definition of voyages of discovery

A Brief History of the Age of Exploration

The age of exploration brought about discoveries and advances

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The Birth of the Age of Exploration

The discovery of the new world, opening the americas, the end of the era, contributions to science, long-term impact.

• M.A., Geography, California State University - East Bay
• B.A., English and Geography, California State University - Sacramento

The era known as the Age of Exploration, sometimes called the Age of Discovery, officially began in the early 15th century and lasted through the 17th century. The period is characterized as a time when Europeans began exploring the world by sea in search of new trading routes, wealth, and knowledge. The impact of the Age of Exploration would permanently alter the world and transform geography into the modern science it is today.

Impact of the Age of Exploration

• Explorers learned more about areas such as Africa and the Americas and brought that knowledge back to Europe.
• Massive wealth accrued to European colonizers due to trade in goods, spices, and precious metals.
• Methods of navigation and mapping improved, switching from traditional portolan charts to the world's first nautical maps.
• New food, plants, and animals were exchanged between the colonies and Europe.
• Indigenous people were decimated by Europeans, from a combined impact of disease, overwork, and massacres.
• The workforce needed to support the massive plantations in the New World, led to the trade of enslaved people , which lasted for 300 years and had an enormous impact on Africa.
• The impact persists to this day , with many of the world's former colonies still considered the "developing" world, while colonizers are the First World countries, holding a majority of the world's wealth and annual income.

Many nations were looking for goods such as silver and gold, but one of the biggest reasons for exploration was the desire to find a new route for the spice and silk trades.

When the Ottoman Empire took control of Constantinople in 1453, it blocked European access to the area, severely limiting trade. In addition, it also blocked access to North Africa and the Red Sea, two very important trade routes to the Far East.

The first of the journeys associated with the Age of Discovery were conducted by the Portuguese. Although the Portuguese, Spanish, Italians, and others had been plying the Mediterranean for generations, most sailors kept well within sight of land or traveled known routes between ports.  Prince Henry the Navigator  changed that, encouraging explorers to sail beyond the mapped routes and discover new trade routes to West Africa.

Portuguese explorers discovered the Madeira Islands in 1419 and the Azores in 1427. Over the coming decades, they would push farther south along the African coast, reaching the coast of present-day Senegal by the 1440s and the Cape of Good Hope by 1490. Less than a decade later, in 1498, Vasco da Gama would follow this route all the way to India.

While the Portuguese were opening new sea routes along Africa, the Spanish also dreamed of finding new trade routes to the Far East. Christopher Columbus , an Italian working for the Spanish monarchy, made his first journey in 1492. Instead of reaching India, Columbus found the island of San Salvador in what is known today as the Bahamas. He also explored the island of Hispaniola, home of modern-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Columbus would lead three more voyages to the Caribbean, exploring parts of Cuba and the Central American coast. The Portuguese also reached the New World when explorer Pedro Alvares Cabral explored Brazil, setting off a conflict between Spain and Portugal over the newly claimed lands. As a result, the  Treaty of Tordesillas  officially divided the world in half in 1494.

Columbus' journeys opened the door for the Spanish conquest of the Americas. During the next century, men such as Hernan Cortes and Francisco Pizarro would decimate the Aztecs of Mexico, the Incas of Peru, and other indigenous peoples of the Americas. By the end of the Age of Exploration, Spain would rule from the Southwestern United States to the southernmost reaches of Chile and Argentina.

Great Britain and France also began seeking new trade routes and lands across the ocean. In 1497, John Cabot, an Italian explorer working for the English, reached what is believed to be the coast of Newfoundland. A number of French and English explorers followed, including Giovanni da Verrazano, who discovered the entrance to the Hudson River in 1524, and Henry Hudson, who mapped the island of Manhattan first in 1609.

Over the next decades, the French, Dutch, and British would all vie for dominance. England established the first permanent colony in North America at Jamestown, Va., in 1607. Samuel du Champlain founded Quebec City in 1608, and Holland established a trading outpost in present-day New York City in 1624.

Other important voyages of exploration during this era included Ferdinand Magellan's attempted circumnavigation of the globe, the search for a trade route to Asia through the Northwest Passage , and Captain James Cook's voyages that allowed him to map various areas and travel as far as Alaska.

The Age of Exploration ended in the early 17th century after technological advancements and increased knowledge of the world allowed Europeans to travel easily across the globe by sea. The creation of permanent settlements and colonies created a network of communication and trade, therefore ending the need to search for new routes.

It is important to note that exploration did not cease entirely at this time. Eastern Australia was not officially claimed for Britain by Capt. James Cook until 1770, while much of the Arctic and Antarctic were not explored until the 20th century. Much of Africa also was unexplored by Westerners until the late 19th century and early 20th century.

