Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Portuguese whose ports he ravaged and whose ships he plundered. When Drake arrived back in
England with £160,000 for the queen and a 4,700 percent return on the investment of his backers,
he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth on board his ship, despite Spanish protests. The logs of this
journey were kept as a state secret and all details of the voyage were concealed. In the new interna-
tional competition, such types of information were becoming valuable trade secrets.
1583
Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), Italian Jesuit missionary, arrives in China. To win favor with the
emperor, he demonstrates European clocks and draws world maps, wisely placing China at the cen-
ter.
1584
Sir Walter Raleigh (1554-1618), the English explorer and courtier, organizes an expedition to
colonize North America on Roanoke Island, inside North Carolina's Outer Banks. Marshy, stagnant,
and disease-ridden, it was a poor choice and the settlers returned to England in the following year
with Francis Drake. Raleigh outfitted another colony that was also dumped on Roanoke by a hasty
captain more interested in pursuing Spanish treasure ships than in establishing a sound colony. Sup-
ply ships were also diverted to attack Spanish ships. When relief ships, delayed by the battle with
Spain's Armada, finally arrived in 1590, the colony had disappeared and has become known as the
Lost Colony. No remains of the colonists were ever found, but speculation has it that they moved
north and mingled with friendly Indians.
1588
The Spanish Armada, a fleet of a hundred thirty heavily armed ships carrying twenty-seven
thousand troops, is sent by King Philip II to secure the English Channel as a prelude to a Span-
ish invasion of England. Under the command of the notorious “sea dogs” Drake and Sir Richard
Hawkins, a much smaller English fleet drives the Spanish away, and many of their ships are lost in
a storm as they try to escape back to Spain. The battle marked the beginning of Spain's decline and
England's rise as the world's predominant sea power.
1589
English geographer Richard Hakluyt (1552-1616) publishes the first edition of his master-
work,
Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation.
An ordained minister
and teacher, Hakluyt was absorbed by the exploits and adventures of the great British sailors, such
as Hawkins, Drake, Raleigh, and Frobisher. The topic was a patriotic call to the English to colonize
the new worlds. Hakluyt was a hawker—a real estate promoter enthusiastically describing the rich
and abundant new lands, starting England on its course of empire building.
Why Is Africa Called the “Dark Continent”?
Few places in the world have been more mythologized or misunderstood than Africa. The modern history
of Africa, its development, and its place in the modern world can all be traced to its colonization and ex-
ploitation by the major European powers, begun by the Portuguese in the 1400s. Africa was only “dark” to
Europeans whose knowledge of sub-Saharan Africa was limited to medieval myths of fantastic beasts and
strange people and legends of lands rich in gold. Until the Portuguese began their tentative explorations
down the west (Atlantic) coast of Africa, the sub-Saharan Africans living along the coast were protected
by the vast expanses of the Sahara Desert to the north and the ocean to the west. No navigable rivers al-
lowed penetration into the interior. Africa developed rich cultures, highlighted by such empires as those
of Mali, Songhai, and Kush. Contact with Arab and Chinese sailors and traders on Africa's east, or Indian
