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=Explain why European nations sent explorers westward and how overseas expansion led to the growth of commerce and the development of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.=

** European Expansion **

 * ** Bartolome De Las Casas **

** Early Explorers That Came to the Americas **

 * ====** Dramatic Event Page on Cahokia and Etzanoa, the first cities in the Americas **====
 * ====** Historical Biography page on Columbus, Magellan, Ponce de Leon and Vespucci **====
 * Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade **
 * ** Njinga Mbandi, Queen of Ndongo and Matamba **



European Expansion: Why Europe? Why Then?
For more resources, go to AP World History 4.1. See Grade 5.3 for more about European explorers and their encounters with native peoples during the Age of Exploration.

Go to World History I.20 more on Trans-Sahara and Atlantic slave trades.

Also, click here for an Interactive Map: Exploration of North America, 1492-1700 that shows the routes of 10 European explorers.

Click here for a video about the Treaty of Tordesillas, 1494 that divided the lands east and west of Atlantic Ocean between Spain and Portugal. **1494 Treaty of Tordesillas** Divided the newly discovered world into two spheres: Portuguese and Spanish.


 * Click here to read The Waldseemuller Map: Charting the New World from the Smithsonian Magazine.
 * The Map That Named America from the Library of Congress.

See Reasons for European Expansion in Age of Encounters.
For a engaging history of exploration, see //Pathfinders: A Global History of Exploration// by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto (W.W. Norton, 2006).

**Jared Diamond: Guns, Germs, and Steel** In his Pulitzer Prize winning 1997 book //Guns, Germs, and Steel//, author and professor Jared Diamond attempts to answer the question of why the general sweep of world history has been dominated by native Europeans, rather than native Americans or Africans or Asians.
 * His analysis attempts to answer a question like "Why did Spanish explorers discover and conquer the Aztecs, rather than the other way around?"
 * The link above is part 1 of a three part Discovery Channel documentary based on Diamond's book.
 * While Diamond's thesis goes much deeper than the focus of this page, it attempts to give a definitive answer to the question of "Why Europe?"

**Bartolome de las Casas** Bartolome de las Casas was a 16th century Spanish friar who traveled to the "New World" in the early years of Spanish exploration and eventually colonization.
 * He first went over as a missionary looking to spread the Christian faith, but later became a sharp critic of the brutal Spanish colonial policies.
 * His contemporary condemnation of Spanish colonial practices has made him a treasured primary source for many modern historians. The above website collects his writings and gives significant details about his life.

De Las Casas and the Conquistadors, National Humanities Center
 * [[image:primary_sources.PNG link="@http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/amerbegin/contact/text7/casas_destruction.pdf"]]Excerpts from A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1542)**

**Mercantilism** The popular policies of mercantilism in 16th-18th century Europe were undoubtedly one of the most powerful ideologies behind exploration and expansion. This link from the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics gives an in-depth explanation of mercantilism from an economic point of view.

Which of the following was not a goal of the Spanish colonial system in the Americas in the 16th through 18th centuries? ANSWER: C
 * [[image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Test_hq3x.png width="72" height="32"]] Test Question**
 * A - accumulation of wealth by conquering native populations
 * B - expanding the influence of the Roman Catholic Church
 * C - educating native populations to govern Spanish cities in the Americas
 * D - advancing Spanish interests in the global climate of competition


 * 1492: An Ongoing Voyage The Library of Congress offers a wide-ranging view of European voyages to the New World.
 * The European Voyages of Exploration: The Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries offers a wide-ranging overview of different explorers and different parts of the world.

**Early Explorers That Came to the Americas**
See Dramatic Event Page on **Cahokia, the first city in the Americas**

See Historical Biography page on Columbus, Magellan, Ponce de Leon and Vespucci


 * Cortes: Second Letter to Charles V
 * Massacre at the Festival of Toxcatl López de Gómara on Mexica Rebellion. These accounts describe the same massacre but from differing points of view, which highlights the biases present in many historical writings.

"The Broken Spears: An Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico" by Miguel Leon-Portilla.

Secrets of the Dead: a PBS special on the Aztec Massacre.

Timeline of Exploration 1492-1585: A timeline of European exploration of North America.

Timeline of World Exploration: Gives a timeline of world exploration, including names of many of the most famous and important European explorers.

European Exploration Game: Game available for download: a historical interactive experience where the player becomes the captain of a ship in the 15th century.



