The Age of Exploration Essay

The Age of Exploration was a time period that has had significant influences in the modern world. It was the moment in which Europe was brought out of the Dark Ages and into an era of discovery. The risks taken within the 15th and 18th century allowed both positive and negative outcomes to be introduced to the European Exploration. There were many motives for this era, and many outcomes came about. However, they were both negative and positive. To summarize the motives of this age, a simple combination can be stated. The main purposes of the Age of Exploration was God, Gold, and Glory.

The “age of exploration” was caused by the growth of external foreign empires that took control over important trade routes and threatened the European faith. European Christians were under constant attack from the growing power of the Turks. They lost a lot of territories to the muslim faith. The Turks conquered the Byzantine Empire and blocked the European Christians from trading with Asia. This was a big problem for European Christians because their economy relied heavily on taxes from trading.

The age of exploration was a time period that brought two different worlds together. European explorers were able to use the navigation to discover the new world. Theirs discovers caused a great change in both worlds but it also brought negativity to both worlds. In document 3 it talks about one of the causes of European exploration was different explorers had different reasons to explore the new land. Some went for wealth, glory, and gold, while others travel for their own interest.

The reason America was discovered in the first place was because Columbus was looking for a water route to Asia. Columbus was sailing to avoid the tax and unfriendliness of the Ottoman empire. When Columbus realized that he was not in Asia and instead was in an whole new world basically, he sent captured indians back the Pope to show him that the Natives could be used for labor. After this, many conquistadors flooded to America looking for wealth and profit. Some well known conquistadors we're Hernan Cortes, who took over the Aztec Empire and all of their wealth and sent it back to Europe. Francisco Pizarro was an conquistador who dominated the Incas and sent the gold and silver back to Europe. Many other Spanish people saw the wealth was brought back and thought they could get in on the loot also. Colonization boomed after wealth came back to Spain. Another example of why wealth was an motivator for colonization is the population increase in Europe. Since more people we're being born, landlords we're profiting off lending land to serfs. With all the money the landlords we're gaining, they wanted to spend that money on new, luxurious items such as cotton and sugar. Since the demand for these products we're high, more and more people flooded to America to gain the new exotic items that we're not previously available. Both religious conversion and desire for wealth had an significant impact on the lives of Native Americans and

The Age of Exploration made a huge impact on history as we know it. The Age of Exploration started in the 14th century and ended around the late 17th century; when European countries were looking for the three G's : God,gold and glory.The three G’s were reasons for Europeans to explore and discover the world, used in the Age of Discovery. The first G :God- Europeans felt that they had this responsibility to convert non-Christians to Christianity. The second G: Glory for the national honor and pride for discoveries .This helped promote individualism the quality of being individual; served as a motivating factor for explorers to seek fame and glory by conquering far away lands. The last G: Gold drove which helped drive the wealth of European nations which helped with the Commerce Revolution, new trade routes for countries and their direct access to the market.

European nations in the 15th century began exploring new lands with three motives: religion, wealth, and glory. It was made possible by advances in naval fleet building and navigation, first pioneered by the Portuguese. Europeans began to be involved in extensive exploration, coming in contact with Africa, Americas and their prime target Asia. The main targets of the pioneering Portugese and Spanish was to find and alternate trade route for the Indies trade and also promote Christianity to the new lands. As the century unfolded, the search for newer territories to colonize and shortern routes to the exotic land of spices and silk became the initial driving force for the intensive early exploration by the Europeans .

The Spanish and the English both had similar economic and cultural responses towards the Native Peoples in North America during the time before seventeen fifty. Before fourteen ninety-two Europe was vastly over populated and many luxury goods were very expensive. This was because in places such as Spain and England almost all of the land had been used up. Also during this time, Portugal had control over the easiest waterway to Asia and getting goods such as spices and silks from there without going overseas took a lot of time and money. This lead to investors in Spain sending Columbus on a journey to find another way to Asia to the west instead of going around the tip of Africa.

