new technologies were also introduced into Europe.

It also led to the decimation and extinction of Natives in other nations due to European diseases and poor working conditions. It also led indirectly to an increase in slavery (which was already widely practised throughout the world), as the explorations led to a rise in supply and thus demand for cotton , indigo , and tobacco .

Finally, as a result of the Age of Exploration, Spain dominated the end of the sixteenth century. The Age of Exploration provided the foundation for the European political and commercial worldwide imperialism of the late 1800s. From 1580 to 1640 Spain would inherit the right to reign over Portugal, whose interests where now in the hands of its political and geographical neighbour. Spain's power, under Spanish leader Philip II , was bigger than ever before and renewed and financed the power of the Papacy to fight against Protestant Reformation. However, in the seventeenth century, as the explorations were coming to an end and money was becoming scarcer, other countries began to openly challenge the spirit of the Tordesilas treaty and the power of Spain, which began to lapse and lose its former power.

European History 01. Background • 02. Middle Ages • 03. Renaissance • 04. Exploration • 05. Reformation 06. Religious War • 07. Absolutism • 08. Enlightenment • 09. French Revolution • 10. Napoleon 11. Age of Revolutions • 12. Imperialism • 13. World War I • 14. 1918 to 1945 • 15. 1945 to Present Glossary • Outline • Authors • Bibliography

• Book:European History
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Causes and Impacts of the European Age of Exploration

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A time when Europe was swept up in the Renaissance and the Reformation, other major changes were taking place in the world.

Introduction

With today’s global positioning satellites, Internet maps, cell phones, and superfast travel, it is hard to imagine exactly how it might have felt to embark on a voyage across an unknown ocean. What lay across the ocean? In the early 1400s in Europe, few people knew. How long would it take to get there? That depended on the wind, the weather, and the distance. Days would have run together, with no sounds but the voices of the captain and the crew, the creaking of the sails, the blowing wind, and the splash of waves against the ship’s hull.

Would you be willing to undertake such a voyage? Only those most adventurous, most daring, and most confident in their abilities to sail in any weather, manage any crew, and meet any circumstance dared do so. They sailed west from England, Spain, and Portugal to North America. They sailed south from Portugal and Spain to South America, to lands where the Incas lived. They traveled to Africa, past the kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai. The crew of one Portuguese expedition even sailed completely around the world.

European explorers changed the world in many dramatic ways. Because of them, cultures divided by 3,000 miles or more of water began interacting. European countries claimed large parts of the world. As nations competed for territory, Europe had an enormous impact on people living in distant lands.

The Americas, in turn, made important contributions to Europe and the rest of the world. For example, from the Americas came crops such as corn and potatoes, which grew well in Europe. By increasing Europe’s food supply, these crops helped create population growth.

Another great change during the early modern age was the Scientific Revolution. Between 1500 and 1700, scientists used observation and experiments to make dramatic discoveries. For example, Isaac Newton formulated the laws of gravity. The Scientific Revolution also led to the invention of new tools, such as the microscope and the thermometer.

Advances in science helped pave the way for a period called the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment began in the late 1600s. Enlightenment thinkers used observation and reason to try to solve problems in society. Their work led to new ideas about government, human nature, and human rights.

The Age of Exploration, the Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment helped to shape the world we live in today.

The Causes of European Exploration

Why did European exploration begin to flourish in the 1400s? Two main reasons stand out. First, Europeans of this time had several motives for exploring the world. Second, advances in knowledge and technology helped to make the Age of Exploration possible.

Motives for Exploration

For early explorers, one of the main motives for exploration was the desire to find new trade routes to Asia. By the 1400s, merchants and Crusaders had brought many goods to Europe from Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Demand for these goods increased the desire for trade.

Europeans were especially interested in spices from Asia. They had learned to use spices to help preserve food during winter and to cover up the taste of food that was no longer fresh.

Trade with the East, however, was difficult and very expensive. Muslims and Italians controlled the flow of goods. Muslim traders carried goods to the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Italian merchants then brought the goods into Europe. Problems arose when Muslim rulers sometimes closed the trade routes from Asia to Europe. Also, the goods went through many hands, and each trading party raised the price.

European monarchs and merchants wanted to break the hold that Muslims and Italians had on trade. One way to do so was to find a sea route to Asia. Portuguese sailors looked for a route that went around Africa. Christopher Columbus tried to reach Asia by sailing west across the Atlantic.

Other motives also came into play. Many people were excited by the opportunity for new knowledge. Explorers saw the chance to earn fame and glory, as well as wealth. As new lands were discovered, nations wanted to claim the lands’ riches for themselves.

A final motive for exploration was the desire to spread Christianity beyond Europe. Both Protestant and Catholic nations were eager to make new converts. Missionaries of both faiths followed the paths blazed by explorers.

Advances in Knowledge and Technology  

The Age of Exploration began during the Renaissance. The Renaissance was a time of new learning. A number of advances during that time made it easier for explorers to venture into the unknown.

One key advance was in cartography, the art and science of mapmaking. In the early 1400s, an Italian scholar translated an ancient book called Guide to Geography from Greek into Latin. The book was written by the thinker Ptolemy (TOL-eh-mee) in the 2nd century C.E. Printed copies of the book inspired new interest in cartography. European mapmakers used Ptolemy’s work as a basis for drawing more accurate maps.

Discoveries by explorers gave mapmakers new information with which to work. The result was a dramatic change in Europeans’ view of the world. By the 1500s, Europeans made globes, showing Earth as a sphere. In 1507, a German cartographer made the first map that clearly showed North and South America as separate from Asia.

In turn, better maps made navigation easier. The most important Renaissance geographer, Gerardus Mercator (mer-KAY-tur), created maps using improved lines of longitude and latitude. Mercator’s mapmaking technique was a great help to navigators.

An improved ship design also helped explorers. By the 1400s, Portuguese and Spanish shipbuilders were making a new type of ship called a caravel. These ships were small, fast, and easy to maneuver. Their special bottoms made it easier for explorers to travel along coastlines where the water was not deep. Caravels also used lateen sails, a triangular style adapted from Muslim ships. These sails could be positioned to take advantage of the wind no matter which way it blew.

Along with better ships, new navigational tools helped sailors travel more safely on the open seas. By the end of the 1400s, the compass was much improved. Sailors used compasses to find their bearing, or direction of travel. The astrolabe helped sailors determine their distance north or south from the equator.

Finally, improved weapons gave Europeans a huge advantage over the people they met in their explorations. Sailors could fire their cannons at targets near the shore without leaving their ships. On land, the weapons of native peoples often were no match for European guns, armor, and horses.

Portugal Begins the Age of Exploration

The Age of Exploration began in Portugal. This small country is located on the Iberian Peninsula. Its rulers sent explorers first to nearby Africa and then around the world.

Key Portuguese Explorers

The major figure in early Portuguese exploration was Prince Henry, the son of King John I of Portugal. Nicknamed “the Navigator,” Prince Henry was not an explorer himself. Instead, he encouraged exploration and planned and directed many important expeditions.

Beginning in about 1418, Henry sent explorers to sea almost every year. He also started a school of navigation where sailors and mapmakers could learn their trades. His cartographers made new maps based on the information ship captains brought back.

Henry’s early expeditions focused on the west coast of Africa. He wanted to continue the Crusades against the Muslims, find gold, and take part in Asian trade.

Gradually, Portuguese explorers made their way farther and farther south. In 1488, Bartolomeu Dias became the first European to sail around the southern tip of Africa.

In July 1497, Vasco da Gama set sail with four ships to chart a sea route to India. Da Gama’s ships rounded Africa’s southern tip and then sailed up the east coast of the continent. With the help of a sailor who knew the route to India from there, they were able to across the Indian Ocean.

Da Gama arrived in the port of Calicut, India, in May 1498. There he obtained a load of cinnamon and pepper. On the return trip to Portugal, da Gama lost half of his ships. Still, the valuable cargo he brought back paid for the voyage many times over. His trip made the Portuguese even more eager to trade directly with Indian merchants.

In 1500, Pedro Cabral (kah-BRAHL) set sail for India with a fleet of 13 ships. Cabral first sailed southwest to avoid areas where there are no winds to fill sails. But he sailed so far west that he reached the east coast of present-day Brazil. After claiming this land for Portugal, he sailed back to the east and rounded Africa. Arriving in Calicut, he established a trading post and signed trade treaties. He returned to Portugal in June 1501.

The Impact of Portuguese Exploration  

Portugal’s explorers changed Europeans’ understanding of the world in several ways. They explored the coasts of Africa and brought back gold and enslaved Africans. They also found a sea route to India. From India, explorers brought back spices, such as cinnamon and pepper, and other goods, such as porcelain, incense, jewels, and silk.

After Cabral’s voyage, the Portuguese took control of the eastern sea routes to Asia. They seized the seaport of Goa (GOH-uh) in India and built forts there. They attacked towns on the east coast of Africa. They also set their sights on the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, in what is now Indonesia. In 1511, they attacked the main port of the islands and killed the Muslim defenders. The captain of this expedition explained what was at stake. If Portugal could take the spice trade away from Muslim traders, he wrote, then Cairo and Makkah “will be ruined.” As for Italian merchants, “Venice will receive no spices unless her merchants go to buy them in Portugal.”

