The Age of Exploration began in the 15th century as European powers sought new trade routes and lands. Countries sponsored voyages of explorers like Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, and Ferdinand Magellan to circumnavigate the globe and map the Americas and Asia. These explorations established new trade networks for resources like spices, gold, and slaves, and led to the Columbian Exchange of plants, animals, technologies, and diseases between the Old World and New World.

1. The Age of Exploration

2. The Age of Exploration Begins
• People were curious about unexplored lands
• Countries competed against each other to gain control
of new land’s resources and trade routes
• The wealthy & powerful sponsored voyages of
exploration to try and find the quickest route to Asia
•They wanted control of the spices, gold, ivory, and
other valuable goods
• Improved shipbuilding and navigation tools allowed
for long sea voyages

3. Portugal Sparks Exploration
•Mid 1400s- Start the Age of Exploration
trying to find new routes for trade
•Prince Henry the Navigator- supported
shipbuilders, mapmakers, inventors, &
expeditions to explore the African coast
•Ferdinand Magellan- captained the first
crew to circumnavigate (sail around) the
world
• Proved for certain the world was round
• Killed in the Philippines ; never made it home

4. Magellan’s Route Around the World

5. Spain Sponsors Christopher Columbus
• 1492-Columbus made multiple voyages to the New
World; producing detailed maps of the Caribbean
islands and the coastline of Central America
• He was trying to find a westerly water route to Asia

6. Spanish Explorers in Central America
•1521- Hernan Cortes led
his conquistadors to
invade and crush the
Aztecs in Central America
(Current day Mexico City)
•1535- Francisco Pizarro led
his troops against the Incas
in South America (Peru &
Andes Mountains)
Cortes’ route into Central America from the island of Cuba

7. France, England, & the Netherlands
• England hired Italian explorer John Cabot to explore & gain new
information on the New World in 1496 & 1497
• He claimed part of Canada for England & helped establish a strong
English presence in North America
• France sent Jacques Cartier to find a northwestern water route to
Asia to establish a new trade route
• 1534- he sailed to St. Lawrence River in North America
• Henry Hudson, an Englishman, sailed for the Dutch to find a route
to Asia too.
• 1609- he sailed to New York Harbor and up the Hudson River & claimed
the land around the Hudson for the Dutch East India Company
(Hudson’s exploration is responsible for American settlement)

9. Quick Facts to Know
• The Portuguese were the first to accomplish sailing
around the globe
• Ferdinand Magellan was the fist person to lead a
voyage that sailed around the globe
• Jacques Cartier sought a route to Asia & explored the
St. Lawrence River in the process
• Italian John Cabot began England’s exploration of the
New World

10. Reasons for Exploration
• European exploration can be summed up in one
phrase: “God, glory, and gold”
• Trade had moved from the Mediterranean Sea to the
Atlantic Ocean (Remember the fall of the Songhai in
West Africa due to this move in trade at the Atlantic
ports?)
• Search for the Northwest Passage: a water route
connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans

11. Cape of Good Hope
•1488- Portuguese explorer
Bartolomeo Dias became the first
European to sail around the
Cape of Good Hope (the southern
tip of Africa)
•1498- Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama sailed around the
Cape of Good Hope and on to the coast of India- establishing
the first water trade route between Europe and Asia
•This arrival of Portuguese explorers resulted in the growth of
the African slave trade

12. The Strait of Magellan
• 1519- Portuguese explorer Ferdinand
Magellan left Spain with five ships
•He navigated his fleet around the
southern tip of Africa
•The route he mapped is called the
Strait of Magellan & is still used by
today
•One ship returned to Spain three years
later without Magellan who was killed
by natives in the Philippines

13. Quick Facts to Know
•Explorers sailed for “God” because they wanted to
spread Christianity to the savages
•European powers were interested in developing water
trade routes in order to establish the quickest way to
trade with Asia
•European explorers were searching for a Northwest
Passage to find a water route that connected the Atlantic
and Pacific oceans
•Explorers wanted sail for “glory” to make their nations
proud of them

14. Effects of Cultural Exchange
The Columbian Exchange:
•One of the largest exchanges between the cultures
•Europeans were introduced to new plants, animals, and
foods in these new lands
•European products, foods, and
diseases made their way to the
newly explored lands
•Slave trade grew

16. Sugar, Coffee, & Tobacco
•Three cash crops that were introduced to Europe and
became widely popular
•All three required huge plantations to produce these crops
•Native Americans were first enslaved to work on these
plantations in the New World, but most died quickly from
disease or simply ran away
•This led to the use of Africans who were raided from their
villages along the Atlantic coast of Africa by the Dutch

17. Triangular Trade
• Triangular Trade: slave trade across the Atlantic ocean;
trade that brought manufactured goods to Africa. They
traded cloth, weapons, and rum for gold and slaves
• African slaves shipped to plantations in the Americas to
work
• Middle Passage: what became known as the route that
slaves were taken by ships to the Americas; they were
packed in the hulls of ships like sardines. Many became
sick and died before ever reaching the Americas. Slaves
who survived were sold to work on the plantations

19. Facts to Know
•European powers became interested in the slave trade
because they needed workers to work in the field in
the Americas
•Tobacco was a crop that was exchanged from the
Americas to Europe in the Columbian Exchange
•The Triangular Trade was the trip across the Atlantic
that delivered 12 million African slaves to the
Americas
•Smallpox was a disease that Europeans
accidentally introduced to the American natives

20. Links to Videos
• History Comes Alive: Age of Exploration Video (21:26)
• The Great Age of Exploration (29:57)- video quiz included