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Narratives : Era of European Discovery http://www.zum.de/whkmla/sat/texts/narrdisc.html |
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By 1400, on the eve of the Era of European Discovery, Europe, Asia and Africa
formed part of a vast and ancient trading network, in which the Silk Road, the trade routes crossing
the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and the deserts of Arabia formed the main arteries, the
Muslim Near East, China and India the major participants. Moroccan Ibn Battuta (1304-1369) travelled
much of the Muslim world; he visited the East African coast, places in India and Central Asia. His
travelogue was widely read, but he was not regarded a discoverer; Islam had reached these
regions before him. The Chinese had explorers of their own; the most famous, Zheng He, between
1405 and 1433, undertook 8 expeditions, one of which took him as far as East Africa. For the
Chinese he was a discoverer, but then, he also was a Muslim; he traveled in the world of Islam,
probably with a guide familiar with the routes in the Indian Ocean. Europe, in this network of transcontinental and transoceanic trade, was located on the margin. Due to the population growth, the development of her economy ever since the Urban Revolution, it had become increasingly important as a market; cities such as Venice, Genoa, Florence had become rich by importing goods of luxury, such as sugar, pepper, glass, silk and other precious textiles, Egyptin cotton into Europe, at high prices. Europeans had only vague knowledge of the world beyond the coastlines of the Mediterranean Sea, as travels in the regions dominated by the Tatars (the Khanate of the Kipchak Tatars or the Golden Horde, respectively her successor states), by the Ottoman Turks and other successor states of the Seljuk Sultanate were too risky for most European merchants to try. In the late middle ages, most of the Venetian trade with the Levant was facilitated through Alexandria, the main port of Mameluk Egypt. Yet Europeans did have a vague idea of the world beyond; Alexander the Great had reached the Indus River; Marco Polo's book reported of the riches of China. Also, reports about the lands beyond the Atlantic existed, the Viking Greenland Saga (on the Viking discovery of North America, early 1th century) and reports about Irish monk Brendan (6th century). Europeans also had access to Muslim sources; the Catalan Atlas of 1375 is believed to have used Ibn Battuta's travelogue as a source. The Late Middle Ages had seen a transformation in communication; older travelogues were seen as a combination of incredible legend and credible, fact-based report; older maps as too inaccurate (early maps even show the island of Atlantis, in the middle of what now is known asd the Atlantic Ocean). When Dom Henrique (Prince Henry the Navigator) established his navigator's school at Sagres in 1433, he established new standards - his captains were charged with keeping captain's logs (diaries) and with drawing precise maps, based on measurements of the respective location (with compass). What students learn as discovery expeditions, often was the process of following up on information which had to be checked. Henry the Navigator only got the idea to start the entire undertaking after Moroccan prisoners reported that Morocco earned gold from her trans-Saharan trade, in exchange for salt. The Canary Islands had been discovered by the Aragonese in 1330, long before Henry the Navigator sent out his first captains. Yet the African coast opposite the Canary Islands must have appeared to 14th and 15th century sailors as uninhabitable, and the fact that the trade winds prevalent there always blow south left even adventurous natures with the feeling that, if they were to proceed further, how would they ever come back. Another problem was posed by the Church; Genesis reports that above the earth there is firmament; this description, by medieval artists was interpreted as the earth being a flat disc, the firmament a bowl over it. In the center of the flat earth was believed to be the land, on its rim the seas, below the earth hell; sailors who came close to the fringes of the disc, it was perceived, would be pulled down into hell. A stretch of sea where the wind always blew south invoked such fears. Henry the Navigator (1394-1460) is the central figure starting the Era of Discovery; his captains were reluctant to go further than obliged to by contract, and initially did not even dare to fulfil their contract. Henry hired the best mapmakers and instrument makers of the time at his school in Sagres. When Portuguese navigators developed the strategy of sailing against the wind (zigzagging), they figured out how to get beyond the Moroccan coast, and the process of discovery of the west coast of Africa was begun. The first major new region to be 'discovered' was West Africa. The West Africans, like the Europeans, hitherto formed a region on the margin of the vast trade network described earlier; they were familiar with the concept of trade, eager to buy and sell. The Portuguese did not attempt to conquer the country, and neither did the other European nations following them from the late 16th century onward; relations between Europeans and West Africans became symbiotic. The Portuguese got a reasonable amount of gold, ivory and other African products by trade. The Portuguese navigators, at the coastal point where they turned around, erected stone crosses, not only to mark how far they had sailed and measured the coast, but also to state that they took possession of the discovered land in the name of the King of Portugal. This step of taking possession was in name only for the African mainland; the Portuguese did procede to settle islands, most of which were uninhabited by the time of their arrival - Madeira, the Cape Verde Islands, Sao Tome. The rainforest region of the Congo Basin, the arid and semiarid regions of modern Namibia and the Cape Province were less