Loading AI tools
Period of European global exploration from the 15th century to the 17th century From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Age of Discovery (c. 1418 – c. 1620),[1] also known as the Age of Exploration, was part of the early modern period and largely overlapped with the Age of Sail. It was a period from approximately the late 15th century to the 17th century, during which seafarers from a number of European countries explored, colonized, and conquered regions across the globe. The Age of Discovery was a transformative period in world history when previously isolated parts of the world became connected to form the world-system and laid the groundwork for globalization. The extensive overseas exploration, particularly the opening of maritime routes to the Indies and the European colonization of the Americas by the Spanish and Portuguese, later joined by the English, French and Dutch, spurred in the International global trade. The interconnected global economy of the 21st century has its origins in the expansion of trade networks during this era.
 | This may be too long to read and navigate comfortably. When this tag was added, its readable prose size was 17,000 words. (June 2024) |
The exploration also created colonial empires and marked an increased adoption of colonialism as a government policy in several European states. As such, it is sometimes synonymous with the first wave of European colonization. The colonization reshaped power dynamics causing geopolitical shifts in Europe and creating new centers of power beyond Europe. Having set human history on the global common course, the legacy of the Age still shapes the world today.
European oceanic exploration started with the maritime expeditions of Portugal to the Canary Islands in 1336,[2][3] and later with the Portuguese discoveries of the Atlantic archipelagos of Madeira and Azores, the coast of West Africa in 1434, and the establishment of the sea route to India in 1498 by Vasco da Gama, which initiated the Portuguese maritime and trade presence in Kerala and the Indian Ocean.[4][5]
During the Age of Discovery, Spain sponsored and financed the transatlantic voyages of the Italian navigator Christopher Columbus, which from 1492 to 1504 marked the start of colonization in the Americas, and the expedition of the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan to open a route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, which later achieved the first circumnavigation of the globe between 1519 and 1522. These Spanish expeditions significantly impacted the European perceptions of the world. These discoveries led to numerous naval expeditions across the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans, and land expeditions in the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Australia that continued into the late 19th century, followed by the exploration of the polar regions in the 20th century.
European exploration initiated the Columbian exchange between the Old World (Europe, Asia, and Africa) and the New World (the Americas and Australia). This exchange involved the transfer of plants, animals, human populations (including slaves), communicable diseases, and culture across the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. The Age of Discovery and European exploration involved mapping of the world, shaping a new worldview and facilitating contact with distant civilizations. The continents drawn by European mapmakers of the Age developed from abstract "blobs" into the outlines more recognizable to us today.[6] Simultaneously, the spread of new diseases, especially affecting American Indians, led to rapid population declines. The era saw widespread enslavement, exploitation and military conquest of native populations, concurrent with the growing economic influence and spread of western and European culture, science and technology leading to a faster-than-exponential population growth world-wide.
The concept of discovery has been scrutinized, critically highlighting the history of the core term of this periodization.[7] The term "age of discovery" is in historical literature and still commonly used. J. H. Parry, calling the period the Age of Reconnaissance, argues that not only was the era one of European explorations, but it also produced the expansion of geographical knowledge and empirical science. "It saw also the first major victories of empirical inquiry over authority, the beginnings of that close association of science, technology, and everyday work which is an essential characteristic of the modern western world."[8] Anthony Pagden draws on the work of Edmundo O'Gorman for the statement that "For all Europeans, the events of October 1492 constituted a 'discovery'. Something of which they had no prior knowledge had suddenly presented itself to their gaze."[9] O'Gorman argues that the physical encounter with new territories was less important than the Europeans' effort to integrate this new knowledge into their worldview, what he calls "the invention of America".[10] Pagden examines the origins of the terms "discovery" and "invention". In English, "discovery" and its forms in romance languages derive from "disco-operio, meaning to uncover, to reveal, to expose to the gaze", what was revealed existed previously.[11] Few Europeans during the period used the term "invention" for the European encounters, with the exception of Martin Waldseemüller, whose map first used the term "America". [12]
A central legal concept of the discovery doctrine, expounded by the US Supreme Court in 1823, draws on assertions of European powers' right to claim land during their explorations. The concept of "discovery" has been used to enforce colonial claiming and discovery, but has been challenged by indigenous peoples[13] and researchers.[14] Many indigenous peoples have fundamentally challenged the concept of colonial claiming of "discovery" over their lands and people, as forced and negating indigenous presence.
