Exploration begins in Portugal

It was not until the carrack and then the caravel were developed in Iberia that Western Europeans seriously considered Asiatic trade and oceanic exploration. In recent years, Economists and Historical economists of the Monetarism school have put forth the belief that the main reason the Age of Exploration began was because of a severe shortage of bullion in Europe. The European economy was dependent on gold and silver currency, but low domestic money supplies had plunged much of Europe into a recession. In contravention, spice and silk trade resulted in a net export of bullion to both the near and far east, which would have exacerbated the shortfall in the money supply. Another more likely factor was the lack of Christian European access to the spice and silk trade, for the eastern trade routes had become controlled by the Ottoman Empire after the Turks took control of Constantinople in 1453, and they barred Europeans from those trade routes, as they did through North Africa and the historically important combined-land-sea routes via the Red Sea. Both spice and silk were big businesses of the day, and arguably, spices which were both used as preservatives and used to disguise the taste of poorly preserved foods were something of a necessity—at least to those Europeans of better than modest means.

The beginnings 1419-1498

The first great wave of expeditions was launched by Portugal under Prince Henry the Navigator. European sailing practices before Prince Henry had been primarily coastal. Voyages out of sight of land relied on proven routes detailed in a portolan chart. Portolan charts showed details of geographic land features, allowing navigators to identify their departure point, follow a compass heading, and on landfall identify their position and drift from the newly presented land features. Due to the risks involved in this process, European sailors avoided sailing beyond sight of land for extended periods. A number of nautical myths explained these risks in terms of oceanic monsters or an edge of the world. Prince Henry's navigation challenged this belief. The Madeira Islands were discovered in the Atlantic ocean in 1419, and in 1427 the Azores. The Portuguese settled these islands as colonies.

Henry the Navigator's primary project was exploration of the West Coast of Africa and development of useful portolan charts. There were commercial, regal and religious motivations for Henry's endeavor. For centuries the only trade routes linking West Africa with the Mediterranean world were over the Western Sahara Desert. These routes bringing slaves and gold were controlled by the Muslim states of North Africa, long rivals to Portugal and Spain. The Portuguese monarchy hoped that the Islamic nations could be bypassed by trading directly with West Africa by sea. It was also hoped that south of the Sahara the states would be Christian and potential allies against the Muslims in the Maghreb. In 1434 the Portuguese explorers surmounted the obstacle of Cape Bojador. In the bull Romanus Pontifex the trade monopoly for newly discovered countries beyond Cape Bojador was granted to the Portuguese.

Within two decades of Portuguese exploration, the barrier of the Sahara had been overcome and trade in slaves and gold began in what is today Senegal. A trading fort was built at Elmina. Cape Verde became the first sugar producing colony. In 1482 an expedition under Diogo Cão made contact with the Kingdom of Kongo. The crucial breakthrough was in 1487 when Bartolomeu Dias rounded (and later named) the Cape of Good Hope and proved that access to the Indian Ocean was possible from the Atlantic. In 1498 Vasco da Gama made good on this promise by reaching India.

A New World?

Portugal's rival Castile had been somewhat slower than its neighbour to begin exploring the Atlantic, and it was not until late in the fifteenth century that Castilian sailors began to compete with their Iberian neighbours. The first contest was for control of the Canary Islands, which Castile won. It was not until the union of Aragon and Castile and the completion of the reconquista that the large nation became fully committed to looking for new trade routes and colonies overseas. In 1492 the joint rulers of the nation conquered the Moorish kingdom of Granada, that had been providing Castile with African goods through tribute, and they decided to fund Christopher Columbus' expedition that they hoped would bypass Portugal's lock on Africa and the Indian Ocean reaching Asia by travelling west.

Columbus did not reach Asia, but rather found what was to the Europeans a New World: America. In 1500, the Portuguese navigator, Pedro Álvares Cabral explored the land that is today called Brazil. For the two European monarchies a division of influence became necessary to avoid conflict. This was resolved by Papal intervention in 1494 when the Treaty of Tordesillas divided the world between the two powers. The Portuguese "received" everything outside of Europe east of a line that ran 270 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands; this gave them control over Africa, Asia and eastern South America (Brazil). The Spanish received everything west of this line, territory that was still almost completely unknown, and proved to be mostly the western part of the American continent plus the Pacific Ocean islands.

Columbus and other Spanish explorers were initially disappointed with their discoveries - unlike Africa or Asia the Caribbean islanders had little to trade with the Spanish ships. The islands thus became the focus of colonization efforts. It was not until the continent itself was explored that Spain found the wealth it had sought in the form of abundant gold. In the Americas the Spanish found a number of empires that were as large and populous as those in Europe. However, small bodies of Spanish conquistadors, with large armies of indigenous Americans groups, managed to conquer these states. The most notable amongst the conquered states were the Aztec empire in Mexico (conquered in 1521) and the Inca empire in modern Peru and Ecuador (conquered in 1532). During this time, pandemics of European disease such as smallpox devastated the indigenous populations. Once Spanish sovereignty was established, the Spanish focused on the extraction and export of gold and silver.

In 1519 the Spanish crown funded the expedition of the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan. The goal of the mission was to find the Spice Islands by traveling west, which would place the islands in Spain's economic and political sphere. The expedition managed to cross the Pacific Ocean and reach the Spice Islands, and was the first to circumnavigate the world upon its return three years later. Magellan died in the Pacific, leaving the Spaniard Juan Sebastián Elcano the task of completing the voyage. The expedition was a failure in the sense that its route was impractical. The Strait of Magellan was too far south and the Pacific Ocean too vast. It was not a realistic alternative to the Portuguese route around Africa. The Spanish were able to establish a presence in the Pacific, but not based on Magellan's voyage. Rather, a cross-Pacific route was established, by other explorers, between Mexico and the Philippines. The eastbound route to the Philippines first sailed by Alvaro de Saavedra in 1527. The westbound return route was harder to find, but was eventually discovered by Andrés de Urdaneta in 1565. For a long time these routes were used by the Manila galleons, thereby creating a trade link joining China, the Americas, and Europe via the trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic routes.