Age of Exploration

This age was not the first time Europeans came into contact with the goods of the east. This first contact came with the Crusades when the crusaders returned from the Holy Land with goods they had never seen in Europe. Trade was slow because there was no demand (no middle class) and land travel was slow and dangerous. Marco Polo had traveled to the Orient but most of his tales seemed wild and exaggerated. The middle men between Europe and the east drove up the price of goods. And what bothered Europeans most was that these middle men were Muslims in the middle east and north Africa. There was a long desire to find a route around these Muslims.

New Technologies

Magnetic Compass

Astrolabe used to find position of sun and starts in order to calculate latitude

Sextant more accurate than the astrolabe

Science of Cartography Applied rational and mathematical concepts to map making rather than religious meanings

Progress of Exploration (Map, page 376-377)

Prince Henry the Navigator

Began school to teach Navigation. Defeated North African Muslim fortress of Ceuta. This opened the door for explorers to attempt to go around Africa (the Muslims.)

Bartholomeu Dias Rounded the southern tip of Africa (1488)

Vasco da Gama Sailed all the way to India (1497)

Christopher Columbus Decided to make the voyage by going west. Believed he reached the East Indies (1492). His discovery was seen as an obstacle rather than something great.

Amerigo Vespucci Was the first to realize the Columbus had discovered a new world. Because of the work of a German cartographer, this man’s name was given to Columbus’ discovery.

Balboa First to cross the Isthmus of Panama. Made it to the Pacific Ocean.

Magellan First to sail around the world. When Magellan discovered how large the world is, explorers began to focus on what the New World had to offer.

The Columbian Exchange

Columbus was not the first person to land on America. He wasn’t even the first European. However, what Columbus did was extremely important in the development of world history: he began an exchange between the Old World and the New World. This exchange would have dramatic effects on just about every continent on earth.

The New World had some crops Europeans had never seen before. Corn, tobacco, potatoes and sugar were just a few of the things the New World had to offer. Some of these crops, especially the potato, could produce much more food per area than more traditional crops such as wheat and barley. Thus, fields could produce much more food than they used to. As a result, the introduction of the potato in Europe, Asia and Africa led to dramatic rise in population in those areas.

As Europeans learned they could make a fortune from sugar in the New World they soon realized they needed a work force to do the hard labor that is required with sugarcane. The African slave trade began. European sailed to west Africa and took shiploads of Africans to the New World to work on sugar plantations. Most of these slaves went to the Caribbean and worked with sugar. Some went to North America and ended up working with cotton. Nevertheless, several million Africans were taken against their will to the New World. The male population of west Africa was drastically reduced.

When the Europeans sailed to West Africa for slaves they traded guns for them. This strengthened the tribes on the coast who traded slaves with the Europeans. As a result, the tribes on the West coast of Africa grew to be powerful. There was a shift of power in Africa from the center to the west coast.

The Europeans took things to the New World that affected their lives. The Spaniards introduced the horse. Guns were brought over. But the most significant thing they brought was unintentional: disease.

Europeans had developed immunities to diseases for which the people in America did not. As the Europeans lived among the natives, diseases began to spread around and kill thousands of them. The Europeans, however, did not die. Many natives interpreted this to mean that the God of the Europeans was more powerful than theirs. This process, along with superior technology, allowed the culture of the Europeans (Spain) to become the culture of South America. Today the religion (Roman Catholic) and the language (Spanish) of the Europeans are dominant in Latin America. These are all example of the impact of the Columbian Exchange.

The Scientific Revolution

Absolutism

Absolutism is a form of government where those in charge have complete or absolute power over their people. An absolute Monarchy is a king who has this type of power.

Traditionally there have been two main things that have limited the power of kings in European history:

1) a Constitution—a constitution is a written set of rules that outline how a government works, what it can do and what it can’t do. Constitutions are rules about government that even kings must obey.

2) a Representative Body—this is a group of representatives elected by the people to make laws. (In England it is called Parliament, in the US it is called the Congress, in France the Estates General.) Because a representative body makes laws, the king is weakened because he can no longer create whatever laws he wants.

When these and other limitations on a king are removed, an absolute monarchy exists. The most famous example of absolutism in European history was Louis XIV.

Louis XIV

Before Louis XIV, kings shared power with their powerful ministers, or advisors, who made many decisions for the king. When Louis became king at the age of 5, Mazarin was appointed to be his minister and help the young king make most of the decisions in the kingdom. When it came time to pick a new minister, the young king picked himself. Without a Constitution or Representative body, his power was absolute.

Perhaps the best example of Louis XIV’s power was his decision tobuild a new palace outside of Paris. His new castle was called Versailles and Louis spared no cost in building it. He built fountains and re-routed rivers to power them. He hired 500 chiefs to cook the food. The famous “Hall of Mirrors” had pure gold decorations. Versailles became the envy of every European king. Because Louis gave the French so much pride and seemed to care about the ordinary people, most citizens of France did not mind him running up such large debts and gaining such power for himself.

Absolutism in England

England has a long tradition of granting power to Parliament. This prevented the rise of absolutism in England. This tradition goes back to the year 1215. In that year, King John of England was forced by his nobles to sign the Magna Carta. This is one of the most important documents in English history. The Magna Carta was an agreement that Parliament would have the power to make laws in England and even the king had to obey them. This power given to Parliament made English kings weaker than French absolute kings.

Other Absolute Monarchs in Europe

Louis XIV and his government soon became a model for other European kings. Absolutism came to other countries as well.

In Austria, Maria Theresa set up an absolute form of monarchy. She remodeled her palace to look like Versailles and improved the capital of Vienna. She also made life better for peasants. This was important for the survival of absolute governments: if the monarch brought pride or better conditions to the people, they would put up with it. If not, the people would rebel.

In Prussia, Frederick the Great set up absolutism.

In Russia Peter the Great ruthlessly took absolute power and tried to bring his backwards country up to the standards of Europe. He visited Europe and came back determined to make Russia modern. To escape the hold of the Russian Orthodox Church, he moved the capital out of Moscow. Peter built a brand new European style city called St. Petersburg. This, he thought, would free Russia from its old fashion past.

The Enlightenment

The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement in Europe that emerged after the wars of religion between Catholics and Protestants ended. The goal of the Enlightenment was to stomp out superstition and intolerance and build a better, more just society. It placed a great deal of faith in human reason and believed that mankind should be willing to reconstruct society on the truths they learned through reason. This called into question many of the assumptions of Absolutism and European Society.

The best example of an Enlightened philosopher is Voltaire. Voltaire dedicated his life to stamping out religious intoleration. He believed in God, but rejected most churches and formal beliefs.

Rousseau was anther important thinker during this time. He thought that the system of social classes was made-up and unjust; it violated nature. He rejected most of the political regimes of Europe. Like most other thinkers of the Enlightenment, he believed that the only government that had the right to govern people is one that has the consent of the people. If the people will (or choose) the government, then it should be obeyed and respected. This belief began to tear down the idea of the divine right of kings. The American Revolution used these ideas against the British and the French Revolution shortly followed.