The Age of Expansion: 1500 - 1700

In 1415 Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal, a younger son of the King of Portugal, captured the North Africans port of Ceuta from the Muslims. This inspired him to do a navigational school in Lisbon, and a number of expeditions with Italians that his purpose was to find a route to India and the Far East around Africa.

In 1487 a Portuguese Captain named Bartholomew Dias sailed around the Cape of Good Hope at the tip of Africa. In 1498, Vasco de Gama reached the coast of India.

On August 2, 1492, an Italian sailor named Christopher Columbus, was determined to find a new eastern trade route. In 1519 Ferdinand Magellan set to circumnavigate the globe. Also in 1519, Hernan Cortés landed in Mexico with 600 men and arrived at the heart of the Aztec Empire. In 3 years, Cortés would declare the Aztec Empire as part of Spain. In 1531 a sailor named Francisco Pizarro, set out for another great civilization, the Inca Empire of Peru.

The impact: Immense. The hacienda (plantation) system exploited the agricultural and mineral riches from the land, they also put the indigenous people of the place under servitude. The indigenous people died at an incredible rate from both disease and overwork. So to come back this decline in population, the Spaniards began to capture Africans and forced them to work in the farms and mines of the new world. It has been estimated that by the time that the trade ended in the 1800's, almost 10 million Africans were abducted from their homelands. The sudden influx of gold and silver from the Americas into Europe, played a role in what is known as the Price Revolution. Remember though that the influx of precious metals was not the primary cause of the Price Revolution, but the cause was the tremendous Population explosion. Inflation occurred.

The money that the Europeans got helped finance their numerous wars, and the rise of the Monarchial Nation States...