The Age of Exploration had a significant impact on geography. By traveling to different regions around the globe, explorers were able to learn more about areas such as Africa and the Americas and bring that knowledge back to Europe.

Methods of navigation and mapping improved as a result of the travels of people such as Prince Henry the Navigator. Prior to his expeditions, navigators had used traditional portolan charts, which were based on coastlines and ports of call, keeping sailors close to shore.

The Spanish and Portuguese explorers who journeyed into the unknown created the world's first nautical maps, delineating not just the geography of the lands they found but also the seaward routes and ocean currents that led them there. As technology advanced and known territory expanded, maps and mapmaking became more and more sophisticated.

These explorations also introduced a whole new world of flora and fauna to Europeans. Corn, now a staple of much of the world's diet, was unknown to Westerners until the time of the Spanish conquest, as were sweet potatoes and peanuts. Likewise, Europeans had never seen turkeys, llamas, or squirrels before setting foot in the Americas.

The Age of Exploration served as a stepping stone for geographic knowledge. It allowed more people to see and study various areas around the world, which increased geographic study, giving us the basis for much of the knowledge we have today.

The effects of colonization still persist as well, with many of the world's former colonies still considered the "developing" world and the colonizers the First World countries, holding a majority of the world's wealth and receiving a majority of its annual income.

• Profile of Prince Henry the Navigator
• A Timeline of North American Exploration: 1492–1585
• The History of Cartography
• Biography of Ferdinand Magellan, Explorer Circumnavigated the Earth
• The Portuguese Empire
• Explorers and Discoverers
• The Truth About Christopher Columbus
• The European Overseas Empires
• European Exploration of Africa
• Biography and Legacy of Ferdinand Magellan
• Biography of Christopher Columbus, Italian Explorer
• Amerigo Vespucci, Explorer and Navigator
• Biography of Juan Sebastián Elcano, Magellan's Replacement
• Amerigo Vespucci, Italian Explorer and Cartographer
• The Second Voyage of Christopher Columbus
• What Is Imperialism? Definition and Historical Perspective

The Ages of Exploration

Age of discovery, age of discovery.

15th century to the early 17th century

The Age of Discovery refers to a period in European history in which several extensive overseas exploration journeys took place. Religion, scientific and cultural curiosity, economics, imperial dominance, and riches were all reasons behind this transformative age. The search for a westward trade route to Asia was one of the largest motivations for many of these voyages. Christopher Columbus’ voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in 1492 lead to the discovery of a New World, and created a new surge in exploration and colonization. World maps changed as European powers such as England, France, Spain, the Dutch, and Portugal began claiming lands. But there were also negative effects to the Europeans’ arrival in the New World. Europeans encountered, and in many cases conquered and enslaved, native peoples of the new lands to which they traveled.

Advancements in ships, navigational instruments, and knowledge of world geography grew significantly. Vessels of the Age of Discovery continued to be built of wood and powered by sail or oar, and, on occasion, both. Medieval navigational tools such as the compass, kamal, astrolabe, cross-staff, and the mariner’s quadrant were still used but became replaced by more effective tools. Newer tools such as the mariner’s astrolabe, traverse board, and back staff soon provided better navigational support in determining longitude and latitude. These tools, along with improved maps enabled explorers to travel the vast oceans as never before. The Age of Discovery created a new period of global interaction, and began a new age of European colonialism that would intensify over the next several centuries.

• Original "EXPLORATION through the AGES" site
• The Mariners' Educational Programs

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

Europe and the age of exploration.

Salvator Mundi

Albrecht Dürer

The Celestial Map- Northern Hemisphere

Astronomical table clock

Astronomicum Caesareum

Michael Ostendorfer

Mirror clock

Movement attributed to Master CR

Portable diptych sundial

Hans Tröschel the Elder

Celestial globe with clockwork

Gerhard Emmoser

The Celestial Globe-Southern Hemisphere

James Voorhies Department of European Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

October 2002

Artistic Encounters between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas The great period of discovery from the latter half of the fifteenth through the sixteenth century is generally referred to as the Age of Exploration. It is exemplified by the Genoese navigator, Christopher Columbus (1451–1506), who undertook a voyage to the New World under the auspices of the Spanish monarchs, Isabella I of Castile (r. 1474–1504) and Ferdinand II of Aragon (r. 1479–1516). The Museum’s jerkin ( 26.196 ) and helmet ( 32.132 ) beautifully represent the type of clothing worn by the people of Spain during this period. The age is also recognized for the first English voyage around the world by Sir Francis Drake (ca. 1540–1596), who claimed the San Francisco Bay for Queen Elizabeth ; Vasco da Gama’s (ca. 1460–1524) voyage to India , making the Portuguese the first Europeans to sail to that country and leading to the exploration of the west coast of Africa; Bartolomeu Dias’ (ca. 1450–1500) discovery of the Cape of Good Hope; and Ferdinand Magellan’s (1480–1521) determined voyage to find a route through the Americas to the east, which ultimately led to discovery of the passage known today as the Strait of Magellan.

