HIS 101 - African Religion to Portugal Around Africa
6:42PM Jun 25, +0000
Speakers:
Keywords:
mali empire
africa
portuguese
society
europeans
slavery
people
land
world
ships
terms
class
family
means
portugal
eventually
routes
period
southeast asia
europe
Okay guys, this is lecture nine.
This is lecture number two. So, um, before we begin, I think first worth mentioning there's a couple of things that I like to do. At the beginning of my lectures, first I kind of like to briefly go over the topics that we'll be covering for the lecture. So it kind of gives you guys the opportunity to map out what we're going to be discussing and then once we get into the details how those details fit into the larger picture for the lecture for today. The other thing I like to do is to do a brief overview just a real quick couple minute overview of the major topics that we discussed in the previous lecture, and the reason why I like to do that is because I understand that in between lectures you guys might not simply just be going from one to the next. You know, maybe you get up and go grab some food. Or maybe you don't get to the next lecture until the next day so it's much easier just to have a brief recap at the beginning, rather than you having to go back to the previous lecture or listen to the last little bits of it to kind of you know reorient and refocus yourselves. So very briefly, what we're going to be covering in the lecture today is to pick up where we left off last class we talked about Africa and traditional African culture prior to European contact and one of the things we mentioned was that family was a really important unit. It was probably the most important social unit in Africa and that's not terribly surprising. What I want to cover today is to talk about the religion and the general religious beliefs of traditional African society, prior to European contact,
I want to talk about societal structure,
and specifically that of a stratified society because that's what African tribal society very much was it was stratified so we'll talk more about what that is and what that means. And it's kind of like the the end point of this stratified society. I also want to talk about slavery in Africa. And what we're going to see is that slavery in Africa. A certainly wasn't new, but B was very diversified in terms of how it was practiced practiced, depending on what group you were talking about what part of Africa region of Africa you were talking about. So I want to kind of talk about the different types of slavery that existed in Africa, and contrast that with what the slavery style is gonna be like with the Europeans once they start showing up on the western shores of Africa, in the mid 1400s. Once we wrap up with that I want to talk about, Portugal, and the rest of European nations, we talked about the Age of Exploration, I want to talk about why the Age of Exploration becomes a thing what allowed it to occur finally in the mid 1400s, why it's Portugal, it's the first nation, out of the gates and why they chose to head south especially because they could have gone in any direction they wanted in terms of exploration, but they chose to go south towards Africa, and there's a reason for that. There's something there in Africa that we'll discuss that drew the Portuguese to the Western shores of Africa to begin with. We'll also talk about how the Portuguese aren't just going to settle in Western Africa, they're going to continue along around the entire coastline of Africa, and eventually head into India and parts of Southeast Asia, and we'll talk about what drew them in that direction as well. That will probably take up the bulk of what we'll talk about for this lecture. If there's any time left at the end of this we may get into Christopher Columbus's story, but maybe not. Okay, so a brief overview of some of the topics that we covered last class. Last class we talked about Native American culture, and specifically we contrasted it with the European attitudes and European culture that was brought over in the 1500s, and we looked at four main areas of differences between the two groups. The first major difference the first major area we talked about was attitude towards land and the environments and we said for Native Americans that the land was spiritual and that their approach to the environment was how can we survive in the environment and coexist with it, there really was no interest in dominion over the land there was no interest in trying to conquer the land it was more so how can we live symbiotically within our environment and within the land. We said the Europeans had almost the polar opposite attitude towards lands that land was very scarce back in Europe and therefore, it had a substantial dollar value attached to it. So when the Europeans come over here to the new world. They see all this open land or as they interpret it on used land, and they immediately see dollar signs, they immediately see the opportunity to conquer this land to take it over to add it. You know their natural resources to the Europeans bank account and and that is what their attitude is towards land, how can we exploit it How can we make money off of it. We also talked about Native American attitudes towards gender, and we discussed that while it is still a patriarchal society for the most part in most Native American tribes. We do see that women are given much more respect and much more responsibility in society than what we'd see in Europe, that Native American women had the opportunity to appoint leaders for the Native American tribes and those leaders were fully expected to take the female opinion into account as much as the male opinion into account. Whereas in Europe women are very much a second class, they are staying in the home they don't, they're, you know they're they're added their opinions are not really taken into account in terms of decision making. Women can't vote women can't engage in any type of political process or own or or
