Reasons+for+European+Expansion+Age+of+Encounters

Why Europe? Why Then?
As Candice Millard noted in her review of the book ("Fantastic Voyages," The New York Times Book Review, December 6, 2006, p.51), the challenges of exploration were immense: Sailors had to go where no one had gone before, without the benefit of maps or modern navigational tools. "On land, explorers faced rugged mountains, polar wastelands and seemingly endless deserts." In New Mexico, Fernandez-Armesto quotes one traveler's account of "dunes where the glare was so fierce that his eyes roasted and seemed to burst from their sockets. The horses were blinded and stumbled helplessly. The men breathed fire and spat pitch."

If the voyages were such a tremendous hardship, why did so many explorers nonetheless go forth? For some, it was for the "glamour of great deeds." But soon, exploration became a means for national power for countries. There were several unique factors operating in Europe from the late 15th to 18th centuries which made Europeans, and not other world regions, the world's most prolific explorers. These factors and subsequent events had a tremendously large impact on the course of world history. It is why the Americas were colonized by and today are populated mostly by Europeans, rather than Native Americans or Asians.
 * [[image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/English_school_-_c._1575%2C_the_Henry_Grace_%C3%A0_Dieu_%28The_Great_Harry%29%2C_oil_on_panel%2C_Sotheby%27s_sale_L09635%2C_Oct._29%2C_2009.jpg width="452" height="379" align="left" caption="English Sailing Ship, 1575"]] ||
 * English Sailing Ship, 1575 ||

Since the Middle Ages, European voyages of exploration to the Middle East and the Far East had brought back significant consumer goods and popular stories about the fortunes which were there for the taking. With the Mongol conquests in the 13th century, trade routes were opened up through Central Asia that allowed Europeans a much easier and more friendly path. Most famously, the Venetian trader Marco Polo traveled to modern-day China in the 13th century, where he met Kublai Khan. Polo's immensely popular book, usually referred to in English today as //The Travels of Marco Polo//, told of the masses of gold and spices in the Far East. This served as an inspiration to later generations of explorers, including Christopher Columbus. Advancements in shipbuilding and navigation allowed for easier passage across the Atlantic Ocean. Click here to learn more about these technologies. These advances made the long voyages much more feasible (and a much better investment for European governments) than they had been previously. Ferdinand Magellan in his voyage around the world which paved the way for the Portuguese Empire had an interesting and novel mission - learn more about it here Mercantilism was the dominant economic policy of European nations from the 16th to 18th centuries. In the mercantilist system, nations tried to accumulate as much wealth and power as possible through a positive trade balance. Huge, powerful, and often absolutist governments tried to maximize wealth by dominating the world's material resources believing that wealth and power were determined by the amount of capital a nation controlled. This emphasis on wealth accumulation was extremely influential in motivating overseas expansion. Under mercantilist philosophy, lands overseas not under jurisdiction of a clear state (the entire "New World" of the Americas, for example) were untapped frontiers just waiting to be extracted for their significant natural resources. The most prized resource was gold, and Europeans at the time believed the New World was teeming with gold. The mercantilist system encouraged competition among states, which in turn resulted in a surge of nationalism from the governments and their populations. For people like the monarchs of Spain, France, England, and other European nations, overseas expansion wasn't just about gaining wealth and prosperity, it was also about proving your nation's greatness on the world stage. In his book //Guns, Germs, and Steel// (see below) author Jared Diamond has suggested that the fragmentation of Europe into several states, rather than a unified whole (like China) provided powerful motivation for greater expansion and wealth/power accumulation. The Protestant Reformation, began in 1517 with the publication of Martin Luther's //Ninety-Five Theses// (criticisms of the then all-powerful Roman Catholic Church), led to a greater breakup of ethnic and regional communities in Europe. While much of Europe had previously been at least loosely united under the religious authority of the Church (in the "World Christendom" of the Middle Ages), this led to further polarization and competition among nation-states in Europe. Rival nation states meant inevitable competition for wealth and power, of which exploration of the rest of the world would become a major stage. After initial contact with the East, a European market quickly developed for goods from India, China, Indonesia (South East Asia) in overland trade through the Middle East. This market included goods such as spices, sugar, metals, dyes, jewels, ivory, leather, silk, perfumes, and carpets. Due to past stories from men like Marco Polo, many Europeans and their governments saw fortunes ready for the taking. Also, unlike many other regions of the world Europe was having difficulty sustaining its society with the resources readily available. China, the greatest power of the 15th century, turned inward because it had the natural resources needed to sustain its society. Western Europe, with fewer resources or economic opportunities, chose to explore and expand. So the Atlantic, not the Pacific, became the "highway to the rest of the world." While the Protestant Reformation did lead to a breakdown of the "World Christendom" as stated above, the Christian missionary impulse was still a strong motivating factor in overseas expansion. In particular, the Spanish set up missions in the New World, seeking to convert the native peoples to Christianity. Accounts such as that of Bartolome de las Casas, a 16th century Spanish friar, show how conversion of the large native populations was a primary goal of many Spanish colonizers. De las Casas is also notable for his strong and brave criticism of many of his Spanish compatriots for their brutal treatment of the Natives. The "Columbian Exchange" refers to the widespread exchange of animals species, plant species, culture, technology, ideas, and epidemic diseases between the Americas and the Afro-Eurasian landmass after the widespread European exploration beginning in the late 15th century.
 * **Legacy of earlier voyages to the Middle East and Far East**
 * **Improved navigation, shipbuilding, and weaponry**
 * **Mercantilism**
 * **By the 18th century European States/centralized monarchs competed with rival monarchs to enhance power and wealth**
 * **Trades and manufacturing stimulate economic changes**
 * **Europeans question the church. Less emphasis on afterlife, more on improving current material conditions**
 * **16th and 17th century Break-up of World Christendom**
 * **Europeans have desire for new goods**
 * **Christianity**
 * **The "Columbian Exchange"**
 * Most relevantly for European expansion and eventual domination was the spread of epidemic diseases from Afro-Eurasia.
 * This spread resulted in the death of an estimated 80-95 percent of the Native American populations, who had developed no immunity to these diseases.
 * While a few diseases were also spread from the Americas to Europe, they did not have near the devastating effect of epidemics like measles and smallpox, which came to the Americas.
 * In //Guns, Germs, and Steel,// Jared Diamond calls this spread the "Lethal Gift of Livestock", arguing that many more diseases came from Afro-Eurasia mainly due to Europeans' close proximity to domestic livestock (most Native Americans did not have this livestock).