To learn more about the impact on the arts of contact between Europeans, Africans, and Indians, see  The Portuguese in Africa, 1415–1600 ,  Afro-Portuguese Ivories , African Christianity in Kongo , African Christianity in Ethiopia ,  The Art of the Mughals before 1600 , and the Visual Culture of the Atlantic World .

Scientific Advancements and the Arts in Europe In addition to the discovery and colonization of far off lands, these years were filled with major advances in cartography and navigational instruments, as well as in the study of anatomy and optics. The visual arts responded to scientific and technological developments with new ideas about the representation of man and his place in the world. For example, the formulation of the laws governing linear perspective by Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) in the early fifteenth century, along with theories about idealized proportions of the human form, influenced artists such as Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) and Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519). Masters of illusionistic technique, Leonardo and Dürer created powerfully realistic images of corporeal forms by delicately rendering tendons, skin tissues, muscles, and bones, all of which demonstrate expertly refined anatomical understanding. Dürer’s unfinished Salvator Mundi ( 32.100.64 ), begun about 1505, provides a unique opportunity to see the artist’s underdrawing and, in the beautifully rendered sphere of the earth in Christ’s left hand, metaphorically suggests the connection of sacred art and the realms of science and geography.

Although the Museum does not have objects from this period specifically made for navigational purposes, its collection of superb instruments and clocks reflects the advancements in technology and interest in astronomy of the time, for instance Petrus Apianus’ Astronomicum Caesareum ( 25.17 ). This extraordinary Renaissance book contains equatoria supplied with paper volvelles, or rotating dials, that can be used for calculating positions of the planets on any given date as seen from a given terrestrial location. The celestial globe with clockwork ( 17.190.636 ) is another magnificent example of an aid for predicting astronomical events, in this case the location of stars as seen from a given place on earth at a given time and date. The globe also illustrates the sun’s apparent movement through the constellations of the zodiac.

Portable devices were also made for determining the time in a specific latitude. During the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the combination of compass and sundial became an aid for travelers. The ivory diptych sundial was a specialty of manufacturers in Nuremberg. The Museum’s example ( 03.21.38 ) features a multiplicity of functions that include giving the time in several systems of counting daylight hours, converting hours read by moonlight into sundial hours, predicting the nights that would be illuminated by the moon, and determining the dates of the movable feasts. It also has a small opening for inserting a weather vane in order to determine the direction of the wind, a feature useful for navigators. However, its primary use would have been meteorological.

Voorhies, James. “Europe and the Age of Exploration.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/expl/hd_expl.htm (October 2002)

Further Reading

Levenson, Jay A., ed. Circa 1492: Art in the Age of Exploration . Exhibition catalogue. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1991.

Vezzosi, Alessandro. Leonardo da Vinci: The Mind of the Renaissance . New York: Abrams, 1997.

Additional Essays by James Voorhies

• Voorhies, James. “ Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) .” (October 2004)
• Voorhies, James. “ Francisco de Goya (1746–1828) and the Spanish Enlightenment .” (October 2003)
• Voorhies, James. “ Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) .” (October 2004)
• Voorhies, James. “ School of Paris .” (October 2004)
• Voorhies, James. “ Art of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries in Naples .” (October 2003)
• Voorhies, James. “ Elizabethan England .” (October 2002)
• Voorhies, James. “ Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946) and His Circle .” (October 2004)
• Voorhies, James. “ Fontainebleau .” (October 2002)
• Voorhies, James. “ Post-Impressionism .” (October 2004)
• Voorhies, James. “ Domestic Art in Renaissance Italy .” (October 2002)
• Voorhies, James. “ Surrealism .” (October 2004)

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Christopher Columbus

By: History.com Editors

Updated: August 11, 2023 | Original: November 9, 2009

The explorer Christopher Columbus made four trips across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain: in 1492, 1493, 1498 and 1502. He was determined to find a direct water route west from Europe to Asia, but he never did. Instead, he stumbled upon the Americas. Though he did not “discover” the so-called New World—millions of people already lived there—his journeys marked the beginning of centuries of exploration and colonization of North and South America.