they can't hold public office, other than you know if they're part of the royal family like a queen or a princess or something like that. But beyond that women don't really have a major stake. They're not given as much respect in European societies what we see in Native American society. We also talked about religious differences between the two groups and we mentioned that Native Americans were very much a spiritual polytheistic style of approach to religion that the environment has spirits, and therefore we don't take more from the environment that we need because we don't want to upset the spiritual world, whereas Europeans we said we're very much Christian and only Christian and Europeans kind of view anybody who's not Christian as heretical, and therefore gives them the justification that they want or need to take over your native american lands and to to, you know, conquer the people we left off last class talking about Africa. Prior to European contact and most specifically talking about how family was the single most important unit, and we talked about how family was certainly responsible for financial support psychological support emotional support all very important things. But we also discussed that our family teaches us things like social norms and morals, which also greatly impact our ability to have success in society that if we were to consistently violate these social morals or social norms, we're not going to have friends, our families probably going to disown us. We're never going to be able to get a job. We'll probably never have our own family and in essence will be shunned from society, so that that's that's a tough pill that, you know, people would have to swallow so our family gives us many many different things, and something I kind of failed to mention last class as well that particularly when it came to men within African society. Many of the males typically got their jobs or their trade, from what their father did. So, if your father, for instance, was a fisherman for the village solid chance that if you were his son, he is going to teach you the you know the skills of the trade and you would eventually grow up to be a fisherman for the village as well, or a farmer or a hunter or a soldier or whatever it was. So, you know, you kind of get your job from your family as well back in, in Africa, too. Okay, so let's pick up then with some of the new stuff let's talk about the religion stratified society, etc. So, what religion, what religious beliefs would have been typical in Africa. Around this time period 1300s 1400s, just before European contact.
And the answer is that most of them
had a belief here that there was a kind of a chief God, almost like a Creator God with a bunch of lesser gods and deities or spirits. So in some ways, they share similar beliefs with what we see in the American cultures that the environment kind of is spiritual it has the spirit spirits with it within it. And therefore, you don't want to upset the spiritual realm. Interestingly here. What we also see is the belief that if you were to get sick, for instance, there's a belief here that it's evil spirits have gotten inside your body that are making you sick, and therefore the only way to get rid of that illness was to have a religious leader kind of drive those evil spirits out of your body. So medicine and religion went hand in hand with one another back in ancient African tribal society which is interesting. Um, we also kind of see here in terms of religion is is another idea that we see in other parts of the world as well, which to me is very interesting because family is such an important part of African society, what we see is that family is also built into some of the religious beliefs, which is not surprising.
What we see here is a belief in in
kind of the term of what we use is ancestor worship although not in love with that term. We're not worshiping our ancestors in the sense that you know they're gods,
but we do do,
is we pray to our ancestors here because they have gone on to the next realm or the next world, and the
thinking there is that because
our ancestors have died and have gone on to the spiritual realm that means that they're closer to the gods and they're closer to the spirits and therefore, if we ask our ancestors for help. they're in a much better position to ask for intervention with the spirits and the gods on our behalf. So if we as a family are really struggling financially and we really need some financial help, we can pray to our ancestors and our ancestors will then go on to the gods and spirits and say, can you please help our family out so interesting that we see that they're in African society because this belief in ancestor worship is also something that we see very typical in some Asian religions, most specifically in places like China. Anybody see the Disney animated movie one night move on, you know, at the very beginning of the movie if you can remember her father is out in the courtyard and he's praying and who was referring to. He's praying to the family ancestors to help move on out in terms of her matchmakers later that day. So, so it's interesting, like I said to see how despite the fact that, you know, Native American culture, African culture Asian culture. Never had interactions with one another, that they still share some of the same religious beliefs. So, to me that's really cool and that's really interesting.
Additionally,
what we see in Africa here is a stratified society. Now, again, what does that word stratified society actually mean it sounds, you know, it sounds like it might be complicated, but it really isn't at all. A lot of people would probably make the argument that most countries today in 2020 in the modern times are stratified societies. And what that just means is that you live in a society that has a clear cut you know class system, a clear cut top class a clear cut middle class and clear cut lower class and that there may be like, no some variances of you know different levels within each of those levels, and the United States is very much that today I mean, clearly we can think of some people right off the top of our heads that would be considered top class in America. And some people would be considered middle class and some people would be considered lower class. So let's talk about what it look like in Africa specifically.
