European Age of Exploration

• Age of Exploration


  Also called the Age of Discovery, a period in the 14th-17th centuries when European nations led by Portugal and Spain began exploring the world, discovering new routes to India, Africa, and the Americas
• Factors that created conditions for Age of Exploration

  • Changes in religion
  • New era of curiosity and learning
  • Developments in technology
  • Threats to existing land trade routes
• The British Empire has its origins in the Age of Exploration, with its first colony established in 1585 at Roanoke
• Although the Roanoke colony failed, subsequent attempts such as that at Jamestown were successful, with tobacco providing Virginian planters with huge profits
• The Age of Exploration brought new ideas and technology to the Native Americans, including farming techniques and weapons
• The Age of Exploration also brought new diseases which wiped out many Native Americans
• Spain was the first European power to dominate the New World, growing rich on plunder from the Aztec and Inca Empires
• Spain used much of her wealth from the New World to facilitate religious wars in Europe
• Africa had only limited colonisation before 1880 because it lacked the conditions necessary for any plantation system (cultivable land with easy reach of the sea)
• Africa consisted of highly organised states who would not tamely submit to European control
• Europeans needed to deal respectfully with the West African rulers as they had the means to provide the fresh slaves Europeans wanted for their New World colonies
• Slavery became an important source of income for the British Empire (and for other European colonial powers like Spain, Portugal and France)
• Between 1500-1850 more than 11 million Africans were transported to European owned plantations in America and the West Indies as part of the triangular slave trade
• Plantation life was hard and dangerous, and slaves were treated harshly
• Colony


  A country or area under the full or partial political control of another country and occupied by settlers from that country
• Original settlers


  The first group of people living in a new colony and their descendants
• Privateer


  A ship's captain with royal permission to attack and rob foreign ships
• Triangular trade


  The trade route between Europe, West Africa, and the Americas where goods and slaves were exchanged
• Plantation


  An estate on which crops are grown
• Slavery


  The action and practice of owning human beings as property
• New World


  North and South America
• White gold


  Nickname used for sugar, which could be made from growing it
• Indentured labour


  A system in which people work to pay off their passage to a new country by working for a set term of years
• The Age of Exploration led to the influx of precious metals like gold and silver from the New World, significantly boosting the economies of European nations.