11.

The great geographical discoveries

Introduction
We will see:

● The monarchy of the Catholic Monarchs

● Economy and society in the 15th century
● Geographical discoveries
● The voyages of Columbus
● The pre-columbian civilisations

●
 1.What new monarchy did the Catholic
Monarchs establish?

During the first half of the 15th century, the Iberian Peninsula was divided into five
large territories: the Crown of Castile, the Crown of Aragón, the Kingdom of
Navarre, the Kingdom of Portugal and the Islamic Kingdom of Granada.
A) The Dynastic Union
1. The Crown of Castile was marked by continuous revolts in the
15th century. When King Henry IV died, the Castilians were
divided between the supporters of his daughter Juana La
Beltraneja and the supporters of her sister Isabella. Isabella was
finally proclaimed Queen of Castile after five years of civil war.
2. In 1469, Ferdinand, son of the King of Aragón, married Isabella.
Ten years later, in 1479, when Isabella became Queen of
Castile and Ferdinand King of Aragón, the two crowns were
united.
3. Isabella and Ferdinand, the Catholic Monarchs, governed their
territories together, but each kingdom had its own laws and
institutions. It was a dynastic union.
 B)The expansion on the Peninsula

● Granada. The last Muslim territory in the

Peninsula was conquered after Boabdil
surrendered in 1492.
● Navarre. Despite an alliance with France,
Navarre was invaded. In 1515, It was
incorporated into Castile.
● Portugal. They used a policy of alliances
by marriage to incorporate Portugal. This
policy became successful later ( Philip II)
 C)An aggressive foreingn policy
In the Mediterranean

❏ Ferdinand defeated the French at

Naples and forced them to leave
the south of Italy.
❏ To stop the barbary pirates the
conquered: Melilla. Orán , Algiers
and bugia
 In the Atlantic
❏ The Catholic Monarchs consolidated
their control of the Canary Islands
between 1478 and 1496.
❏ Christopher Columbus' discovery of a
new continent in 1492 : the Atlantic
became a major commercial centre and
Castile the greatest empire of that period
 Alliances by marriage (I)
With the aim of isolating France and
strengthening their control of Europe, the
Catholic Monarchs arranged marriages between
their children and royal heirs in Europe.

● Isabella (their eldest daughter), was

married to the heir to the throne of Portugal,
Alfonso, and, on his death, with King
Manuel "the Lucky".
● When Isabella died, Manuel married
María. With these marriages the union was
sought with Portugal to complete the
peninsular unit.
Alliances by marriage (II)

● Juana married Felipe el Hermoso,

heir to the great possessions of the
houses of Austria and Burgundy,
and entitled to claim the title of
Emperor of Germany.

● Catherine, the youngest daughter,

married Arthur, Prince of Wales,
and, when he died, with the future
Enrique VIII of England.
 2.The organisation of the new monarchy

Ferdinand and Isabella wanted to impose their authority on their kingdoms and
limit the power of the privileged. They created new government institutions, unified
religion, promoted state diplomacy and started an ambitious foreign policy.
A. The consolidation of royal power

The Kingdom of Castile

Monarchs imposed a policy to limit the powers

of the privileged:

● No more land was granted to nobles. They

were forbidden to participate in the councils
and to go to war as commanding officials.
● New royal institutions. Its members were
chosen and paid by the king.
● A professional army was created.
The Kingdom of Aragón

In Aragón, Ferdinand also wanted to reduce the powers of the nobility

who had opposed his father in the Catalan Civil War (1462-1472).