When we talk about
stratified societies, for our to keep it simple for our intents and purposes, let's just keep it as simple top a simple middle in the simple lower class, some of the groups that you would find at the top class of Africa, going back to this time period would be people like the religious leaders that we discussed the people who not only believed us in terms of our religious beliefs but also in terms of medicine. So religious leaders are at the top. Oftentimes, political leaders would be at the top as well either the kings or queens, which was also very interesting. You know, concept in African tribal society was that some of those societies had queens and senate kings, so that's pretty neat. Pretty progressive. We'd also see military people within the top class and African tribal society. And, of course, fourth class which always finds itself at the top, no matter what society you're talking about are the very wealthy. So there are some good examples of people to top class. Now, keep an eye on those groups because I want to come back to that in just a minute, let's also talk about some examples of some of the groups that would have found themselves in the middle class. Again, probably pretty similar to what you'd see today in modern times, you'd see farmers very much in the middle class in Africa around this time period hunters and fishermen, same thing, same area, um, blacksmiths and Tanner's Tanner's being you know people who work with leather, all those groups would be very good examples of people who fall solidly into the middle class. So let me ask you guys then and this is something that I like to ask my, my typical classes face to face. Why, um, if, if our society cannot live and cannot function without things like farmers and fishermen who contribute to the food of our society. Then why do we put them in the middle class, why don't we put them in the top classes if our society cannot function without them. Why do we relegate them to the middle class, why don't we give them as much status and as much prestige as what we see the people at the top. I'll give you a couple seconds to kind of think about that.
Okay.
So, hopefully some of you are hopefully all of you really came up with the idea that the difference between the people at the top, or the people that we as human beings put at the top because there are no rules that say that, you know, political leaders are at the top of our society or religious leaders at the top of our society, we as human beings chose to do that. So the answer is why, or the question is why. And the answer to that is because those people were believed to have rare skills that most ordinary people did not have. And that's the difference between the two. It was believed back then that if you were a religious leader, it's because you had some type of divine connection with the gods and the spirits that you probably were born with. And not everybody has those, those skills, not everybody has that divine connection with the gods and because it's very rare. Therefore, it makes you a very important person within our society. Farmers extremely important to society and no one's denying that. But just about anybody in society can learn to be a farmer, if given enough time to learn the skill appropriately. Same thing with blacksmith Same thing with fishermen, or shepherds or anything like that those are all normal skills that a an average person can learn over time and do, and that's considered the difference between the two. Now those rules still very much apply to the world in modern times, why do we pay professional athletes $25 million a year to play a game that is not, you know, integral to the survival of our civilization. And why do we relegate doctors today to making a couple hundred grand a year which I'm not saying is bad, but it's certainly not 25 million a year either. And the answer is because being a professional athletes considered a rare skill, you have to be born, super tall, you have to win the genetic lottery, basically, in order to even be close to a professional athlete. And then the rest of it just comes down to being really really really good at that particular sport. So that's the big difference between the two groups and and to me it's interesting that there's very little difference between, you know stratified societies back in the 1400s and stratified societies today. Now the bottom group within Africa going back to this time period. Let's have some, you know, some examples of that. People who are destitute the poor or homeless would have been considered lower class criminals, would have been considered lower class and and finally slaves would have been considered lower class. And the main reason why these groups find themselves the bottom rung of society is either because they were given no social standing or protections within society and or they were considered non contributors. So since we talked about slavery just now, perfect segue into discussion of what slavery is in Africa and how it's practiced. Now before we get into slavery. Once Europeans start to show up on the western shores and the Portuguese especially in the beginning. Let's go a little bit further back in time here, slavery in Africa is not new. Slavery has been around in this region of the world since at least ancient Mesopotamia, that's going back to 3500 BC, So at this point you're talking about slavery existing in human civilizations. For at least 5000 years if not longer than that. And much of this slave practice existed in Africa as well. We see the ancient Egyptians also practice slavery we saw the ancient Greeks practice slavery, so the ancient Romans practice slavery. So this is something that is widespread in the region. And it's something that's been around for thousands and thousands of years at this point. Now there are different types of slavery that we see exist in Africa, depending on what region of Africa you're talking about. And and the types varied as I said, some of it was debt slavery that would have been relatively short term slave labor until a particular debt was paid off in which case you got your freedom. Some of it was chattel slavery and chattel slavery is is a bit more pernicious chattel slavery means full ownership. Typically, the only people that would fall under this category of full and permanent ownership would have been people like prisoners of war for instance.
