Ap European Exploration Dbq Analysis

Miguel Cabrera is a well known painter from the 18th century who painted From Spaniard and Mulatta, Morisca in 1763. This painting is from the caste series Miguel Cabrera did during his life in the Colonial Spanish Americas (Arana). A caste series is a set of sixteen paintings that trace racial mixing. In the painting, a family of a Spanish man and a Mulatta women are depicted with their children whom contain attributes of both of their parents. This painting of a multicultural family shows much of the social, economic, political, and historical time period of Latin America.

The end of the fifteenth century is attributed as the time period in which Christopher Colombus “discovered” the Americas. Although he was allegedly the first European to have reached these unknown lands at the time, many sought to reach the new world, for a variety of reasons. Most of those people could be divided in two: the settlers and the conquerors. In North America, there were more of the former, people looking for a new home where they could rebuild their families and lives. In Meso-America, however, the goal was to exploit the lands in order to produce and extract new goods which they could trade. Despite the different outcomes they were trying to reach, both held a common truth: natives and African slaves were both lesser than Europeans,

Europe, such as Spain, France, and England, have had different language, culture, political system, religion and more, which they developed by themselves in their civilization. In the late 1400s to 1500s, Europeans started the colonization and economic competitions each other between countries to get more assets since their resources and lands were limited and not enough. At that time, Spaniards and French had the same purpose for exploring the New World such as pursuing wealth, winning the economic competition, but they approached to Native Americans in different ways. The difference between these two countries when they encounter with Indians was the relationship with Native Americans.

In the 15 to 17 century’s during the Age of Exploration, Europeans would explore unknown region of the world. Explorers had different reasons of discovering these places from wanting to go there their whole life to doing it for trade with goods or to make money. One thing all of these explorers have in common is conquering the land they find for themselves or their country. Others may argue they are just explorers and do it for the fun. Some argue they were just merchants trading slaves and goods with other countries around them and some say they are missionary’s trying to convert the native people to their religion.

European exploration was brought on by the three G’s: God, gold, and glory. People wanted to spread Christianity whether it be Catholicism or Protestantism, while explorers such as Cortes were looking for gold to get rich and glory to get famous. This age of exploration was able to occur because of technological advances such as the caravel, cannons on ships, more advanced cartography, and the magnetic compass. The impact exploration had on the natives of the New World was changes in the natives culture, enslavement of the native people, and a massive population decrease.

The natives did not receive correct treatment from those who conquered their land. For example, Hernan Cortes demanded that the natives must change their beliefs. The Aztecs would sacrifice 50 souls every year to their gods. Cortes opposed of this and therefor forced them to adopt a new religion. The Aztecs didn’t easily accept the new religion since they have been following their religion for a very long time (document 3). Conquerors also threatened the natives. It was required that the natives accept the Church as the “Ruler”, and if they didn’t, war would be made against them and their family would become enslaved (document 7). The natives in America suffered severely during this time. In Latin America, the Spanish conquerors overworked the Indian natives and treated them harshly. The Spaniards broke apart families and relationships so that they would have limited contact with each other and would be forced to give up their customs. They were also required to learn Christianity (document 8). The native peoples’ land and space was invaded and they were required to do whatever the conquerors said, or else they would be punished. This era in history is a devastating time for an immense amount of people.

In the 16th Century, Spain became one of the European forces to reckon with. To expand even further globally, Spanish conquistadors were sent abroad to discover lands, riches, and North America and its civilizations. When the Spanish and Native American groups met one another, they judged each other, as they were both unfamiliar with the people that stood before them. The Native American and Spanish views and opinions of one another are more similar than different because when meeting and getting to know each other, neither the Spaniards nor the Native Americans saw the other group of people as human. Both groups of people thought of one another as barbaric monsters and were confused and amazed by each other’s cultures. But, even though both

Yet, modern times never focus on what problems the Europeans caused in their process to discover new land. They killed people, used many people as slaves, and spreaded many diseases all in search of new land and wealth. They destroyed the peace that maintained before they arrived to the land they explored. They tore apart many civilizations in order to build their own on top of it. The Age of Exploration was a time of corruption. As Arthur M. Schlesinger said in Columbus on Trial, European culture has "its share of monsters and atrocities" and that civilizations who had many conquests "did not show anything like concern for moral behavior and treatment of others" (Document 6). Ultimately, European explorers, conquistadors, and settlers from the Age of Exploration should not still be glorified and celebrated because they caused more harm than good, and tore apart others just to make a name for

I think the role of technology in European explorations was so so important. If you think about it without technology they wouldn 't have made it that far. Some of the technology they had was like the ships without the ships Europe wouldn 't have conquered the world. Without the ships none of the explorations would have occurred. They had a lot of cause to why to explore and without the technology that made it way easier for them, they wouldn 't have made it so far.

