Essay on Exploration and Colonization in the 16th Century

Submitted By Kristinbishop98
Words: 408
Pages: 2

Kristin Bishop Essay #1 With the dawn of the 16th century there came together in Europe both the motivation and the means to explore and colonize territory across the sea. The main causes of this exploration and colonization were trade and religion. Advances in technology and religion made it exciting for the Europeans because they knew they could become wealthy. At the end of the 15th century was when the Europeans got really excited about trading with technology because of the huge advances that started to develop. Trading with technology gave them motivation and helped them colonize territory across the tea. With improvement of transportation, the invention of the compass, and gunpowder trading would make the Europeans very rich. The invention of the compass allowed for accurate landings on the new shore; and once they were on dry land, gunpowder was used to subdue, or impress, the natives. The people became very competitive about trading with Europeans but this gave them interest in moving to the New World. The trade route would then be expanded into the New World to improve society and the economy. For many centuries Europe was the backbone and had the upper hand in this situation. Trading gave the Europeans a lot of motivation to trade and colonize territory. One major reason the Europeans wanted to travel to new territories was because of religion. If someone refused to be catholic they would be banished from the country. Catholics continuously tried to convert everyone to their religion and if they didn’t agree to it they got kicked out. Luther tried to help with