These people weren't typically given a lot of the same protections within society as debt slaves were there were certain laws that protected debt slaves from poor treatment among many other things, but really not so for chattel slavery chattel slavery wasn't widespread at this time, but it certainly existed in certain pockets within, within Africa. And part of where this this concept comes from is in some ways almost in the outside world as well.
A lot of Arab traders, for instance,
that came through the area of the Sahara deserts, when the you know they were able to penetrate and make make trade routes between the Sahara Desert, in which you know that kind of linked West Africa with North Africa, that's when you're going to start to see the African slave trade really start to pick up and become a bit of its own business. There was a pretty decent demand for slaves during the Greek and the Roman time periods coming out of this region, and eventually once the Islamic empire moves through North Africa that demand is only going to continue. Because slavery was a regular practice in the Islamic empire as well. So, let's kind of talk about then how things are going to change. Once the Portuguese start to show up on the western shores of Africa, in the mid 1400s. So it's not that the Europeans, introduced slavery to the region, because clearly it had been here for thousands of years at this point, but what did happen in terms of the slave trade in Africa is the Europeans infused massive sums of cash into it, such that the institution of slavery as a business exploded and demand exploded and therefore that's going to create many many many more numbers of slaves than would have typically been the case otherwise. When the Portuguese start showing up on the shores Western shores of Africa and the fourth mid 1400s, the demand for slavery is going to increase exponentially. And it's only going to get worse. Once the Spanish start going down to West Africa. Once the Dutch starts heading down there and the French start heading down there and the English started heading down there, so this this drive the Europeans to get their hands on more slaves is really what causes this this business to explode and the demand to explode. So it's certainly a pretty, pretty bleak moment in world history when that happens. And what we're also going to see is that Europeans are going to attach themselves to the chattel style of slavery, the brutal style slavery in which there are no freedoms or rights or protections of the slaves and that, you know, because there are no protections you can treat them however you want. So, like I said, pretty, pretty nasty time period in human history, unfortunately. So with that in mind now with the Portuguese showing up on the western shores of Africa. Let's now talk about how we got to that point, let's shift gears a little bit further to the north and let's talk about Europe, right on the cusp of the Age of Exploration. So what happened what changed, why didn't the Europeans go out and start exploring you know before the mid 1400s or after the 1400s what happened. And the answer is that the Renaissance happened in the 1400s. Europe is now emerging from the, the bubonic plague the really nasty time period in which the disease swept through Europe and killed about a third of the entire population of the continent, which is terrifying. Um, now that we're emerging from that time period this Renaissance and the word Renaissance means rebirth, in essence, Europe is rebirthing itself from that dark time period now. And there's now a new emphasis on life it's the celebration of life, and you're gonna see massive you know explosions of artwork and Renaissance artwork is very classical in terms of shifting its focus. No longer are we going to see focus on death on skeletons and and misery. The art style now changes to celebration of life, so we see art now focusing on human beings doing regular ordinary things
like farming, for instance, like weddings, like festivals all this wonderful stuff. So the Renaissance is is really cool in that it is a you know a Great Rebirth period in terms of art, but it's also a big rebirth in terms of literature studies of technology and science in particular, and one of the biggest areas where we're going to see advancements in science is in the areas of navigation and astronomy. And that is what kicks the door wide open for exploration, so what what specifically happened in this area of astronomy and exploration and navigation, two big things. First, astronomy in the study of astronomy the study of the stars is going to reveal to us, finally, at least in Europe, that there are certain fixed points in the night sky, like for instance the North Star, or certain constellations in the Northern Hemisphere that are always there. What that means now is that sailors and ship captains who are sailing their ships at night can now use those fixed points in the sky to navigate around. Prior to this time periods sailors and ship captains typically stayed very very close to shore, and usually were wary to travel in the middle of the night if they weren't in sight of the shore. And the reason why is because they didn't want to get lost at sea, if they sailed off into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and had no way of telling what direction they were headed in, especially at night when there's no sun. It's very easy to get lost and know that that's you know that's a death sentence. If you get lost at night in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and you don't know where you are. You could continue to sail westward you know inadvertently in the wrong direction you could get lost, and you could eventually starve to death and that's that's a pretty tough way to go out. So most people were too afraid or, you know, too nervous to navigate at night if they weren't close to shore. Star navigation completely blows that up. Now that we have fixed points like the North Star like those those constellations in the sky, we can now always figure out which direction we're sailing, even at night. So that's a huge deal that really blows the door open for exploration in a big way. Another major developments that I really wouldn't say is a European technology because it's not, but it's a technology that finally made its way to Europe by the 1400s is the technology of the compass. Now, even though this is somewhat debated we can say definitively that the Chinese probably developed to the first real campuses, and that that technology made its way westward slowly over the next several hundred