“Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World.” – Christopher Columbus
While the age of exploration, and specific discovery of America, is popularly associated with the famed explorer, Christopher Columbus, the explorations and conquests were much greater than just one man. The voyaging, conquering, and colonizing, that commenced in this age not only transformed the lives of the Europeans, but the rest of the world. It was tumultuous, charged times that brought about this expansion and inspired the Europeans to sail, but even more weighty consequences that followed the era.
The era that set the backdrop for the launch of European voyages is important to analyze to understand why there was an incentive to expand at all. Europe was in a unique position: post-Crusades, post-Bubonic plague, post- Renaissance. “A wealthier, more self-confident Europe, now recovered from the population decline caused by the great plague of the fourteenth century,” (421) describes the state of the continent in the early fifteenth century. Europe had a purpose in launching the voyages.
Much of the incentive for exploration and expansion had to do with religion. The
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First, there were the positive effects: in exploring and colonizing, Europeans introduced a myriad of species of animals, vegetables, and fruits to the lands, specifically America. And, in return the same exchange occurred between the Americas and Europe. Animals like pigs, cattle, horses, goats, and sheep – which multiplied astonishingly fast in the New World – changed the face of America forever. The domestication of animals, like horses, was a foreign and fearful thing to the people of the New World but ultimately benefited them greatly (especially later on when they would need ways of resisting the greedy white conquerors). The diet of the Native Americans, which had previously been limited to plant-based foods, was suddenly