The Age of Discovery (), also known as the Age of Exploration, was part of the early modern period and overlapped with the Age of Sail. It was a period from approximately the 15th to the 17th century, during which seafarers from European countries explored, colonized, and conquered regions across the globe. The Age of Discovery was a transformative period when previously isolated parts of the world became connected to form the world-system, and laid the groundwork for globalization.
The extensive overseas exploration, particularly the European colonization of the Americas by the Spaniards and Portuguese, later joined by the English, French, and Dutch, spurred international global trade. The interconnected global economy of the 21st century has its origins in the expansion of trade networks during this era. The exploration created European colonial empires and marked an increased adoption of colonialism as a government policy in several European states. As such, it is sometimes synonymous with the first wave of European colonization. This colonization reshaped power dynamics causing geopolitical shifts in Europe and creating new centers of power beyond Europe.
Portuguese oceanic exploration began with maritime expeditions to the Macaronesian islands, including the Canary Islands, as well as Madeira and the Azores. It continued with voyages along the coast of West Africa in 1434, and culminated in the establishment of a sea route to India in 1498 by Vasco da Gama, which initiated Portugal's maritime and commercial presence in Kerala and the Indian Ocean. Spain made the transatlantic voyages of Christopher Columbus (1492–1504), which marked the beginning of colonization in the Americas, the Magellan expedition (1519–1522), which opened a route from the Atlantic to the Pacific and, under Juan Sebastián Elcano, completed the first circumnavigation of the globe. Spain also undertook other major early voyages, including the conquest of Mexico (1519–1521), the conquest of Peru (1532–1533), and the Manila galleon trade route (1565–1815), which linked the Americas and Asia across the Pacific. These Spanish expeditions significantly impacted European perceptions of the world and eventually led to numerous naval expeditions across the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans, and land expeditions in the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Oceania that continued into the 19th century, followed by polar exploration in the 20th century.
European exploration initiated the Columbian exchange between the Old World (Europe, Asia, and Africa) and New World (Americas). This exchange involved the transfer of plants, animals, human populations (including slaves), communicable diseases, and culture across the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. The Age of Discovery and European exploration involved mapping the world, shaping a new worldview and facilitating contact with distant civilizations. The continents drawn by European mapmakers developed from abstract "s" into the outlines more recognizable to us. Simultaneously, the spread of new diseases, especially affecting American Indians, led to rapid declines in some populations. The era saw widespread enslavement, exploitation and military conquest of Indigenous peoples, concurrent with the growing economic influence and spread of Western culture, science, and technology leading to a faster-than-exponential population growth world-wide.
Concept
The concept of discovery has been scrutinized, critically highlighting the history of the core term of this periodization. The term "age of discovery" is in historical literature and still commonly used. J. H. Parry, calling the period the Age of Reconnaissance, argues that not only was the era one of European explorations, but it also produced the expansion of geographical knowledge and empirical science: "It saw also the first major victories of empirical inquiry over authority, the beginnings of that close association of science, technology, and everyday work which is an essential characteristic of the modern western world."Parry, J. H. (1973). The Age of Reconnaissance: Discovery, Exploration, and Settlement, 1450–1650. London: Cardinal. p. 13. Anthony Pagden draws on the work of Edmundo O'Gorman for the statement that "For all Europeans, the events of October 1492 constituted a 'discovery'. Something of which they had no prior knowledge had suddenly presented itself to their gaze." O'Gorman argues that the physical encounter with new territories was less important than the Europeans' effort to integrate this new knowledge into their worldview, what he calls "the invention of America".O'Gorman, Edmundo. The Invention of America. An Inquiry into the Historical Nature of the New World and the Meaning of History. Bloomington, IN 1961, 9–47. Pagden examines the origins of the terms "discovery" and "invention". In English, "discovery" and its forms in romance languages derive from "disco-operio, meaning to uncover, to reveal, to expose to the gaze", what was revealed existed previously. Few Europeans during the period used the term "invention" for the European encounters, with the exception of Martin Waldseemüller, whose map first used the term "America".
A central legal concept of the discovery doctrine, expounded by the United States Supreme Court in 1823, draws on assertions of European powers' right to claim land during their explorations. The concept of "discovery" has been used to enforce colonial claiming and discovery, but has been challenged by Indigenous peoples and researchers.Frichner, Tonya Gonnella. (2010). "Preliminary Study of the Impact on Indigenous Peoples of the International Legal Construct Known as the Doctrine of Discovery." E/C.19/2010/13. Presented at the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Ninth Session, United Nations Economic and Social Council, New York, 27 April 2010. Many indigenous peoples have fundamentally challenged the concept of colonial claiming of "discovery" over their lands and people, as forced and negating indigenous presence.