Portugal’s control of the Indian Ocean broke the hold Muslims and Italians had on Asian trade. With the increased competition, prices of Asian goods—such as spices and fabrics—dropped, and more people in Europe could afford to buy them.

During the 1500s, Portugal also began to establish colonies in Brazil. The native people of Brazil suffered greatly as a result. The Portuguese forced them to work on sugar plantations, or large farms. They also tried to get them to give up their religion and convert to Christianity. Missionaries sometimes tried to protect them from abuse, but countless numbers of native peoples died from overwork and from European diseases. Others fled into the interior of Brazil.

The colonization of Brazil also had a negative impact on Africa. As the native population of Brazil decreased, the Portuguese needed more laborers. Starting in the mid–1500s, they turned to Africa. Over the next 300 years, ships brought millions of enslaved West Africans to Brazil.

Later Spanish Exploration and Conquest

After Columbus’s voyages, Spain was eager to claim even more lands in the New World. To explore and conquer “New Spain,” the Spanish turned to adventurers called conquistadors , or conquerors. The conquistadors were allowed to establish settlements and seize the wealth of natives. In return, the Spanish government claimed some of the treasures they found.

Key Explorers

In 1519, Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés (er–NAHN koor–TEZ), with and a band of fellow conquistadors, set out to explore present-day Mexico. Native people in Mexico told Cortés about the Aztecs. The Aztecs had built a large and wealthy empire in Mexico.

With the help of a native woman named Malinche (mah–LIN–chay), Cortés and his men reached the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlán (tay–nawh–tee–TLAHN). The Aztec ruler, Moctezuma II, welcomed the Spanish with great honors. Determined to break the power of the Aztecs, Cortés took Moctezuma hostage.

Cortés now controlled the Aztec capital. In 1520, he left the city of Tenochtitlán to battle a rival Spanish force. While he was away, a group of conquistadors attacked the Aztecs in the middle of a religious celebration. In response, the Aztecs rose up against the Spanish. The soldiers had to fight their way out of the city. Many of them were killed during the escape.

The following year, Cortés mounted a siege of the city, aided by thousands of native allies who resented Aztec rule. The Aztecs ran out of food and water, yet they fought desperately. After several months, the Spanish captured the Aztec leader, and Aztec resistance collapsed. The city was in ruins. The mighty Aztec Empire was no more.

Four factors contributed to the defeat of the Aztec Empire. First, Aztec legend had predicted the arrival of a white-skinned god. When Cortés appeared, the Aztecs welcomed him because they thought he might be this god, Quetzalcoatl. Second, Cortés was able to make allies of the Aztecs’ enemies. Third, their horses, armor, and superior weapons gave the Spanish an advantage in battle. Fourth, the Spanish carried diseases that caused deadly epidemics among the Aztecs.

Aztec riches inspired Spanish conquistadors to continue their search for gold. In the 1520s, Francisco Pizarro received permission from Spain to conquer the Inca Empire in South America. The Incas ruled an empire that extended throughout most of the Andes Mountains. By the time Pizarro arrived, however, a civil war had weakened that empire.

In April 1532, the Incan emperor, Atahualpa (ah–tuh–WAHL–puh), greeted the Spanish as guests. Following Cortés’s example, Pizarro launched a surprise attack and kidnapped the emperor. Although the Incas paid a roomful of gold and silver in ransom, the Spanish killed Atahualpa. Without their leader, the Inca Empire quickly fell apart.

The Impact of Later Spanish Exploration and Conquest  

The explorations and conquests of the conquistadors transformed Spain. The Spanish rapidly expanded foreign trade and overseas colonization. For a time, wealth from the Americas made Spain one of the world’s richest and most powerful countries.

Besides gold and silver, ships from the Americas brought corn and potatoes to Spain. These crops grew well in Europe. The increased food supply helped spur a population boom. Conquistadors also introduced Europeans to new luxury items, such as chocolate.

In the long run, however, gold and silver from the Americas hurt Spain’s economy. Inflation, or an increase in the supply of money, led to a loss of its value. It now cost people a great deal more to buy goods with the devalued money. Additionally, monarchs and the wealthy spent their riches on luxuries, instead of building Spain’s industries.

The Spanish conquests had a major impact on the New World. The Spanish introduced new animals to the Americas, such as horses, cattle, sheep, and pigs. But they destroyed two advanced civilizations. The Aztecs and Incas lost much of their culture along with their wealth. Many became laborers for the Spanish. Millions died from disease. In Mexico, for example, there were about twenty-five million native people in 1519. By 1605, this number had dwindled to one million.

Other European Explorations

Spain and Portugal dominated the early years of exploration. But rulers in rival nations wanted their own share of trade and new lands in the Americas. Soon England, France, and the Netherlands all sent expeditions to North America.

Key Explorers  

Explorers often sailed for any country that would pay for their voyages. The Italian sailor John Cabot made England’s first voyage of discovery. Cabot believed he could reach the Indies by sailing northwest across the Atlantic. In 1497, he landed in what is now Canada. Believing he had reached the northeast coast of Asia, he claimed the region for England.

Another Italian, Giovanni da Verrazano, sailed under the French flag. In 1524, Verrazano explored the Atlantic coast from present-day North Carolina to Canada. His voyage gave France its first claims in the Americas. Unfortunately, on a later trip to the West Indies, he was killed by native people.

Sailing on behalf of the Netherlands, English explorer Henry Hudson journeyed to North America in 1609. Hudson wanted to find a northwest passage through North America to the Pacific Ocean. Such a water route would allow ships to sail from Europe to Asia without entering waters controlled by Spain.

Hudson did not find a northwest passage, but he did explore what is now called the Hudson River in present-day New York State. His explorations were the basis of the Dutch claim to the area. Dutch settlers established the colony of New Amsterdam on Manhattan in 1625.

In 1610, Hudson tried again, this time under the flag of his native England. Searching farther north, he sailed into a large bay in Canada that is now called Hudson Bay. He spent three months looking for an outlet to the Pacific, but there was none.

After a hard winter in the icy bay, some of Hudson’s crew rebelled. They set him, his son, and seven loyal followers adrift in a small boat. Hudson and the other castaways were never seen again. Hudson’s voyage, however, laid the basis for later English claims in Canada.

The Impact of European Exploration of North America  

Unlike the conquistadors in the south, northern explorers did not find gold and other treasure. As a result, there was less interest, at first, in starting colonies in that region.

Canada’s shores did offer rich resources of cod and other fish. Within a few years of Cabot’s trip, fishing boats regularly visited the region. Europeans were also interested in trading with Native Americans for whale oil and otter, beaver, and fox furs. By the early 1600s, Europeans had set up a number of trading posts in North America.

English exploration also contributed to a war between England and Spain. As English ships roamed the seas, some captains, nicknamed “sea dogs,” began raiding Spanish ports and ships to take their gold. Between 1577 and 1580, sea dog Francis Drake sailed around the world. He also claimed part of what is now California for England, ignoring Spain’s claims to the area.

The English raids added to other tensions between England and Spain. In 1588, King Philip II of Spain sent an armada, or fleet of ships, to invade England. With 130 heavily armed vessels and about thirty thousand men, the Spanish Armada seemed an unbeatable force. But the smaller English fleet was fast and well armed. Their guns had a longer range, so they could attack from a safe distance. After several battles, a number of the armada’s ships had been sunk or driven ashore. The rest turned around but faced terrible storms on the way home. Fewer than half of the ships made it back to Spain.

The defeat of the Spanish Armada marked the start of a shift in power in Europe. By 1630, Spain no longer dominated the continent. With Spain’s decline, other countries—particularly England and the Netherlands—took a more active role in trade and colonization around the world.

Bartolomé de Las Casas: From Conquistador to Protector of the Indians

Bartolomé de las Casas experienced a remarkable change of heart during his lifetime. At first, he participated in Spain’s conquest and settlement of the Americas. Later in life, he criticized and condemned it. For more than fifty years, he fought for the rights of the defeated and enslaved peoples of Latin America. How did this conquistador become known as “the Protector of the Indians?”

Bartolomé de las Casas (bahr–taw–law–MEY day las KAH-sahs) ran through the streets of Seville, Spain, on March 31, 1493. He was just nine years old and on his way to see Christopher Columbus, who had just returned from his first voyage to the Americas. Bartolomé wanted to see him and the “Indians,” as they were called, as they paraded to the church.

Bartolomé’s father and uncles were looking forward to seeing Columbus, as well. Like many other people in Europe during the late 1400s, they saw the Americas as a place of opportunity. They signed up to join Columbus on his second voyage. Two years after that, Bartolomé followed in his father’s footsteps and voyaged to the Americas himself. He sailed to the island of Hispaniola, the present-day nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Las Casas as Conquistador and Priest

One historian wrote that when Las Casas first arrived in the Americas, he was “not much better than the rest of the gentlemen-adventurers who rushed to the New World, bent on speedily acquiring fortunes.” He supported the Spanish conquest of the Americas and was a loyal servant of Spain’s king and queen, Ferdinand and Isabella. Once in Hispaniola, Las Casas helped to manage his father’s farms and businesses. Enslaved Indians worked in the family’s fields and mines.