//Focus Question: How did the European expansion lead to the development of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade?//

 * [[image:Screen Shot 2017-02-21 at 10.27.35 AM.png link="@http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_history_of_american_slavery/2015/06/animated_interactive_of_the_history_of_the_atlantic_slave_trade.html"]]The Atlantic Slave Trade in Two Minutes: 315 Years/20,358 Voyages/Millions of Lives**

Link to Animated Map-Shows Major Parts of Triangular Trade

[|The Abolition of the Slave Trade: Interactive Timeline]

**African traditions of slavery/traffic in slaves for centuries before Portuguese sailed to Africa were not based on race and slaves typically served in households**
 * In the 16th century plantations in South America (Brazil) and the Caribbean growing sugar required workers
 * Native Indians were not able to do this hard work due to diseases
 * In 1518 the Spanish brought the first boatload of African Slaves directly to the New World
 * Africans were not susceptible to the ‘white man’s’ disease, most likely from years of Trans-Saharan trade they were able to build up immunity.
 * An estimated 11 million people were shipped to the Western Hemisphere
 * The 10 week journey is also referred to as the "Middle Passage”
 * Approximately 15 of every 25 people /slaves died on voyage


 * TransAtlantic Slave Trade**
 * ** See Special Topic page on Origins of Atlantic Slave Trade **

See Hell Below Decks for information on the life on a slave ship and here is a PDF which has a quick overview of the Middle Passage.
 * Atlantic Slave Trade: History Crash Course
 * Who worked slave ships?
 * Native Americans and Small Pox

Slavery and the Origins of Racism article by Lance Selfa from the International Socialist Review, argues that the economic basis of slavery as domination preceded slavery as a purely racial institution.


 * Atlantic Slave Trade Explained: "TedEd" clip about the Atlantic Slave Trade.


 * Slavery and the Southern Economy during the Antebellum Period This lecture discusses the importance of slavery to the economy in the southern states, which contributes to the reason that slavery survived in the United States for years after it had been disbanded in European nations.


 * The Middle Passage: Documentary about the Middle Passage, name given to the voyage of slave ships from Africa to the Americas.



[[image:Screen Shot 2016-01-04 at 11.33.12 AM.png link="@http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pwmn_2/hd_pwmn_2.htm"]]Njinga Mbandi, Queen of Ndongo and Matamba (1583-1663)

 * Nzinga: Queen of Ndongo**


 * [[image:Screen Shot 2016-01-04 at 11.35.30 AM.png link="@http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002301/230103e.pdf"]]Njinga Mbandi from UNNESCO**


 * The Enduring Power of Queen Njinga**

During the most active years of the Atlantic Slave Trade, from the late 15th through the middle of the 19th century, the region that saw the highest number of slaves imported was:
 * [[image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Test_hq3x.png width="72" height="32"]]TEST QUESTION**
 * A - British North America
 * B - Spanish America
 * C - British Caribbean
 * D - Continental Europe

ANSWER: C

Click here for an interactive map of the Triangle Trade 1. Rum & goods to Africa 2. Slaves to the West Indies 3. Sugar to New England

Lesson plan from PBS on the Food and the Columbian Exchange

Recommended Reading: "The Diligent: A Voyage Through the Worlds of the Slave Trade" by Robert Harms

Further information:
One major reason that European explorers looked to the west was that the Ottoman Turks in 1453 C.E., blocked the Middle East trade route to Italy. Europeans had to find a new way to acquire goods such as silks and spices upon which they have become dependent.

Europe had turned inward following its confrontations with the Muslim world in the Crusades. Following the consolidation of monarchical power and discovery of riches in the East by overland explorers such as Marco Polo, there was growing impetus to expand and seek out new markets and trading partners. Portugal led the way, followed closely by Spain.

Not powerful enough to expand within Europe or confront the growing Ottoman Empire in the East, they sailed south on improved ships using new navigational tools. In search of "God, Glory and Gold" and a way around the Muslim stranglehold on the spice trade, they traveled further afield, eventually rounding the Cape of Good Hope and reaching the Far East. A series of fortresses were built along the West and East coasts of Africa, into India and the East Indies in order to facilitate trade.

All these ventures went under the guise of serving to rescue non-Christian souls from eternal damnation first and foremost, and though this was used as a justification for their expansion and conquests, many Europeans firmly convinced themselves that what they were doing was beneficial. Though written in 1899, Kipling's poem The White Man's Burden is a sarcastically written response to this 'justification' of Western nations imposing themselves on 'lesser races'.

Europeans began trading in captured African slaves almost immediately, mostly for use as domestic servants in Europe. In search of an alternate route to the lucrative East Indies trade, Columbus enlisted the sponsorship of the Spanish to chart a new course there by sailing west - inadvertently opening up the so called New World to a restless Europe in search of adventure and profit. Before too long the Spanish and Portuguese were forced to compete with the English, Dutch and French for the spoils, eventually ceding North America, India and most of the West Indies to these upstarts.

www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/eurvoya/index/index.htlm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/triangular_trade http://www.pbs.org/wonders/fr_e3.htm http://www.geocities.com/david_navis/amhis/Explorer/explorereading.html http://africanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa101101a.htm