Christopher Columbus and the Age of Discovery

During the 15th and 16th centuries, leaders of several European nations sponsored expeditions abroad in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in this “ Age of Discovery ,” also known as “ Age of Exploration .”

Starting in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods as well as enslaved people from Asia and Africa to Europe.

Did you know? Christopher Columbus was not the first person to propose that a person could reach Asia by sailing west from Europe. In fact, scholars argue that the idea is almost as old as the idea that the Earth is round. (That is, it dates back to early Rome.)

Other European nations, particularly Spain, were eager to share in the seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of the 15th century, Spain’s “ Reconquista ”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom after centuries of war—was complete, and the nation turned its attention to exploration and conquest in other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son of a wool merchant, is believed to have been born in Genoa, Italy, in 1451. When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a merchant ship. He remained at sea until 1476, when pirates attacked his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap of wood and made his way to Lisbon, where he eventually studied mathematics, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He also began to hatch the plan that would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the 15th century, it was nearly impossible to reach Asia from Europe by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking to the sea: They sailed south along the West African coast and around the Cape of Good Hope.

But Columbus had a different idea: Why not sail west across the Atlantic instead of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was sound, but his math was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of the Earth was much smaller than his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that the journey by boat from Europe to Asia should be not only possible, but comparatively easy via an as-yet undiscovered Northwest Passage . 

He presented his plan to officials in Portugal and England, but it was not until 1492 that he found a sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile .

Columbus wanted fame and fortune. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the same, along with the opportunity to export Catholicism to lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was equally enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could keep 10 percent of whatever riches he found, along with a noble title and the governorship of any lands he should encounter.

Where Did Columbus' Ships, Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria, Land?

On August 3, 1492, Columbus and his crew set sail from Spain in three ships: the Niña , the Pinta and the Santa Maria . On October 12, the ships made landfall—not in the East Indies, as Columbus assumed, but on one of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed from island to island in what we now know as the Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and merchandise whatsoever” that he had promised to his Spanish patrons, but he did not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind in a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he left for Spain.

He kept a detailed diary during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from the wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the weather to the moods of his crew. More troublingly, it also recorded his initial impressions of the local people and his argument for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features… They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal to Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Voyages

About six months later, in September 1493, Columbus returned to the Americas. He found the Hispaniola settlement destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved indigenous people.

Then he headed west to continue his mostly fruitless search for gold and other goods. His group now included a large number of indigenous people the Europeans had enslaved. In lieu of the material riches he had promised the Spanish monarchs, he sent some 500 enslaved people to Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned the explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Columbus sailed west across the Atlantic for the third time. He visited Trinidad and the South American mainland before returning to the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, where the colonists had staged a bloody revolt against the Columbus brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities had to send a new governor to take over.

Meanwhile, the native Taino population, forced to search for gold and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Columbus landed, only a few hundred of what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and returned to Spain in chains.

In 1502, cleared of the most serious charges but stripped of his noble titles, the aging Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown to pay for one last trip across the Atlantic. This time, Columbus made it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where he had to abandon two of his four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the explorer returned to Spain, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus did not “discover” the Americas, nor was he even the first European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland and Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation on the American continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred people, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became an American food staple. African coffee and Asian sugar cane became cash crops for Latin America, while American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a controversial legacy —he is remembered as a daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually devastate the native populations he and his fellow explorers encountered.

HISTORY Vault: Columbus the Lost Voyage

Ten years after his 1492 voyage, Columbus, awaiting the gallows on criminal charges in a Caribbean prison, plotted a treacherous final voyage to restore his reputation.

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3.3: European Voyages of Exploration: Intro

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The European Voyages of Exploration: Introduction

Beginning in the early fifteenth century, European states began to embark on a series of global explorations that inaugurated a new chapter in world history. Known as the Age of Discovery, or the Age of Exploration, this period spanned the fifteenth through the early seventeenth century, during which time European expansion to places such as the Americas, Africa, and the Far East flourished. This era is defined by figures such as Ferdinand Magellan, whose 1519–1522 expedition was the first to traverse the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean and the first to circumnavigate the globe.

The European Age of Exploration developed alongside the Renaissance. Both periods in Western history acted as transitional moments between the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Competition between burgeoning European empires, such as Spain and England, fueled the evolution and advancement of overseas exploration. Motivated by religion, profit, and power, the size and influence of European empires during this period expanded greatly. The effects of exploration were not only felt abroad but also within the geographic confines of Europe itself. The economic, political, and cultural effects of Europe’s beginning stages of global exploration impacted the longterm development of both European society and the entire world.

