Discovery

c. 1450-1750

Objectives

Explain how cross-cultural interactions resulted in the diffusion of technology and facilitated changes in patterns of trade and travel from 1450 to 1750.
Describe the role of states in the expansion of maritime exploration from 1450 to 1750.
Explain the economic causes and effects of maritime exploration by the various European states.
Explain the causes of the Columbian Exchange and its effects on the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.

Renaissance

Italian Renaissance works

Northern Renaissance works

Knowledge, scientific learning, and technology from the Classical, Islamic, and Asian worlds spread, facilitating European technological developments and innovation.

The Renaissance

The Scientific Revolution

Knowledge, scientific learning, and technology from the Classical, Islamic, and Asian worlds spread, facilitating European technological developments and innovation.

The Scientific Revolution

Transoceanic Travel

A Portuguese carrack as depicted in a map made in 1565.

The developments included the production of new tools, innovations in ship designs, and an improved understanding of regional wind and currents patterns—all of which made transoceanic travel and trade possible.
New state-supported transoceanic maritime exploration occurred in this period.

Transoceanic Travel

Portuguese Empire

The King's Fountain (c. 1570) depicts early globalization in Lisbon, Portugal. Trade goods from Japan and India are present. Around 10% of Lisbon's population had African ancestry found in all social classes. There are both black and white slaves present. Note the upper-class African knight in the lower right corner.

Lines dividing the non-Christian world between Spain and Portugal

nautical chart of Portuguese cartographer Lázaro Luís, 1563

Portuguese development of maritime technology and navigational skills led to increased travel to and trade with Africa and Asia and resulted in the construction of a global trading-post empire.

Portuguese India, with its capital in Goa, then often called in Europe the "Rome of the East"

Portuguese Empire

Spanish Conquest and Empire

Depiction of Taino encountering Christopher Columbus, engraving, ca. 1594, by Theodor de Bry

earliest European depiction of a man smoking tobacco

Aztec victims of smallpox from the Florentine Codex (compiled 1555–1576)

Vasco Nunez de Balboa

Spanish sponsorship of the voyages of Columbus and subsequent voyages across the Atlantic and Pacific dramatically increased European interest in transoceanic travel and trade.

The new connections between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres resulted in the exchange of new plants, animals, and diseases, known as the Columbian Exchange.
European colonization of the Americas led to the unintentional transfer of disease vectors, including mosquitoes and rats, and the spread of diseases that were endemic in the Eastern Hemisphere, including smallpox, measles, and malaria. Some of these diseases substantially reduced the indigenous populations, with catastrophic effects in many areas.
American foods became staple crops in various parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Cash crops were grown primarily on plantations with coerced labor and were exported mostly to Europe and the Middle East.
Afro-Eurasian fruit trees, grains, sugar, and domesticated animals were brought by Europeans to the Americas, while other foods were brought by African slaves.

Spanish Conquest

sistema de castas

A casta painting by Miguel Cabrera showing a peninsulare and mulatta

As a mullato slave, Juan de Pareja assisted famed painter Diego Velázquez who freed him the year Velázquez made this portrait of him.

Newly developed colonial economies in the Americas largely depended on agriculture, utilized existing labor systems, including the Incan mit’a, and introduced new labor systems including chattel slavery, indentured servitude, and encomienda and hacienda systems.
The new global circulation of goods was facilitated by chartered European monopoly companies and the global flow of silver, especially from Spanish colonies in the Americas, which was used to purchase Asian goods for the Atlantic markets and satisfy Chinese demand for silver.
Regional markets continued to flourish in Afro-Eurasia by using established commercial practices and new transoceanic and regional shipping services developed by European merchants.

State expansion and centralization led to resistance from an array of social, political, and economic groups on a local level.
Imperial conquests and widening global economic opportunities contributed to the formation of new political and economic elites in the Americas with the rise of the Casta system.
Slave resistance challenged existing authorities in the Americas.