AP World History Name:

Time Period: 1450 to 1750 CE Date: ___Per:

European Exploration, Colonization, and Trading Posts

Directions: Use the AMSCO and Bentley textbook to complete the following items.
1. Establish a color code for your map in the map key provided. Assign different colors for each of the following categories:
  Dutch trading posts & colonies  French trading posts & colonies
 Spanish trading posts & colonies  Portuguese trading posts & colonies
 English trading posts & colonies

2. Draw and label the exploration routes of the following explorers: Dias (Portugal), da Gama (Portugal), Magellan (Spain), and Columbus (Spain).
Please use line colors that correspond to the color of the mother nation for which each explorer sailed (Bentley pp 486 -489).

3. Locate the following major port cities/trading posts of the eastern hemisphere with a dot and label them. Outline around the dot with the
appropriate color of the country which used the post (Bentley pp 493 -494). **In Melaka’s case, where more than one colonizing country used the
post, create concentric circles around the dot with as many different colors as necessary**

Country Color #1 Country Color #2

Port City/Trading Post Name

 Goa  Manila  Cape Town

 Calicut  Nagasaki  Pondicherry
 Melaka  Macau

1. Define (shade) the extent of each of the five countries’ possessions in the Americas and color them according to your code.
Directions: Please answer the following questions in complete sentences in the spaces provided.

1. Which explorer was the first to reach the Cape of Good Hope?

2. Which explorer was the first to reach India?

3. Which explorer was the first to circumnavigate the globe?

4. Due to exploration, Europe is now directly connected to which trade network(s)?

5. Which country was the first to navigate along the West African coast?

6. Based on your map, what differences can you identify in the nature of European interaction between the eastern
and western hemispheres? How might these differences be explained?

7. Which European countries of the five represented on the map appeared to be mostly interested in trade? Which
appeared most interested in large-scale settlement and colonization? How can you tell?

8. In which of the trading posts on your map can you find evidence of the competition that intensified between
European countries during the process of exploration and colonization? What evidence points to this conclusion?

9. What empires did the Europeans conquer in the Americas?

 European Trading Companies
By the late 16th century, Portuguese hegemony in the Indian Ocean was growing weak. Portugal was a small country with
a small population – about one million in 1500 – and was unable to sustain a large seaborne trading empire for very
long. The crews of Portuguese ships often included Spanish, English, and Dutch sailors, who became familiar with Asian
waters while in Portuguese service. By the late 16th century, investors in other lands began to organize their own
expeditions to Asian markets. Most prominent of those who followed the Portuguese into the Indian Ocean were English
and Dutch mariners.

Like their predecessors, English and Dutch merchants constructed trading posts on Asian coasts and sought to channel
trade through them but they did not attempt to control shipping on the high seas. They occasionally seized Portuguese
sites, most notably when a Dutch fleet conquered Melaka in 1641. Yet Portuguese authorities held many of their trading
posts into the 20th century: Goa remained the official capital of Portuguese colonies in Asia until Indian forces reclaimed
it in 1961. Meanwhile, English and Dutch entrepreneurs established parallel networks. English merchants concentrated
on India and built trading posts at Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta, while the Dutch operated more broadly from Cape
Town, Colombo, and Batavia (on Java).

English and Dutch merchants enjoyed two main advantages over their Portuguese predecessors. They sailed faster,
cheaper, and more powerful ships, which offered both an economic and a military edge over their competitors.
Furthermore, they conducted trade through an exceptionally efficient form of commercial organization – the joint-stock
company – which enabled investors to realize handsome profits while limiting the risk to their investments.

English and Dutch merchants formed two especially powerful joint-stock companies: The English East India Company,
founded in 1600, and its Dutch counterpart, the United East India Company, established in 1602. Private merchants
advanced funds to launch these companies, outfit them with ships and crews, and provide them with commodities and
money to trade. Although they enjoyed government support, the companies were privately owned enterprises.
Unhampered by political oversight, company agents concentrated strictly on profitable trade. Their charters granted
them the right to buy, sell, build trading posts, and even make war in the companies’ interests.

The English and Dutch companies experienced immediate financial success. In 1601, for example, five English ships set
sail from London with cargoes mostly of gold and silver coins valued at thirty thousand pounds sterling. When they
returned in 1603, the spices that they carried were worth more than one million pounds sterling. The first Dutch
expedition did not realize such fantastic profits, but it more than doubled the investments of its underwriters. Because
of their advanced nautical technology, powerful military arsenal, efficient organization, and relentless pursuit of profit,
the English and Dutch East India companies contributed to the early formation of a global trade network.

1. What is a joint-stock company?

2. Which two countries produced the most influential trading companies?

3. What advantages did Europeans have over their Asian counterparts?

4. How did trading posts differ from colonies?