European Contacts With Africa Pre-1492

Access to commodities such as fabrics, spices, and gold motivated a europiuman quest for a faster means to achieve South Asia. It was this search that led the Portuguese down the chute of West Africa to sierra Leone in 1460. Due to several expert and cultural advantages, Portugal dominated world trade for nearly two hundred years, from the fifteenth to the sixteenth centuries. While, in the fifteenth century, the rest of Europe was decimated by the Black Plague, Portugal was protected by its physical isolation. Additionally, Portugal had an outstandingly strong national identity, due to its natural geographic b poses, allowing the pooling of the big economic resources necessary to fund these ambitious explorations. Additionally Portugals broad contact with Islam, and therefore with its superior mathematical knowledge and pilotage technologies, including sail shapes, hull designs, and maritime weaponry, resulted in a Portuguese fleet capable of negotiating the high Atlantic seas.

As a consequence, most of the West African coast was explored in the pointedness from 1415 into the 1600s. Preserved maps from this period show a remarkably correct understanding of the complicated coastline. African exports consisted primarily of gold, ivory, and pepper.



However, over 175,000 slaves were excessively taken to Europe and the Americas during this period. In 1600, with the involvement of the Dutch and English, the order of magnitude of the slave trade grew exponentially.

From the time of their arrival on the shores of Sierra Leone in 1460, and until their gradual decline as leaders in world exploration in the sixteenth century, the Portuguese had an indistinct relationship with their African trading partners. Disembarking at cities that were equally large, complex, and technologically advanced as Lisbon at the time, the Portuguese genuinely experienced far less culture shock than we qualification expect. In fact, they encountered urban centers in West Africa comparable to those indorse in Europe,...If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: Orderessay



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