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Motivations for Exploring

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Motivations for Exploring
Motivations for Exploration

The word motivation derives from the Latin verb movere meaning ‘to move’. Our motivations for exploring have made extreme changes since the 1600’s. For example, the Spanish were the first to explore the Americas. Their motivations were God, gold, and glory. And in a nutshell the current motivations for exploring are somewhat similar. Differences of the past and future motivations for exploration will be explained..

Gold was a huge motivator for explorers of the past. According to History.com, Francisco Pizarro held the Emperor of the Inca Empire, Atahualpa, as a hostage until a very large room could be filled with treasure. The room was eventually filled as ordered, but on August 29, 1533, Pizarro had Atahualpa strangled. Still, for miles around, Peruvian natives were on the road with more gold items. Upon news of their king's death, those items were hidden and never arrived. Gold had such a big impact that Pizarro and his men had the courage to make enemies of an Incan army over forty thousand strong. Explorers at the time were huge believers of Christ. That being said they liked to prove to everyone the “fact” that their religion was better than everyone elses. On most of the voyages, these explorers encountered, they would relate everything they did back to God. Some explorers in the 1600’s thought that God was urging them to spread His word. These explorers were actually doing these things with pure intentions, they just didn’t realize how the natives might feel about it. Glory was the final goal of most explorers. People like Ferdinand Magellan and John Cabot sailed for glory. When they saw new land that they mapped and named, they believed that they would be remembered for this. When an explorer had found land he became well known in Europe. Kings and queens were inspired to pay more for these explorers to sail for them, thus creating a higher reward for them.

In Martian Chronicles they explain how verified the

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