Ferdinand did not impose royal power to the same degree as in Castile.
He maintained the existing medieval institutions:

- Parliament (Cortes)
- General and municipal councils (Diputaciones)
- The practice of pacts (pactismo): the king agreed to negotiate laws
and taxes with the parliaments in each of the kingdoms (Aragón,
Catalonia and Valencia).
B. Religious uniformity

It was one of the Catholic Monarchs' greatest objectives. To

achieve this, they:

● The Spanish Inquisition (1478). Aim: to try suspects of

heresy or crimes of faith and to punish those convicted.
● Forced the Jews to convert to Christianity in 1492. Those
that refused were persecuted and expelled. New Christians
were called Conversos.
● Forced the Muslims in Granada to be baptised as
Christians (Moriscos) or go into exile in 1502.
 3.Economic recovery and social inequality

During the 15th century, there was a slow but constant recovery of economic
activity in all of the Peninsular kingdoms.
In the Kingdom of Castile
The main economic activity in Castile was sheep farming:

❏ The Mesta association of owners of transhumant

livestock, founded in 1273 by Alfonso X to enforce the
livestock and limit agricultural expansion.
❏ The wool was exported to Flanders and England. The
clergy and nobles collected the taxes and were granted
privileges from the Crown.
❏ The export of wool stopped the development of the textile
industry.

Another important activities were: the artisan industries of

Toledo (goldsmithing) and Talavera (ceramics).
In the Kingdom of Aragón

❏ Ferdinand II abolished certain feudal rights in

order to allowed peasants to have better working
conditions.
❏ He established laws to protect the textile industry
in Catalonia.
❏ Increase in trade in Mediterranean ports
(Valencia).
Inequality and social privileges

❏ Peasants and artisans made up 90% of the population, 10%

were clergymen and nobles(who own most of the land).
❏ In the Kingdom of Castile, Isabella established the majorat ,
which prohibited the sale of family land and it was inherited by
the oldest son or nearest relative. This guaranteed the loyalty
of the noble families.
❏ In the Crown of Aragón, a strong bourgeoisie class
developed, dedicated to trade and artisan activities that
competed with the nobility for positions in government
institutions.
❏ The largest cities( exceeding 30 000 inhabitants)
were:
❏ In the Kingdom of Castile: Valladolid, Seville
TRADE
People could buy goods with a promissory note.
This worked by advancing money in the buyer's local

and Toledo currency, which could then be exchanged for the

equivalent amount of money in the currency used in
❏ In the Crown of Aragón: Barcelona and
the city in question.
Valencia
4.The discovery of a new continent
Reasons for sea voyages

❏ International trade increased in the 15th

century, (spices, silk and luxury goods
from the east).
❏ In 1453, the Ottoman army occupied
Constantinople and blocked trade
routes between Europe and Asia.
❏ European kingdoms (Castile and
Portugal) began to explore the Atlantic
Ocean. They wanted to find an
alternative trade route to India and
Southeast Asia.
❏ The development of the caravel
and the invention of the compass,
the astrolabe and portolan
charts made navigation easier.
Portuguese expeditions

❏ Throughout the 15th century, the

Portuguese established trading posts
along the Atlantic coast of Africa. Their
objective was to reach India by navigating
south.
❏ Bartolomeu Dias reached the Cape of
Good Hope in 1488, while Vasco da
Gama's expedition arrived in India in 1498.
❏ The Portuguese gained a monopoly on
the trade of silk and spices in Europe.
 Columbus´project
Christopher Columbus, a navigator from Genoa, TREATY OF TORDESILLAS

was interested in the expeditions. He knew that The successful Castilian explorations of the Atlantic
Ocean made the Portuguese suspicious. To avoid
the Earth was round and thought that it was
conflict between Castile and Portugal, Pope
possible to get to Asia via the Atlantic Ocean. Alexander VI helped mediate the Treaty of
Tordesillas (1494).
In 1492, Queen Isabella agreed to finance
Columbus' project by signing the Capitulations of
Santa Fe: Columbus received the titles of viceroy
and Admiral of the Ocean Sea, as well as a tenth
of the wealth gained from the voyages.
Did Columbus know he had discovered a
new continent?

Columbus made four trips to the Americas.

