Victoria Anderson
AP U.S. History
August 14, 2014
Motives, Problems, and Rewards of European Exploration
European expansion in the 1400's was an unforeseen event that changed everything. This age endowed Europe to control something it never thought it could. With the persuasion of firm motives, the Europeans and their countries endured troublesome problems and prospered with advantageous rewards during the age of exploration and expansion.
What provoked European countries in the early fifteenth century to send their men into the vast unknown? The motives of these countries are relatively summed up into three words: God, Glory, and Gold. The countries wanted to spread the Roman Catholic faith to any inhabitant of the unexplored word they came across. Huge missionaries were set up in the northwestern part of Spanish empire in the new world to teach the faith, as well as in other settled regions of the new world. However, spreading the catholic faith was only the tip of iceberg; the glory one's country received in claiming new lands and people was beyond surmise. Also, those who claimed the land that gave the country glory became glorious themselves, creating a motive in itself. However, God and Glory were not the most pressing motive persuading a country. The fight to find gold was what most motivated the anxious countries. The hearsay of gold is what sparked uncountable voyages that forever changed history. As for the reasons behind the critical age of exploration, God, Glory, and Gold, what actually came out of the age was far more than and motive could have perceived.
Before any rewards or gains fell into the hands of the Europeans, most countries saw how problematic the exploring game became. Whether ship crews came down with a disease, violence against the European explores occurred, or the competition took over, the roaring race to explore exhausted explorers and their countries. Many explorers got syphilis, or another disease