From the end of15th century to the beginning of16th century, Europeans opened air routes to India and America, thus discovering the American continent. This event was once called "geographical discovery" in history. It is not a historical accident for Europeans to open up new air routes, but it has profound social and economic roots.
(1)15th century later, with the rapid development of feudal economy, the commodity-currency relationship began to erode the foundation of feudal natural economy from the inside, disintegrated the feudal system and promoted the germination of capitalism. At that time, the commodity exchange was very extensive and needed a lot of money. At this time, the western European currency has changed from the silver standard to the gold standard. Gold and silver are both means of payment for international trade between European countries, and their status is very high. Therefore, people think that owning gold and silver is everything, and gold can open the way to heaven for the soul. Therefore, all social strata in western Europe, especially businessmen and bourgeoisie, are very keen on pursuing gold and silver, but the gold and silver produced in continental Europe is limited. At that time, a book widely circulated in Europe, The Travels of Marco Polo (Kyle Polo was a merchant in Venice, Italy. When he was young, he went to Central Asia, India and China to do business with his uncle. Yuan Shizu lived in China for seventeen years when he was an official in the China court. After returning home, he took part in the naval battle between Venice and Genoa. Venice was defeated and Kyle Poirot was arrested and imprisoned. In prison, he dictated what he saw and heard in the East, which was recorded and compiled into a book by the pizza writer Rosti Sheng and widely circulated. The book exaggerates the wealth of India, Southeast Asia and China, and further stimulates the enthusiasm of European upper-class elements to seek gold in the East.
(2) There are three roads from east to west: one is land, from Central Asia along the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea to Asia; Two sea routes, that is, from the sea to the Persian Gulf, then through the two river basins to Syria on the east coast of the Mediterranean, or from the sea to the Red Sea, and then from the land to Alexandria, Egypt. /kloc-After the rise of the Ottoman Empire in the mid-5th century, it occupied the Balkans and Asia Minor, and soon occupied Crimea, controlling the traditional trade routes between the East and the West, and extorting and making things difficult for European businessmen traveling to and from the Mediterranean region. Therefore, the goods sent to Europe are small in quantity and expensive, while the European upper class regards Asian luxury goods as necessities and buys them at high prices. This trade caused western Europe to enter supermarkets and a large amount of gold flowed out. So the aristocrats, businessmen and bourgeoisie in western Europe are eager to bypass the eastern Mediterranean and open up another route to India and China, and get a lot of luxury goods directly from Asia.
(3) The development of productivity and the progress of science and technology in Western Europe have created the necessary conditions for discovering new sea routes and made ocean navigation possible. /kloc-in the 0/5th century, a multi-masted clipper suitable for sailing at sea appeared in western Europe. The compass, one of China's four great inventions, was introduced to Europe by Arabs and has been widely used at this time. Europeans use it to determine the geographical location and determine the route. With the development of science and technology, the earth circle theory in ancient Greece has been accepted by more and more intellectuals, among which Toscanelli, an astronomer and geographer in Florence, is the most determined. Based on the assumption that the earth is spherical, he thought that he could reach India and China by sailing westward, and drew a rough map of the world. In a word, the progress of astronomical geography knowledge in15th century and the accumulation of navigation experience all over the world made European navigators dare to stay away from the coast and sail in the ocean they have never been to, which led to the success of new routes.
2. Opening of new routes
The Portuguese were the first to explore the route to India. From the beginning of the 15th century, with the support of autocratic dynasties, Portuguese nobles went south for gold along the west coast of Africa, and occupied the city of Ceuta in the northwest corner of Africa in 14 15. In the 1970s, the Portuguese arrived in Ghana and found that there was rich gold there, which was later called the Gold Coast by Europeans. Arriving in Congo and Angola in 1980s, I brought back many valuables every time I set sail. This situation is a stimulus to the Spanish. In order to compete with its rivals, Spain is looking for a route to India in another direction. As a result, the transatlantic route to Europe and America was opened and the American continent was discovered. According to the theory of circle, the Italian Columbus thought that sailing from the Atlantic Ocean to the west could reach India, and the Spanish king adopted his advice. 1492 On August 3rd, Columbus led a fleet across the Atlantic Ocean and arrived at Vatlin Island, a small island in the Bahamas, on 12 10. He thought he was going to India, called the natives he met Indians, and then flew south to Cuba and Haiti, returning on March 1493.