He thought he had reached Asia. He died in
Valladolid in 1506 without knowing that he
had discovered a new continent
1. Preparing for the voyage
Columbus went to Huelva to organise the
expedition the Friary of La Rábida. The
Pinzóns, helped Columbus organise a fleet
of 105 sailors and three ships: a carrack
(the Santa María) and two caravels (the
Pinta and the Niña).
2. Towards the unknown
First expedition (1492): The expedition left the port of Palos (Huelva) on 3 August
1492.
On 12 October 1492, they arrived on Guanahani Island (Bahamas), which Columbus
named San Salvador.
They explored Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic) and Cuba, and they
began their return journey in January 1493.
3. The later expeditions
Second expedition (1493): 17 ships and 1 200 men created the first trading post on
Hispaniola.
Third expedition (1498): Columbus reached the north coast of South America, and
discovered Martinique, Trinidad and the mouth of the Orinoco River.
Fourth expedition (1502): Exploration of the coasts of Central America.
 5.What mistake did Columbus make?

Before presenting his project to European monarchs, Columbus studied the

ancient world and consulted his contemporaries.
❏ Columbus argued that the Earth was round, which
would have made it possible to reach Asia by
navigating west.
❏ However, he made mistakes in his calculations,
which explain why he believed he had reached Asia.
C. The realisation that a new continent had been discovered

Ater Columbus' last expedition, Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of
Panama on foot and found the South Sea ( Pacific Ocean).

He came to the conclusion that the land that had been discovered was a new
continent, and to reach Asia he would have to travel further west.
Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian merchant,
took part in four expeditions to the Indies. In
his letters to Lorenzo de' Medici he was
convinced that the land was a new continent.

A German cosmographer read the letters

and proposed that the new land be called
America.
 6. Pre-Columbian America

When Columbus arrived in the Americas, the continent was populated by various
civilisations. The most important were the Aztecs, who occupied Central America,
and the Incas, who inhabited the Andes mountain range. The Mayan civilisation,
had disappeared by the end of the 10th century.
All of them were sophisticated farmers, practised trade and knew how to read and
write. However, they had not discovered iron or the wheel.
 Who were the Pre-columbian peoples?

❏ When the Europeans reached

America in the 15th and 16th
centuries, the inhabitants of the
continent were called the
Pre-Columbian peoples because
they lived in America.
❏ Some of them lived in small tribes.
But there were a number of great
civilizations:
the Mayas, the Aztec and the Incas
 The Mayas
Maya civilization had disappeared by the end of
the 10th century. It was already in decline before
Spaniards arrived.

❏ The Mayas were organized in independent

cities, ruled by a chieftain. Society was
made up of nobles, priests, craftsmen,
peasants and slaves (prisoners of war)
❏ The economy was based on
agriculture(corn, cotton, cacao and
tomatoes.There was trade between cities
❏ The Mayas were polytheistic. They
knew about astronomy ( created
accurate calendars) and they
developed writing
❏ They built palaces and temples in the
form of step pyramids

❏ Video: Ancient Maya 101 | National Geographic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6eBJjdca14
 The Incas
They inhabited the Andes mountain range. They
created a vast empire which included part of
Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina and Chile
❏ Their emperor was the Inca, who was
believed to be the son of the Sun
❏ society was made up of nobles, peasants,
craftsmen and slaves
❏ Crops like corn and potatoes were cultivated
on terraces
❏ LLamas and alpacas provided the Incas
with food and wool. They were also used as
transport
❏ The Incas were polytheistic
❏ They built large temples, palaces and
fortresses, as well as a network of roads
❏ Video: The rise and fall of the Inca Empire:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO5ktwPXsyM
 The Aztecs
The Aztecs were warriors who settled
in the Valley of Mexico in the 12th
century.
❏ They collected taxes from
conquered peoples and
sacrificed their defeated
enemies.
❏ Their empire was based on an
alliance of three city-states.
Tenochtitlán (the capital),
Texcoco and Tlacopán

❏ Video: Ask History: What Happened to

the Aztecs? | History
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3kWJfkqT0g
❏ The emperor had political and religious power
❏ Society was organized in tribes divided into
groups:
❏ Warriors and priests, merchants,
craftsmen, peasants and slaves
❏ Economy was mainly based on agriculture,
but they were also potters, goldsmiths and
silversmiths
❏ the Aztec worshipped various gods.
hitzilopochtli, the Sun God and they offered
him human sacrifices.
❏ They built fortified cities, palaces and temples
in the form of pyramids