Who were the Native Americans? Native Americans spoke hundreds of different languages and were a diverse group of people who, for the most part, crossed the Bering Strait between 15,000 and 60,000 years ago. What were the major differences between Native Americans and Europeans? At that time, Europeans had made significantly more advancements in metal tools, gunpowder, and science. Native Americans also had a different political system, religious views, and family structure then the Europeans. In 1492, supported by Spain and tasked with finding a westward route to Asia by sea and negotiate trade agreements, Christopher Columbus discovered the New World. After two more voyages to the New World, Columbus died in 1506 thinking he had discovered a route to Asia. Not until another explorer by the name of Amerigo Vespucci came to South America, did the Europeans discover they had stumbled upon an entirely different continent.

They often killed and robbed several natives for their gold, as Document Six tells us. They were incredibly greedy, and wanted wealth and riches, as opposed to friendship and peace. Their cruelty grew so terrible that the Native Americans they tormented became afraid of the word "Christian," as the Spanish plunderers called themselves as such. Document Six was written by a Spaniard calling for reform. Document Seven displays Native American life as if it were quaint and quiet. It raises the question of how the Spanish viewed the natives: as people standing in the way of their gold, or fascinating and interesting people with rich culture and

The Age of Exploration was a time of great expansion in the European Countries. From Africa, to North and South America, the Spanish, Dutch, English and French were all competing to find new trade routes, new commodities, and new areas to convert to their religion. The Age of Exploration had a tremendous impact on Europe, the Americas, and Africa. On one hand, Europe was able to expand widely across the world spreading their culture. On the other hand, the Americas were discovered and had their original culture changed immensely. Finally, Africa suffered from a loss of culture and no longer had trust in others.

They stole from the Aztecs, brought diseases to the Eora people, killed for money, and tricked tribes who were not well taught about the outside world. They took advantage of people who did not know how to fight. They stole from temples, just for fame, glory, and of course money. This is not very outgoing to anyone. Imagine, your in your town, everything is peaceful. Then you hear something, it sounds like metal. It races past you. The next day you hear of people trying to steal your land’s gold. You are worried. The king is captured, and Aztec nobles are dead. You wonder why someone would do such a thing. Your people try to defend their land but the spanish are smarter. They fight back and they win. They end up getting the money and gold. You feel defeated, like you can’t do anything about it. And you couldn’t do anything about it then either. It just happened and you knew about it. That is how someone could have felt during the events that took place. Those are reasons why I believe that the explorers had a negative impact on societies. On many societies all

Indeed, from their first arrival in the New World, the European explorers treated the native people, and the slaves that they brought, as barbarous heathens, incapable of higher thought or civilized behavior. For example, Christopher Columbus’s letter to the King of Spain from his first voyage intricately shows these original encounters. In this letter, he carefully describes the people of the island, pointing out that they “all go naked, men and women, as their mothers bore them” and that they “are very marvelously timorous.” He then adds that he “gave them a thousand handsome good things, which [he] had brought, in order that they might conceive affection for us and, more than that, might become Christians and be inclined to the love and service of Your Highness.” Though he is not describing forced religious conversion, he is undoubtedly showing how the Europeans treated people with religions that were different from their own. Moreover, numerous laws within the established colonies, with relation both to the Native Americans and to the settlers, disproportionately disadvantaged non-Christians. For example, in Vitoria’s writing, “On The American Indians,” there are numerous laws that create unequal rights for people, but most noticeably are the rights taken from people based on their religion: “Heretics can have no dominion, so unbelievers, who are no better than heretics, can have no dominion either.” Essentially, therefore, if a person was not a Christian, they had no right to own land or to vote.

During the Age of Exploration, two years after Christopher Columbus’s significant find, Spain and Portugal were quarrelling over the newly found “uncivilized world” which would lead to the development of one of the biggest exchanges in the history of the world. Instead of concluding to war, they took a more dignified approach by letting the pope decide the matter (Treaty of Tordesillas). In the 1400s, this was a common practice for countries to resolve issues at the church, because at the time, the pope had more power than kings and queens of Catholic nations (Treaty of Tordesillas). Spain successfully removed all non-Christians from the Iberian Peninsula after hundreds of years, which marked the end of the Spanish Reconquista (Reconquista).