Just during Columbus' voyage, the Italian Amelio? Wei visited the northeast coast of South America. After returning to China, he drew the latest map and published the sailing story. In the book, he concluded that this place is not India, but the New World. Later generations named the new continent "America" after him, but the island between North and South America that Columbus first reached was later called the West Indies.
Columbus's voyage and discovery had a great influence in Europe, which pushed countries to set off a new wave of overseas expansion. Portugal is not willing to lag behind. As early as 1486, Portuguese Diaz sailed to the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa. 1497，Da？ Gama led the fleet around the Cape of Good Hope along the route taken by Diaz, went north along the east coast of Africa, and arrived at Kalikut Port in India on May 22nd 1498. The new route was finally successfully opened. Gamma returned to Portugal loaded with spices and silk, and its net profit was more than 60 times that of sailing expenses, which caused great shock in Europe, especially in Spanish aristocrats.
15 19 In September, no one was interested in his country. Magellan, a Portuguese who joined the Spanish king, sailed around the world. After arriving at the east coast of South America, the fleet sailed south along the coast, crossed the southern strait, which was later called strait of magellan, and entered an ocean to the west. Because the journey was calm, the crew called it the Pacific Ocean. 152 1 arrived in the Philippine islands in March. Magellan tried to conquer the islands, but was killed by local residents. The rest of the crew passed through the Indian Ocean, bypassed the Cape of Good Hope to the north, and returned to Spain in September 1522. The first round-the-world voyage of mankind was declared successful.
3. Early colonial conquest and plunder.
After the opening of the new sea route and the discovery of the new continent, the emerging bourgeoisie, declining aristocrats and businessmen in the primitive accumulation period flocked to Asia, Africa and Latin America for colonial conquest and plunder with the support of various dynasties. Portugal and Spain conquered and plundered before other European countries, and the two countries declared the first place they arrived as their own territory. As a result, the two countries had a dispute over territory. Pope Alexander VI intervened, and the two sides signed a treaty in June 1494, drawing a demarcation line from the North Pole to the South Pole at 2220km west of Cape Verde Islands, which is called "papal meridian". According to the treaty, the non-Christian land found west of this line belongs to Spain and belongs to the East. When Magellan sailed to the Moluccas, there was a contradiction about the ownership of the island. 1529, the two sides signed a treaty in Zaragoza, drawing another dividing line at 17 degrees east of the Moluccas. According to these two agreements, Spain almost monopolized America, while Portugal put Asia and Africa under its sphere of influence, which was the first colonial partition in world history.
Shortly after Columbus arrived in America, the Spanish began to occupy the American continent. /kloc-In the first decade of the 6th century, it first occupied the Caribbean and the West Indies, established colonial strongholds in Santo Domingo, Jamaica, Cuba and Puerto Rico, and then further occupied the vast Central and South America. By the middle of16th century, except Portuguese Brazil, the whole Central and South America continent was basically conquered by the Spanish, among which Mexico and Peru were the most typical. (The Conquest of Cortez and Pizarro)
After the Spanish conquered Central and South America, they established a colonial government there and sent governors to rule directly, and then the Spanish immigrated in large numbers. By 1574, the total amount reached150,000. Spanish nobles, monks, businessmen and other adventurers occupied the land there and became the owners of large real estate. The original owners of the land became serfs or slaves, and the colonists pursued slavery in plantations and gold and silver mines, cruelly squeezing and exploiting Indians, resulting in a sharp decline in the Indian population. For example, in 1503, Spain invaded Jamaica, and in 1548, the inhabitants of the island were almost extinct. By the middle of16th century (154 1), it was estimated that150,000 Indians in the Spanish colony had been wiped out.
Because a large number of Indians were tortured and killed, there was a serious shortage of labor in the United States. In order to solve this problem, from the 16th century, colonists began to sell blacks from Africa and transport them to the United States as slaves. /kloc-about 900,000 black slaves were transported from Africa to America in the 6th century, 2.75 million in the 7th century and 7 million in the 8th century. By the 1970s, the number of blacks trafficked to America had reached150,000, and with the deaths caused by slave hunting and trafficking, Africa lost about 60 million people.
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