Empire and Politics

During the eighth century, the Islamic conquest of North Africa, Spain, France, and parts of the Mediterranean, effectively impeded European travel to the Far East for subsequent centuries. This led many early explorers, such as Vasco de Gama and Christopher Columbus, to search for new trade routes to the East. Previous travel accounts from the early expeditions of figures such as Marco Polo (during the late thirteenth century) encouraged many Europeans to search for new territories and places that would lead to the East. Ocean voyages were extremely treacherous during the beginnings of European exploration. The navigation techniques were primitive, the maps were notoriously unreliable, and the weather was unpredictable. Additionally, explorers worried about running out of supplies, rebellion on the high seas, and hostile indigenous peoples.

The Spanish and Portuguese were some of the first European states to launch overseas voyages of exploration. There were several factors that led to the Iberian place in the forefront of global exploration. The first involved its strategic geographic location, which provided easy access to venturing south toward Africa or west toward the Americas. The other, arguably more important, factor for Spain and Portugal’s leading position in overseas exploration was these countries’ acquisition and application of ancient Arabic knowledge and expertise in math, astronomy, and geography.

The principal political actors throughout the Age of Exploration were Spain, Portugal, The Netherlands, England, and France. Certain European states, primarily Portugal and The Netherlands, were primarily interested in building empires based on global trade and commerce. These states established worldwide trading posts and the necessary components for developing a successful economic infrastructure. Other European powers, Spain and England in particular, decided to conquer and colonize the new territories they discovered. This was particularly evident in North and South America, where these two powers built extensive political, religious, and social infrastructure.

Economic Factors

Before the fifteenth century, European states enjoyed a long history of trade with places in the Far East, such as India and China. This trade introduced luxury goods such as cotton, silk, and spices to the European economy. New technological advancements in maritime navigation and ship construction allowed Europeans to travel farther and explore parts of the globe that were previously unknown. This, in turn, provided Europeans with an opportunity to locate luxury goods, which were in high demand, thereby eliminating Europe’s dependency on Eastern trade. In many ways, the demand for goods such as sugar, cotton, and rum fueled the expansion of European empires and their eventual use of slave labor from Africa. Europe’s demand for luxury goods greatly influenced the course of the transatlantic slave trade.

During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries small groups financed by private businesses carried out the first phase of European exploration. Members of the noble or merchant class typically funded these early expeditions. Over time, as it became clear that global exploration was extremely profitable, European states took on a primary role. The next phase of exploration involved voyages taken in the name of a particular empire and monarch (e.g., France or Spain). The Iberian empires of Spain and Portugal were some of the earliest states to embark on new voyages of exploration. In addition to seeking luxury goods, the Spanish empire was driven by its quest for American silver.

Science and Culture

The period of European exploration introduced the people of Europe to the existence of new cultures worldwide. Before the fifteenth century, Europeans had minimal knowledge of the people and places beyond the boundaries of Europe, particularly Africa and Asia. Before the discovery of the Americas, Europeans did not even know of its existence. Europeans presumed that the world was much smaller than it was in actuality. This led early explorers such as Columbus and Magellan to believe that finding new routes to the Far East would be much easier than it turned out to be.

Profound misconceptions about geography and the cultures of local populations would change very slowly throughout the early centuries of European exploration. By the sixteenth century, European maps started to expand their depictions and representations to include new geographic discoveries. However, due to the intense political rivalries during the period, European states guarded their geographic knowledge and findings from one another.

With the growth of the printing press during the sixteenth century, accounts of overseas travels, such as those of Marco Polo in the late thirteenth century, spread to a wider audience of European readers than had previously been possible. The Age of Exploration also coincided with the development of Humanism and a growing intellectual curiosity about the natural world. The collection and study of exotic materials such as plants and animals led to a new age of scientific exploration and inquiry. These initial surveys and analyses influenced future revolutionary developments in numerous fields of science and natural history in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Religious Factors

One of the tenets of Catholicism decreed that Christianity ought to be the universal religion and faith among all mankind. The Crusades in the centuries preceding the Age of Exploration exposed Europeans to new places, people, and goods. It also reflected the zealous nature of medieval Christianity and foreshadowed the fervent missionary work that would form a major part of all early global expeditions. The pope played an important and validating role in these voyages by sanctioning and encouraging worldwide exploration. This often included the approbation of enslaving Africans and indigenous peoples. Missionaries were frequently a part of the early expeditions of Spain with the aim of bringing Christianity to the native inhabitants. Europeans typically viewed indigenous populations as barbaric heathens who could only become civilized through the adoption of Christianity.