Spanish conquistadors wanted to gain wealth and glory in the Americas. They had another goal, as well—to convert Indians to Christianity. Las Casas shared this goal. So, the young conquistador went back to Europe to become a priest. He returned to Hispaniola sometime in 1509 or 1510. There he began to teach and baptize the Indians. At the same time, he continued to manage Indian slaves.

On a Path to Change

History often seems to be made up of moments when someone has a change of heart. The path that he or she has been traveling takes a dramatic turn. It often appears to others that this change is sudden. In reality, a series of events usually causes a person to make the decision to change. One such event happened to Las Casas in 1511.

Roman Catholics in Hispaniola witnessed horrible acts of cruelty and injustice against the native peoples of the West Indies at the hands of the Spanish conquistadors. One of the priests there, Father Antonio de Montesinos, spoke out against the harsh treatment of the Indians in a sermon delivered to a Spanish congregation in Hispaniola in 1511. De Montesinos said:

You are in mortal sin . . . for the cruelty and tyranny you use in dealing with these innocent people . . . by what right or justice do you keep these Indians in such a cruel and horrible servitude? . . . Why do you keep them so oppressed? . . . Are not these people also human beings?

One historian called this sermon “the first cry for justice in America” on behalf of the Indians. Las Casas recorded the sermon in one of his books, History of the Indies . No one is sure if he was present at the sermon or heard about it later. But one thing seems certain; even though he must have seen some of the same injustices described by de Montesinos, Las Casas continued to support the Spanish conquest and the goals of conquering new lands, earning wealth, and converting Indians to Christianity.

However, in 1513, something happened that changed Las Casas’s life. He took part in the conquest of Cuba. As a reward, he received more Indian slaves and an encomienda , or land grant. But he also witnessed a massacre. The Spanish killed thousands of innocent Indians, including women and children, who had welcomed the Spanish into their town. In his book The Devastation of the Indies: A Brief Account , he wrote, “I saw here cruelty on a scale no living being has ever seen or expects to see.”

A Turning Point

The Cuban massacre in 1513 and other scenes of violence against Indians Las Casas witnessed finally pushed him to a turning point. He could no longer believe that the Spanish conquest was right. Before, he had thought that only some individuals acted cruelly and inhumanely. Now he saw that the whole Spanish system of conquest brought only death and suffering to the people of the West Indies.

On August 15, 1514, when he was about thirty years old, Las Casas gave a startling sermon. He asked his congregation to free their enslaved Indians. He also said that they had to return or pay for everything they had taken away from the Indians. He refused to forgive the colonists’ sins in confession if they used Indians as forced labor. Then he announced that he would give up his ownership of Indians and the business he had inherited from his father.

Protector of the Indians

For the rest of his life, Las Casas fought for the rights of the Indians in the Americas. He traveled back and forth to Europe working on their behalf. He talked with popes and kings, debated enemies, and wrote letters and books on the subject.

Las Casas influenced both a pope and a king. In 1537, Pope Paul III wrote that Indians were free human beings, not slaves, and that anyone who enslaved them could be thrown out of the Catholic Church. In 1542, Holy Roman emperor Charles V, who ruled Spain, issued the New Laws, banning slavery in Spanish America.

In 1550 and 1551, Las Casas also took part in a famous debate against Juan Ginés Sepúlveda in Spain. Sepúlveda tried to prove that Indians were “natural slaves.” Many Spanish, especially those hungry for wealth and glory, shared this belief. Las Casas passionately argued against Sepúlveda with the same message he would deliver over and over throughout his life. Las Casas argued that:

• Indians, like all human beings, have rights to life and liberty. • The Spanish stole Indian land through bloody and unjust wars. • There is no such thing as a good encomienda. • Indians have the right to make war against the Spanish.

Las Casas died in 1566. The voices and the deeds of the conquistadors slowly eroded the memory of his words. But in other European countries, people began to read The Devastation of the Indies: A Brief Account . As time passed, more of Las Casas’s works were published. In the centuries to follow, fighters for justice took up his name as a symbol for their own struggles for human rights.

The Legacy of Las Casas

Today, historians remember Las Casas as the first person to actively oppose the oppression of Indians and to call for an end to Indian slavery. Later, in the 19th century, Las Casas inspired both Father Hidalgo, the father of Mexican independence, and Simón Bolívar, the liberator of South America.

In the 1960s, Mexican American César Chávez learned about injustice at an early age. His family worked as migrants, moving from place to place to pick crops. With barely an eighth-grade education, Chávez organized workers, formed a union, and won better pay and better working and living conditions. Speaking for the powerless, he rallied people to his side with his cry, “Sí, Se Puede!” (“Yes, We Can!”) Just as the name “Chávez” will always be connected to the struggles of the farm workers, the name “Las Casas” will forever be connected to any fight for human rights and dignity for the native people of the Americas.

The Impact of Exploration on Europe

The voyages of explorers had a dramatic impact on European commerce and economies. As a result of exploration, more goods, raw materials, and precious metals entered Europe. Mapmakers carefully charted trade routes and the locations of newly discovered lands. By the 1700s, European ships traveled trade routes that spanned the globe. New centers of commerce developed in the port cities of the Netherlands and England.

Exploration and trade contributed to the growth of capitalism. This economic system is based on investing money for profit. Merchants gained great wealth by trading and selling goods from around the world. Many of them used their profits to finance still more voyages and to start trading companies. Other people began investing money in these companies and shared in the profits. Soon, this type of shared ownership was applied to other kinds of businesses.

Another aspect of the capitalist economy concerned the way people exchanged goods and services. Money became more important as precious metals flowed into Europe. Instead of having a fixed price, items were sold for prices that were set by the open market. This meant that the price of an item depended on how much of the item was available and how many people wanted to buy it. Sellers could charge high prices for scarce items that many people wanted. If the supply of an item was large and few people wanted it, sellers lowered the price. This kind of system, based on supply and demand, is called a market economy.

Labor, too, was given a money value. Increasingly, people began working for hire instead of directly providing for their own needs. Merchants hired people to work from their own cottages, turning raw materials from overseas into finished products. This growing cottage industry was especially important in the manufacture of textiles. Often, entire families worked at home, spinning wool into thread or weaving thread into cloth. Cottage industry was a step toward the system of factories operated by capitalists in later centuries.

A final result of exploration was a new economic policy called mercantilism. European rulers believed that building up wealth was the best way to increase a nation’s power. For this reason, they tried to reduce the products they bought from other countries and to increase the items they sold.

Having colonies was a key part of this policy. Nations looked to their colonies to supply raw materials for their industries at home. These industries turned the raw materials into finished goods that they could sell back to their colonies, as well as to other countries. To protect this valuable trade with their colonies, rulers often forbade colonists from trading with other nations.

Originally published by Flores World History , free and open access, republished for educational, non-commercial purposes.

Chapter 1 — Worlds Collide: Before and After 1492

The origins of european exploration, learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Identify the major historical developments that fueled Europe’s “age of exploration”
• Explain the significance of Portugal’s expansion into Africa and the neighboring Atlantic islands, particularly for the slave trade out of Africa
• Discuss the motives for early Portuguese and Spanish exploration, including Columbus’s voyage to the New world

Long before the famed mariner Christopher Columbus “discovered” America for the Europeans, Norse (Viking) seafarers from Scandinavia established colonial outposts in Iceland and Greenland and, around the year 1000, Leif Erikson reached Newfoundland in present-day Canada. But the colonies failed. Culturally and geographically isolated, a combination of limited resources, inhospitable weather, food shortages, and Native resistance drove the Norse back into the sea. It was explorers sailing for Portugal and Spain who ushered in an unprecedented age of exploration and contact with the Americas beginning in the fifteenth century.

In the hundreds of years that passed between these two episodes of Atlantic exploration, Europe had experienced tremendous change. Greater contact with the East had helped inspire a Renaissance in scholarship and art while introducing new trade goods. In the 1340s, merchants returning from the region of the Black Sea unwittingly brought with them the bubonic plague. Within a few short years about one-third of Europe’s population had perished. A high birth rate, however, coupled with bountiful harvests, brought dramatic population growth during the next century. Meanwhile, European nation-states began to consolidate their power under the authority of ambitious kings and queens. By 1492, when Christopher Columbus’s three ships landed in the Bahamas, Europe had emerged from the long Middle Ages and was poised to seize a permanent place in the history of the Americas.

EUROPE ON THE BRINK OF CHANGE

The story of Columbus’s arrival in the Americas might be said to have begun as far back as the Crusades. A series of military conflicts waged between Christians and Muslims after Muslim rulers had gained control over the Holy Land, the Crusades brought Europeans into closer contact with the Middle East. Religious zeal inspired many of the knights who volunteered to fight on behalf of Christendom. Adventure, the chance to win land and titles, and the Church’s promise of wholesale forgiveness of sins also motivated many. The battle for the Holy Lands did not conclude until the Crusaders lost their Mediterranean stronghold at Acre (in present-day Israel) in 1291 and the last of the Christians left the area a few years later.