years and then eventually it gets to the Middle East and the Islamic empire, and the Islamic world sometime around the 1200s ad, and then eventually it hits Europe about 200 years later in the 1400s ad and the compass, of course is yet another very useful tool in terms of navigation in the open ocean, especially at night when it'd be very very easy to get turned around or to get lost. So between star navigation and the compass finally hitting Europe now that that is what allows the Europeans to finally get out and start exploring the world, not having to worry about sticking close to the land, or getting lost at sea or whatever it is. So now that we have the means now, the Europeans are able to explore. Why is it that the Portuguese which are the first nation out of the gate the Portugal's the first nation out of the gate. Why do they choose to go south, they could have gone West into the Atlantic Ocean, they could have gone, you know, much further north into, you know the reaches of the Northern European areas. Why did they choose to go south specifically. And the answer to that question is the Mali Empire, the Mali Empire is one of the last major empires in African Western African history. And when we look at the Mali Empire and to me it's a criminally under taught topic in history classes. And the reason why I say that is because the Mali Empire was is, to this day, considered one of the wealthiest empires to ever exist in all of human history. Right now by the 1400s, the Mali Empire is loaded, it has full control over massive gold mines massive copper mines and other other you know other other precious resources. It also is very heavily involved in the African slave trade, and as a result of having this control over all these commodities, the Mali Empire is flush with cash at its peak, we think that the leader of the Mali Empire at its peak a guy named Mansa Musa
was worth somewhere around $400 billion by today's standards that would easily make him one of the wealthiest if not the wealthiest people in the world. So, so. Because of this, the Mali Empire has been trading with the outside world for a long time at this point. But all of that trade has gone through the Sahara Desert via land routes, Mali Empire ships its goods, up through the Sahara Desert into North Africa words then either sold to Arab traders or it's sold to other parts of the Mediterranean, where it's then shipped wherever it wants to go from there. And the Mali Empire is making a huge amount of money off of this. So, the Portuguese want to get in on this, they want to get in on trade with the Mali Empire because it's gonna be so profitable. So the big question then is, why not simply just continue what you've been doing, why not continue just just trade with the Mali Empire over those land routes through the Sahara Desert. And here's another, you know, strategy type question for you guys so I'm gonna give you a couple seconds. Why would the Portuguese prefer to do trade with the Mali Empire via the ocean via ships, compared to over the land routes. Hopefully, you thought to yourself here that there are a lot more benefits attached to the ocean routes. For instance, going over ocean is much much faster than going over the typical land routes. It's also going to be much much safer for a bunch of different reasons. First, the Sahara Desert, one of the nastiest places in the entire world. It is so hot it is so dry, anytime you go in there you're risking your life, even if the payoff is a massive sum of money it's still a massive risk for yourself. Not to mention the fact that the trade routes through the Sahara Desert are pretty exact, they don't really shift at this point, because it's dangerous to go through this era desert. That means that there are bandits and there are Roberts that know where those trade routes are, and can attack people pretty easily. You don't really get that too much at sea, at least not right now you will, on pirates become a thing but that that'll be a little bit further down the road. What you also see here in terms of shipping is that ships can carry a lot more product for you back and forth. If you go through the desert you're relying on probably camels to carry your your your products, and that's, you know, a couple hundred pounds at most ships can carry thousands and thousands of pounds which
means way more profit
in your pocket at the end of the day. So, Portugal, sees all the benefits of trading with the Mali Empire VC and decides to head that route down south towards the Mali Empire in the Western Africa. So, that is why the Portuguese head south into Western Africa, and what they find once they get to the Mali Empire is a situation that they immediately feel like they can profit off of what they find in the Mali Empire is that it's in the midst of a civil war with itself. There are two factions within the Mali Empire that are fighting each other right now. One is a anti muslim faction within the Empire and one is a more pro Muslim faction within the Empire. Now, if you're the Portuguese, put your your ruthless capitalists thinking caps on, if you are the Portuguese, how can you profit off of that situation. And of course the answer is you can sell weapons and you can sell supplies, not just to one side or the other but to both sides. Not only is that going to double your profit, which the Portuguese figured out very quickly. But what that also means is if we, if we supply both sides of this war it's going to drag the war out even longer, which means even more profits for us. So for the Portuguese here it's about maximizing their dollars off of this situation it's in essence profiting off of the misery of others. Not only do the Portuguese realize that there's maximum dollar value here in selling to both sides. But what this war is also creating are lots of prisoners of war, which means, aka lots of slaves, and what the Portuguese, figure out very quickly is that they can purchase these slaves off of the African tribes for, you know, either for profit or to keep, and ship to other parts of what will eventually be their empire in the world, or sell them to other nations, or whatever it is. So, this is really what kicks off the African slave trade from your perspective, and like I said once the Portuguese start this demand is going to explode, which means eventually many many many more Africans are going to get dragged into the slave trade that otherwise probably would not have had the demand not been nearly as large from the Europeans as it will eventually become. It's, it's really again like I said it's it's a sad.
