A long, long time ago, the world was a very different place. It was something like a giant jigsaw puzzle, only that the pieces were not fitted together. In those days, Europeans could only travel to Asia via the Silk Road, which was used by Marco Polo in the 13th century and the Americas were still not found! Then, things began to change in a big way in the early 15th century. It’s the beginning of the Age of Discovery or the Age of Exploration.
Around that time, the great powers of Europe were the Portuguese and the Spanish. They were the masters of the ocean with big ships and big ideas of discovery. To find spices, gold, and silver, they raced to find a sea route to Asia. From 1418, Henry the Navigator of Portugal sponsored an expedition to explore the coast of Africa on the Atlantic. In 1488, they reached the Indian Ocean, opening the way to Asia. Not to be left behind, the Spanish monarchs sponsored Christopher Columbus’s expedition in 1492 with the aim to reach the Indies by sailing west. Upon crossing the Atlantic, Columbus ended up discovering the Americas, a large, unexplored continent with lots of gold, silver, and many other things. The Europeans called it the “New World.”
In 1498, Vasco da Gama led a Portuguese expedition to reach India. Sailing eastward, the Portuguese landed in the Spice Islands in 1512, and finally reached China in 1513. As the Portuguese went east, the Spanish went west. In 1522, their explorations met when Ferdinand Magellan’s Spanish expedition went around South America to reach the Pacific Ocean, entering the Indian Ocean by using the Portuguese way around Africa. This was the first circumnavigation of the world. Still going east, the Spanish landed in Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii over a period of about 170 years.
Now, the jigsaw puzzle is complete. Once sea routes were established between different lands, trading increased because some countries had some resources that other countries may not have had. For instance, the Europeans brought cattle, sheep, and horses to the New World in exchange for maize and potatoes.. The Americas also traded cotton crops and sugarcane to the Old World as well as gold and silver. From Africa, slaves were brought to work in the Americas, which were then controlled by the New World Europeans. Over the years, a lot of trade happened between countries from the Old and New Worlds, and it’s all possible because of the Age of Discovery.
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