The Age of Discovery is a reference to the time in the history of the world, when regions such as India, America, Africa, and Australia were discovered by the Europeans, that is around 15th century to 18th century. This initially started with the advent of Industrialisation, which started in France and was popularised by England. The economic concepts of capitalism and mercantilism emerged in this period.
The Europeans invented machines and industries to make their commodities for them, so that manpower was reduced by a great degree. But, the big change that came with this was that these machines produced far more number of products in a short time, than manpower could ever dream of. So, the European traders needed markets outside of their continent to sell their commodities. They sent explorers to discover lands outside Europe; these explorers were backed by royal patronage. Columbus made the first major discovery and that was the North America. He was followed by Vasco da Gama, who discovered India. Many such discoveries were made and the Europeans traded goods with them. This eventually led to colonisation and the complete transformation of the colonies.
Here are a few facts about the Age of Discovery that one must keep in mind while studying World History:
- Christopher Columbus landed in America, thinking it was India. He was an Italian explorer, sent by the Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabelle of Castile. It was by then already known that Europeans could reach Asia by rounding the tip of Africa (the Cape of Good Hope), but Christopher Columbus had a different idea. He thought that they could reach Asia by travelling west. This was, of course, faulty, as we know to-day, but Columbus went ahead anyway, because the waters at the Cape of Good Hope were choppy and unpredictable; it was worth a shot, if European traders could avoid that. So, Columbus sailed his Santa Maria across the Atlantic in the year 1492. But then, he reached the lands of America and not India! The land is part of what we now call the Bahaman Islands.
- Columbus was not the first person to discover America. Long before him, the Vikings and the Normans had visited the land in the 10th and 11th In fact, it has also been discovered that the Normans actually colonised America for some time. The first Normans landed on what they later called Newfoundland.
- Hernan Cortez discovered the Aztec Civilisation. The Aztec Civilisation was located in what is to-day called Latin America. When the Spaniards, led by explorer Hernan Cortez, landed on the continent in 1522, they had the advantage of new and advanced weaponry and new diseases over the Aztecs. The Aztecs were still using bows and arrows. Nonetheless, they were the most powerful of the empires in South America and Mexico. Many other small tribal leaders tried to oust them, but in vain. When they realised that the Europeans wanted to overthrow the Aztecs as well, these native leaders joined them, and together, they defeated the last Aztec emperor, Cuauhtémoc. Among the others loyal to him, half died with the new diseases that the Europeans brought with them.
- There were many scientific inventions made during this period. The Age of Discovery overlapped with the Scientific Revolution in Europe. There were a lot of new tools used in navigation, such as the compass, the astrolabe, and the new ships, such as the caravel.
- Religion was one main reason for the explorations. Apart from trade purposes, the European missionaries also wanted to spread their respective Christian faiths to new lands far and wide. There were also explorers who were interested in fame, wealth and glory, and there were some who were merely curious.
The Age of Exploration also brought out the competitiveness in the rulers of the European nation-states. So, each of them was racing against one-another to find new lands and start trading and spreading their religious faiths. They were all economically and religiously intolerant towards one-another as well as the lands they discovered. They forcefully converted the natives into their own religion and regarded the native religion as primitive and repulsive.
One has to keep in mind that the very concept of the Age of Exploration is Euro-centric and thus, mostly talks about the European achievements.
Parchments of the Times Past 