European Exploration and Expansion

With the Ottomans blocking land routes to Asia, Europeans began pressing south and west, where they accidentally found the Americas. Exploration, however, was also accompanied by efforts to reduce the Muslim presence in Christendom. This climaxed with the European conquest of Granada in 1492.

Iberian Reconquest

Before 1492, Christians shared the Iberian Peninsula with Muslims and Jews. By the middle of the fifteenth century, Muslims had been pushed south, so that only Granada, a fortress overlooking passages connecting the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, remained. After a long siege, Granada was overwhelmed in 1492. Christians celebrated. The military campaigns to expel Muslims from Spain were accompanied by the forced exodus of nearly half a million people. Believing they were somehow cleansing Europe of heretical beliefs, Europeans considered this, too, a great victory. In 1491, Columbus was granted backing to seek a westerly sea route when he promised to provide enough riches to bankroll a final and decisive crusade against the Muslims.

The Portuguese in Africa and Asia

Much earlier, Portugal had already found a way around Africa in pursuit of converts and access to Indian Ocean trade routes. En route, it was hoped, Africa could provide a goodly supply of gold and silver. To carry them to riches, the Portuguese constructed hybrid ships that combined technology of the Greeks and Arabs. Sailing their caravels, Portuguese learned how to tack into the wind, while the compass, astrolabe, and newer maps gave direction. Conquering their own fears of the unknown and misinformation about what lay beyond, the Portuguese eventually rounded Africa.

Before getting to Asia, however, the Portuguese learned to profit from Africa. On the coast, they built small trading ports. On islands off the African coast, they established sugar plantations worked by African slaves—the first examples of slave-powered plantations. Many slaves were sent to Portugal as domestic servants.

The first to reach Asia was Vasco da Gama. On reaching Africa’s eastern coast, he quickly acquired a Muslim pilot to guide his ship to India. There he overcame local resistance, loaded his ships with goods, and sailed back to Lisbon, arriving in 1499. With the way charted, other Portuguese began establishing a presence at major Indian Ocean ports, including Aden, Hormuz, and Melaka. They established trading networks and control over East African ports, allowing Portuguese ports to overshadow the Italian ports as Europe’s most important.

Sixteenth-century Portugal oversaw the rise of a trading and plantation empire based on small colonies (African islands) and naval control of the trading lanes. Larger territorial acquisitions would not come, however, until the discovery of the Americas.

Military Development and European Expansion

Portuguese success depended on improved military technology involving extensive borrowing from Asia, particularly of gunpowder. Arming their ships with cannon, Portuguese could bombard their rivals. Gunpowder benefited kings, who sought to increase control by providing their armies with new weaponry that knights, with smaller holdings, could not afford. On warships, cannon proved highly effective in defeating enemies and opening ports.

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