This map of the early Crusades, from the collection of the Norman B. Levanthal Map Center, shows the extent of the contested region in the east and the routes of the crusading armies from Europe.

Although the Crusaders did not ultimately succeed in their goals, the experience of the Crusades had profound effects, both positive and negative. On the negative side, the wide-scale persecution of Jews began. Christians classed them with the infidel Muslims and labeled them “the killers of Christ.” In the coming centuries, kings either expelled Jews from their kingdoms or forced them to pay heavy tributes for the privilege of remaining. Muslim-Christian hatred also festered, and intolerance grew.

On the positive side, maritime trade between East and West expanded. As Crusaders experienced the feel of silk, the taste of spices, and the utility of porcelain, desire for these products created new markets for merchants. In particular, the Adriatic port city of Venice prospered enormously from trade with Islamic merchants. From the days of the early adventurer Marco Polo, Venetian sailors had traveled to ports on the Black Sea and established their own colonies along the Mediterranean Coast. From there, they gained overland access to goods from the East, traded hundreds of miles along routes collectively known as the Silk Road. But transporting goods along the old Silk Road was costly, slow, and unprofitable. Muslim middlemen collected taxes as the goods changed hands. Robbers waited to ambush the treasure-laden caravans. A direct water route to the East, cutting out the land portion of the trip, would allow European merchants to maximize returns. In addition to seeking a water passage to the wealthy cities in the East, sailors wanted to find a route to the exotic and wealthy Spice Islands in modern-day Indonesia and the East Indies, whose location was kept secret by Muslim rulers. Longtime rivals of Venice, the merchants of Genoa and Florence also looked to expand their commercial interests.

PORTUGUESE EXPLORATION

Located on the Iberian Peninsula of southwestern Europe, Portugal, with its port city of Lisbon, soon became the center for merchants desiring to undercut the Venetians’ hold on trade. With a population of about one million and supported by its ruler Prince Henry, whom historians call “the Navigator,” this independent kingdom fostered exploration of and trade with western Africa. Skilled shipbuilders and navigators who took advantage of maps from all over Europe, Portuguese sailors used triangular sails and built lighter vessels called caravels that could sail down the African coast on longer ocean voyages. Portuguese mariners also began to use the astrolabe, a tool to calculate latitude, that allowed for more precise navigation on the open seas.

Motivated by economic as well as religious goals, the Portuguese established forts along the Atlantic coast of Africa during the fifteenth century. Their trading posts there generated new profits that funded further trade and further colonization. By the end of the fifteenth century the Portuguese mariner Vasco de Gama leapfrogged his way southward and around the southern tip of Africa to reach the Indian Ocean. From there he followed the winds to India and lucrative Asian markets. Meanwhile, the vagaries of ocean currents and the limits of the day’s technology forced other Portuguese, as well as Spanish, mariners to sail west into the open sea before cutting back east to Africa. So doing, the Portuguese and Spanish stumbled upon several islands off the Atlantic coast of Europe and Africa, including the Azores, the Canary Islands, and the Cape Verde Islands. Although small and little known to Americans today, these islands became training grounds for the later colonization of the New World, particularly the cultivation of sugar.

Originally grown in Asia, sugar had become a popular, widely profitable luxury item consumed by the wealthy nobility of Europe by the fifteenth century. But it had proven difficult to cultivate in Europe. It required tropical temperatures, daily rainfall, unique soil conditions, and a fourteen-month growing season. With the Atlantic Islands, the Portuguese found new land to support sugar production. New patterns of human and ecological destruction followed. Isolated from the mainlands of Europe and Africa for millennia, most of the islands’ natives either perished or were enslaved after Europeans arrived. Those who were enslaved were used to cultivate the difficult, labor-intensive sugar crops. But their small numbers proved inadequate to meet the labor demand. Having recently established good relations with powerful African rulers from the Kongo, Ndongo, and Songhai, Portuguese merchants looked to fill the gap with slaves from Africa. Slavery had long existed among African societies, often as a consequence of war or debt. Typically, African servants became a part of the extended tribal family. Responding to Portuguese requests, African leaders soon traded war captives—who by custom forfeited their freedom in battle—for Portuguese guns, iron, and manufactured goods. The Portuguese then exported these African captives to their Atlantic islands. Thus were born the first Atlantic plantations.  In time, much of the Atlantic World would become a gargantuan sugar-plantation complex in which Africans labored to produce the highly profitable commodity for European consumers.

Elmina Castle

In 1482, Portuguese traders built Elmina Castle (also called São Jorge da Mina, or Saint George’s of the Mine) in present-day Ghana, on the west coast of Africa. A fortified trading post, it had mounted cannons facing out to sea, not inland toward continental Africa; the Portuguese had greater fear of a naval attack from other Europeans than of a land attack from Africans. Portuguese traders soon began to settle around the fort and established the town of Elmina.

Elmina Castle on the west coast of Ghana was used as a holding pen for slaves before they were brought across the Atlantic and sold. Originally built by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century, it appears in this image as it was in the 1660s, after being seized by Dutch slave traders in 1637.

Although the Portuguese originally used the fort primarily for trading gold, by the sixteenth century they had shifted their focus. The dungeon of the fort now served as a holding pen for African slaves from the interior of the continent, while on the upper floors Portuguese traders ate, slept, and prayed in a chapel. Slaves lived in the dungeon for weeks or months until ships arrived to transport them to Europe or the Americas. For them, the dungeon of Elmina was their last sight of their home country.

SPANISH EXPLORATION AND COLUMBUS’S VOYAGE

The history of Spanish exploration begins with the history of Spain itself. During the fifteenth century, Spain hoped to gain an advantage over Portugal, its rival on the Iberian Peninsula. The marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile in 1469 unified Catholic Spain and began the process of building a nation that could compete for worldwide power. Since the 700s, much of Spain had been under Islamic rule, and King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I, arch-defenders of the Catholic Church against Islam, were determined to defeat the Muslims in Granada, the last Islamic stronghold on the fringes of Europe. In 1492, they completed the Reconquista: the centuries-long Christian conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. The Reconquista marked another step forward in the process of making Spain an imperial power, and Ferdinand and Isabella were now ready to look further afield.

Their goals were to expand Catholicism and to gain a commercial advantage over Portugal. To those ends, Ferdinand and Isabella sponsored extensive Atlantic exploration. Spain’s most famous explorer, Christopher Columbus, was actually from Genoa, Italy. He believed that, using calculations based on other mariners’ journeys, he could chart a westward route to India, which could be used to expand European trade and spread Christianity. Starting in 1485, he approached Genoese, Venetian, Portuguese, English, and Spanish monarchs, asking for ships and funding to explore this westward route. All those he petitioned—including Ferdinand and Isabella at first—rebuffed him; their nautical experts all concurred that Columbus’s estimates of the width of the Atlantic Ocean were far too low. However, after three years of entreaties, and, more important, the completion of the Reconquista, Ferdinand and Isabella agreed to finance Columbus’s expedition in 1492, supplying him with three ships: the Nina , the Pinta , and the Santa Maria . The Spanish monarchs knew that Portuguese mariners had reached the southern tip of Africa and sailed the Indian Ocean. They understood that the Portuguese would soon reach Asia and, in this competitive race to reach the Far East, the Spanish rulers decided to act.

This sixteenth-century map shows the island of Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and Dominican Republic). Note the various fanciful elements, such as the large-scale ships and sea creatures, and consider what the creator of this map hoped to convey. In addition to navigation, what purpose would such a map have served?

Columbus held erroneous views that shaped his thinking about what he would encounter as he sailed west. He believed the earth to be much smaller than its actual size and, since he did not know of the existence of the Americas, he fully expected to land in Asia. On October 12, 1492, however, he made landfall on an island in the Bahamas. He then sailed to an island he named Hispaniola (present-day Dominican Republic and Haiti). Believing he had landed in the East Indies, Columbus called the native Taínos he found there “Indios,” giving rise to the term “Indian” for any native people of the New World. Upon Columbus’s return to Spain, the Spanish crown bestowed on him the title of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and named him governor and viceroy of the lands he had discovered. As a devoted Catholic, Columbus had agreed with Ferdinand and Isabella prior to sailing west that part of the expected wealth from his voyage would be used to continue the fight against Islam.

Columbus sailed in three caravels such as these. The Santa Maria, his largest, was only 58 feet long.

Columbus’s 1493 letter—or probanza de mérito (proof of merit)—describing his “discovery” of a New World did much to inspire excitement in Europe. Probanzas de méritos were reports and letters written by Spaniards in the New World to the Spanish crown, designed to win royal patronage. Today they highlight the difficult task of historical work; while the letters are primary sources, historians need to understand the context and the culture in which the conquistadors, as the Spanish adventurers came to be called, wrote them and distinguish their bias and subjective nature. While they are filled with distortions and fabrications, probanzas de méritos are still useful in illustrating the expectation of wealth among the explorers as well as their view that native peoples would not pose a serious obstacle to colonization.