The period alternatively called the Age of Exploration, has been scrutinized through reflections on the exploration. Its understanding and use, has been discussed as being framed and used for colonial ventures, discrimination and exploitation, by combining it with concepts such as the "frontier" (as in Frontier Thesis) and manifest destiny,[15] up to the contemporary age of space exploration.[16][17][18][19] Alternatively, the term contact, as in first contact, has been used to shed more light on the age of discovery and colonialism, using the alternative names of Age of Contact[20] or Contact Period,[21] discussing it as an "unfinished, diverse project".[22][23]
The Portuguese began systematically exploring the Atlantic coast of Africa in 1418, under the sponsorship of Prince Henry the Navigator. In 1488, Bartolomeu Dias reached the Indian Ocean by this route.[24]
In 1492, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain funded Genoese mariner Christopher Columbus's (Italian: Cristoforo Colombo) plan to sail west to reach the Indies, by crossing the Atlantic. Columbus encountered a continent uncharted by Europeans (though it had been explored and temporarily colonized by the Norse 500 years earlier).[25] Later, it was called America after Amerigo Vespucci, a trader working for Portugal.[26][27] Portugal quickly claimed those lands under the terms of the Treaty of Alcáçovas, but Castile was able to persuade the Pope, who was Castilian, to issue four papal bulls to divide the world into two regions of exploration, where each kingdom had exclusive rights to claim newly discovered lands. These were modified by the Treaty of Tordesillas, ratified by Pope Julius II.[28][29]
| Major discovery/ Destination | Main explorer | Year | Funding by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Congo River | Diogo Cão | 1482 | John II of Portugal |
| Cape of Good Hope Indian Ocean | Dias | 1488 | John II of Portugal |
| West Indies | Columbus | 1492 | Ferdinand and Isabella |
| India | Vasco da Gama | 1498 | Manuel I |
| Brazil | Cabral | 1500 | Manuel I |
| Spice Islands Australasia (Western Pacific Ocean) | Albuquerque, Abreu, and Serrão | 1512 | Manuel I |
| Pacific Ocean | Vasco Balboa | 1513 | Ferdinand II of Aragon |
| Strait of Magellan | Magellan | 1520 | Charles I of Spain |
| Philippines | Magellan | 1521 | Charles I of Spain |
| Circumnavigation | Magellan and Elcano | 1522 | Charles I of Spain |
| Australia | Willem Janszoon | 1606 | United East India Company |
| New Zealand | Abel Tasman | 1642 | United East India Company |
| Islands Near Antarctica | James Cook | 1773 | George III |
| Hawaii | James Cook | 1778 | George III |
In 1498, a Portuguese expedition commanded by Vasco da Gama reached India by sailing around Africa, opening up direct trade with Asia.[30] While other exploratory fleets were sent from Portugal to northern North America, Portuguese India Armadas also extended this Eastern oceanic route, touching South America and opening a circuit from the New World to Asia (starting in 1500 by Pedro Álvares Cabral), and explored islands in the South Atlantic and Southern Indian Oceans. The Portuguese sailed further eastward, to the valuable Spice Islands in 1512, landing in China one year later. Japan was reached by the Portuguese in 1543. In 1513, Spanish Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and reached the "other sea" from the New World. Thus, Europe first received news of the eastern and western Pacific within a one-year span around 1512. East and west exploration overlapped in 1522, when a Spanish expedition sailing westward, led by Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan and, after his death by navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano, completed the first circumnavigation of the world.[31] Spanish conquistadors explored the interior of the Americas, and some of the South Pacific islands. Their main objective was to disrupt Portuguese trade in the East.
From 1495, the French, English, and Dutch entered the race of exploration, after learning of Columbus' exploits, defying the Iberian monopoly on maritime trade by searching for new routes. The first expedition was John Cabot in 1497 to the north, in the service of England, followed by French expeditions to South America and later to North America. Later expeditions went to the Pacific Ocean around South America, and eventually by following the Portuguese around Africa, into the Indian Ocean; discovering Australia in 1606, New Zealand in 1642, and Hawaii in 1778. From the 1580s to the 1640s, Russians explored and conquered almost the whole of Siberia and Alaska in the 1730s.
