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Tag Archives: European Exploration and Expansion
The Impact of Expansion | European Exploration and Expansion
The record of European expansion contains pages as grim as any in history. The African slave trade—begun by the Africans and the Arabs and turned into a profitable seaborne enterprise by the Portuguese, Dutch, and English—is a series of horrors, from the rounding up of the slaves by local chieftains in Africa, through their transportation across the Atlantic, to their sale in the Indies.
American settlers virtually exterminated the native population east of the Mississippi. There were, of course,
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Leave a commentNorth by Sea to the Arctic | European Exploration and Expansion
Henry Hudson had found not only the Hudson River but also Hudson Bay in the far north of Canada. In 1670 English adventurers and investors formed the Hudson's Bay Company, originally set up for fur trading along the great bay to the northwest of French Quebec.
In the late sixteenth century the Dutch had penetrated far into the European Arctic, had discovered the island of Spitsbergen to the north of Norway, and had ranged eastward across the sea named after their leader, William Barents (d. 1597).
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Leave a commentRussia: East by Land to the Pacific | European Exploration and Expansion
The victories of Ivan the Terrible over the Volga Tatars led to the first major advances, with private enterprise leading the way. By the end of the sixteenth century the Stroganov family had obtained huge concessions in the Ural area, where they made a great fortune in the fur trade and discovered and exploited Russia's first iron mines.
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Leave a commentRussia | European Exploration and Expansion
Russian exploration and conquest of Siberia matched European expansion in the New World, both chronologically (the Russians crossed the Urals from Europe into Asia in 1483) and politically, for expanding Muscovite Russia was a "new" monarchy. This Russian movement across the land was remarkably rapid—some five thou¬sand miles in about forty years.
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Leave a commentAfrica and the Far East: Areas of Influence | European Exploration and Expansion
To reach the East all three of the northern maritime powers used the ocean route around Africa that the Portuguese had developed in the fifteenth century. All three secured African posts, with the Dutch occupying the strategic Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of the continent in 1652.
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Leave a commentThe Two Indies, West and East: Areas of Conquest | European Exploration and Expansion
The French, Dutch, and English all sought to gain footholds in South America, but had to settle for the unimportant Guianas. They thoroughly broke up the Spanish hold on the Caribbean, however. In early modern times these islands were one of the great prizes of imperialism. Cheap slave labor raised tobacco, fruits, coffee, and, most profitably, cane sugar.
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Leave a commentThe French in North America | European Exploration and Expansion
To the north and west of the fourteen colonies, in the region of the St. Lawrence basin, the French built upon the work of Cartier and Champlain. The St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes gave the French easy access to the heart of the continent, in contrast to the Appalachian ranges that stood between the English and the Mississippi River.
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Leave a commentEnglish, Dutch, and Swedes in North America | European Exploration and Expansion
The English did not immediately follow up the work of the Cabots. Instead, they put their energies into breaking into the Spanish trading monopoly. In 1562 John Hawkins started the English slave trade; his nephew, Francis Drake, reached the Pacific and claimed California for England under the name of New Albion.
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Leave a commentThe North Atlantic Powers | European Exploration and Expansion
Spain and Portugal enjoyed a head start of nearly a century in founding empires of settlement. The northern Atlantic states soon made up for their late start, however. As early as 1497 John Cabot (d. c. 1498) and his son Sebastian, Italians in English service, saw something of the North American coast and gave the English territorial claims based on their explorations.
Summary | European Exploration and Expansion