Chapter One Summary

European Encounters Across the Atlantic

 The Crusades from 1096 to 1270 increased European interest in commercial trade with Asia, particularly silks and spices; the Crusades were a failed attempt by the Europeans at the urging of the Catholic Church to take Jerusalem and Palestine away from Islamic forces

Other influences that led to interest in exploration included Marco Polo's tales, improvements in ships and navigation instruments, and contacts with Arab sailors

 However, the 1300s would see famine and bad weather, and then the Black Death, which wiped out 1/4 of the European population

 Long wars also plagued Europe, such as the Hundred Years War between France and England

 Nation states, led by monarchs, began to diminish the power of noblemen

 The Catholic Church, the most powerful institution of the Middle Ages, sees its power decrease because of the military failure of the Crusades to retake the Holy Land of the Middle East from Islamic forces, and because of its internal corruption

 A movement to reform the Church in the early 1500s would result in a split in the Christian Church, with Protestants emerging as a powerful movement--the Reformation

 A rebirth, or Renaissance, emerged first in Italian city states such as Venice and Florence, that sparked an interest in the classic Greek and Roman texts, art and science beginning in the 1400s, fueled in part by commercial trade with Asia and contact with Arab science, art, etc.

 Land routes were used from Italy and elsewhere to China and India, though they were risky and time consuming

 Sea routes were seen as safer and faster, sailing around the coast of Africa, with Portugal taking an early lead

 Joint stock companies (early corporations) established to raise capital and spread risk; Virginia Company of London would fund the establishment of Jamestown in 1607 in hopes of economic gain

 Invention of Gutenberg's printing press in the mid 15th century with moveable type meant information now was much more easily spread across the continent, by books

 Improvements in mapmaking, navigation and sailing ships resulted in more effective exploration

 European monarchs sought gold and silver as to increase their power and wealth

 Christopher Columbus convinced the Spanish King and Queen to finance his trip across the Atlantic Ocean in an effort to reach Asia by sailing west, instead of east. He was unaware of the land mass of the western hemisphere and the true size of the planet

 Columbus made four trips to new world, seeking wealth for the Spanish; he never explored North America

 His second trip was a trip of conquest, with soldiers, colonists and priests

 The native peoples of the Caribbean would submit to Spanish rule and exploitation, or else perish

 Columbus ruled Hispaniola until 1500 and fell out of favor with Spanish rulers because of his failed promises of wealth for Spain and inability to suppress the rebellions that occurred

 Violence took many lives but it was the European diseases that would prove especially deadly to the peoples of the New World, with some estimates reaching 95% death rates

 As it became clear that slavery and plantations could not be adequately served by native peoples Africans were imported within 25 years of Columbus's arrival in the Caribbean

 The Atlantic slave trade, lasting into the 19th century, would claim at least 12 million people, harming African culture in ways hard to imagine

 Most slave labor was employed on sugar plantations in the Caribbean and South America; in North America rice and indigo plantations would be important in the Southern colonies; later tobacco and cotton plantations are also important

 European nations competed for an opportunity to participate and profit from the slave trade: it created vast amounts of wealth

 Spain and Portugal nearly went to war until the Pope negotiated a treaty in 1494 dividing up much of the western hemisphere, with Portugal receiving present day Brazil

 Spain would continue to exploit much of South America, Central America, the Caribbean, and present day Mexico while the Dutch, French and English focused on North America

 The Columbian Exchange: Corn, potatoes, squash, peppers, beans, tomatoes, tobacco, vanilla etc would go to Europe from the Americas; in return coffee, olives, onions, citrus fruits, bananas, grapes, sugar cane, wheat, rice, barley, oats, cattle, horses, sheep, pigs, etc would leave Europe for the Americas

 European diseases that would kill millions in the New World included smallpox, influenza, typhus, measles, malaria, diphtheria, and whooping cough (syphilis would travel to Europe from the Americas)

 The impact of Columbus's exploration would be the meeting of three worlds: European, Native peoples and Africans