• The age of European exploration and discovery represented a new period of global interaction and interconnectivity. As a result of technological advancements, Europeans were able to forge into new and previously undiscovered territories. They understood this to be a “New World.”
• European exploration was driven by multiple factors, including economic, political, and religious incentives. The growing desire to fulfill European demand for luxury goods, and the desire to unearth precious materials such as gold and silver, acted as a particularly crucial motivation.
• The period of European global exploration sparked the beginning phases of European empire and colonialism, which would continue to develop and intensify over the course of the next several centuries.
• As European exploration evolved and flourished, it saw the increasing oppression of native populations and the enslavement of Africans. During this period, Europeans increasingly dealt in African slaves and started the transatlantic slave trade.
• European Voyages of Exploration: Introduction. Authored by : The Saylor Foundation. Located at : https://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/HIST201-3.1.1-EuropeanExplorationIntro-FINAL1.pdf . License : CC BY: Attribution

Voyages of Discovery

For centuries, explorers had been funded by their governments and by private investors to set out into unknown parts of the world. Many of these adventures were driven by the potential for profit and resources. Some sought to secure new strategic locations for trade routes and defence. Others aimed to spread religious influence. During the Enlightenment, more and more voyages into the ‘New World’ were driven by scientific forces. These voyages were not only looking to discover new lands, but to learn about them.

Travel by sea became safer and more efficient as the 18th century progressed, thanks to technological and scientific advancements in navigation and cartography , and a better understanding of the prevention and treatment of diseases like scurvy . This allowed ships to sail further, faster and with reduced morbidity and mortality of its crew. 

Sept 7, 1778 Every innovation whatever, tho ever so much to their advantage, is sure to meet the highest disapprobation from Seamen: Portable Soup and SourKrout were at first condemned by them as stuff not fit for human beings to eat. Few men have introduced into their ships more novelties in the way of victuals and drink than I have done. It has, however, in a great measure been owing to such little innovations that I have always kept my people generally speaking free from that dreadful distemper of Scurvy. (Cook's Journal: third voyage)

Ingleton, Geoffrey C. (Geoffrey Chapman) 1908-1998. (1937).  H.M. Bark Endeavour [picture] / Geoffrey C. Ingleton . http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-135348965

Adams, Dennis, 1914-2001. (1970).  [Endeavour, below decks] [picture] / Dennis Adams . http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-136065213

Terry, Michael, 1899-1981. (1969).  Exhibition display showing the quantity and type of supplies onboard the Endeavour, Gisborne, New Zealand, 1969 / Michael Terry . http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-241592478

The major European powers were engaged in a simmering academic contest to be the first to explore and chart the unknown places of the world. Between 1765 and 1795, the British, French, Russian and Spanish governments dispatched over 20 scientific voyages between them. 

Some European Voyages of Discovery 1765–1795*

• 1764–66 : HMS Dolphin
• 1766–68 : HMS Dolphin and HMS Swallow
• 1766 : HMS Niger
• 1766–69 : La Boudeuse and L'Étoile
• 1768–71 : HMS Endeavour
• 1771–72 : Isle de France and Le Nécessaire
• 1772 : Sir Lawrence
• 1772–75 : HMS Resolution and HMS Adventure
• 1771–72 : La Fortune and Le Gros-Ventre
• 1773–74 : Le Roland and L'Oiseau
• 1773–74: HMS Racehorse and HMS Carcass
• 1776–80: HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery
• 1785–88: La Boussole and L'Astrolabe
• 1785–88 HMS King George
• 1785–94: Slava Rossii
• 1790–91: La Solide
• 1789–94: Descubierta and Atrevida
• 1791–94: La Recherche and L'Espérance
• 1791–93: HMS Providence
• 1791–95: HMS Discovery and HMS Chatham

*Voyages in  bold denote Cook's voyages

*Voyages in  bold denote Cook's voyages

To prevent them being intercepted by international rivals, on returning to England in 1771 Captain Cook was urged to :

send to our Secretary, for our information, accounts of your Proceedings, and Copys of the Surveys and drawings you shall have made. And upon your Arrival in England you are immediately to repair to this Office in order to lay before us a full account of your Proceedings in the whole Course of your Voyage, taking care before you leave the Vessel to demand from the Officers and Petty Officers the Log Books and Journals they may have Kept, and to seal them up for our inspection, and enjoyning them, and the whole Crew, not to divulge where they have been until they shall have Permission so to do.

