EUROPEAN EXPANSION (1450-1750)

  I. Causes of Expansion

1. Crusades & Renaissance: curiosity

The Crusaders encounter other peoples with other beliefs and customs while the Renaissance revived books that talked about other peoples.  This stimulated curiosity about other lands and other peoples. 

2. Reformation:  missionaries & refugees

Thousands of missionaries were sent out to convert the peoples that were being discovered outside Europe (esp. active were the Jesuits).  At the same time there many refugees fleeing persecution from the state churches of Europe. 

3. monarchs seeking revenues

The new nation states of Europe needed money to keep their bureaucracies and armies going, so monarchs were interested in profits to be had through commerce or acquiring the silver and gold in the New World. 

4. rise of European capitalism

As the population of Europe increased rapidly between 1450 and 1600, land hunger infested the aristocracy.  Besides new land, they coveted the fame and fortune they could win by exploring in the name of family, church, and king.  Merchants and shippers wanted to bypass intermediaries (particularly the Muslim and Venetian merchants) and go directly to sources (e.g., West Africa for gold, slaves, and pepper; India for pepper, spices and silks). 

5. technological advances

1) guns - the military application of gunpowder had been discovered.  By the 16th and 17th c. Europeans had hand-held firearms and more mobile field artillery. 

2) Sailing ship - Vessels (galleys) of the ancient world had been driven principally by oars and human energy.  That is fine for short distances in calm waters but not for crossing the Atlantic.  So the sailing ship was invented that was more maneuverable and faster but also had guns.  Now they would blow rivals out of the water rather than be forced to ram and board like the Arab galleys or Chinese junks had to do.

NOTE:  In addition, the compass and astrolabe freed them from land hugging voyages. 

 II. Portugal leads the Way

The Muslims controlled the eastern caravan routes (esp. after the Turks took Constantinople in 1453.  This resulted in rising prices in Europe and motivation for Portugal and Spain to discover new sea routes to the East.

1. Henry the Navigator (1394-1460)

Called "the Navigator" by English writers, this younger son of the king of Portugal is considered to be a pioneer of modern exploration, though he never himself went out on an exploring expedition.  He lived like a monk --supposedly died a virgin-- for 40 years in the fortress at Sagres (Sagresh) from which he sent an unbroken series of voyages into the unknown in the first modern enterprise of exploring.
      His motivation:  1) he had gold fever.  He wanted to divert the West African gold trade from Muslim caravans to Portuguese ships.  2) he hoped to revive the anti-Muslim crusade to which Portugal owed its existence as a state (feudal warriors had carve Portugal out of Moorish Iberia in the 12th century).  He was a crusader whose hopes of finding Christian allies in Africa against the Muslims were fueled by the myth of "Prester John," a Christian king of Christian Ethiopia who might help in another crusade against the infidels.  3) his court astrologers encouraged him by telling him his destiny was "to engage in great and noble conquests, and above all was he bound to attempt the discovery of things which were hidden from other men and secret" (Boorstein, The Discoverers 161).
      His court became a primitive Research and Development Laboratory.  Sagres became a center for cartography, for navigation and for shipbuilding.  Henry encouraged details to be marked accurately on navigation charts (had been haphazard up to now).  So to Sagres came sailors, travelers, and savants--Jews, Muslims, Arabs, Italians, Germans, Scandinavians, etc.--from all over adding new facts. 

2. Dias

Though Henry would send expeditions down the West African Coast, it will not be until 28 years later (1488) that Bartholomew Dias explores round the southern tip of Africa under King John II (r. 1481-1506).

      NOTE:  Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) of Genoa approached John about sponsoring a trip across the Atlantic to reach Japan (he underestimated the distance by 7000 miles because he was relying on the geography of Ptolemy and knew nothing of the Americas), but Queen Isabella of Spain would sponsor him.  He died after four attempts to reach the East, never realizing he had discovered a new world. 
    Euro-centrists may be in for a shock!  It appears that the Chinese may have found the New World years before Columbus and circumnavigated the world a century before Magellan.  Gavin Menzies, a former submarine commander in Britain's Royal Navy, in his book 1421:  The Year China Discovered America, recounts the amazing story of the largest fleet the world had ever seen sailing from its base in China on March 8, 1421.  The ships, huge junks nearly five hundred feet long and built from the finest teak, were under the command of Emperor Zhu Di's loyal eunuch admirals.  Their mission was "to proceed all the way to the end of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas: and unite the whole world in Confucian harmony.  Their journey would last more than two years and circle the globe.  For more information on this amazing discovery, click here.
 