inviting to the Portuguese; after the death of Henry the Navigator, the Portuguese continued on their discoveries with less enthusiasm. Expeditions had to be financed, and the coasts from the Ogoue River to the Cape showed little prospect for profit, were rather perceived as an obstacle on the map, blocking the route further east - again the Portuguese were following up sketchy, partially legendary information. They hoped to find India, and make contact with Prester John, a legendary ruler of a christian country located beyond the world of Islam, and a natural ally of the European christians in their struggle against Islam - the Portuguese navigators regarded themselves as crusaders, and at times are referred to as such in the sources. When Bartolome Diaz, in 1482, reached the Cape of Good Hope, he gave it that name because it provided a route to the Indian Ocean. He did not continue, though, and Portugal did not send another expedition until 1497. The moderate wealth Portugal's West Africa trade produced, the prospect of opening up trade routes with 'India' (describing all the lands behind the world of Islam, and believed to be fabulously rich) got adventurous navigators, such as Christopher Columbus, from Genoa in Italy, involved. After King John II. of Portugal declined the services Columbus offered, he approached the court of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon. Columbus did not want to interfere with the Portuguese, which were presumed to own the African coast, he wanted to try a westward route. What he needed was someone to finance his expedition. Ferdinand was skeptical, but Isabella supported Columbus; he got a fleet of three ships, was given the hereditary title of Viceroy over all lands he was to discover. In 1492 he reached what he called the Indies (later named the West Indies), the islands of the Caribbean. The islanders turned out to be poor, and rather unfamiliar with the concept of trade. The Spanish treated the natives as they had treated the Moors during the Reconquista - they conquered and enslaved them; for the Hidalgos and want-to-be Hidalgos, the expedition was a crusade. Columbus' expeditions were not profitable; he had many opponents, his privileges were canceled. Others continued the discovery of what soon became apparent as the Americas, named after Amerigo Vespucci, another Italian sailing for Castile-Aragon. Vasco Nunez de Balboa, by crossing Panama, reached the Pacific Ocean in 1513; Hernan Cortes conquered the Aztec Empire in 1519-1521, Francisco Pizarro the Inca Empire in 1532-1533, all in the name of Castile-Aragon respectively Spain. The main incentive of the Spaniards - greed for gold; Columbus had referred to Marco Polo's description of Cipangu, the island (Marco Polo never visited - Japan) where roofs were of gold and silver, and the Conquistadores looked for El Dorado, a legendary land fabulously rich in gold. Columbus' discovery of the New World raised Portuguese fears of Spanish encroachment into 'their' territory; in 1493 Castile-Aragon (future Spain) and Portugal signed the Treaty of Tordesillas, splitting the world outside christian Europe amongst themselves. The treaty was mediated by Pope Alexander VI. (an Aragonese), and believed by the signatories to be binding, for the entire world. The dividing line was drawn, in north-southwardly direction, 300 leagues west of the Açores. It would leave Brazil, undiscovered at the time when the treaty was signed, in the Portuguese sphere of interest - as was all of Africa and what was located to the east of it. The emergence of competition in the business of discovery spurred the Portuguese into action; an expedition, under Vasco da Gama, was equipped to reach India; it departed in 1497 and returned, objective achieved and with a shipment of pepper, in 1499 - one of the few expeditions of discovery which actually was profitable. Now the Portuguese sent further expeditions in quick succession, mapped the shores of the Indian Ocean, reached Malacca (conquered 1511), Canton (Guangdong, China, reached 1513) and Nagasaki (Japan, reached 1542). The Portuguese discoverers, wherever possible, used the services of pilots acquainted with the waters they sailed. They found the Indian Ocean trade dominated by Muslim sailors, and soon hostilities flared up; the Portuguese, with superior ships ( galleons, with boards higher than the dhows Muslim merchants used) and cannon, took Muslim ships wherever they could. The Portuguese conquered a number of port cities; in Kilwa 1505 they proceeded to massacre its entire Muslim population. The Portuguese claimed to own the ocean. They established their dominance of the Inter-Oceanic trade - and were, correctly, regarded by the rulers of the Mughal Empire (since 1526), as pirates. The Asiatic Empires (Mughal Empire, China, Japan) disciplined them by permitting trade only under the condition that 'the Portuguese behaved themselves'. Another Portuguese, Ferdinand Magellan, after his services had been rejected by King Manuel I., began what was to be the first circumnavigation of the world, in the name of, and financed, by Castile (Spain) (1519-1522). Magellan was killed on the Philippines; Juan Sebastian Elcano, with one ship out of the original three, and with a surviving crew of 80 out of 300, completed the journey. Spain and Portugal, now that the world was proven round, signed the Treaty of Zaragoza (1525) drawing another line separating their spheres of interest, leaving Asia in Portuguese, the Pacific in Spanish possession. The Era of European Discovery was a discovery (or rediscovery) from European perspective. The Portuguese and Castilian-Aragonese (Spanish) did not distinguish between discovery and taking possession, using force where they regarded the objective worthy of it. Discovery was not an object by itself, economic and political gain the driving force behind it. Some areas, not regarded worthy of exploration, such as Australia or the North Pacific, were not explored until much later. Crucial to the success of