Age of Exploration/Age of Discovery of

SPAIN and PORTUGAL

(Term Paper)

1.1. Countries involved (SPAIN and PORTUGAL)

1.2. Reasons for exploration

1.3. Known Personalities on the age of exploration (EXPLORERS)

1.4. and other important facts on the age of exploration

1.) Countries involved SPAIN and PORTUGAL

They are the very first leaders on the Age of Exploration itself. Spain got most of the
Americas while Portugal got Brazil, India, and Asia. Spain sent over conquistadors to explore the
Americas and to conquer the peoples there. They made Spain rich with the gold and silver they
found in the Americas. Portugal sent out Vasco da Gama who found a trade route around the
southern tip of Africa and to India. It was a period of time when the European nations began
exploring the world.

They discovered new routes to India, much of the Far East, and the Americas. The Age of
Exploration took place at the same time as the Renaissance. Beginning in 1492 with the first
voyage of Christopher Columbus , Spanish explorers and conquistadors built a colonial empire
that turned Spain into one of the great European powers. Spanish fleets returned from the New
World with holds full of gold, silver, and precious gemstones while Spanish priests traveled the
world to convert and save the souls of the native populations. Much of the reason for this
sequence of events, and for the subsequent history of former Spanish territories can be traced
back to the reasons for and the nature of Spanish imperialism.
 Thousands of Jews were exiled from Spain in the same year, a Spaniard was elected
Pope, and a Spaniard wrote the first formal grammar of any European language. As previously
said, they were mostly settled by men who came to the New World to conquer, convert, or get
wealthy. This was a direct result of the situation that Spain was in at the time. These qualities
were profoundly embedded in the national psyches of practically all Latin American nations by
the time of the Latin American revolutions in the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth
century, and they remain visible today.

The Roman Catholic faith is widely practiced in the United States. Most of them have a
military that is nearly unrivaled among the world's democracies, and Latin American politics and
government are nevertheless evocative of Spain's medieval past, when a strong leader dominated
the nation's political machinery. In the 1970s and 1980s, this was witnessed in Chile and
Argentina, as well as Panama, Nicaragua, and El Salvador, and it continues to be the case in
Peru, Venezuela, Mexico, Cuba, and other countries today. During the majority of the fifteenth
century, Portugal played a leading role in the hunt for a way to Asia by sailing south around
Africa, led by Prince Henry the Navigator. While Portugal led European discoveries of non-
European territories, Spain, its neighbor, became completely devoted to the hunt for new
commercial routes beyond the continent. Through tribute, they agreed to sponsor Christopher
Columbus's trip in the hopes of circumventing Portugal's monopoly on west African sea lanes
and reaching "the Indies" via the west. Columbus had offered the concept to King John II of
Portugal twice before, in 1485 and 1488, and both times he had been refused.

2.) Reasons for exploration

Exploration in Europe is motivated by three factors. For the sake of their economics,
religion, and glory, they exist. They desired to boost their economy by collecting more spices,
gold, and better and faster trading routes, for example. They also believed strongly in the
importance of spreading their religion, Christianity. Either to provide contrast and vital
applications for everyday requirements, or to boost the economy. Another purpose is to spread
religion, such as Christianity, which is widely practiced in most European countries.
 Since the medieval era, this has been the predominant belief. It has been a major topic of
discussion in everyone's minds. This can bring a lot of money to one country and allow it to
discover new things, allowing it to create high-value items that can be sold to other countries.
Portugal's geographical location influenced its development. With no ports on the Mediterranean,
Portugal was forced to rely on the Atlantic Ocean as its primary mode of transportation. John I of
Portugal ushered in a golden age for his country. Ceuta, a North African city, fell to a European
power in 1415, giving Europe its first foothold on the African continent. Portuguese resources
and information for the purposes of exploration.

Ocean in 1492, hoping to find a route to India in order to trade for spices. Their goals
were to expand Catholicism and to gain a commercial advantage over Portugal. Genoese,
Venetian, Portuguese, English, and Spanish monarchs, asking for ships and funding to explore
this westward route. Atlantic Ocean were far too low. The Spanish monarchs knew that
Portuguese mariners had reached the southern tip of Africa and sailed the Indian Ocean. They
understood that the Portuguese would soon reach Asia and, in this competitive race to reach the
Far East, the Spanish rulers decided to act. Spain’s drive to enlarge its empire led other hopeful
conquistadors to push further into the Everywhere they traveled, they brought European diseases,
which claimed thousands of native lives as well as the lives of the explorers. The surviving
Spaniards, numbering a little over three hundred, returned to Mexico City without finding the
much-anticipated mountains of gold and silver.

Riches and fresh ideas came in from the colonies, as well as from other countries and
new territories. Culture of the Renaissance in Spain. Don Quixote, as Panza, abandons reality
and sets out to resurrect chivalry by fighting what he thinks to be Spain's foes. Portugal's goal in
the Indian Ocean was to maintain its monopoly on the spice trade. Between 1500 and 1510, the
Portuguese took advantage of disputes between Hindus and Muslims to build various forts and
commercial posts. The Egyptians withdrew their fleets from India, ceding commercial
dominance to the Portuguese for nearly a century and contributing significantly to the expansion
of the Portuguese Empire. It also marked the beginning of the European colonial dominance in
Asia. Ottoman ambitions in India, and confirmed Portuguese hegemony in the Indian Ocean.

3.) Known Personalities on the age of exploration (EXPLORERS)

 He found the interoceanic passage that bears his name and was the first European to
navigate from the Indies to the Pacific Ocean in order to establish a maritime trade route. It was
the first circumnavigation of the Earth when one of the expedition's two remaining ships of five
returned to Spain in 1522. At 1521, Magellan was killed in the Battle of Mactan. Magellan
served as a skilled sailor and naval officer for the Portuguese Crown in Asia.