*The Age of Exploration saw searches of wealth, new lands, and conversion of christianity. Europeans ed the first globe trading empires and would they would make trips to the western hemisphere.

Religion was not a major reason for European exploration because many of the European traders and travelers wanted to get rich by finding gold or some other valuable object, people wanted to travel to another place because of their country’s poverty, disease, or and economic backwardness, and also that the Europeans started traveling more ever since their technology and navigation was more developed.

During the Renaissance many people were curious about the world, and had a desire to trade. This led to the Age of Exploration, during this time many nations grew more powerful and influenced the world. Europeans started to explore the world for gold. However while on this journey many European explorers did things that were great. Such as taken away natives land and rights, killing and mistreating natives, and lastly bringing a disease that killed thousands. So you then start to ask should these people be remembered today even with all the bad things they’ve done and brought to the world. I believe that European explorers, conquistadors and settlers from the Age of Exploration should no longer be glorified and celebrated in Modern times.

The time period Europeans started to develop officially began in the 15th century and lasted through the 16th century. This period of time symbolizes the time of exploration when Europeans started to explore around the world by land in search of new trading routes, wealth, and knowledge. Many nations were in search of goods, however, the spark for exploration was the curiosity of the new routes for spice and silk exchanges. The impact of the Europeans development would affect the society permanently in the future. Therefore, religion was not the most important factor leading Europe to explore in the 15th and 16th centuries. Instead economics was the most important reason followed by religion and technological advances.

Spanish and English had similar motivations for exploration of the New World, such as gaining land, goods from the natives, and gold. However, their motivations also differ greatly. The Spanish conquistadors also gained slaves from the native people, as well as spreading the word of Christianity. The English settlers came to the New World to get away from the religious oppression in England and to practice religion freely, and to grow tobacco to send back to England. The Spanish gained much more land quickly because, upon landing in places like the Caribbean and Brazil, because of their conquering and enslaving of the natives. The English came to the New World much less prepared,

During the 15th and 16th century, exploration became the new norm of society. Each individual country had their own motives, reasons and goals regarding voyages across land and sea. For instance, Christopher Columbus, in the name of Spain, voyaged out to find an alternative route to Asia. The Portuguese, tried to increase their knowledge about trading. Moreover, while some traveled to increase their powers, Zheng He, of China, traveled to discover raw resources and generate more capital into China’s economy. If we compare the maritime policies of the kingdom of Spain and Portugal on the one hand and the Ming Empire on the other the differences in motives clearly outweigh the similarities between these two societies. For example, the Kingdoms of Spain and Portugal traveled to spread Christianity, to gain land, to rule over new subjects and to spread their power throughout the different continents, while as the Ming Dynasty was only interested in capital and new/raw resources.

The Age of Discovery, also known by others as the “Age of Exploration”, was a period starting in the 15th century, lasting for over 200 years, and was conceived by the pioneer Portuguese and Spanish explorers in their search for precious metals and very costly spices, such as saffron and cardamom. Although the expansion of knowledge about the world was a good intention, it ultimately turned out be have extremely severe consequences, which its effects are still being suffered to this day!

Arising out of the “Dark Ages” was the very weak Europe. After taking death tolls from the black death which was devastating to the European population, and also poverty spread around the entirety of Europe, the population felt stuck. In the early 1400s, the Europeans began to set out and explore the world by settling colonies in the Americas, along the coast of Africa, and parts of India and Southeast Asia. This is referred or known as the Age of Exploration. The Age of Exploration was caused by advances in technology and it was powered by the motivation for glory, religion, economic factors, and much more. The push factors and the causes of European exploration lead to a numerous amount of accomplishments ranging from new colonies/territories to bringing in wealth. If the Europeans had not had some of the push factors the Age like the fall of Constantinople, Columbus discovering the “New World” and economic reasons European Exploration would have never begun, or it would’ve taken many more years.