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History 104A, December 7: Violating the Prime Directive

Okay. We're terminating today. Pearl harbor today was the

anniversary.

A More people care about John Lennon's 25th anniversary tomorrow

than they do about Pearl Harbor.

THE PROFESSOR: Who was he? You had to answer me.

In any case, we need some quiet before I can get started. Knock

knock. Find my whistle. We will have the exam on Monday from 9:30 to

11:30, and hopefully I will remember to get up. I am not a morning

person. I don't function -- I used to say I started functioning at

11:00, but I actually haven't started functioning lately until more

like 1:00. In any case, you got copies, or at least I gave out copies

of the take-home question. There will be, as previously, two others

that will cover the material this third of the class. The last

chapter in the textbook I actually enjoyed a lot. I can't do three

things at once, not anymore. I guess because there is a lot of stuff

I didn't know in it. Of course that's one of the reasons why I enjoy

teaching is that I'm constantly learning. And one of the reasons why

I change textbooks from time to time is because I learn from them,

quite candidly. In this one, it had a lot of stuff on the early

exploration. And I even like the nice little time line there

worldwide as far as explorations are concerned, and certainly it will

apply hopefully with my lecture, giving you some guidelines today for

that take-home question.

I like the part about the Polynesians and their movement. I had

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no idea that they were a movement of the Polynesians into Madagascar.

I guess I just find those strange things interesting. In any case, up

until about 1500, the ocean certainly served a major barrier to the

world. And to a large extent, that was due to a lack of the proper

kind of ships that could sail out into the ocean. Although, candidly,

the Chinese had developed large sailing ships that could do and were

capable of oceanic travel. The real question that appears and one of

the mysteries perhaps within limitation of the whole exploration is,

why was it western Europe, basically a backwood people compared to the

Chinese -- and those of you at western European descent, don't get

pissed off at me for that comment. I am not a racism. The reason in

part was, they say, somewhere in the middle of the 15th century there

was a change of dynasties in China and returning to the concept that

people come to us. The Chinese have always had the sense that we are

the center of the world and that the rest of the world comes and

conquers us or whatever. There wasn't that tremendous drive to head

out into the oceans under that level. But there was also another

major factor that played a major role, and that was that again China

was basically run by a Mandarin class in the sense that this was more

of a bureaucratic, educational kind of dynasty, and the people were

considered somewhat inferior were the merchants, the business field.

The education, the learning, the knowledge was more important than, in

their mind, than business itself, than making money. And they had the

goods and people came to them for the goods. That's not to say that

there wasn't a merchant class. There sure was a merchant class. But

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certainly I think even among certain Chinese today in the world, that

training, the technological training, the educational training still

has a status as above the shopkeeper, if you will. Obviously no

society can exist without all classes of people. And China lacked

that missionary zeal, the Christianity missionary zeal that western

Europe had.

To take it back to western Europe, we had the missionary zeal,

the spread of Christianity. Christ said, Don't hide your light under

a barrel, go forth and spread it, what was a heavy sense of

Christianity, to spread it, and a major force in the age of

exploration. Many have explained the age of exploration, if you will,

as a crusade, to put forth Christianity. And while I did not know it

again, in reading the 16th chapter there, I was aware that Magellan

had been killed in the Philippines and never made it in his

circumcision of the world. I went through that once before,

circumnavigating. However, I was not aware that he was killed

fighting for another king who had promised to become a Christian.

That will teach him. And that his second in command also died a few

days later fighting to bring Christianity. I was aware of Cortes

running up the pyramids at Cholula to break it and throw down the

Gods. It was almost a quest for Christ. And Quetzalcoatl, for

control of Central America, between the Aztec Gods and those of the

Christian Gods. Those are forces that we often don't take into

account in this age of exploration, that sense of the missionary

sense. And in that concept of, call it bullionism first,

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mercantilism, capitalism, but economic explanation.

Obviously, after the original crusades, Europe was desirous of

eastern goods, not just the silk and the porcelain or the incense, but

for the spices for preservation, for taste. They became fixated on

spices, whether or not the trade routes were cut up in 1553 to the

Muslim to the Ottoman Turks. They did have to pay more taxes. It was

not the Italian traders who were looking for this age of exploration.

It was the jealousy coming out of the seafaring nations that looked

out on the sea -- Portugal, what they now call Spain, England, who

wanted to get a part of these riches. And they certainly couldn't

compete in the Mediterranean and certainly couldn't go forth across

the continent of Asia in the competition that the Italians did. Yeah,

we know of Marco Polo. We scream it every year in the pool during the

summer. I still can't understand that game. Why in the world did

somebody develop a game, Marco Polo? I had never heard that until I

came out west.

A You can't ever get anybody unless you cheat.

