Exploration and its Effects

Columbus did not sail to find new land. He sailed to find a easier route to Asia because Europe was tired of having to go through the Ottoman Empire to buy spice. The Ottoman Empire had control of the trade routes to Asia and Europe had to go through them to get spice and other goods from Asia. Europe got tired of this and therefore tried to find easy ways to get to Asia.

This importance of trade would help Portugal become a major power during this time. They, unlike Spain and England, did not setup a permanent empire or try to colonize. Instead, Portugal set up trading posts enabling them to control trade.

England and Spain, however, colonized the New World. They both set up permeant settlements but had different ways of ruling them. Spain had a very crown oriented approach. Their colonies were created by the crown and run closely under the crown. They also had many interactions with the natives which lead to a very prominent social structure.

At the top of the social structure where the Peninsulares. They were Spanish people from the Iberina Peninsula. Next were the Creoles who were pure blood Spanish born in the New World. 

Creoles were followed by the Mestizos who were mixed of Spanish and native. And lastly were the natives. 

England, however was different from Spain. Unlike Spanish colonies, most English colonies were not made by the crown but rather private people. The English crown also did not pay as much attention to the colonies as the Spanish crown did. This was called salary neglect. Lastly, English colonies had less interaction with natives the the Spanish colonies did.

A major result of Europe discovering America (because obviously the natives had no idea where they were) was the Columbian Exchange. This was transfer of food, animals, diseases, and goods between Europe and the America. America received animals such as horses, sheep, and cattle as well as plants such as grapes and wheat. Europe also brought many diseases to America resulting in massive deaths. Europe, on the other hand, received potatoes, corn, and gold of course from the New World. They also received syphilis and the very sexual tomato from America.

This sense of exploration was brought on by Renaissance thinking. They both had a desire to push the limits. However, Renaissance thinking also effected  another event: witch hunts. Witch hunts were caused by religious, social, and economic factors. For instance, Religious commitment was shown by destroying heretics. Also, many disasters were occurring and people needed someone to blame. Finally. more and more women were marring later in their lives or not marrying at all. This threatened traditional society and made unmarried women who were not under the protection of a man easy targets for being witches.

Though witch hunts hunts had been happening before, Renaissance ideas brought out a new way of persecution. Humanism focused on being rational and therefore so did witch hunts. People began looking for legit, logical proof someone was a witch. However, the reasoning was far from rational.