RUNNING HEAD: European Exploration and Conquest 1

Age of European Exploration and Conquest.

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The European states embarked on global explorations from one corner of the globe to another in

the 15th century. These opened up a new chapter in world history, which was the age of

exploration or discovery. This spanned mostly in the 15th century and the 16th century with a few

traces of exploration still going on in the 17th century. They explored Africa, the Far East and the

Americas. This age of exploration developed alongside the Renaissance where by the two

periods acted as distinct transitional moments. This was the movement from the middle age to

the early modern period (Burk, 2009). The advancement of the exploration ventures overseas

fueled the competition between the enlarging European empires like England and Spain. The

other factor was the battle for supremacy in religion, domination, power and profits. This

expanded the influence of the European empires as well as the size.

The reasons that caused this scramble for territories were politics, profits, religion and the need

for influence. By the time that European empires decided to explore the world, other empires

were already at it and they had become so strong and renowned. An example is the Ottoman

Empire, which rose to prominence in the 14th and the 15th centuries (Sider, 2007)

. The Ottoman Empire gained control of the critical trade centers and routes between Europe and

Asia. Trade ensured that an Empire was strong enough to run its endeavors. It also allowed it to

acquire weaponry to strengthen its army. At one time in the year 1453, the Ottoman Empire

conquered an ancient Christian city called Constantinople, which straddled Asia & Europe. This

victory obviously rippled feathers across the territories.

This alarmed the European Rulers. The two main reasons was the trade that they were loosing

with Asia, and the military might of the Ottoman Empire. They figured they would be their next

target. At the time, also Europe was facing its own challenges within its territories. Warfare,

transport issues and low agricultural produce made it hard for the people to survive. They
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therefore had a shorter life span and life was difficult. Europe was also deficient in a centralized

political authority, which saw the aristocrats, and nobles enjoy unfairly more income than the

peasants and the craft workers. Europe faced many calamities within the years of 1340 and early

1350s (Sider, 2007)

. As much as the deaths that followed because of these calamities reduced the pressure of the

population in Europe, it triggered the need for exploration and thus they ventured out into other

parts of the world.

Merchants and bankers devised ways, of transferring the money that they generated from trade to

exploration. This money found its use in new technology trading ventures and later into colonial

enterprises.

Politics and economic motives are among the main factors that led to the age of European

exploration. Before the 16th century, the campaigns introduced Europe to the luxuries and the

goods from the East this accelerated the age of European exploration. Goods like spices started

becoming basics and they were costlier every passing day. The intermediaries made the prices to

get too high and this led to the Europeans establishing a new route, which led to political unrests

and new conquests. This competition was important to them so that they could get these goods at

cheaper prices.

Religion was another factor that led to European exploration and conquests. This was a powerful

motive, whereby the rulers of the religious empires like France, Portugal and Spain also

expressed their commitment to converting the people of the world to their religion. This tied to

the search for wealth of course. This is because religion brought people together and this would

make them to be less reactive to penetration of rule and the extraction of their resources as well
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as smoother dealing in trade. There were also those who travelled to America for instance as a

means of escape because of restrictions on their religious practice back at home.

The love of adventure also led to some people leaving their country in search of fascination and

the cure of their own curiosity. Myths from Africa also fueled this curiosity. Technology

advancements also made it easier for explorers to venture out further than they could initially and

this enabled them to see the world further than they could on their older models of ships and

navigation mechanisms.

Portugal was more interested in expanding their territories. They went ahead and conquered

other territories. In the 1420s century, the Portuguese conquered Madeira and Azores. They went

ahead to explore the West African Coast between the 1430s and 1440s (Burk, 2009). In 1488,

Dias passed through the Cape of Good Hope, Vasco da Gamma reached India later in 1498, and

Cabral discovered Brazil in 1500. This clearly show that there more exploration ventures more

than conquering ventures at that time.

The Spaniards were also interested in Leisure exploration between the 1490s up to the 1540s.

Columbus sailed a lot and brought back with him goodies from the new world (Burk, 2009).

This was between 1492 and 1502. In 1508 to 1513, the Spaniards expanded to the Caribbean,

conquered the Aztecs in between 1519 and 1521 and in the 1530s they managed toe seize the

Incas. They would later come to discover silver in 1540.

These explorations opened the new world and the interests of the explorers changed with time

from just conquering territories to extracting whatever they could get of value from the territories

as well as trading with the people they met there. This influenced their settlement in the end.
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References

Burk, K. (2009). Old world, new world: Great Britain and America from the beginning. New

York: Grove Press.

Sider, S. (2007). Handbook to life in Renaissance Europe. New York: Oxford University Press.