The Age of Exploration

ARGH, MATEY! THE AGE OF EXPLORATION 1. Consider what you have already learned about European societies through the Middle Ages and Renaissance. What ideas and conditions may have caused Europeans to explore different parts of the world? The drive for exploration was potential wealth and prosperity of new places, glory, and also the spread of your religion as well as just basic curiosity. fl 2. Look closely at the map labelled “Early European Exploration”. This map shows the routes and dates of early European exploration. Look at Portugal, Spain, England, and France. What do you notice about their location? How might their location have in uenced the decision of their rulers to explore? They were all very close by, and I think they wanted to expand their societies to other lands. fi 3. Read the following quotation from a crew member on the rst voyage of Vasco da Gama. Based on the quotation, what forces motivated Portuguese mariners to explore? The motivators for the Portuguese was that they wished for more riches and a better life, and thought they could obtain it from spices. 4. Look closely at the painting "America" by Theodor de Bry. What does this painting reveal about the European motivation to explore? Look at how the Taino people are portrayed in this painting. How might images such as this painting have affected the European perspective on Indigenous peoples? Paintings like this might make people think that the Taino people are uncivilized and primitive, and are just waiting to be used as a resource. The Taino people are represented as primitive people, with many spices and gold objects. fl fl 5. Look closely at the drawing of John Cabot arriving on the shores of what he called New Found Land. This drawing was created by A.S. Warren for an American magazine in 1855. Cabot is carrying a ag to claim the territory for England. What does the practice of planting a ag that represents royalty or a country tell us about Europeans’ reasons for exploring? Planting a flag usually represents claiming something for one person or organization. The reason they wanted to plant the flag was to claim the new place as Europe’s own fi 6. Watch the following Heritage Minute that reenacts a moment off the coast of Newfoundland in 1497 when John Cabot and his crew encounter cod sh so thick that they slow the ship. When Cabot recounts this story to the court of Henry VII in London, what point does he make? What connection can you make between this story and Captain Phillips? Cabot makes the point that the fish could feed their kingdom “until the end of time” he also says: “there is no more need for Iceland” because they have so many fish here. A connection I made between captain Phillips and the heritage minute was that this was how overfishing started, because they thought the fish could feed them forever, but in the end couldn’t, which also happened in Somalia and started the piracy business. fi fi 7. The rst quote below from Jacques Cartier’s journal is commonly cited as evidence to support a traditional view of France’s motivation to explore. The second quote is from a historian writing in 2003. How do these quotes t the framework of the “Three Gs”: gold, glory, and God? The first quote represent glory and god, because they showed their dominance and religion in such a showy way. The second quote speaks of how much wealth and gold can come from the exploration, which was what drove the age of exploration.