In 1493, Columbus sent two copies of a probanza de mérito to the Spanish king and queen and their minister of finance, Luis de Santángel. Santángel had supported Columbus’s voyage, helping him to obtain funding from Ferdinand and Isabella. Copies of the letter were soon circulating all over Europe, spreading news of the wondrous new land that Columbus had “discovered.” Columbus would make three more voyages over the next decade, establishing Spain’s first settlement in the New World on the island of Hispaniola. Many other Europeans followed in Columbus’s footsteps, drawn by dreams of winning wealth by sailing west. Another Italian, Amerigo Vespucci, sailing for the Portuguese crown, explored the South American coastline between 1499 and 1502. Unlike Columbus, he realized that the Americas were not part of Asia but lands unknown to Europeans. Vespucci’s widely published accounts of his voyages fueled speculation and intense interest in the New World among Europeans. Among those who read Vespucci’s reports was the German mapmaker Martin Waldseemuller. Using the explorer’s first name as a label for the new landmass, Waldseemuller attached “America” to his map of the New World in 1507, and the name stuck.

Columbus’s Probanza de mérito of 1493

The exploits of the most famous Spanish explorers have provided Western civilization with a narrative of European supremacy and Indian savagery. However, these stories are based on the self-aggrandizing efforts of conquistadors to secure royal favor through the writing of probanzas de méritos (proofs of merit). Below are excerpts from Columbus’s 1493 letter to Luis de Santángel, which illustrates how fantastic reports from European explorers gave rise to many myths surrounding the Spanish conquest and the New World.

This island, like all the others, is most extensive. It has many ports along the sea-coast excelling any in Christendom—and many fine, large, flowing rivers. The land there is elevated, with many mountains and peaks incomparably higher than in the centre isle. They are most beautiful, of a thousand varied forms, accessible, and full of trees of endless varieties, so high that they seem to touch the sky, and I have been told that they never lose their foliage. . . . There is honey, and there are many kinds of birds, and a great variety of fruits. Inland there are numerous mines of metals and innumerable people. Hispaniola is a marvel. Its hills and mountains, fine plains and open country, are rich and fertile for planting and for pasturage, and for building towns and villages. The seaports there are incredibly fine, as also the magnificent rivers, most of which bear gold. The trees, fruits and grasses differ widely from those in Juana. There are many spices and vast mines of gold and other metals in this island. They have no iron, nor steel, nor weapons, nor are they fit for them, because although they are well-made men of commanding stature, they appear extraordinarily timid. The only arms they have are sticks of cane, cut when in seed, with a sharpened stick at the end, and they are afraid to use these. Often I have sent two or three men ashore to some town to converse with them, and the natives came out in great numbers, and as soon as they saw our men arrive, fled without a moment’s delay although I protected them from all injury.

What does this letter show us about Spanish objectives in the New World? How do you think it might have influenced Europeans reading about the New World for the first time?

The 1492 Columbus landfall accelerated the rivalry between Spain and Portugal, and the two powers vied for domination through the acquisition of new lands. In the 1480s, Pope Sixtus IV had granted Portugal the right to all land south of the Cape Verde islands, leading the Portuguese king to claim that the lands discovered by Columbus belonged to Portugal, not Spain. Seeking to ensure that Columbus’s finds would remain Spanish, Spain’s monarchs turned to the Spanish-born Pope Alexander VI, who issued two papal decrees in 1493 that gave legitimacy to Spain’s Atlantic claims at the expense of Portugal. Hoping to salvage Portugal’s Atlantic holdings, King João II began negotiations with Spain. The resulting Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 drew a north-to-south line through South America; Spain gained territory west of the line, while Portugal retained the lands east of the line, including the east coast of Brazil.

This 1502 map, known as the Cantino World Map, depicts the cartographer’s interpretation of the world in light of recent discoveries. The map shows areas of Portuguese and Spanish exploration, the two nations’ claims under the Treaty of Tordesillas, and a variety of flora, fauna, figures, and structures. What does it reveal about the state of geographical knowledge, as well as European perceptions of the New World, at the beginning of the sixteenth century?

Section Summary

One effect of the Crusades was that a larger portion of western Europe became familiar with the goods of the East. A lively trade subsequently developed along a variety of routes known collectively as the Silk Road to supply the demand for these products. Brigands and greedy middlemen made the trip along this route expensive and dangerous. By 1492, Europe—recovered from the Black Death and in search of new products and new wealth—was anxious to improve trade and communications with the rest of the world. Venice and Genoa led the way in trading with the East. The lure of profit pushed explorers to seek new trade routes to the Spice Islands and eliminate Muslim middlemen.

Portugal, under the leadership of Prince Henry the Navigator, attempted to send ships around the continent of Africa. Meanwhile, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile hired Columbus to find a route to the East by going west. As strong supporters of the Catholic Church, they sought to bring Christianity to the East and any newly found lands, as well as hoping to find sources of wealth.

Critical Thinking Questions

• Why did the authors of probanzas de méritos choose to write in the way that they did? What should we consider when we interpret these documents today?

Answers to Critical Thinking Questions

• Probanzas de méritos featured glowing descriptions of lands of plenty. The Spanish explorers hoped to find cities of gold, so they made their discoveries sound as wonderful as possible in these letters to convince the Spanish crown to fund more voyages. When we read them now, we need to take the descriptions with a grain of salt. But we can also fact-check these descriptions, whereas the Spanish court could only take them at face value.

caravels improved European sailing vessels using triangular sails, pioneered by Portuguese mariners

Crusades  a series of military expeditions made by Christian Europeans to recover the Holy Land from the Muslims in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries

Hispaniola  the island in the Caribbean, present-day Haiti and Dominican Republic, where Columbus first landed and established a Spanish colony

probanza de mérito  proof of merit: a letter written by a Spanish explorer to the crown to gain royal patronage

Reconquista  Spain’s nearly eight-hundred-year holy war against Islam, which ended in 1492

• US History. Authored by : P. Scott Corbett, Volker Janssen, John M. Lund, Todd Pfannestiel, Paul Vickery, and Sylvie Waskiewicz. Provided by : OpenStax College. Located at : http://openstaxcollege.org/textbooks/us-history . License : CC BY: Attribution . License Terms : Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col11740/latest/
• The American Yawp. Located at : http://www.americanyawp.com . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike . License Terms : https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

• 6.3C: Indigenous Responses to State Expansion 6.4D: Global Economic Developments from 1750 to 1900 6.5E: Economic Imperialism from 1750 to 1900 6.6F & G: Environmental and Economic Causes of Migration 6.7H: Effects of Migration

Unit 7: Global War

Unit 8: Cold War and Decolonization

Unit 9: Globalization

4.2C: The Economic Causes and Effects of European Maritime Exploration

Learning objective 4c.

Explain the economic causes and effects of maritime exploration by the various European states.

Historical Development 1

Portuguese development of maritime technology and navigational skills led to increased travel to and trade with Africa and Asia and resulted in the construction of a global trading-post empire.

Historical Development 2

Spanish sponsorship of the voyages of Columbus and subsequent voyages across the Atlantic and Pacific dramatically increased European interest in transoceanic travel and trade.

Historical Development 3

Northern Atlantic crossings were undertaken by the English, French, and Dutch, leading to new European-controlled economic activities in North America.

European monarchs sought new trade routes to gain easier access to Asian trade and to enrich their kingdoms.

European maritime explorations led some European states to build empires that took control over native land, resources, and economies to varying degrees. As European economic power increased, the economic power of indigenous peoples declined.

The Economic Causes of European Maritime Exploration

Various economic factors led some European monarchs, royal families, and states to support early maritime explorations financially.

A desire for Asian spices and other Asian goods:  European maritime expansion began with the goal of establishing new trade routes to African and Asian markets to buy ivory, pepper, cotton, and sugar.

A desire to circumvent Islamic control over trade: For centuries, Islamic trading powers had controlled exchange between the east and west. This trend continued as the Ottoman Empire expanded during the 15 th By 1600, nearly all Asian goods had to pass through Ottoman-controlled territories and trade routes on their way to Europe.

A desire to break Italian trade monopolies: To keep the prices of goods high, the Ottomans only traded with a few Italian kingdoms. This Italian trading monopoly meant that if Europeans wanted African and Asian goods, they had to buy them from the Italians. The only way for Italian Europeans to decrease the cost of goods was to find new trade routes and trade directly with Africa and Asia.

A desire for new tax revenue: Competition between European kingdoms was intense, and monarchs wanted to grow their armies. Traditionally, during feudal times, European rulers relied on the wealthy land-owning nobility for soldiers and tax revenue. Increased trade provided additional tax money without relying on the nobility for tax collection, strengthening kings and queens and weakening the nobility.

The Effects of European Maritime Explorations

European maritime exploration resulted in the following significant global impacts:

The Portuguese established a trading post empire that stretched from the coastal regions of modern Brazil across Africa and Asia.

The Spanish conquered Latin America, South America, and the Philippines.

The Dutch, French, and English sought a northern route to Asia markets by exploring North Atlantic waters.

The three impacts above had the following economic similarities: 

Europeans established new trading routes and connections.

Europeans took control of native peoples' economies.

Europeans took control of indigenous peoples' resources.

Europeans created massive systems of forced labor.

