1.3

• Reasons for European exploration of the Americas

  • Population rebound after Black Plague
  • Political unification and centralized governments
  • Wealthy upper class wanting luxury goods from Asia
• Europeans unable to access land-based trade routes to Asia

  Motivated them to find water-based route
• Trading post empire


  Portugal's model of establishing trading posts along African coast and dominating Indian Ocean trade
• Maritime technology advances by Portugal

  • Use of caravels
  • Improved navigation with astrolabe, sternpost rudder
  • Updated maritime charts and astronomical tables
• Portugal's profitable trade


  Motivated Spain to also seek trade in the Americas
• Christopher Columbus


  Italian sailor who sought Spanish sponsorship to find western route to Asia
• Columbus landed in the Caribbean, not Asia, and called the inhabitants "Indians"
• Columbus returned to Spain with gold jewelry and enslaved natives, sparking more Spanish exploration of the Caribbean and South America
• Within a decade it became clear Columbus had not found a sea route to Asia
• Columbus's voyages set off a process known as the Columbian Exchange