Miserable part of world history here.
What we'll see eventually is that the Portuguese aren't going to just simply stay in the west coast of Africa. Eventually, explorers Portuguese explorers will continue down around Africa all the way to the southern tip, and then eventually start making their way northward again along the east coast of Africa. So what's drawing them off in that direction. It's not just the love of exploration although that was part of it. Part of a to hear is that right now portugal is looking for an all water routes to India and Southeast Asia. Now what's drawing them off in that direction. The same thing that drew them to Africa, in the promise of wealth via trade. India and Southeast Asia right now are producing products that can affect fetch massive sums of Mark, some cotton struggling, massive sums of money in the European trade market, we go. Some of the big products coming out of India and Southeast Asia right now, things like silk absolutely huge thing coming out of India and Southeast Asia right now because this is the only part of the world that you can get silk in. If you also send in your mind spices as well. You're not wrong, but what I would ask you is what spices specifically. And whenever I asked that question in class that's usually when I get the oshit look like I never even thought about that for forever. So some of the answer to that question, some of the interesting spices coming out of India and Southeast Asia right now, black pepper, which is the type of paper, pepper, that keeps your salt company on the kitchen table, paprika, which, if you are a huge fan of Jesus crackers like I am. I'm it brick is actually one of the chief ingredients if you don't believe me you can read this out of the box which is what I do because I'm bored and lonely. Cinnamon is also very popular coming out of India and Southeast Asia right now in addition to curry, and a few other spices as well. All of these are very popular spices that Europeans are willing to pay a lot of money for because they cannot get them anywhere else in the world. So, Portugal, as it's moving its way down around Africa, eventually getting to India and Southeast Asia, what portugal is doing is establishing ports, all along that route all around the continent of Africa, so that every time a Portuguese ship heads down in that direction. They have friendly Portuguese ports that they can put into for, you know, fresh water fresh food to repair their ships if they got caught in a storm or whatever it is. Now, Portugal in essence locked down that route that route around Africa that all water route around Africa. Other countries like Spain for instance or England for instance or the Dutch for instance, absolutely can use Portuguese ports, but every time a Spanish or French or Dutch ship goes into a Portuguese port, they've got to pay the Portuguese money for the freshwater for the food for the wood and timber to repair their ships and whatnot. So the by the time those Spanish or English ships go all the way down around Africa to India and Southeast Asia, and then come all the way back again. They probably already lost most of their profits to the Portuguese, which portugal is more than fine with, um, this is this is music to their ears, not only are the Portuguese making money off of trade with Indian Southeast Asia. They're also making money off of every country that is using their ports to get from point A to point B and back again. So, this is great for Portugal, this sucks big time for everybody else, which means now that there's big nations like Spain, like England, like France like the Netherlands are now looking for alternate routes to Indian Southeast Asia. Alternate water routes, I should say. They don't want to use that route around Africa, it's really long it's kind of dangerous and the Portuguese already
haven't locked down.
So, if we can find a faster, all water route Indian Southeast Asia, that doesn't involve giving the Portuguese all of our money. That would be a big deal. And this is where Christopher Columbus's story will eventually emerge. Columbus believes that if he sails far enough in the westward direction into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, that you will eventually pop out on the other side of the world into India and Southeast Asia. The problem that Christopher Columbus has is that he does not have the money to prove it.
So,
not a bad place at all to stop.
As always if you have any questions please feel free to reach out to me, and definitely check out the PowerPoints, which support the lecture itself.