The Super Summary of World History - Alan Dale Daniel [61]
The Muslim world was not pleased with this new development because it destroyed their monopoly on trade with the East; thus, they declared a holy war on the Portuguese, built a large fleet, and confronted Vasco de Gama and his Portuguese fleet at Du in 1508.[63] The Portuguese won a total victory and drove the Muslims from the Indian Ocean. Soon afterward, Portugal established a series of forts along the route to India and monopolized the spice trade. The costs of sending out the explorers had been high so Portugal decided the trade route should be theirs alone. Portugal would eventually lose its spice empire to the Dutch and English one small piece at a time; but for decades, Portugal was the ruler of the Indian Ocean and its lucrative trade.
We should also note that Portugal became an empire. Thus, a small state on the edge of Europe ended up dominating the Indian trade routes for years. Other European nation states took notice and began a series of explorations that ended up claiming land and establishing empires. This is no small matter in history. From about 1600, when the explorations began in earnest, to 1950 (350 years), the empires of European nation states dominated the world. The Age of Discovery led directly to the Age of Empires. All these empires were European, at least at the start. This is so because only Europe had an age of exploration followed by an age of land grabbing. Most previous empires, such as Rome, grew by warfare and seizing neighboring regions. Only Carthage, by comparison, grew somewhat like the empires of the 1600s and 1700s. The Phoenicians built an empire of trade and established the city of Carthage which grew to an empire itself by establishing trading posts that grew into cities answering to Carthage. The European empires started as empires of trade, slowly began to dominate the areas they traded with, and finally subjugated the peoples with superior technology and began to rule them.
Figure 19 Spanish and Portuguese Empires Black Equals Portugal
World War I ended at least four empires: the Austria-Hungarian Empire (all European), the Ottoman Empire (Middle East), the Russian Empire, which was replaced by the USSR—another Empire, and the German Empire (Africa and Pacific Ocean Islands). The Great War also added to the empires of France and England in Africa and the Middle East, and helped expand a new empire—Japan, which received “mandates” of Germany’s Pacific islands. By 1939, the major empires were England, France, Holland (Dutch), Portugal, Japan, and the USSR. With the exceptions of Japan and the USSR, none of these empires remaining after World War I would have been established without the explorers.[64]
Figure 20 Colonial Empires 1800
Christopher Columbus was probably history’s most important discoverer because he found the “New World” of the North and South American continents, which were unknown in Europe. Europe knew about the Orient because they had been trading with the East for centuries, but they did not know about this new land that was only sparsely inhabited by people they called Indians.[65] The Europeans thought it was too good to be true—lots of land and no one of importance in the way. For the Europeans, nothing could have been better. For the Native Americans, nothing could have been worse. The Spanish were in a fix when Columbus approached them with his idea of getting to the Orient by going west. Portugal was making its way around the African continent, and was in no mood to allow others to assume their role. Spain, England, France, Holland, and other European monarchs, faced disruption of the lucrative trade with the Far East. Columbus at least offered them a chance to reach the Indies and gain another way to compete with Portugal. Queen Isabella of Spain decided to take the risk of backing Columbus and his idea of reaching the east by sailing west; but like many risk takers, she got something far beyond the assumed bargain. That something was even more incredible than a route to the Indies; it was an unknown world of vast potential and enormous