Test Review 10/12

We spent the class reviewing parts of the chapter that we hadn't necessarily covered already.


Marco Polo

• Italian who travelled to Asia; after he returned, he wrote The Travels (roughly 1300). This book increased interest in East Asia and the Indies
• The increased interest in Asia was the impetus for the age of European exploration (Polo brought spices and goods back from Asia, and wrote about it in his novel, which made people want to experience it for themselves/trade for the exotic spices)
• Post-Polo trade went around the Indian Ocean, and India was the trade fulcrum. After Europeans reached the Americas, trade moved more to the Atlantic Ocean (Columbian Exchange)

Africa

• The Portuguese didn't really go further into Africa than the port cities
• Mansa Musa, a wealthy man from Mali, encouraged people to explore the interior of Africa with little success

Ottomans and Persians

• Ottomans are Muslim, not all Persians are Muslim (Persia is present day Iran)
• The Persian empire is smaller than the Ottoman
• Ottomans control land-trade routes (from Asia to Europe)
• They're the middlemen for these routes, which is how they make their money

Explorers

• God, Gold & Glory
• Technological advances that made exploration possible: 
• Caravel (not Carvel)
• Portuguese invented this 3-masted sailing ship (more sails made it more maneuverable)
• They also had more storage room, so they could hold more goods and supplies (like this) 

• Compass
• Astrolabe 
• Used in the process of celestial reckoning (determining latitude by finding the altitude of the sun and tracking its movement)
• 2 main countries: Spain and Portugal 
• They began American exploration
• Important Explorers
• Christopher Columber
• Sailed the ocean blue in 1492
• Looking for a shortcut to Asia, instead "found" America
• Marco Polo
• Went to China and introduced most Europeans to East Asia (and all of the goods there to be traded)
• Invented a fun pool game
• Amerigo Vespucci
• He was the one who figure out that Columbus never actually got to India, and that he discovered a "Mundus Novus" (New World)
• Because of this, the continent was named for him
• Spain and Portugal began fighting over territories --> Treaty of Tordesillas
• An arbitrary line created by Pope Alexander VI; Spain got everything to the east of it, Portugal got the west 
• Portugal really only got Brazil in the Americas as a result of this (it juts out), and Spain got the majority of Latin America
• Spanish territories were divided into 4 viceroyalties (administrative divisions)
• New Spain (Mexico)
• Peru (Peru)
• New Granada (Colombia)
• La Plata (Argentina)
• The viceroyalties were ruled by viceroys (imperial governors) 
• Below them was the audiencia (advisory council) 
• Spanish Social Hierarchy:
1. Spanish (born in Spain) living in the Americas (Peninsulares)
2. Americans with Spanish blood (creoles)
3. Mixed people (mestizos)
4. Natives/enslaved Africans
• African slaves were predominantly used in the Caribbean and Brazil, not so much in Mexico
• In Mexico, the local population wasn't affected by disease as much as in other places (such as Brazil and the Caribbean) 
• This meant that there was a larger indigenous workforce that the Spanish didn't have to import
• The Encomienda system was not slavery
• The Spanish didn't own their workers, they just had them work

Spain

• Philip II (a Habsburg) introduced too much New World silver into the Spanish economy at once, causing mass inflation
• Spain was the leader of the world at this point in time
• The beginning of their downfall was in 1588, when the Spanish armada was defeated by the English

Las Casas and Montaigne

• Both Las Casas and Montaigne were critical of Europeans; however, Las Casas criticized the Spaniards' actions while Montaigne criticized their beliefs
• Las Casas discusses the violent acts committed by Europeans unto the Native Americans
• Montaigne discusses European hypocrisy (calling Native Americans savages while they were doing basically the same things in Europe)