The Portuguese established a trading post empire

When the Portuguese arrived in the Indian Ocean and saw free-flowing trade not controlled by a large military power, they began using their armed ships to try and influence the movement of merchants and trading ships in the region. Over the next 100 years, Portugal built a powerful trading empire from Africa across the Indian Ocean to Asia.

Ways that Portugal attempted to control Indian Ocean trade included:

Forcing foreign trade vessels through Portuguese-controlled trading posts, they built in important coastal areas

Stopping merchant’s ships and forcing them to buy passes guaranteeing their safe passage

Forcing local rulers to provide the Portuguese with trading bases and special trading privileges

Significant Portuguese trading posts: Portugal’s goal was not to conquer and colonize large pieces of land but to trade. Portuguese trading posts were the bases of Portuguese operations and functioned as trade and military bases. By the mid-16th century, the Portuguese had over 50 coastal trading posts between West Africa and East Asia.

Kilwa in Swahili: In July of 1505, Portuguese commander Afonso de Albuquerque (1453 – 1550) conquered the Swahili city-state of Kilwa on Africa’s east coast. The Portuguese burned down the city and murdered many inhabitants. They then constructed Fort Gereza, where Kilwa once stood.

Mombasa in Swahili: The Portuguese further expanded into Swahili when they conquered the city-state of Mombasa. There they built Fort Jesus. They set up a customs house (for tax collection) on Pate Island nearby. 

The Indian coast: At the height of their power in the Indian Ocean, the Portuguese had dozens of trading posts in India. Some forts were set up peacefully through partnerships with Indian allies, others taken by force.

• Goa: In 1510, Afonso de Albuquerque fought a series of battles to control Goa on India’s western coast. Unlike Portugal’s other trading cities along the Indian shores, which mainly consisted of military and trading forts, Goa’s capture placed a substantial piece of Indian territory directly under Portuguese control and administration. The Portuguese believed that by controlling Goa, they could use it as a base to defend their vast network of trading cities and factories in the region.

Malacca in Indonesia: In 1511, the Portuguese set sail from India to capture Malacca and gain control over the Strait of Malacca, which would give them control of the primary trading route between the Indian Ocean and China. By late August, Portugal controlled the city of and strait of Malacca. Its former ruler Sultan Mahmud Shah (died 1528), fled, ending the Sultanate of Malacca. The Portuguese controlled Malacca until the Dutch captured it in 1641. 

Partial but short-lived success: While Portugal did become an influential trading power in the Indian Ocean region, it never succeeded in controlling most of the region’s trade. There were too few Portuguese and millions of native Africans and Asians. African and Asian traders successfully maintained their dominant role in the region’s commerce. By 1600 the Portuguese trading post empire was in decline.

Reasons for the decline included:  

Too few Portuguese to dominate native traders

Many Portuguese blended into native societies and lost connection to Portugal

Competition from other European maritime powers

The Spanish colonized the Americas and the Philippines

Following the success of Portuguese expeditions, Spain, with whom Portugal shares the Iberian peninsula, began its own maritime explorations. Because Portugal had already established itself along the African coast and Indian Ocean region, Spain decided to travel west, leading it to rediscover the Americas for the Europeans.

Portugal and Spain divide the world: Between 1494 and 1529, Portugal and Spain signed a series of treaties (the Treaty of Tordesillas being the most famous) that divided the world into two pieces—one line went down the Atlantic Ocean and South America, and the other down East Asia and the Pacific. The agreements gave the Portuguese influence over lands east of the Atlantic line and the Spanish lands west of the line. The people whose land these agreements gave away without consent had no voice in the negotiations.

European expansion was a 500-year process that happened differently in different regions. In some places, like the Americas, the Philippines, and parts of Indonesia, Europe quickly gained nearly total control over the economy. Europe did not gain control over economies in many parts of Africa and Asia until the 18th and 19th centuries.

Portuguese territories 

• The east coast of South America (modern Brazil)

Spanish territories 

• Latin America
• South America
• Portions of western and southern North America
• The Philippines

Spanish conquest of the Aztecs and the Inca: Conquistadors (conquerors) led Spanish conquests in the Americas. These conquistadors conquered the Aztec and Inca societies.

• Hernan Cortes (1485 – 1457) led the expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of mainland Mexico under Spanish rule in the early 16th century. Cortes served twice as the governor of New Spain between 1521 and 1524.

•  Francisco Pizarro (1478 – 1541) was a Spanish conquistador who led the Spanish conquest of the Inca in 1532. Pizarro was the governor of New Castille in Spanish Peru from 1529 to 1541.

• Ferdinand Magellan (1480 – 1521) was the first European to reach Asia by sailing west. While Magellan was Portuguese, he sailed west under the Spanish flag. Magellan set sail from Spain in 1519. By March 1521, Magellan and his crew had crossed the Pacific and landed on the Philippine Island of Cebu. Magellan claimed the Philippines for Spain. After engaging in conflict with natives on the nearby island of Mactan, a poison arrow hit Magellan, and he died. Following Magellan’s death, the Vittoria, one of his ships, continued west and returned to Spain on September 6, 1522. In 1565, Spain returned to the Philippines and began a campaign of conquest. The Philippine natives put up a fierce resistance but were defeated.

Silver in Spanish America: The discovery of vast quantities of silver in conquered Inca lands in Bolivia turned Spanish America into the world’s largest producer of silver. At peak production, Spain produced 85% of the global supply of silver. Most of the silver came from the Potosi mine. Within decades, Potosi was the biggest city in the Americas. Much of the silver went to Spain, making the Spanish monarchy the richest in Europe. However, vast quantities of silver also went east, where Europeans used it to buy Asian goods. Eventually, most silver ended up in China to meet the increased demand for the metal after the Chinese government in 1570 began requiring its people to pay taxes in silver.   

New types of economic production in the Americas:   Spanish conquest brought cash crop agriculture for commercial profit to the Americas. Across Spanish territory, plantations on large estates produced old-world crops like wheat or raised domesticated animals such as pigs and cattle. While in their Caribbean colonies, the Spanish mass-produced sugar. The new wealth in the Americas created by cash crops went to Spanish landowners, not indigenous peoples.   

Systems of forced labor: Spanish America thrived on forced labor to meet the need for workers in gold and silver mines and on commercial agriculture plantations. Indigenous communities were the first targets of exploitation. However, indigenous peoples could escape the Spanish and were dying in large numbers from newly introduced diseases brought by Europeans. As a result, the Spanish turned to the importation of enslaved Africans transported to the Americans through the brutal transatlantic slave trade.

New trade routes: The flow of silver and agricultural resources out of Spanish America resulted in new maritime trade routes. The most active of these new routes crossed the Atlantic—often called the triangle trade or the Columbian exchange. Trade also began from the Western coast of Spanish America to Asia. The Mexican port of Acapulco was the main point from which silver left the Americas on its way to the Spanish Philippines.

The French and English in North America

European conquest and colonization in North America began later than in the rest of the Americas. As a result, the economic impacts of colonization took longer to develop in the north.

Before 1750, America’s primary exports were

Furs and skins

Grains and cereals

The North American fur trade: The settlement of North America happened during a long period of cold weather called the Little Ice Age. As temperatures decreased, demand for warm furs worn by social elites increased. At the same time, the supply of fur-bearing animals in Europe fell as the European population expanded into animals’ habitats. The English and French looked to their new colonies in North America to meet growing demand.

• Europeans trapped and hunted very few animals themselves. Instead, traders purchased furs and skins from Native Americans in exchange for goods like metal tools, blankets, and liquor.
• By the early 1700s, hundreds of thousands of skins and furs left North America for markets in Europe and Asia each year. As hunting increased, environmental damage also increased. In some regions of the southeastern British colonies, hunters nearly destroyed the native deer population. Demand for beaver pelts to make hats almost caused the extinction of the North American beaver. Years of conservation efforts have since restored many of the lost beaver populations.

Cash crop agriculture: North America’s main cash crops during the 1700s were feed grains (wheat, corn, and flour) and tobacco—cotton did not become a significant cash crop until the late 1700s. Tobacco was most important in the colonies of Maryland and Virginia, and its cultivation led to many changes. 

High European demand for tobacco increased the value of tobacco, which accelerated the economic growth in the American colonies.

Tobacco cultivation as a cash crop shifted America from a subsistence economy to an agricultural economy.

Tobacco production requires a lot of labor. A lack of available workers and the greed of plantation owners for higher profits shifted tobacco production to a slave-based force.

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Unintended consequences occur throughout History. One of the most significant events that create dozens of these effects is the black plague (1346-1349). When the epidemic hit Europe in the mid-1300s, it wiped out at least a third of the population, and a chain of cause and effect began that directly led to the European Age of Exploration within one hundred years. What were the primary reasons for the Age of Exploration? What was the purpose of European exploration? What were the characteristics of exploration? And what ere the effects of the European exploration? 

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Which historical events created the political, social, and economic climate for the Age of Exploration? 

Which European nation was the first to begin to invest in oceanic exploration? 

Which European nation sponsored the Italian navigator, Christopher Columbus, to establish a direct trade route with Asia? 

____________ was the Portuguese explorer who was the first to sail around the Cape of Good Hope and make it to the Indian trading markets.

