In the 1400s, the peoples of the Americas and of Europe, Africa and Asia had no contact with each other (apart from brief Norse visits to Newfoundland about AD 1000). Then, within a few decades, sailors from Portugal and Spain crossed the oceans. Why then, and why them? Use the long-term and short-term causes from Causes, Effects and Change Over Time.
Key idea
Why it works
Worked example: Two routes to Asia
- Portugal already led the route around Africa (Dias, 1488).
- Columbus believed Asia lay a short way west across the Atlantic; he underestimated the size of the Earth.
- Spain's rulers, Ferdinand and Isabella, wanted their own route and profits.
Answer: Spain needed a route of its own, and Columbus promised a shorter one.
Worked example: Reading Tordesillas
- The line ran north and south through the Atlantic.
- The eastern bulge of South America lay east of the line.
- Pedro Álvares Cabral claimed it for Portugal in 1500.
Answer: Brazil. That is why Brazilians speak Portuguese while most of Latin America speaks Spanish.
Columbus made four voyages between 1492 and 1504. When he landed in the Bahamas, he met the Taíno people. He called them "Indians" because he believed he was in the Indies, near Asia. He died in 1506 still believing he had reached Asia. His voyages began lasting contact between the hemispheres, with huge effects, good and terrible, that the next topics trace.
Common mistake