Ellis, William Wade, 1751-1785. (1779).  [View in Avacha Bay, Kamchatka] [picture] / W.W. Ellis fect . http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-134491602

Webber, John, 1752-1793. Views in the South Seas. (1809).  The Resolution beating through the ice, with the Discovery in the most eminent [sic] danger in the distance [picture] / J. Webber fecit . http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-135773713  

Many of the great scientific voyages of the Enlightenment era included scientists, botanists , doctors and other experts in a range of fields. They made meteorological , hydrological and geographical observations, and many brought back to Europe specimens of newly discovered flora and fauna. This stimulated great advances in a number of scientific disciplines, including botany , zoology , ichthyology , conchology , taxonomy , medicine, geography, geology, mineralogy, hydrology, oceanography , physics and meteorology.

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Age of Discovery

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The Age of Discovery also known as the Age of Exploration , part of the early modern period and largely overlapping with the Age of Sail , was a period from approximately the 15th century to the 17th century , during which seafarers from a number of European countries explored, colonized, and conquered regions across the globe. The Age of Discovery was a transformative period in world history when previously isolated parts of the world became connected to form the world system and laid the groundwork for globalization. The extensive overseas exploration, particularly the European colonization of the Americas , with the Spanish and Portuguese , and later the British , at the forefront, spurred global trade . The interconnected global economy of the 21st century has its roots in the expansion of trade networks during this era.

The exploration also created colonial empires and marked an increased adoption of colonialism as a government policy in several European states. As such, it is sometimes synonymous with the first wave of European colonization . The colonization reshaped power dynamics causing geopolitical shifts in Europe and creating new centers of power beyond Europe. Having set human history on the global common course, the legacy of the Age still shapes the world today.

European oceanic exploration started with the maritime expeditions of Portugal to the Canary Islands in 1336, [1] and later with the Portuguese discoveries of the Atlantic archipelagos of Madeira and Azores , the coast of West Africa in 1434, and the establishment of the sea route to India in 1498 by Vasco da Gama , which initiated the Portuguese maritime and trade presence in Kerala and the Indian Ocean . [2] [3]

During the Age of Discovery, Spain sponsored and financed the transatlantic voyages of the Italian navigator Christopher Columbus , which from 1492 to 1504 marked the start of colonization in the Americas, and the expedition of the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan to open a route from the Atlantic ocean to the Pacific, which later achieved the first circumnavigation of the globe between 1519 and 1522. These Spanish expeditions significantly impacted the European perceptions of the world. These discoveries led to numerous naval expeditions across the Atlantic , Indian, and Pacific Oceans , and land expeditions in the Americas, Asia , Africa , and Australia that continued into the late 19th century, followed by the exploration of the polar regions in the 20th century.

European exploration initiated the Columbian exchange between the Old World (Europe, Asia, and Africa) and the New World (the Americas and Australia). This exchange involved the transfer of plants, animals, human populations (including slaves ), communicable diseases , and culture across the Eastern and Western Hemispheres . The Age of Discovery and European exploration involved mapping of the world , shaping a new worldview and facilitating contact with distant civilizations. The continents drawn by European mapmakers of the Age developed from abstract "blobs" into the recognizable to us outlines. [4] Simultaneously, the spread of new diseases, especially affecting American Indians , led to rapid population declines . The era saw widespread enslavement , exploitation and military conquest of native populations concurrent with the growing economic influence and spread of European culture , science and technology leading to a faster-than-exponential population growth world-wide.

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• Definition of voyage
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Age of Discovery

• 1.1 Past the Age of Discovery
• 2 Eat and drink
• 3.1 Christopher Columbus
• 3.2 John Cabot
• 3.3 Vasco da Gama
• 3.4 Ferdinand Magellan
• 3.5 Hernán Cortés
• 3.6 Jacques Cartier
• 3.7 Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo
• 3.8 St. Francis Xavier
• 3.9 Sir Francis Drake
• 3.10 Matteo Ricci
• 3.11 Henry Hudson
• 3.12 Samuel de Champlain
• 3.13 Abel Tasman
• 3.14 Vitus Bering
• 3.15 James Cook
• 3.16 Louis Antoine de Bougainville
• 3.17 George Vancouver
• 3.18 Matthew Flinders
• 4.2 Americas

The Age of Discovery , also known as the Age of Exploration , was the period from the 15th century to the late 18th, when Europeans set sail to discover and explore other lands. It also marked the beginning of European colonialism and the start of the Mercantilist Age, as well as the beginning of globalization.

While the European explorers did discover many uninhabited islands, for the most part they were exploring lands that had been discovered and settled by other people thousands of years before. The widely-used term "Age of Discovery" reflects the Eurocentric view of the world that existed at the time.