True or False:

Pedro Alvares Cabral was a Portuguese explorer credited with the discovery of Brazil.

Which nation sponsored Ferdinand Magellan's voyage to sail around the world? 

______ was the Spanish explorer who took control over much of Central America and present-day Mexico by force in 1519.

Which Spanish explorer conquered the Inca and much of the west coast of South America? 

Which explorer was hired by both England merchant companies and the Dutch East India Company to find direct passages around and through North America to Asia? 

What is the most influential effect of European Exploration? 

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Reasons for European Exploration

The mass death in Europe caused by the Black Plague in the mid-1300s condensed land ownership and increased wealth for those that survived the disease. Along with political ramifications such as the breakdown of the feudal system in many European nations, the overall increase in wealth spurs two things: the Renaissance (15th and 16th Centuries) and an increase in demand for commodities, such as spices and goods from Asia. The Silk Road was the main route to trade goods from Asia to Europe from 200 BCE to the mid-1400s.

That changed when Constantinople, the central trading city connecting Asia to Europe, was sacked in 1453 and taken over by the Ottomans. These events created a situation in which demand for goods and resources from Europe was steadily increasing while, at the same time, massive disruption in the trade route occurred.

This sets the stage for European nations such as Spain and Portugal to invest in faster sea routes to Asia.

Motives for European Exploration

A complex combination of reasons prompted Europeans to explore the world’s oceans. The most important of these motives was the search for essential resources and land suitable for cultivating cash crops, the desire to establish new trade routes to Asian markets, and the aspiration to expand the influence of Christianity.

These motives for exploration mixed and reinforced each other. For example, Prince Henry the Navigator - a Portuguese explorer, financed voyages of exploration in west Africa in search of gold and trade, discovered profitable new trade routes, gained information about Muslim control of the region, and found Christian converts.

African Trade and the Origins of the Atlantic Slave Trade

The lure of African Trade also pushed Europeans to explore. Since the 12th century, Europeans have purchased west African gold, ivory, and slaves. Gold was an essential commodity because the precious metal from west Africa was Europe’s primary form of payment for Asian goods.

At the forefront of this was the Portuguese, who established trade ports along the west coast of Africa. Most Portuguese did not venture into the dense environment of sub-Saharan Africa, instead opting to trade with West African merchants. As the Age of Exploration continued to reap benefits for European nations and the rediscovery of North and South America, the need for labor in gold and silver mines and sugar and rice plantations increased the demand for enslaved labor. These Portuguese trading posts on the west African coast became the epicenter of the Atlantic slave trade.

Age of European Exploration (the 1400s to 1600s)

With these motivations, the Age of Exploration begins in Portugal. Still, many other European countries eventually began exploring as the lure of revenue, control, and prestige became apparent. Below is a table highlighting the timeline of European exploration, the countries involved, the explorers, and their “discoveries.”

European Exploration Map

The Map below charts the voyages of the Explorers listed in the table above. The color of their routes correlates with their sponsoring European Country.

Effects of European Exploration

The overall effects of European Exploration are numerous and have lasting repercussions throughout U.S. and World history, effects that are still being studied today. The table below highlights several effects that influenced the New and Old World.

European exploration - Key takeaways

• A series of events beginning with the black plague in the mid-1300s created a political, economic, and social climate in Europe that increased the need to explore new territories.
• The reasons for exploration were to search for new resources and fertile land, Control trade routes to Asia and the trade market and spread Christianity.
• Portugal was one of the first nations to invest in oceanic exploration, with Spain following close after England, France, and the Dutch.

The Age of Exploration is one of the most transformative times in world history as the effects of exploration are numerous and immensely influential, such as the spread of diseases, the exchange of crops, animals, and ideas between nations and civilizations, and the growing wealth and competition between many European nations.

Flashcards in European Exploration 10

The Black Plague 

Vasco Da Gama 

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Frequently Asked Questions about European Exploration

What was one characteristic of early European exploration? 

One characteristic of early European exploration is the goal of nations sponsoring explorers; to find a direct route to Asian markets. 

Which was a major cause of European exploration? 

The causes of European exploration are the need for resources, the revenue from trade routes and control of trade markets, and the religious need to spread Christianity

What were the main purposes of European exploration? 

The main purposes of European exploration are the need for resources, the revenue from trade routes and control of trade markets, and the religious need to spread Christianity 

How did European exploration impact the world? 

When did the European exploration start and end? 

European exploration began in the mid-1400s and lasted through to the 1600s. 

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A new era of ocean exploration is underway. 'It’s amazing what’s happened in the last few years.'

What lurks beneath the waves? Cutting edge robots, ships, and submersibles are helping a new generation of explorers understand the most mysterious habitat on Earth.

On a warm June morning, a 286-foot private research vessel set off from the green and rocky sea cliffs of the Azores, a chain of islands jutting upward from the North Atlantic Ocean, about a thousand miles west of mainland Portugal. The gleaming white OceanXplorer , rising high above the water, resembled a modified superyacht, with a helicopter pad on the bow and a pair of yellow submersibles near the stern. Below the surface, the ship’s hull featured a high-resolution sonar array to map underwater terrain.

The OceanXplorer had embarked on a unique mission: to tag and retrieve data from bluntnose sixgill sharks in their natural environment, an area so deep that much of their behavior remains a mystery. These prehistoric predators, whose ancestors first appeared 200 million years ago, can grow up to 18 feet long. They’re concealed within the ocean’s mesopelagic layer, or “twilight zone”—a frigid region reaching 3,000 feet down that’s nearly devoid of light. Still, each evening, the slow-moving yet buoyant sixgills here make a three-hour journey up to shallower waters to feed at a known hunting spot on the ledge of an undersea mountain near the Azores.

( Scientists tag deep-sea sixgill shark hundreds of feet underwater—a first. )

On board were nearly 70 crew members, including shark biologist Melissa Márquez, who grew up in Mexico; deep-sea researcher Zoleka Filander, a South African ecologist who has discovered several new species of invertebrates; ocean technology inventor Eric Stackpole, a NASA veteran who co-founded an underwater robotics company; and two guest scientists from Portugal’s University of the Azores, Jorge Fontes and Pedro Afonso, who had developed a tag that tracks sharks and provides video.

The team hoped to locate at least one sixgill, attach a camera tag to it, and then retrieve the tag later—something never accomplished before in the deep sea. It would require a series of dives in one of the onboard “bubble subs”— so called because of the acrylic globe that houses passengers. Even then, they would get only a glimpse into this hidden world; the tag would automatically release after 12 hours and float to the surface for recovery. Recovering the data, however, would mark a scientific first, yet another in a series for the team, which works with the nonprofit initiative OceanX. Over the past few years, its researchers have taken dramatic footage of orcas hunting humpback whales and separately made audio recordings of how male humpbacks might use undersea terrain to amplify their mating songs. They have also captured rare footage of the Dana octopus squid in its natural habitat.

( Why did a humpback whale capsize a boat? Here's what really happened. )

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If such moments sound particularly entertaining—sharks! whales!—that was by design. The OceanXplorer is the flagship of OceanX, an exploration and media venture co-founded by Ray Dalio, the billionaire founder of the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, and his son Mark, who has previously co-produced shows for National Geographic. The group launched in 2018 with the stated goal to “explore the ocean and bring it back to the world.” This has involved converting a former Norwegian support vessel for oil rigs into a mobile scientific research center and film set. OceanX advisers include James Cameron , the Hollywood director of Avatar and Titanic .

( Q & A: James Cameron on how filmmaking drove his ocean exploration. )

Beyond the helicopter and the bubble subs, which can take explorers to 3,280 feet underwater, the vessel also carries a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) for filming far deeper, plus its own wet and dry laboratories and a holographic viewing table for researchers to generate seemingly made-for-TV models of the data they collect from the deep ocean. There are more than 3,000 film-quality light fixtures throughout the boat. And starting in August, viewers around the world can tune in to see the result of the sixgill expedition, which is part of the National Geographic series OceanXplorers . “There’s never been a more urgent need to understand our ocean and the animals that call it home,” Cameron narrates in the series. “Because their lives, and ours, depend on it.”

OceanXplorers is inspired by the work of Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Louis Malle, who together released the film version of Cousteau’s best-selling book The Silent World nearly 70 years ago. The documentary was among the first underwater films shot in color and sparked worldwide interest in the ocean. That included Ray Dalio, who was entranced by Cousteau’s work and has shared that enthusiasm with his son. “How do you create a Cousteau moment for the modern age?” says Mark Dalio.

( 5 ways Jacques Cousteau pushed to protect the planet. )

The modern age could use an updated Silent World . New technologies are on the cusp of unlocking scientific breakthroughs, but only if they’re funded—which means people need to care and demand action. Spurring that through a series of six 30-minute-plus episodes might sound a bit far-fetched, but as the footage reveals, each journey can lead to even more surprising discoveries.

Advancements in ocean exploration through the ages

At around 10:30 p.m., cameras rolled from all angles as the Neptune , one of the OceanXplorer ’s three-person bubble subs, dangled from a large crane, suspended over the dark ocean. Inside, Márquez, the shark biologist, sat near Afonso, a marine ecologist, and a submarine pilot. Márquez and Afonso had never had the chance to scout for sixgills directly from a sub. Multiple cameras captured the researchers’ wide-eyed expressions as the submersible dropped into the ocean and quickly disappeared below the surface.

