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Europe Reaches Out The Age of Exploration

Entire populations and cultures have been transplanted in recent centuries 59 million inhabitants of Great Britain • 270 million English-speakers in U.S. • 30 million in S. Africa • 28 million in Canada • 18 million in Australia.

39 million inhabitants in Spain • 250 million Spanish speakers in Latin America • Largest Spanish city is Mexico City (half the population of all of Spain) 10 million inhabitants in Portugal • 160 million Portuguese speakers in Brazil • Largest Portuguese city is Sao Paulo (more inhabitants than Portugal)

• Largest French city is still Paris • But the second largest is Montreal.

 16 million inhabitants in Holland, 10 million Afrikaans speakers in S. Africa.  There are 5 million Jews in Israel, 5 million in the U.S.

 The second largest Polish city is Chicago.  30 million blacks in the U.S. (only 6 countries in Africa have greater population)

The Impulse Toward Exploration • Tantalizingly brief gap between several medieval events and the European Age of Exploration • China closed itself to outsiders in 1368 • China's great voyages to Asia and Africa ended in 1431 • Last ship to Norse colony in Greenland sailed in 1406 • Columbus sailed in 1492.

Factors in Exploration  Accidental discovery.  Desire to bypass Moslem world.  Disruptions of overland routes (somewhat overrated).  Intra-European rivalry.  Curiosity.

Major Events in Exploration  African coast-route to India.  Trans Atlantic voyages.

 Northwest and Northeast Passage.  Pacific voyages.  Circumnavigations

Circumnavigating the Globe • • • • • • •

Ferdinand Magellan (Spain) 1519-22 Sir Francis Drake (England) 1577-80 Sir Thomas Cavendish (England) 1586-88 Simon de Cordes (Holland) 1598-1600 Oliver Van Noort (Holland) 1598-1601 George Spilberg (Holland) 1614-17 James LeMaire and William Cornelius Schouten (Holland) 1615-17

Some Observations • Most of these voyages were for military purposes (harassing the Spanish) rather than discovery • This pattern is very similar to the early days of space exploration • Not until the mid-1700’s were there circumnavigations largely aimed at exploration • Drake and his fellow pirates would now be called state-sponsored terrorists

A Geographical Oddity • The easiest way to sail around the world is from west to east, with the wind • Almost all early voyages were from east to west around South America • Objective: secrecy in entering the Pacific • Spanish tried and failed to establish settlements at the Straits of Magellan (weather poor, can’t raise crops, etc.)

A Geographical Oddity

The First Two (Three) -Time Circumnavigator • William Dampier (between 1679 and 1711) seems to have been the first to circumnavigate more than once (three times) • Odds of surviving a circumnavigation were very poor in early voyages • The prevention of scurvy was not discovered until around 1800

The First Two -Time Circumnavigating Ship • The Dolphin (1764-66 and 1766-68) was the first ship to circumnavigate the globe twice • It took almost 250 years after Magellan for shipbuilding technology to be able to build a ship capable of surviving two voyages

The First Commercial Round-theWorld Traveler • By the 1600’s a globe-girdling network of European trade routes was in place • It was rarely necessary to circle the globe • There were only about 25 circumnavigations to 1800 • Giovanni Carreri (1693-98) sailed to Mexico, crossed overland, then booked passage across the Pacific and back to Europe

Why Did They Do It? • Why did people risk their lives in tiny boats to trade halfway around the world? • Nowadays: bulk cargo. Ship more valuable than cargo, but cost recovered by many voyages (Exxon Valdez: 10 million gallons = $10 million) • 1600’s: cargo far more valuable than ship • “My ship came in” - one good voyage could set you up for life.

Strange ideas were not so strange • Does it seem bizarre that Cartier could sail up the St. Lawrence hoping to reach China?  There was no clear idea how rivers were fed or what made them flow. • The coastline of Europe is one of the most complex in the world. • The one thing Europeans were not prepared for was long regular coastlines without geographical oddities!

Innovations that aided exploration  Stern-post rudder  Lateen and square sails in combination

 Compass  Discovery of Trade Winds

Innovations derived from exploration  New foodstuffs: coffee, tea, potatoes, tomatoes, chocolate, squash, maize.

• Improvements in shipbuilding, charting, navigation. • General stimulus to discovery.

The Compass Crisis • Compasses often pointed quite far from true north • Queen Elizabeth offered a prize to anyone who could solve the problem • The court physician, William Gilbert, in 1600 published De Magnete

De Magnete, 1600 • Considered the first great work on magnetism • Gilbert deduced the overall form of magnetic fields and concluded that the Earth had two magnetic poles • Earth's magnetic field varies in space and time. It changes measurably in a human lifetime

Why Compasses Don’t Point True North • North Magnetic Pole is not at the geographic pole • Declination in Wisconsin is nearly zero • Declination in Maine is 20 degrees West • Declination in Seattle is 20 degrees East

Latitude and Longitude Latitude (N-S) is easy to determine by observing the stars

Latitude and Longitude Longitude (E-W) cannot be determined by simple observation – In a night, every observer at a given latitude sees the same stars – What differs is when they see the stars – The key to longitude determination is time

Longitude = Accurate Time • • • • •

Circumference of Earth =25,000 miles, so: One hour = 1040 miles at the equator One minute = 17 miles at the equator One second = 0.3 miles at the equator Clock has to be accurate to seconds over a span of months, on a rolling ship, in all weather and climate.

Astronomical Methods • Eclipses of Moon: Everyone who sees the Moon sees the same thing • Too rare for most purposes • Eclipses of Jupiter’s moons: frequent but hard to observe • Method never panned out

An Unexpected Spinoff • The Dutch astronomer Roemer found eclipses ran early or late • Discrepancy = time for light to cross Earth’s orbit • First evidence that light had a measurable speed

The Final Solution - A Good Clock • One of the great technological stimuli of all time • John Harrison, 1761 • Need high-quality steel for springs • Need accurate tools to make gears and other parts • With good steel and accurate machine tools, what else can you make?

Anything at All

The Other Immigrants • Rats and ships are synonymous • Dogs (for companionship) and pigs (for food) were common passengers on early voyages • Rats, dogs and pigs wreaked havoc on many island ecosystems • Horses were reintroduced to the Americas by the Spanish and were utilized by Indians far outside the zone of immediate contact • The most significant travelers were microscopic

Pre-Contact America • Pre-contact population of Americas once estimated at perhaps 5-10 million • Estimates based on – Observed population at time of contact – Stereotype that Indians could not sustain a complex society • Early estimates now known to be at least 10 times too small • May have been more people in the Americas than Western Europe

Conquest of the Americas • Europeans greatly outnumbered • Weapons advantage potentially offset by numbers • European mortality high from disease • Spanish had been expelling Arabs for 700 years • No reason to expect native societies to collapse upon conquest • Not the slam dunk we sometimes think

The Micro-Immigrants • Indians isolated from Old World disease pool • Introduced diseases: smallpox, chicken pox, measles, cholera, malaria • Effects extended far beyond contact areas • Overall mortality may have been 80%+ • Why didn’t diseases travel other way as well? (Syphilis?)

The Course of One Epidemic

Two Important Points about Disease in the New World • First Europeans did not know they were carrying contagious diseases • Europeans did not know that Indians lacked immunity to European diseases • Would things have been different if they had known? Maybe not, but you can’t judge people for what they might have done