Barrameda continued south over the Atlantic Ocean, finally arriving in Guam and the
Philippine Islands, where Magellan was killed in the Battle of Mactan in April 1521. In the
1460s, Vasco da Gama's father, Estêvo da Gama, was a knight in the service of Infante
Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu. Vasco da Gama's discovery of a sea route to India signaled the
beginning of a new era of global imperialism, allowing the Portuguese to establish a long-lasting
colonial empire in Asia. The Portuguese Empire's economy benefited from unrestricted access to
the Indian spice trade, which had hitherto been based in northern and coastal West Africa. Other
European countries, first the Dutch Republic and England, then France and Denmark, were
unable to challenge Portugal's monopoly and naval dominance on the Cape Route until a century
later. Bartolomeu Dias- Bartolomeu Dias was born around 1450 in Portugal. Dinis Dias e
Fernandes, one of his ancestors, visited the African coast in the 1440s and discovered the Cape
Verde islands in 1444. Little is known about his early life, and his biography is complicated by
the fact that he shares the same name with other contemporary Portuguese seamen.

He was the first European navigator to round the southern tip of Africa in 1488 and
demonstrate that the most effective southward course lay in the open ocean well to west of the
African coast. Portuguese seafarers with his same name around the same time. Duarte Pacheco
Pereira- Pacheco Pereira was the son of João Pacheco and Isabel Pereira. In his youth he served
as the King of Portugal's personal squire. Later on, in 1488 he explored the west coast of Africa.
His expedition fell ill with fever and lost their ship. Pacheco.

Bartolomeu Dias, who was returning from the first rounding of the Cape of Good Hope,
rescued Pereira from the Gulf of Guinea island of Principe. Based on the knowledge he gathered
during Dias' expedition and his own travels, he was designated official geographer of the
Portuguese monarchy. Spain. Pacheco, Duarte Pereira, a Portuguese sea captain and soldier,
crossed the central Atlantic Ocean and the western coast of Africa on his way from Portugal to
India. He is credited with being the first European to reach what is now known as Brazil. Spanish
explorer and conquistador Juan Ponce de León Juan Ponce de León was Puerto Rico's first
governor, but he had to relinquish power to Christopher Columbus's son, Diego. Juan led the first
European expedition to Florida.

Though little is known about his family, he was of noble birth and served in the Spanish
military from a young age. Columbus's second expedition in 1493. Puerto Rico by appointment
of the Spanish crown in 1509. In 1519, he was elected captain of the third expedition to the
mainland, which he partly funded.

His enmity with the Governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, resulted in the recall
of the expedition at the last moment, an order which Cortés ignored. Spanish «Conquistador»
Hernán Cortés was one of the pioneers of the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Arriving on
the continent, Cortés executed a successful strategy of allying with some indigenous people
against others. After he overthrew the Aztec Empire, Cortés was awarded the title of Marqués
del Valle de Oaxaca, while the more prestigious title of Viceroy was given to a high-ranking
nobleman, Antonio de Mendoza.

Cortés returned to Spain, where he died of natural causes six years later. Francisco
Pizarro was born into a humble family in Trujillo, Spain, and chose to seek money and adventure
in the New World. Pizarro was granted permission by the Spanish crown to conduct a war to
conquer Peru in 1529, and he embarked on his third and victorious voyage. Francisco Pizarro
was a Spanish conquistador best known for his voyages that laid the way for the conquest of
Peru by the Spanish.

After two failed expeditions to Peru, Pizarro led a third and successful campaign to
conquer Peru. When local people who lived along the coast resisted this invasion, Pizarro moved
inland and founded the first Spanish settlement in Peru, San Miguel de Piura. After a series of
maneuvres, Pizarro captured the Incan emperor Atahualpa at the Battle of Cajamarca in
November 1532. Pizarro charged him with various crimes and executed him in July 1533.

The same year, Pizarro entered the Inca capital of Cuzco and completed his conquest of
Peru. In January 1535, Pizarro founded the city of Lima. Hernando de Soto- He was a Spanish
explorer and conquistador who was involved in expeditions in Nicaragua and the Yucatan
Peninsula. Pizarro's conquest of the Inca Empire in Peru, but is best known for leading the first
European expedition deep into the territory of the modern-day United States.

The Mississippi River has been crossed by Europeans. De Soto's trip to North America
was a massive enterprise. For a route to China or the Pacific coast, Native American tribes and
previous coastal explorers, and for a passage to China or the Pacific coast. Vasco Nez de Balboa-
When he crossed the Isthmus of Panama, Spanish explorer Vasco Nez de Balboa became the first
European to reach the Pacific from the New World. Balboa is well known for his long-running
feud with Spanish administrator Pedrarias, who eventually accused him of treason and
mistreating Indians. In 1510, he created the hamlet of Santa Mara la Antigua del Darién in what
is now Colombia, which was the first permanent European settlement on the mainland of the
Americas .

4.) Other important facts on the age of exploration

The so-called Age of Exploration lasted from the early 15th century to the early 17th
century, and it was during this time that European ships sailed throughout the world in quest of
new commerce routes and partners to feed Europe's booming capitalism. Expeditions generated
money by establishing new trade channels for their countries. When the Ottoman Empire
conquered Constantinople in 1453, it cut off several previous commercial routes to India and
China. These trade routes were extremely significant because they brought in high-value goods
like spices and silk. Some missions, such as the Spanish expeditions to the Americas, became
wealthy after unearthing gold and silver. With the gold and silver they discovered in the
Americas, they made Spain wealthy. Vasco da Gama was dispatched by Portugal to find a trade
route across Africa's southern coast and to India.