![]() The Reconquista marked another step forward in the process of making Spain an imperial power, and Ferdinand and Isabella were now ready to look further afield. In 1492, they completed the Reconquista: the centuries-long Christian conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. Since the 700s, much of Spain had been under Islamic rule, and King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I, arch-defenders of the Catholic Church against Islam, were determined to defeat the Muslims in Granada, the last Islamic stronghold in Spain. The marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile in 1469 unified Catholic Spain and began the process of building a nation that could compete for worldwide power. During the fifteenth century, Spain hoped to gain advantage over its rival, Portugal. The history of Spanish exploration begins with the history of Spain itself. The most famous of these Spanish adventurers are Christopher Columbus (who, though Italian himself, explored on behalf of the Spanish monarchs), Hernán Cortés, and Francisco Pizarro. ![]() Thousands of Spaniards flocked to the Americas seeking wealth and status. The Spanish established the first European settlements in the Americas, beginning in the Caribbean and, by 1600, extending throughout Central and South America. For them, the dungeon of Elmina was their last sight of their home country. Enslaved people lived in the dungeon for weeks or months until ships arrived to transport them to Europe or the Americas. The dungeon of the fort now served as a holding pen for enslaved Africans from the interior of the continent, while on the upper floors Portuguese traders ate, slept, and prayed in a chapel. Originally built by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century, it appears in this image as it was in the 1660s, after being seized by Dutch slave traders in 1637.Īlthough the Portuguese originally used the fort primarily for trading gold, by the sixteenth century they had shifted their focus. In time, much of the Atlantic World would become a gargantuan sugar-plantation complex in which Africans labored to produce the highly profitable commodity for European consumers.įigure 2.3 Elmina Castle on the west coast of Ghana was used as a holding pen for captured people before they were brought across the Atlantic and sold. In the following years, as European exploration spread, slavery spread as well. The Portuguese also traded these enslaved people, introducing much-needed human capital to other European nations. Sugar fueled the Atlantic slave trade, and the Portuguese islands quickly became home to sugar plantations. Seeing the value of this source of labor in growing the profitable crop of sugar on their Atlantic islands, the Portuguese soon began exporting enslaved Africans along with African ivory and gold. The travels of Portuguese traders to western Africa introduced them to the African slave trade, already brisk among African states. ![]() While the Portuguese didn’t rule over an immense landmass, their strategic holdings of islands and coastal ports gave them almost unrivaled control of nautical trade routes and a global empire of trading posts during the 1400s. It also established trading posts in China and Japan. From these strategic points, Portugal spread its empire down the western coast of Africa to the Congo, along the western coast of India, and eventually to Brazil on the eastern coast of South America. Merchants then used these Atlantic outposts as debarkation points for subsequent journeys. Portuguese mariners built an Atlantic empire by colonizing the Canary, Cape Verde, and Azores Islands, as well as the island of Madeira. With his support, Portuguese mariners successfully navigated an eastward route to Africa, establishing a foothold there that became a foundation of their nation’s trade empire in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Portugal’s Prince Henry the Navigator spearheaded his country’s exploration of Africa and the Atlantic in the 1400s. This age of exploration and the subsequent creation of an Atlantic World marked the earliest phase of globalization, in which previously isolated groups-Africans, Native Americans, and Europeans-first came into contact with each other, sometimes with disastrous results. In the 1500s, Spain surpassed Portugal as the dominant European power. Portuguese colonization of Atlantic islands in the 1400s inaugurated an era of aggressive European expansion across the Atlantic.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |