Motives of Exploration

There were many motives of explorers to investigate the new world in the years of 1450 to 1600 such as wanting to gain knowledge of the new world, trading throughout the world and to spread religion on their explorations. One of the motives of explorers to explore the new world was to wanting to gain knowledge of the new world. Some of the documents that support this are documents one, four and six. One and six are very alike because both Christopher Columbus and John Cabot were sponsored by their kings and queens to go on an exploration to gain knowledge about the new world. In the time period of 1450 to 1600 explorers needed their rulers to sponsor their voyage because, well the rulers are the people who wanted the adventurers to do their job. In document four it says in the first sentence it says that many men were killed on their expedition.

This was very common in this time because disease was evident during their explorations, but they still carried on with their explorations just to gain knowledge about the new world. Document one is a creditable source, because many people are aware of what Columbus has accomplished. He had discovered new land, and helped in the revolutionizing of the use of maritime traveling.

Another one of the explorers many reasons to sail were to spread trade throughout the new world. Documents five, eight, nine and 10 describe this. Documents five and nine are similar because they both talk about the Indians being used by Christians. They were also used for their land for trade routes, manufacturers and for their raw materials for their goods to be made with. In the first sentence of document five it states that the Spanish forced the people they weren’t using to gather gold on the beaches all day in the sun, and that some of them killed themselves because of it. That just proves that they were using them. Then in document nine it says that there was punishment for the Indians, even the chiefs if there was a shortage. In document 10 it clearly show in the front center of the picture some explorers trading goods with each other.

One other motive of explorers was to spread their religion throughout the new world. The documents that support this are documents two, three, six, seven, nine, and 10. In document two in the first sentence Cortes writes “I said everything to them I could to divert them from their idolatries, and draw them to knowledge of God our Lord.” I think that in this he is saying that he is doing whatever he can to get the people to convert to Christianity, as did many other explorers in this time period. Such as in document three in the Law of Burgos, 1512, it is almost saying the same thing to spread Christianity. In documents six and seven the Christians were the people who went on the explorations to spread the word of their religion but to do that they had to settle in.

They had to do this for the main reasons of exploring, to discover the new world, spread trade and to spread their religion. In document nine the Christians used religion to exploit the Indians for labor, which they also did to spread trade. In the picture for document 10 in the top left corner it shows a cross with what looks like monks surrounding it with some of the townspeople who are fresh to the religion of Christianity.

Document 10 is a creditable source because it depicts what the Aztecs went through during the maritime revolution. They witnessed missionaries travel to their land to try and spread their religion; explorers the traveled to trade goods, and people that were just trying to learn.

An additional source would be the picture on page 410 in the textbook. I chose this because it shows what we have not learned yet, hence one of the reasons for exploration, wanting to find out about the new world. We had no idea what we would find out there. It could have been strange sea monsters, or strange birds.