3. Vasco de Gama (1469-1524)

De Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope and then went to India in 1498, thus establishing the first direct commercial route between Europe and the Far East.  Despite losing two of his four ships and 1/3 of his men, the pepper and spice he brought back was worth sixty times the cost of the expedition.  This broke the commercial monopoly of Eastern goods by Genoa and Venice.
      The Portuguese expended much of their exploratory efforts in the Indian Ocean and SE Asia--driving the Muslims from the Indian Ocean and dominating the spice trade of SE Asia.
      But by the turn of the 17th c. the Portuguese were on the defensive with the Turks in E. Africa, the Spanish in the Philippines, and the Dutch everywhere (forced the Portuguese in the 1630s from Indonesia, W. Africa, and Brazil=the end of the Portuguese empire. 

III. Spain

1. Columbus  (1451-1506)

After Columbus, the Spanish began to seek their fortune in the New World.  Columbus' voyage made possible the Spanish Empire in the New World, the biggest and richest of any empire until the 18th c. 

2. Vasco Nunez de Balboa

In 1513 he discovered the Pacific Ocean at the Isthmus of Panama. 

3. Ferdinand Magellan (actually he was killed and only one ship (the Victoria commanded by Juan Sebastian de Elcano with 18 men) circumnavigated the globe in 1519 confirming that Balboa was correct and Columbus wrong..

Though Magellan died in the Philippines in a fight with natives, one ship returned with 18 men from his expedition who had made it around the globe. 

4. Hernando Cortes

The lure of stories about gold and silver caused the Spanish to push West from the Caribbean.  Between 1519 and 1521 Cortes defeated the Aztecs, thereby conquering Mexico.  He was aided by allies among the Aztec tributaries who thought he was the legendary white-skinned god Quetzalcoatl who would return from across the sea. 

5. Francisco Pizzaro

Pizzaro defeated the Incas in Peru.  This resulted in removing the hoards of gold collected over the centuries by the native rulers, and just when this ran out the Spanish discovered silver at Potosi in upper Peru in 1545 and at Zacatecas in Mexico a few years later.

NOTE:  between 1500 and 1600 the population of natives went from c.20mil to 2 mil. from European diseases (dysentery, malaria, hookworm, small pox).  Result:   brought black slaves to work in the fields and mines (Indians were dying off and wouldn't cooperate anyway).

      After Pizzaro conquered the Incas in Peru, Spaniards moved South in Chile, then north into Ecuador and Columbia and Argentina.  By 1571 they had settled in the Philippines so that by 1622 it was a populous colony.  By 1600, though, the Spanish Empire was in decline as a result of Philip II’s wars and loss of the Spanish Armada in three naval adventures against England.  In addition, economic expansion was hindered by the Spanish disdain for business:  gentlemen who held land gained through military service and lived on rents felt that business was beneath their dignity and was for Muslims and Jews. 

IV. Netherlands

The inflation of the Price Revolution resulted in increased profits for merchants and greatly stimulated north European capitalism.  The economic collapse of Spain (and Portugal which was tied to Spain by the Habsburg king after 1580 when Philip II takes Portugal and their ships to attack England), exacerbated by Phillip II’s three bankruptcies hurt the Italian bankers (to whom he was in great debt) so that Antwerp became the center of banking as well as being the center for the English wool trade.  [Wow!  What a sentence, huh?] After the Spanish sack Antwerp in 1576, Amsterdam becomes a great economic center (as it still is today).
            The Dutch, rather than emphasizing quick profits like Spain and Portugal, invested in productive enterprises made possible by: 

1. maritime insurance – now investors no longer have to worry about losing everything when a ship sank!

2. joint-stock companies - now smaller investors could merge to raise money for expensive voyages for profit.  

By 1650 the Dutch Empire is flourishing trading in the Americas, Asia, Africa and the Pacific for furs, slaves, and sugar among other products.  Since they are only interested in commercial projects, unlike the Spanish and Portuguese they will not develop large settlements. 

 V. France & England

France will be distracted by the Catholic/Huguenot religious wars rather than concentrating on settlements in the New World.  Then the Thirty Years’ War will also distract them so that they will not build an empire until Louis XIV (r. 1643-1715).  Port Royal (Nova Scotia) will be the first French settlement in 1605.  In 1608 Quebec (just for fur traders at first) will be founded on the Saint Lawrence River with Montreal being established in 1642.
            England, too, is rather late in expansion compared to other active European states.  They did trade throughout Europe in the 16^th and 17^th centuries (wool, then guns and ship).   Expansion will be encouraged by a population boom (from 3-4 million), religious persecution of nonconformists, and a surplus of capital looking for investments.  In the 1540s English captains did engage in the slave trade and others (like Sir Francis Drake) will raid Spanish shipping.  By 1607 Jamestown, Virginia becomes the first English colony (Captain John Smith and Pocahontas).  In 1620 the Pilgrims land; in 1629 Massachusetts Bay Colony is founded near the later site of Boston; then Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, until by 1642 there are 25,000 English colonists.  (also 1613 Bermuda; 1620s islands of Caribbean). 