Step one in tagging a sixgill: Conduct a population survey in the area, where the sharks are known to convene at night after spending their days deeper in the ocean.

After Márquez and Afonso descended to a ledge more than 800 feet down, they saw something large moving past their submersible’s headlights.

( The story of Turtle, one of the world's first submersibles .)

“Shark, shark, shark!” Márquez called out, looking both excited and a little startled. “That’s huge. Adult. Definitely an adult. About 15 feet long.”

She could see right away that the animal was female because of the lack of claspers, or sexual organs, under its pelvic fin.

Over the course of eight hours under water, the team spotted 11 sixgills, which had traveled an estimated 1,800 feet upward to look for food. Each shark seemed to have a different temperament, with some keeping their distance and others swimming directly at, or even right below, the sub.

They were also all female, except for one juvenile male, supporting the idea that the animals may travel in single-sex groups outside of mating season.

None of the potential targets moved quickly. “She’s so sluggish,” Márquez said as one of the sharks passed by, illuminated by the light of the sub. “I guess she’s conserving her energy. And it’s cold out there; it’s only 39 degrees.”

The deep sea still has plenty of mysteries to reveal. It is the largest habitat on Earth, comprising more than 95 percent of the ocean, yet remains the least explored. At the first ever United Nations Ocean Conference, in 2017, an international coalition of scientists announced its intention of using multibeam sonar to generate a detailed map of the seafloor in its entirety by 2030.

( This scientist is on a mission to map the world’s oceans. )

When the initiative was first introduced, only 6 percent of the seabed was mapped to an adequate resolution; that figure now is 25 percent mapped in high resolution, with more terrain being added every day.

That effort may reveal a better understanding of the seafloor, but when it comes to ocean conservation, researchers face the additional challenge of trying to protect an ecosystem that’s still not well surveyed. The vast majority of species in the ocean—by one estimate, more than 90 percent—have yet to be classified. Rather than just cataloging discoveries, ocean-exploration entities have also put effort into better relaying the wonder of the unknown. By 2019, private equity investor Victor Vescovo piloted a submersible to the lowest point of all five ocean basins, setting a record for the deepest crewed dive in history when he reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, at a depth of nearly 36,000 feet.

“We have an ability to see, hear, and sample [the ocean] in ways that we just never had before,” says Chris Scholin, the president and CEO of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, a nonprofit oceanographic organization based on California’s central coast.

Submersibles, satellites, drones, ROVs, autonomous underwater vehicles, and undersea observatories are giving scientists and explorers unprecedented access to the ocean. As a result, scientists are discovering an average of 2,000 new marine species each year.

“It’s amazing what’s happened in the last few years,” says Jyotika Virmani, executive director of the Schmidt Ocean Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to science and exploration that recently aided discovery of more than a hundred species believed to be new to science during expeditions to a seamount chain off the coast of Chile. “Things are happening, and they’re happening faster and faster. There’s been an almost exponential increase in information that we’re getting about the ocean.”

( Beyond the Western myth of exploration lies a rich and often overlooked history. )

One of OceanX’s goals is to telegraph the vast human health and innovation losses that may occur if important species disappear before we can learn more about them. “The ocean is just a huge library of DNA that can be exploited by humans for medical purposes, manufacturing—all kinds of things,” says Vincent Pieribone, OceanX’s co-CEO and a professor at the Yale School of Medicine. Compounds from marine life are actively being investigated for their potential as antibiotic and antiviral medications and even for components of artificial bone.

The majority of the narrative being shared right now is “the obituary of the ocean,” says Philippe Cousteau, Jr., a filmmaker, explorer, and grandson of Jacques-Yves Cousteau. “I think that has held back capturing the public’s imagination.”

After confirming the underwater ledge was a feeding spot for sixgills, the team decided it was ready to tag a shark. Around midnight on another evening, the Neptune shuttled Márquez and marine ecologist Fontes back to the ledge, passing through a shoal of boarfish so dense it temporarily obstructed the bubble sub’s view.

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This time, decaying fish had been secured to an extended metal rod, which projected several feet in front of the submersible to entice a sixgill. “Come on, Big Mama,” Márquez said, as if willing a shark to appear.

When the first sixgill arrived, it ignored the bait, focusing instead on a morsel that had become detached and floated to the bottom, and stayed out of range. Some time later, two more sharks appeared, with the larger one chasing off the smaller, probably to protect the new food source. At a certain point, one creature’s large, trapezoidal tail knocked the sub with an audible thump, startling everyone behind the six-and-a-half-inch acrylic hull.

The Neptune was outfitted with a laser-sighted spear gun that could fire a kind of arrow into the skin of the sixgill. Connected to the arrow was the tracker—a small, red, hard-foam package that housed a camera and other sensors capable of monitoring the animal’s speed, depth, and movements for up to 12 hours.

When the larger of the two sharks came into view, Fontes pressed a button to fire the arrow, but it shot wide, narrowly missing the moving target.

“Damn it,” he said.

Márquez grabbed her head. “I can’t believe it,” she said, before signaling that another shark was approaching. With only one arrow left, the pressure was on. This time, Fontes was able to hit the animal’s large torso. Up in the OceanXplorer ’s mission control room, Stackpole, the underwater robotics technician, and Afonso watched with excitement and gave each other a high five.

Sixgills likely haven’t changed much in 200 million years and retain features from the Jurassic age. When the tagged shark reapproached Neptune to finish its meal, cameras captured its eyes rolling back into its head as it shook the bait. Unlike many sharks, sixgills don’t have a retractable membrane to protect the eye while hunting; instead their eyes just … roll back. For the crew, it was a visceral reminder of how different these animals are.

Because sixgills are especially buoyant, one working hypothesis for how these sharks hunt has been that they may float upward along ridgelines in the ocean, seeking silhouettes from potential prey that they can ambush.

While the show focused on the red camera tag, it was accompanied by another, more basic satellite tag that could transmit movement data for an additional nine months, allowing the researchers to continue to learn more about the species’ vertical migrations. Such underwater monitoring is important: Although scientists can catch deep-sea sharks with nets or hooks and pull them to the surface, being dragged from the deep can cause potentially fatal pressurization injuries for the creatures. Stressed animals don’t make great study subjects either, which is why scientists at OceanX want to tag them in their environment.

Once reviewed at the mission control room, the data retrieved from the tracker appeared to support the thesis about the sixgill’s hunting method. The shark would travel slowly, with short upward bursts of speed that might signal it was ambushing prey from below.

OceanX missions aren’t all focused on thrashing sharks and whales. Often they pursue the more prosaic business of mapping. While the OceanXplorer tracks sharks and films whales, the vessel is also using its own sonar array to add to the growing body of data about the seafloor. In 2019 OceanX conducted an end-to-end survey of the largest coral reef system alongside the continental United States. It also conducted yet another voyage off the Azores, in 2023, producing yet more findings on underwater seamounts and ridges to support the designation of 30 percent of the region’s economic zone waters as marine protected areas. Scientists working with OceanX have contributed to nearly a hundred research papers, on topics ranging from coral-dwelling crabs to microbial life around hydrothermal vents.

( The race to create climate-resilient coral—before it's too late. )

“The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever,” Jacques-Yves Cousteau wrote. At a time when the public’s increasingly short attention span may make it harder to digest complicated information, OceanX is trying to perpetuate that spell.

Dalio, the nonprofit’s co-founder, says he wants OceanXplorers “to be a launch, not just of a series but of a new awareness and excitement about the ocean,” adding he wants to “create a wave” that gets others involved and working together. If that can happen, he says, “we really are on the brink of a golden age for ocean exploration.”

What its scientists share with the public seems to be getting attention: OceanX has more than four million followers on TikTok.

During another dive in the sub, Márquez and Afonso witnessed a large sixgill skim close to the floor of the ledge. This might be attributed to the animal’s use of highly attuned electrical sensors in its head to detect movements of other creatures in the murk. But instead of seeing the feeding method their data suggested, what happened next was different. The creature quickly inverted, swinging its tail vertically above its head before swinging it back and forth to seemingly pin something against the seafloor. It could have been a ray hiding under the sand.

Back on the OceanXplorer , Márquez and the team talked over just how much that moment defied their expectations. Rather than proving one version right or wrong, the truth is more exciting: The sixgill may have different hunting tactics it can deploy.

“The data from the tag was telling us one thing,” said Márquez, “but our own eyes are telling us something completely different.” It’s an unexpected finding and a reminder of just how much remains unknown.

At dusk one day, the sun lit up the rocky cliffs of the Azores, and the OceanXplorer steered onward, the large vessel backlit by the dimming light that reflected across the vast ocean around it. Eventually, the ship would head back to port to refuel and start another mission, bringing on another group of local scientists to study the deep.

As the ship moved ahead, it looked small against the backdrop of the ocean, which stretched so far that it blended into the glittering horizon line. Almost every day at sea features a moment like this, when, with the right perspective, the enormous vessel suddenly looks small. When you zoom out, there’s always more ocean.

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