THE PROFESSOR: I always wondered about that banging into the

pool or whatever. It was really strange that this individual who was

called a liar by the Italians, who set forth about 1275 with his

uncles, and hearing a little bit about it and bringing back the

stories of the wealth and the tall tales about carriages that went

across China with winds blowing them, sort of the first sailing ships

on land, if you will. These kind of things people called him a liar

because people couldn't believe that they were wealthy nations

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outside. Of course we're happy for Marco Polo exploration because he

brought back one of my favorite foods, spaghetti, with the Chinese

noodles, so we have got a little heritage there.

And then of course there was a search or Prestor John, again, a

Christianity element there, not talking about wealth, but looking for

a Christian ruler in the East, the last Christian tribes, if you will.

Prestor John was in the coptic area which would be Ethiopia. Others

believe that this Prestor John, the search for Christians outside of

Europe, may have been some of the nobles that had been either some of

the tribes of Genghis Khan had been converted to Christianity and

fought with crosses as they entered into Russia. So the legends were

there and stories. We began to hear all the stories and writings and

the adventuresome spirit. There were stories of these weird cities.

People were beginning to write novels and of course we had the

printing press now and a move for literacy specially after 1517, after

the age of exploration got under way. But it certainly helped to

expand it, talking about these beautiful cities and these cities of

gold and the legends. Okay, let's go find the Amazons, these women

with one breast. What could be more exciting?

A Two.

THE PROFESSOR: I did talk about that?

Q You said one? Like in the middle?

THE PROFESSOR: No, not in the middle. They apparently --

everything in life is done with twos originally. God created us as

two. Adam and Eve were basically the concept of two breasts. Where

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does that come from? But because the amazon woman were great

warriors, pulling the bow, if they were somewhat bosom, I guess got in

the way of their ability to --

A So they cut --

THE PROFESSOR: -- so they cut off one of the breasts to be able

to fight better -- ouch. Any more ouch than circumcision? In any

case, the stories of the amazon women, the stories of El Dorado, the

king covered in gold, inspired this desire to move forth on wealth,

but more the desire to get those goods from the East.

The Portuguese may have been aware of the lands outside their

territories because they saw various driftwoods and perhaps bodies

after they moved, in the 1300s, to the Cape Verde islands, the

Canaries, moving out into the Atlantic, this barrier.

In 1385 a new dynasty took over, the Avis dynasty, and they were

merchants basically. They were looking for wealth. And they

sponsored exploration. They sponsored the merchants. They saw it --

they became a merchants dynasty, not looking down upon it, but

literally sponsoring it. And from that dynasty, of course, they even

have ties to the seafaring peoples of England, the king of Portugal's

daughter was actually married to John of Gaunt who was an English

nobleman related to the king of England and also a seafaring person.

The brother of the King John or Joao became known as Prince Henry the

navigator. In 1415 the Portuguese, in their desire to get involved in

the trade that was going across Africa to the famous trading capital

in Africa called Timbuktu. I always thought that was a myth that

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anybody would name their city Timbuktu. It was always one of those

jokes, but it really did exist as a trading city. And so across the

straits of Gibraltar into Morocco they captured, in 1415, the city of

Cuda. And from there, tried to make contact but simply could not with

the Sahara trade in silk and spices and slaves. And so Henry decided

to build at a place called Sagres, a city or a university, if you

will, to train pilots. We're not talking about plane pilots, but the

pilots on sailing ships. And so starts, at around 1415, much earlier

than Columbus, we began to see the beginnings of what is known for

western Europe as the age of exploration.

Why now were the Europeans, besides their interest in trade, able

to set forth? Well, they had gotten the campus which allowed them to

go a little outside of the coastline. Somewhere from the Muslims and

from China, where around the 11th century; however, sailing ships did

not exist as we know them. Yes, they had sails, but they depended on

rowers. If the winds stopped and you were away from land, you were

stuck there. And more, so since you needed rowers, it was difficult

to bring a lot of food aboard these ships and a lot of water. You

depend upon the coast so you could go in and get fresh water and

supplies. In the early 1400s they expanded on the sails. They

created what was known as the caravel. Those are those beautiful

multisailed ships that allowed the sailing ships to move with minimal

wind and not worry about very much wind at all, even in almost dead

seas. And of course tied to this was another innovation, invention in

the medieval period, and that is the rudder, the ability to shift

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direction, not just with the sails, but with the rudder as well to

turn the ship. And of course the development out of Spain of

something known as the astrolabe, giving them the ability to judge

latitude, so some sense of where they were. The sailing ships, the

caravels were really the basis of this age of exploration. Because

water, food, and animals -- sheep, cows, pigs -- were brought aboard

these ships for colonists and perhaps during the darker side, the

ability now to have a lot of space for bringing back slaves from

Africa. With rowing ships, there was very little room to bring even

slaves back. At this point now, the ships were empty and there was a

place for them. And so there were the positive and of course, from

our perspective, the negative aspect.