 VI. Expansion of Agriculture

1. The Price Revolution of the 16^th century refers to inflation caused by too many people with too much money chasing too few goods.  Spanish silver flooding the market used to be seen as THE cause, but now historians see the main cause is the rise in demand without a corresponding increase in output.  Another factor was bad weather and crop failures between the 1540s and 1570s.  Although inflation was only 2-3%, Europeans of the 16^th century were unprepared for rises in prices.  For instance, the cost of wheat rose 5 times more in the 1600s than in the 1400s.
   
2. This caused farmers to attempt to meet the rising demand by attempting to remove tenants from their manors.  Under the open field system tenants had hereditary rights under copyhold.  They were guaranteed hereditary rights to land in return for certain services and fees.  One right was access to the commons (pasture, woods and pond) as well as strips of arable land assigned to them.  Now there was a two-fold attack on the open field system:  enclosure, the depriving the tenant peasantry the use of the commons, and leasehold which changed the conditions of tenure so that the landlord could raise rents beyond the peasants’ ability to pay in order to get them off the land.

This is an important development in history:  subsistence farming is giving way to commercial agriculture (producing a surplus for the market place).  In England where the law of primogeniture decreed that the eldest son would inherit all the land, the yeoman farmer appeared.  These were men who might not own much land but they would rent enough to produce a marketable surplus.  The result of all this was an increase in rural poverty and violence with the mass evictions of tenant farmers.
      Commercial agriculture was also aided by better use of the land through convertible husbandry.  Invented by the Dutch, it was a way to combine the soil-depleting cereals with soil-restoring legumes and grazing to replace the old three field system where 1/3 of the land was left fallow.  The first couple of years would be devoted to cereals; the third year to peas or beans and the last two to pasture for grazing animals.  Convertible husbandry would be adopted by England and France in the late 17^th and 18^th centuries.  NOTE:  this development of commercial agriculture was very important for the possibility of industrialization where there is a need for agricultural production high enough to support urban populations. 

VII. Expansion of Trade & Industry

1. The Price Revolution was also a stimulus to trade and industry.  The growing income of landlords, merchants, and some peasants created a demand for consumer goods:  spices, sugar, farm products besides cereals—meat, cheese, fruit, wine, and vegetables.  In addition, the growth of nation states created a need for ships, weapons, uniforms, paper, etc.
2. This brought about a change in the nature of production:

Merchant capitalist—as markets expanded from local to regional and international, the merchant-capitalist would buy or produce where costs were the lowest and sell where prices and volume were the highest.  For example, in the Netherlands, the merchant capitalists would get raw wool from England or raw silk from Asia for craftsmen in the nearby villages for spinning, dyeing and weaving.  This is called the putting-out system.  This is an important step in the evolution of capitalism because it is a break with the guild system.  They were avoiding the guilds by having the work done in the countryside.  Rather than a distinction between the master and apprentice, it is now the merchant-owner and worker.
      Many innovations in business were occurring at the same time, including the origins of the modern check whereby depositor could issue written orders to their banks to make transfers to creditors, the widespread use of double-entry bookkeeping, as well as maritime insurance and joint-stock companies mentioned earlier.

3. The Growth of Capitalism

Capitalism involves private enterprise and free enterprise.  Private enterprise is when economic decision (what, how much, where and at what price to produce, buy and sell) are made by private individuals as owners, workers, or consumers.  Free enterprise occurs when decisions are made in response to market forces, the law of supply and demand.
    Capitalism involves three elements:  1) the acquisition and investment of capital to obtain profit; 2) private ownership of the principal means of production and distribution, and 3) a division in the productive and distributive process between owners of the capital (employees) and the laborers.  Capitalism cannot exist without the capacity and the willingness to invest and to take risks, which in turn presupposes the possibility of significant profits.  The  medieval concepts of the just price and the wrongfulness of usury (interest on loans purely for profit) were thus impediments to capitalist investment (Greaves 401).
    Industrial capitalism of the modern age is a few hundred years off.  What is occurring here is mercantile capitalism, in which governments are involved in regulating commerce in three ways:  1) governments were giant consumers (ships, weapons, uniforms, paper, luxuries at the king’s court, etc.); 2) governments of the maritime states encouraged overseas commercial and colonial activity; 3) governments had a policy of mercantilism, that exports should exceed imports.  Mercantilism caused governments to employ the poor, subsidize new industries, charter companies to engage in overseas trade, break down local trade barriers (guild regulations, internal tariffs) but it neglected the fact that the more a country buys from another country the more it can sell to that country because its purchasing power is greater.

Send comments and questions to Dr. Richard Baldwin, Gulf Coast State College.
This page last updated 3/17/12