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire largely severed the connection between Europe, and lands further east, Christian Europe was largely a backwater compared to the Arab world, which conquered and incorporated large territories in the Middle East and North Africa. The Christian Crusades to retake the Holy Land, from the Muslims, were not a military success, but did bring Europe into contact with the Middle East and the valuable goods manufactured or traded there. From the 12th century, the European economy was transformed by the interconnecting of river and sea trade routes.[32]: 345
Before the 12th century, an obstacle to trade east of the Strait of Gibraltar, which divided the Mediterranean from the Atlantic Ocean, was Muslim control of territory, including the Iberian Peninsula and the trade monopolies of Christian city-states on the Italian Peninsula, especially Venice and Genoa. Economic growth of Iberia followed the Christian reconquest of Al-Andalus in what is now southern Spain and the siege of Lisbon (1147 AD), in Portugal. The decline of Fatimid Caliphate naval strength, which started before the First Crusade, helped the maritime Italian states, mainly Venice, Genoa and Pisa, dominate trade in the Eastern Mediterranean, with merchants there becoming wealthy and politically influential. Further changing the mercantile situation in the east Mediterranean, was the waning of Christian Byzantine naval power following the death of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos in 1180, whose dynasty had made notable treaties and concessions with Italian traders, permitting the use of Byzantine Christian ports. The Norman Conquest of England, in the late 11th century, allowed for peaceful trade on the North Sea. The Hanseatic League, a confederation of merchant guilds and their towns in north Germany, along the North Sea and Baltic Sea, was instrumental in the commercial development of the region. In the 12th century, the regions of Flanders, Hainault, and Brabant produced the finest quality textiles in northwest Europe, which encouraged merchants from Genoa and Venice to sail there from the Mediterranean, through the Strait of Gibraltar, and up the Atlantic coast.[32]: 316–38 Nicolòzzo Spinola made the first recorded direct voyage from Genoa to Flanders in 1277.[32]: 328
Technological advancements that were important to the Age of Exploration were the adoption of the magnetic compass and advances in ship design.
The compass was an addition to the ancient method of navigation based on sightings of the sun and stars. It was invented during the Chinese Han dynasty and had been used for navigation in China by the 11th century. It was adopted by Arab traders in the Indian Ocean. The compass spread to Europe by the late 12th or early 13th century.[33] Use of the compass for navigation in the Indian Ocean was first mentioned in 1232.[32]: 351–2 The first mention of use of the compass in Europe was in 1180.[32]: 382 The Europeans used a "dry" compass, with a needle on a pivot. The compass card was also a European invention.[32]
The ships of the Age of Discovery post-dated the fusion of the northern European[a] and Mediterranean ship-building traditions. Prior to the late 13th/early 14th centuries, northern European ships were typically clinker built,[b] had a single mast setting a square sail and a centre-line rudder hung on the sternpost with pintles and gudgeons. Their counterparts in the Mediterranean were built with carvel hulls, had one or more masts (depending on size) which set lateen sails, and were steered with quarter-rudders positioned on the side of the hull.[34]: 65–66
Trade, pilgrimage and war brought ships from each tradition into the other's region – ultimately leading to the copying of features that were new to each. Over the early 14th century, square sails started to be used in the Mediterranean, with the mainmast setting square rig and the mizzen carrying a lateen sail. In the first two decades of the 15th century this arrangement was copied in northern Europe where, by the late 1430s, some ships were built with carvel hulls. The end result of this merging of traditions was the full-rigged ship, a carvel hull with a sternpost-hung pintle and gudgeon rudder and three masts – the foremast and mainmast setting square sails and the mizzen a lateen sail. Alongside this type of vessel, the caravel was used. This type was also carvel built with a sternpost-hung rudder but could be completely lateen rigged or have some square sails.[34]: 68–72
Very few wrecks of Age of Discovery ships have been found and archaeologically investigated. More is known about Roman and Greek ships of classical antiquity than those of this period. The caravel is particularly poorly understood, despite the number of "replicas" that have been constructed.[35]: 2 However, a particular set of hull construction characteristics have been identified from wrecks of this time, referred to as Iberian Atlantic shipbuilding tradition. They are found in the Molasses Reef wreck, Highbourne Cay wreck, the Red Bay wreck and some sites in European waters.[36]: 636 [35]: 2
The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a document from 40–60 AD, describes a newly discovered route through the Red Sea to India, with descriptions of the markets in towns around Red Sea, Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, including along the east coast of Africa, which states "for beyond these places the unexplored ocean curves around toward the west, and running along by the regions to the south of Aethiopia and Libya and Africa, it mingles with the western sea (possible reference to the Atlantic Ocean)". European medieval knowledge about Asia beyond the reach of the Byzantine Empire was sourced in partial reports, often obscured by legends,[37] dating back from the conquests of Alexander the Great and successors. Another source was the Radhanite Jewish trade networks of merchants established as go-betweens between Europe and the Muslim world during the time of the Crusader states.
In 1154, the Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi created a description of the world and a world map, the Tabula Rogeriana, at the court of King Roger II of Sicily,[38][39] but still Africa was only partially known to either Christians, Genoese and Venetians, or the Arab seamen, and its southern extent was unknown. There were reports of great African Sahara, but the knowledge was limited for the Europeans, to the Mediterranean coast and little else, since the Arab blockade of North Africa precluded exploration inland. Knowledge about the Atlantic African coast was fragmented and derived mainly from old Greek and Roman maps based on Carthaginian knowledge, including Roman exploration of Mauritania. The Red Sea was barely known and only trade links with the Maritime republics, Venice especially, fostered the collection of accurate maritime knowledge.[40] Indian Ocean trade routes were sailed by Arab traders.
