Explorations of European
Hello, everyone in class 22. My presentation topic this week is about the motivations of Europeans' explorations by 15 century. The Age of Exploration or Age of Discovery as it is sometimes called, officially began in the early 15th century and lasted until the 17th century. Also, the Renaissance encouraged a spirit of adventure and curiosity. Europeans had not been completely isolated from the rest of the world before the1400s. Beginning around 1100, European crusaders battled Muslims for control of the Holy Lands in Southwest Asia. Crusader means people who believe there idea is right. In 1275, the Italian trader Marco Polo reached the court of Kublai Khan in China. The most important part here is that Europeans were not very interested in exploring foreign country. That changed by the early 1400s. The desire to grow rich and to spread Christianity, coupled with advances in sailing technology, stimulated an age of European exploration. The exploration began when Europeans started to find new goods, trading partner, and trade routes. Also there are some explorer that sailed off just to learn something more. No matter the reason is, from 15 to 17 century, Europeans developed a lot in geographic knowledge. Even there are some famous explorer who had much desire of exploration, they needed ships, crews, food, and many other supplies. So they had to require those things to the government. However, the government in 15 century of Europe didn't support them well. Then, for the European countries who supported the explorers, why would they do it??
Many nations were seeking to find golds or silvers like Columbus. However, the main reason for the exploration was to find routes for trading and spices. For Europeans, those spices that they wanted was not growing in their country. So they had to go to China, Japan, Indies to get the spices. It was very difficult to get the spices from Asia to Europe. Spices had to be brought across thousands of miles of dangerous mountains and deserts by spice traders, with thiefs waiting to rob the spice. The only thing they could choose was to bring the spices by ship, but the sea voyage was also dangerous because of pirates and storms. Since it was so difficult to get spices from Asia to Europe, spices were very expensive. Also, the desire for new sources of wealth was the main reason for European exploration. After the Crusades war ended, Europeans continued to demand such spices such as nutmeg which is kind of a plant, ginger, and pepper. All of this flavor was needed for Europe. Because it is a good supply for merchants. They could charge high prices and thus make great profits.
However, the Ottoman Empire took control of Constantinople in 1453, he blocked European access to the area, severely limiting trade. In addition, he also blocked access to North Africa and the Red Sea which is two very important trade routes to the Far East. Let's make an example of Columbus. Towards the end of the 15th century, Europeans began to want spices and other things from the East like I said. The trade route to the East was difficult to walk on mountains or other ways. Columbus felt like he could find an ocean route to the East even though most people believed he would sail off the edge of the Earth because people thought the earth was flat. He convinced Queen Isabella of Spain to support his exploration to find a trade route. While he was doing his exploration, what he found was West Indies, the islands of Caribbean. Even though he made a mistake about the trade route he found gold. Later the French came to North America to hunt for animal furs to make fur coats for the growing European middle class. Soon the English came to North America to settle on the land. In the South the settlers used slave labor to produce cotton to send back to England where it was eventually woven into cloth by workers in the mechanized mills powered by coal. In Haiti, the French came to grow cane for the sugar which more and more Europeans wanted to use. Growing cane was labor intensive so the French used slaves to increase their profit on the cane plantations. If I summarize Columbus' exploration and the things that happened later in order, it is trade, selling goods and then the colonization. I have gave an example of Columbus and we can see that even it's not the trade routes, by doing explorations, Europeans found a lot of things. This is the reason why Europeans liked to explore. However, there is one reason that they could explore better. That is the technology. During the 1200s, it would have been nearly impossible for a European sea captain to cross 3,000 miles of ocean and return again. The main problem was that European ships could not sail against the wind. In the 1400s, shipbuilders designed a new vessel and the caravel. The caravel was stronger than simple designed vessels. In addition, triangular ships which was made from the Arabs allowed to sail effectively against the wind. Europeans also improved their navigational techniques. To know better about their location at sea, sailors used the astrolabe, which the Muslims had perfected. The astrolabe was a brass circle with carefully tied rings marked off in degrees. Using the rings to sight the stars, a sea captain could calculate their place. Explorers were also able to know their direction by using a magnetic compass, a Chinese invention.
By researching my presentation, I realized that Europe long time ago was not very developed. However, I think the reason that Europeans are developed today was because of their passion. When they are curious, they are doing research until they find it out. I hope that Korea could be a country like that.
The Motivation of European's Exploration
class 22
Park Sun Kyu
Reason of exploring
● Finding trade routes
● Getting gold or silver
● Trade with Asia countries and getting spices
● Ottoman Empire took control of Constantinople in 15 century so they had to find new routes to go to Asia.
● It was so hard to go on the other ways like mountains or deserts.
● Many thiefs waiting to steal spices.
(Europeans wanted spices like pepper, nutmeg which is kind of a plant, and ginger)
The things that helped the exploration
● astrolabe-the thing that tells you the place where you are by using stars.
● magnetic compass
-Ships
● triangular ships- allowed to sail effectively against the wind(made in Arabs)
● New designed Vessel- It is a ship which is bigger than a boat but when shipbuilders designed the vessel again, it became much stronger.
● new designed caravel- It is small boat but it became much stronger and much useful than the old designed vessel.
Thank you for reading!!!
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