The beginnings of the European colonialist movement and the commencement of the British Empire

Exploration and discovery

A background to England and Europe at the end of the Middle Ages, just prior to their age of discovery.

1400 A snap shot of Europe and the rest of the world into which English and other European travellers were about to enter.
The world at this time could be divided into two, those who had learnt to plough the land and those who had not. (A division invented by the English c.1600 allegedly based on the Bible). Actually it went much father than this. Those who were still hunter gatherers or marginal and occasional farmers had not discovered the wheel, metal tools, gunpowder or horses or other domesticated animals other than dogs and the others. In other words much of the world was still populated by stoneage peoples. This applied to lands not yet known to Euro-Asians such as the Americas, Australasia and central and southern Africa. To further drive this divide home, half the world were still using bows and arrows with stone tips while the other half had access to hardened steel swords and gun powder and cannons used in various manifestations including hand held (Match Lock pistols). As noted elsewhere on this site, only Europe, following Roman Christian rules, were monogamous, elsewhere men “enjoyed” four wives or more which classed them as uncivilised.

In the so called civilised part of he world the leading nation was China with a population already over 100 million. Next in line was the Indian subcontinent and in third place we have Europe who had stood still for the 1000 years following the fall of the Roman Empire. The population of England was between 4 and 5 million and France some 20 million. All of Europe had suffered regularly from bouts of the Bubonic Plague and also the Black Death of 1348. Even with these regular bouts of population reducing diseases plus regular wars, Europeans were, on the whole, always short of cultivated land and food. As well as internal wars, Europeans, rather than expanding their territories, were regularly being attacked by outsiders, the most persistent being the Muslins from the south and east. In 1453 the Muslim Ottoman Turks eventually took the last outpost of the Christian Roman Empire and headquarters of the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church in Constantinople (Istanbul), not to mention almost taking Vienna.

1400 Most Historians give this date as the end of the European Middle Ages and for the commencement of an increase of standards of living, advances in science (Astronomy for example), a rediscovery of art (The Renaissance), the invention of printing and then a religious rebellion (The Reformation). The leaders in all these with the exception of the latter two, were the Italians. (Italy at this time was not a country but a series of self ruling relatively sophisticated city states eg Venice, Genoa, Florence). The English by contrast were in the middle of a hundred years war with France in an attempt to get back the lands in France they had ruled under Henry 2nd in 1150. By 1415 following the battle of Agincourt (still fought with swords and bows and arrows) England had recovered all their lands but failed to consolidate and with the help of a young girl, “Joan of Arc, the French troops rallied and the English gains were annulled. Peace was struck with France. For England there immediately followed a 30 year civil war (Wars of the Roses) ending in 1485 with the victory by Henry 7th or Henry Tudor and relative peace at last, permitting domestic economic and social improvements.

Europe stirs:
The commencement of European exploration as a prelude to expansion. 1400-1650

The Portuguese are the first.
The first was a Portuguese prince, Henry the Navigator (1394-1460). Initially a military man he won a decisive victory in North Africa and realising the importance of ships set up a School of Navigation in the Algarve 1419. He inspired and sponsored colonising trips in the Atlantic to Madeira, the Azores and the Cape Verde Islands plus trips south down the coast of Africa as far as Sierra Leone setting up numerous trading posts. This inspired a series of Portuguese adventurers to extend his tracks as follows:

• 1487 Bartolomeu Dias sails south along the West African coast and rounding the Cape of Good Hope, enters the Indian Ocean.
• 1497-99 Vasco da Gama follows Dias and reaches southern India (Calicut)
• 1500 Pedro Alvares Cabral sails to Brazil. Probably by mistake. He eventually makes the west coast of India.
• 1516 The Portuguese have now reached China (Macao) via Malaya. They all set up trading posts and watering stops.
• 1557 The Portuguese got as far as southern Japan (Nagasaki).

By 1600 the Portuguese had a good grip on the sea routes to the Spice (pepper etc) territories (India and Indonesia) and for silk and china (porcelain) via their trading post in Chinese Macao. En route they set up the following trading posts and watering ports all manned by Portuguese settlers.
African coast:

• Guinea-(Elmina) Black slaves to export to the plantations in the Americas
• Angola for gold and slaves
• Sofala Gold.
• Mozambique
• Zanzibar
• Mombassa

India and beyond:

• India, Goa and Cochin and Colombo Sri Lanka (Spices)
• Malaya, Malacca
• Ternate, Indonesian Spice Islands.
• China, Macao.

Obviously a good basis for an Empire with a chain of some 50 ports and factories and a near monopoly of the spice trace financed with African Slaves and Gold. By 1530 the Portuguese had sugar plantations on the east of South America and were becoming rich with their early domination of the following trades. Spices, Silks, Porcelain, Gold, Slaves and Sugar.