By 1400, a Latin translation of Ptolemy's Geographia reached Italy from Constantinople. The rediscovery of Roman geographical knowledge was a revelation,[41] both for map-making and worldview,[42] although reinforcing the idea that the Indian Ocean was landlocked.
A prelude to the Age of Discovery was a series of European expeditions crossing Eurasia by land in the late Middle Ages.[43] The Mongols had threatened Europe, but Mongol states also unified much of Eurasia and, from 1206 on, the Pax Mongolica allowed safe trade routes and communication lines from the Middle East to China.[44][45] The close Italian links to the Levant raised curiosity and commercial interest in countries which lay further east.[46][page needed] There are a few accounts of merchants from North Africa and the Mediterranean, who traded in the Indian Ocean in late medieval times (see also: Indo-Mediterranean#Medieval era).[32]
Christian embassies were sent as far as Karakorum during the Mongol invasions of the Levant, from which they gained a greater understanding of the world.[47][48] The first of these travellers was Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, dispatched by Pope Innocent IV to the Great Khan, who journeyed to Mongolia and back from 1241 to 1247.[44] Russian prince Yaroslav of Vladimir, and his sons Alexander Nevsky and Andrey II of Vladimir, travelled to the Mongolian capital. Though having strong political implications, their journeys left no detailed accounts. Other travellers followed, like French André de Longjumeau and Flemish William of Rubruck, who reached China through Central Asia.[49] Marco Polo, a Venetian merchant, dictated an account of journeys throughout Asia from 1271 to 1295, describing being a guest at the Yuan dynasty court of Kublai Khan in Travels. It was read throughout Europe.[50]
The Muslim fleet guarding the Strait of Gibraltar was defeated by Genoa in 1291.[51] In that year, the Genoese attempted their first Atlantic exploration when merchant brothers Vadino and Ugolino Vivaldi sailed from Genoa with two galleys, but disappeared off the Moroccan coast, feeding fears of oceanic travel.[52][53] From 1325 to 1354, a Moroccan scholar from Tangier, Ibn Battuta, journeyed through North Africa, the Sahara desert, West Africa, Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East and Asia, having reached China. After returning, he dictated an account to a scholar he met in Granada, The Rihla ("The Journey"),[54] the unheralded source on his adventures.[55] Between 1357 and 1371 a book of supposed travels compiled by John Mandeville acquired popularity. Despite the unreliable and often fantastical nature of its accounts, it was used as a reference[56] for the East, Egypt, and the Levant in general, asserting the old belief that Jerusalem was the centre of the world. Following the period of Timurid relations with Europe, in 1439, Niccolò de' Conti published an account of his travels as a Muslim merchant to India and Southeast Asia. In 1466–1472, Russian merchant Afanasy Nikitin of Tver travelled to India, which he described in his book A Journey Beyond the Three Seas.
These overland journeys had little immediate effect. The Mongol Empire collapsed almost as quickly as it formed and soon the route to the east became more difficult and dangerous. The Black Death of the 14th century also blocked travel and trade for a time.[57]
Religion played a critical role in motivating European expansionism. In 1487, Portuguese envoys Pero da Covilhã and Afonso de Paiva were sent on a covert mission to gather intelligence on a potential sea route to India and inquire about Prester John, a Nestorian patriarch and king, believed to rule over parts of the subcontinent. Covilhã was warmly received upon his arrival in Ethiopia, but forbidden from leaving.[58]
During the Middle Ages, the spread of Christianity throughout Europe fueled the desire to sermonise in lands beyond. This evangelical effort became a significant part of the military conquests of European powers, like Portugal, Spain, and France, often leading to the conversion of indigenous peoples, voluntarily or forced.[59][60]
Religious orders such as the Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians, and Jesuits partook in most missionary endeavours in the New World. By the late 16th and 17th centuries, the latter's presence increased as they sought to reassert their power and revive the Catholic culture of Europe, which had been damaged by the Reformation.[61]
The Chinese had wide connections through trade in Asia and been sailing to Arabia, East Africa, and Egypt since the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907). Between 1405–21, the third Ming emperor Yongle sponsored long range tributary missions in the Indian Ocean under the command of admiral Zheng He.[62]
A large fleet of new junk ships was prepared for the international diplomatic expeditions. The largest of these junks—that the Chinese termed bao chuan (treasure ships)—may have measured 121 metres, and thousands of sailors were involved. The first expedition departed in 1405. At least seven well-documented expeditions were launched, each bigger and more expensive than the last. The fleets visited Arabia, East Africa, India, Malay Archipelago and Thailand (then called Siam), exchanging goods along the way.[63] They presented gifts of gold, silver, porcelain and silk; in return, received such novelties as ostriches, zebras, camels, ivory and giraffes.[64][65] After the e