The period alternatively called the Age of Exploration, has been scrutinized through reflections on the exploration. Its understanding and use, has been discussed as being framed and used for colonial ventures, discrimination and exploitation, by combining it with concepts such as the frontier (as in Frontier Thesis) and manifest destiny, up to the contemporary age of space exploration. Alternatively, the term contact, as in first contact, has been used to shed more light on the age of discovery and colonialism, using the alternative names of Age of Contact or Contact Period, discussing it as an "unfinished, diverse project".
Overview The Portuguese began systematically exploring the Atlantic coast of Africa in 1418, under the sponsorship of Prince Henry the Navigator. In 1488, Bartolomeu Dias reached the Indian Ocean by this route.
In 1492, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain funded Genoese mariner Christopher Columbus's () plan to sail west to reach the Indies, by crossing the Atlantic. Columbus encountered a continent uncharted by Europeans (though it had been explored and temporarily colonized by the Norse 500 years earlier). Later, it was called America after Amerigo Vespucci, a trader working for Portugal.Davidson, M. H. (1997). Columbus Then and Now: A Life Re-examined. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, p. 417. Portugal quickly claimed those lands under the terms of the Treaty of Alcáçovas, but Castile was able to persuade the Pope, who was Castilian, to issue four papal bulls to divide the world into two regions of exploration, where each kingdom had exclusive rights to claim newly discovered lands. These were modified by the Treaty of Tordesillas, ratified by Pope Julius II. + Major discoveries Major discovery/Destination Main explorer Year Funding byCongo River Diogo Cão 1482 John II of PortugalCape of Good Hope Indian Ocean Dias 1488 John II of Portugal West IndiesColumbus 1492 Ferdinand and Isabella IndiaVasco da Gama 1498 Manuel I BrazilCabral 1500 Manuel I Spice Islands Australasia (Western Pacific Ocean) Albuquerque, Abreu, and Serrão 1512 Manuel I Pacific Ocean Vasco Balboa 1513 Ferdinand II of Aragon Strait of Magellan Magellan 1520 Charles I of Spain Philippines Magellan 1521 Charles I of Spain Circumnavigation Magellan and Elcano 1522 Charles I of Spain Australia Willem Janszoon 1606 United East India Company New Zealand Abel Tasman 1642 United East India Company Islands Near Antarctica James Cook 1773 George III Hawaii James Cook 1778 George III
In 1498, a Portuguese expedition commanded by Vasco da Gama reached India by sailing around Africa, opening up direct trade with Asia.Diffie, Bailey W., and George D. Winius, "Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415–1580", p. 176 While other exploratory fleets were sent from Portugal to northern North America, Portuguese India Armadas also extended this Eastern oceanic route, touching South America and opening a circuit from the New World to Asia (starting in 1500 by Pedro Álvares Cabral), and explored islands in the South Atlantic and Southern Indian Oceans. The Portuguese sailed further eastward, to the valuable Spice Islands in 1512, landing in China one year later. Japan was reached by the Portuguese in 1543. In 1513, Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and reached the "other sea" from the New World. Thus, Europe first received news of the eastern and western Pacific within a one-year span around 1512. East and west exploration overlapped in 1522, when a Spanish expedition sailing westward, led by Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan (and, after his death in what is now the Philippines, by navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano), completed the first circumnavigation of the world.Zweig, Stefan, "Conqueror of the Seas – The Story of Magellan", Read Books, 2007, Spanish conquistadors explored the interior of the Americas, and some of the South Pacific islands. Their main objective was to disrupt Portuguese trade in the East.
From 1495, the French, English, and Dutch entered the race of exploration, after learning of Columbus' exploits, defying the Iberian monopoly on maritime trade by searching for new routes. The first expedition was led by John Cabot in 1497 to the north, in the service of England, followed by French expeditions to South America and later to North America. Later expeditions went to the Pacific Ocean around South America, and eventually by following the Portuguese around Africa, into the Indian Ocean; discovering Australia in 1606, New Zealand in 1642, and Hawaii in 1778. From the 1580s to the 1640s, Russians explored and conquered almost the whole of Siberia, and claimed Alaska in the 1730s.
Background
Rise of European trade After the fall of the Western Roman Empire largely severed the connection between Europe and lands further east, Christian Europe was largely a backwater compared to the Muslim world, which conquered and incorporated large territories in the Middle East and North Africa. The Christian Crusades to retake the Holy Land from the Muslims were not a military success, but they did bring Europe into contact with the Middle East and the valuable goods manufactured or traded there. From the 12th century, the European economy was transformed by the interconnecting of river and sea trade routes.