The Portuguese continued to move down the coast of Africa. At

around 1453, thereabouts, they moved around this bend here in Africa,

reached as far as the area of Ghana. And then, by 1488, Diaz went

around the cape into the beginning of the Indian Ocean. Here, of

course, is Madagascar, about 300 miles off the shore of Africa, that

was apparently settled by the same Polynesian peoples. And after

Columbus, in 1498, Vasco de Gama sailed to India, returned with lots

of goods. This is a beautiful poem called the lucids about the Vasco

de Gama journeys. It was based on the Aeneid from Troy that was

supposedly the beginnings of the founding of Rome that I mentioned by

Vergil. Actually, Portuguese literature is very rich and exciting,

but we don't know it very well here. Some of the more interesting

novels I've read come out of Portugal and Brazil. We're sort of bound

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in our European novel. Of course I didn't read them in Portuguese --

no fala Portuguese. In any case, this wealth that came out of this

area, including of course slaves being brought back to Portugal, will

explain why, in 1492, this individual married to the daughter of the

governor at the Cape Verde islands, a guy named Columbus, was turned

down by the crown of Portugal in his desire to go west across the

Atlantic Ocean to prove that he could reach India and China by going

west.

Columbus then set forth on his journey to Spain. We talked a

little bit about that the other day. And of course in 1492, on

October 12th, they cited land in the Bahamas it's usually thought.

Did anybody watch the new sci-fi flick, a series called triangle? I

love sci-fi so I was watching it. I'm curious about something now.

Part of the whole Bermuda triangle they say started with Columbus who,

in his journal, writes about a massive metal crafted ship. I think

that's crap, but I get involved in these sort of weird stories, like

the Bermuda triangle, the mysteries of life.

Columbus made four journeys during a period of about 10 years and

touched land on his third journey in South America. It wasn't perhaps

until after his fourth journey that he began to write and of course

was imprisoned, began to write about the realization that he had hit a

new world during his visits to the islands. He still believed that he

had reached Indian. And of course because of that, we now have two

Indians, sort of confusing, those from the nation named India and the

indigenous people of America who we have no way of doing anything but

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calling them Indians at this point.

What begins, more important for your journey today is, what's

known as the Columbian exchange. The whole basis of this exploration

brings the world together, which translates to an exchange of food and

animals, broadening our diet and even our health. Europe lacked green

vegetables and vegetables generally. The Americas lacked, at least

the South Americas lacked edible meat. Yes, they had birds, and yes,

they had llamas, but llamas aren't very edible, I understand, nor have

they got a lot of meat on them. North America did have of course the

buffalo. And yes, they had little dogs called chihuahuas, which

certainly don't give a big meal either. And so with the cattle that

was -- the ships often came and left animals on the islands or on the

coast for future colonists, so they would -- just almost like Noah's

arc, so when the colonists came, there would be ready food supplies.

Obviously, the exploration not only brought language differences,

styles of art back and forth, vegetables -- corn and of course to the

British all grains are called corn -- and it brought other things --

tobacco. Now, the Europeans could get cancer. Of course it is said

that the name tobacco comes from the Tobacco Indians that Sir Walter

Raleigh met on the Roanoke island. If he had gone into another

direction, he would have run into another group called the marijuana

Indians. This Columbia exchange is important and just for the sake of

the diversity of the world.

In 1494, the Pope divided the world between Portugal and Spain.

The first division, in 1493, didn't satisfy the Portuguese. The Pope

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is of Spanish origin. The treaty of Tordesillas gave what was often

known as the royal patronage, the right of the Spanish and the

Portuguese to collect the tithes, the money, to appoint their own

bishops, which would explain in part why they didn't become part of

the reformation. This is the demarcation line. It was argued that

the Portuguese knew there was territory here, and they wanted that

territory of Brazil. In 1591 a man named Cabral apparently heading

around Africa following Vasco de Gama was broken off course. Most

historians believe that this was intentionally done so that the

Portuguese could effectively claim the occupation of the area known as

Brazil from the Brazil wood that was brought back. And of course

parrots became very important coming into Portugal from Brazil. And

it became a wealthy area that the French later tried to take over.

The land between here and Indonesia belonged to the Portuguese

that was not already Christian. And their job was to convert it to

Christianity and get whatever wealth they could. The land from this

area across to the Philippines, basically Indonesia here belongs to

the Spanish. And their job also to convert to Christianity that

crusade in a sense, if you will. And of course with this comes a

number of other historical issues that some of you will be dealing

with Pizarro or Cortes or Balboa discovering the Pacific quote/unquote

discovering.

One, it's part of your questions for those who were going to take

it; and two, we do have a group meeting to finalize the semester and

give you your full 100-points to aid you on your grades. I guess

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there's an outline that says match closed versus effective occupation.

What that refers to is the close seas versus effective occupation.

The Spanish and Portuguese claims the seas were there and nobody else

could come in. The Dutch and the English went in and said, you have

to get us out of here, we effectively occupy it, and just dealing with

that conflict. Okay. The sheets are down here, the group meeting is

underway.

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