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The Monroe Doctrine was an American Diplomatic Decree protecting all western hemispheric countries from further European Expansion. It was passed in the administration of James Monroe but was really written by John Quincy Adams. The only reason this decree carried any weight was due to the fact that the British Government supported it.
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Italian explorer who came to the Americas under the French Flag. He is regarded as the first European to truly explore the Atlantic North American Coast since the norse Vikings. Verrazzano explored the areas of what is now present day North Carolina, South Carolina, and the New York Harbor
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The Northwest passage was a goal of many explorers who set foot on the American continent. They were looking for a river route that could cut across the continent and reach the west coast. However, this did not exist. Many explorers devoted their careers to finding this passage, including Henry Hudson who died when his crew mutinied in the process
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This process involved the trading that was an exchange of ideas, plants, culture, disease, and food from the Old World (Europe) to the New World (America) and vice versa. This was named after Christopher Columbus, who was the first explorer to reach the American Continent
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This treaty was a document that divided all lands discovered in the New World between Spain and Portugal. They were the two main superpowers at this point and realized this would be necessary to avert any potential conflict.
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| Who was the first person to circumnavigate the globe? |
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| Ferdinand Magellan. Magellan did this in the years 1519-1522. However, he does not truly get credit for this due to the fact that he died during the voyage. |
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Another Italian explorer who is also credited with being the first person to reach North America. However Cabot only hit Newfoundland while Verrazzano hit what is now known as NC and SC
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| Prince Henry the Navigator |
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Through Prince Henry's (1394-1460) sponsorship of the exploration of the African coast, Portugal was able to take the lead in the European age of expansion. His foundation of a school for navigators in 1419 greatly increased the number of Portuguese fleets that gradually moved further and further down the African coastline.
As a result of these regular expeditions, the Portuguese brought home thousands of black Africans and gold home to Port Lisbon which in turn made the nation very wealthy.
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The Atlantic Slave Trade, aslo known as transatlantic slave trade, was the trading of primarily African people to the American colonies and wealthy Europeans. The slave trade lasted through the 16th-19th centuries. Most enslaved people were shipped from West Africa and Central Africa and taken to North and South America to labor on sugar, coffee, cocoa and cotton plantations, in gold and silver mines, in rice fields, or in houses to work as servants.
The top exporters of slaves by rank were:
The Portuguese and Brazilians
The English
The French
The Spanish
The Dutch
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Mercantilism is an economic theory, considered to be a form of economic nationalism, in which the prosperity of a nation is dependent on its supply of capital. The capital is represented by bullion (gold, silver, and trade value) held by the state, which is best increased through a positive balance of trade with other nations (exports minus imports). Mercantalism dominated Western European economic policies from the 16th to the late-18th century.
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Vasco da Gama (1460-1524) was the first count of Vidigueira, Portugal. Also a Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama was one of the most sucessful in the European age of discovery. He commanded the first vessel to sail directly from Europe to India. As much as anyone after Henry the Navigator, Gama was largely responsible for Portugal's sucess as an early colonizing power.
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A Spanish and Portuguese term meaning "conqueror." Conquistador is a term that applied to the Spanish soliders, explorers, and adventurers that brought much of the Americas under the control of Spain from the 15th-19th centuries post Chirstopher Columbus's discovery of the New World in 1492.
Hernán Cortés and Pedro de Alvarado were the conquerors of the Aztec Empire.
Francisco Pizarro conquered the Incan Empire.
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Refers to the British (est. 1600) and Dutch (est. 1602) East India Companies of Europe.
Both were early joint-stock companies that were formed initially to trade with Eastern India, the Indian sub-continent, and China. The East India Company traded mainly in cotton, silk, indigo dye, saltpetre, tea, and opium. However, it also came to rule large swathes of India, exercising military power and assuming administrative functions over its commercial pursuits.
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| Economic and Cultural Impact of the Age of Discovery on Europe |
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As a result of the Age of Discovery, the European economic center shifted from the Mediterranean to Western Europe. Also, the introduction of luxury goods (i.e. sugar, silk,spices, silks and chinawares) and increased wealth to the Europe and its marketplaces rendered many social changes (via inflation). The surge of wealth, in Spain particularly, lead to a major inflation cycle resulting in what is known as the price revolution.
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