Barbara S.

10-3 BSGE

January 25, 2011 Humanities 10-3

Why the Portuguese round Africa and travel to India to fulfill material desires? What factors in Europe led to the Portuguese rounding Africa through the Atlantic Ocean and trading with India? The reason the Portuguese rounded Africa to travel to India to trade is because during this time in Europe exploration had become potent. But a lot of changes happened in Europe before exploration came to be. It started back with the Holy Roman Empire. The Romans had conquered much land and preached the Roman Gods to them. The Emperor of the Roman Empire (being Cesar) had also preached his own divination. He had played himself off as part of gods family using this, he had imposed a tax on the people and also the first form of currency within his temples. Later, a leader was born named Jesus Christ. Jesus had been a Jew (the son of god) who preached against the Holy Roman Empire and the taxes they imposed. He spoke up for equality amongst everyone including woman, cripples, and the poor. He was a threat to the Holy Roman Empire, and those who began to listen to his sermons were punished greatly. After Christs death, Christianity spread rapidly amongst the people. For a long time the Romans persecuted Christians because they went against Cesar and the Roman Empire. But Christianity only grew stronger, and in order to reign in the masses the Romans decided to split their Empire. So the Romans took the Western part, and the other half became the Byzantine Empire. Afterwards the Roman official too Converted to Christianity. This occurred at the end of the fourth century. Around the seventh century Muhammad the profit was born, and Islam was born in the Arabic Peninsula. Islam began to spread like wild-fire and became immensely powerful very quickly. It soon had gone on to conquer the Middle East, and Persia. At the time the Byzantine and Islam began arguing and fighting eventually, the Byzantine armies were conquered around 636, Jerusalem was take two years later. Islam continuously grew in strength. It soon began to encroach on European territories, the Muslims took on the Visigoths (successfully defeating them), later they conquered the Iberian Peninsula and eventually even France. In 718 Constantinople was taken by the Muslims. At this point the European Christians or the Holy Roman Empire had gotten involved. They sent out knights nad peasants on Crusade quests to conquer The Holy Lands. At the time the soldiers had been bribed under the pretense that they would be allowed into heaven if they went out on these wars to fight for Christian Holy Lands. (In 1095 church nobles, Pope Urban II met with Alexius Comnenus at this meeting the leaders had decided to send fleets of men to stop the Turks and the Muslims). Now around this itme the first crusade was launched, it was followed be many others, and for many years the Muslims and the Christians went back and forth fighting the Not so Holy Wars. Though the pope had declared the wars as a way to take back the Holy Wars from the infidel Muslims, it had been nothing more than a tactic to gain more land and power for their empire. Even though the crusades were terrible bloody wars they did have some positive sides to them. During the Crusades Europeans discovered the pros to exploration. During the crusades different spices were discovered and highly favored such as cinnamon, and pepper. After the crusades and the complete end of the Roman Empire there was this battle for power going on. Europe was divided into many little fortified kingdoms. During this time the Christian church had found opportunity to seize and control power. It became the dominating influence and from their feudalism grew. In Feudalism Popes were the equivalent to kings, bishops and abbots also had

much power they were usually lords. Then deacons and priests were the knights and regular Christians the peasant class. The ruling Christian nobles had taken great advantage of the peasant class. They forced them to work and produce for the upper classes and took basically everything from them. They barely left anything for the peasants. They had used their power in the church to get what they wanted. But rapidly wide spread famine and disease spread all over Europe, it was a very dark time. Monarchs knew they couldnt continue as they once had, many had died during this time period. Slowly Europe had begun to recover, and in order to progress on and keep from hunger the peasants from different kingdoms and towns began to trade with one another. Quickly high class leaders caught on to this idea. They saw if they made merchandise and traded it they made a big money profit which brought them wealth. Soon the peasant class was working again but this time it was for trade. This made peasant life easier, it wasnt as harsh as before when all the monarchs were fighting with one another for power. Here Market Feudalism was born. Market Feudalism used trading as a new standard, soon as more trade progressed and European countries got richer exploration opened up. Market Feudalism became very significant in the European Economy. The more trade the more money a Monarch could make. So this mad dash to find trade routes to control was happening all over Europe. Nations could afford to fund sea voyages and expeditions. At this time international trade amongst continents was going on. Europeans desperately wanted the spices they had first found during the crusades (nutmeg, pepper, cinnamon, jasmine, and ginger). The Portuguese especially wanted it, but at the time significant land trade routes had already been established. Routes going from East to West were controlled by the Italians and the Muslims. The way this operated was that the Muslims sold things lie spices and good from India only to Italian Merchants. From their Italian Merchants resold the products back to various European Traders at a higher price. This way the Italians made a profit while everyone else cut their losses. The other European traders such as the Portuguese had no other choice but to buy from the Italians. Yet the Portuguese was very unhappy with this understanding. The Portuguese wanted to get their products cheaper without having to go through the middle man. The only way they could do this was by sea. So they instead found a sea trading route that rounded Africa through the Atlantic to trade with India. This set of an entire European exploration for new sea- trading routes, because who ever controlled more trading routes controlled more money. Many new sea voyages were cast, even including Christopher Columbuss (Columbowicz) voyage. That is why the Portuguese rounded Africa and traveled to India to fulfill their material desires.