the undertaking were the speed and loading capacity of the ships, the quality of the cannon the ships were equipped with, the skills of the navigators charged with them. The navigators had to deal with numerous obstacles; persons such as Columbus, da Gama and Magellan did not know the distances they had to cover when crossing oceans, and how long it would take. They hoped to find shores where they could replenish their supplies of fresh water and food. Magellan's expedition, in the Pacific, encountered cannibal-infested islands and barely made it to the Philippines. The Portuguese, on their way to India, regularly stopped on the island of Mauritius, killing the large Dodo bird for food and driving the species to extinction. Sailors long were plagued by the disease of scurvy, caused by a lack of Vitamin C over a longer period of time. A first attempted remedy was pickled cabbage (Sauerkraut). Only comparatively late did Europeans establish supply stations, such as Kaapstad (Cape Town, established by the Dutch in 1652) to address this problem. Thus the Era of European Discovery marks an era in which sailing techniques were improved and in which logistics were developed. It did widen the hitherto European-Asiatic-African trade network into a worldwide trade network where most of the interregional trade was facilitated by Europeans, mostly on their terms; it did intensify trade in West Africa. It lead to the introduction of plants and animals to regions where they were hitherto unknown (the potato, from America, to Europe and East Asia, corn to Europe and Africa, sugar, cattle, horses to the Americas etc.) and, unintended, but with devastating consequences, it spread infectious diseases into areas where men did not carry antibodies. The Era of European Discovery marks the beginning of colonialism; unwanted elements of European society were deported (settled, on the Canary Islands, Cape Verde Islands, Madeira - Jews, converted Jews and criminals), beginning the tradition of penal colonies. The center of European trade moved from the Mediterranean (Venice) to the Atlantic (Antwerp, later Amsterdam); Europe, dominating world trade, attracted the influx of silver which triggered the Agricultural Revolution (which again triggered the Industrial Revolution). Much of the imported silver circulated for a while in Europe and then ended up in China; European-Chinese trade was extremely imbalanced as the Chinese were not interested in anything Made in Europe. Those areas of the Americas attractive to the Europeans saw the destruction of native civilizations, the establishment of a European, Christian society on American soil. At the West African coast, trade between Africans and Europeans remained symbiotic, with the coastal population thriving on the trade undergoing a certain degree of assimiltion; many took on European names. The best known aspect of this trade is one major item traded - African slaves. Trade with East Africa, the Arab World, Persia was limited due to the Portuguese-Muslim hostility. The Europeans established control of trade in parts of India and in the Malay Archipelago; the Mughal Empire, Siam, China and Japan succeeded in regulating trade (and missionary activity) at their terms. Here, in Asia, European merchants and their wares were less in demand than European military officers. When a ship of the Dutch V.O.C. stranded on the Korean island of Cheju-do, the highest ranking surviving officer, Hendrik Hamel, was brought to the capital and assigned to the task of cannon-making. In areas colonized - the islands off the African coast, the Americas, the European colonizers tried to gain wealth by mining (especially gold, silver; Spain equipped an annual Treasure Fleet or Silver Fleet shipping the mine exploits to Spain), by herding cattle and other animals (mainly to produce leather; meat would spoil before reaching European markets) by hunting/trading in fur (as the Russians did in Siberia, the penetration of which they began in 1584; the French in North America, which they penetrated from their outpost at Quebec, established in 1608), by growing profitable plants on plantations (sugar, tobacco, cotton, coffee etc.; with imported African slaves as major workforce; thus the Transatlantic Slave Trade). Elsewhere, chartered overseas trading companies, within their respective nation granted a monopoly, organized the trade with the region specified in a highly political (and risky) manner - the Dutch V.O.C. and W.I.C., the English E.I.C. being the most successful and known examples. The ships transporting cargoes of silver, pepper, tea and chinaware returning to Europe proved tempting targets. As the Treaty of Tordesillas excluded the French, English, Dutch, their respective governments did not recognize it, and in turn permitted their own captains, at their own expense and risk, to try and take these ships ( Letter of Marque, a legitimate form of piracy); the Caribbean would become a hotbed of pirates, European by origin. From the 1620es onward, the English, Dutch and French established their own colonial empires; now ports in the colonies required military protection - the construction of fortresses protecting ports and warehouses began. For a more detailed coverage of the Era of European Discovery, click here |
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EXTERNAL FILES |
| REFERENCE |
Angus Konstam, Historical Atlas of Exploration 1492-1600, NY : Checkmark Books 2000; richly illustrated [G] The Life and Time of Columbus, NY : Curtis (1966) 1967, translated from the Italian; richly illustrated [G] Eric R. Wolf, Europe and the People without History, Univ. of California Press 1982 [G] Gaspar Correa, The Three Voyages of Vasco da Gama & his Viceroyalty, trsl. by Henry E.J. Stanley, (Hakluyt 1869) Elibron Classics 2005, KMLA Lib. Call Sign 915.4 C824t Christopher Columbus, The Four Voyages, editede and translated by J.M. Cohen, London : Penguin 1969 KMLA Lib. Call Sign 973.15 C678f |
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