For this article, we focus on seaborne exploration and consider the Age of Exploration to end with the navigators Cook, Vancouver, Tasman and Flinders exploring the Pacific in the late 18th century. This excludes various expansions over land — the Russian Empire , the Ottoman Empire , Imperial China , America's Old West and so on — and more recent explorations in the Arctic , Antarctica and Space .

The article In the footsteps of explorers takes a broader approach to exploration, including explorers from other time-periods and those not from Europe.

Understand [ edit ]

Though the great voyages of the Age of Discovery were neither the world's first nor the first major ones by Europeans, they were very influential. Trade routes had been maintained between the Roman Empire and the East via the Silk Road for many centuries.

The period from the 5th to the 15th century AD is in Europe known as the Middle Ages , earlier implied to be a "dark" age between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance and Age of Discovery. This view is today dismissed, and there were indeed many great explorers during the time, both Europeans and others. Vikings reached North America around 1000 CE. Marco Polo 's book, published around 1300, told of the riches of the East and strongly influenced later exploration. The Islamic Golden Age produced explorers such as Ibn Battuta , who travelled further than any known person before him. China's Ming Dynasty sent the Ming Treasure Voyages across the South China Sea and Indian Ocean in the 15th century, making it as far the east coast of Africa .

The European Age of Discovery began in 1415, as the Portuguese captured the Moorish port of Ceuta in North Africa, marking the start of the Portuguese Empire . They were pioneers in the Age of Exploration, discovering the system of ocean currents and prevailing winds in the Atlantic Ocean, and striving to improve their shipbuilding and seamanship skills in order to use it. The understanding of the trade winds, and the development of triangular sails capable of crosswind sailing, enabled Europeans to sail across oceans and establish global empires.

The Portuguese were the first Europeans to expand over the seas since the Vikings . First they discovered and settled some nearby and until then uninhabited archipelagos, Madeira in 1418 and the Azores in 1427.

Inaugurated around 1433, the Sagres nautical school, sponsored by Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460), was set up to study the maritime exploration of the Atlantic Ocean, which led to the reaching of Greenland , Newfoundland , Labrador , and the west coast of Africa. The discovery of a passable route around Cape Bojador by Portuguese mariner Gil Eanes in 1434 was a major breakthrough for European seamanship, of almost mystical significance. After Prince Henry's death, his pupils continued to voyage further and further, enabling Portugal to begin a major chapter in world history with the New World discoveries and a monopoly over trade between the Orient and Western Europe. The Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias would become the first European to sight and sail around the Cape of Good Hope in 1488. Explorers Vasco da Gama and Pedro Álvares Cabral reached India in 1498 and Brazil in 1500, respectively, setting in motion the colonial scheme of occupation and exploitation.

Other countries soon joined in. Spain sent Columbus on a series of voyages starting in 1492, and also sent out voyages under other commanders; in 1519 they sent out the Magellan expedition, the first circumnavigation of the world. In the process, Magellan would become the first European to sail through "the Strait that shall forever bear his name", in 1520. This would be the main route for ships sailing between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans until the first European sighting and rounding of Cape Horn further south by the Dutch navigator Willem Schouten in 1616. John Cabot explored Newfoundland and nearby areas for the British starting in 1497. French exploratory voyages began around 1508 under Giovanni da Verrazzano, and what is now Quebec was claimed for the Kingdom of France by Jacques Cartier by 1540.

The Portuguese were the first Europeans to reach Indonesia , in 1512, with British, Dutch and Spanish traders not far behind. In medieval Europe, pepper cost more than its weight in gold, so the Spice Islands were an extremely valuable colony. Several small wars were fought over them, with the Dutch ending up in control.

The Treaty of Tordesillas was signed in 1494 after the Pope mediated in a dispute between Portugal and Spain; it divided the non-Christian world between those two powers. The Protestant powers and even Catholic France ignored it.

• Spain was granted the right to occupy much of the New World, plus most of the Pacific. They soon grabbed most of the Americas, except Portuguese Brazil and various areas where the British, Dutch or French beat them to it.
• Portugal got Brazil and was granted a free hand in the Old World, except for Christian Europe. They rushed to establish bases (though generally not large colonies) all along the trade routes to the riches of the East. They held Angola , Goa , East Timor and Macau until the late 20th century. They were also in Sri Lanka , Malacca , the Spice Islands and Taiwan until the Dutch or the British displaced them.

The treaty allowed either nation to intrude into the other's zone provided the area was not yet colonized, they formed alliances with local rulers, and they spread the Faith. At least in the mind of the Spanish King, this justified taking the Philippines in the 1560s.

Past the Age of Discovery [ edit ]

It was the Portuguese, from their base in Macau, who first began serious trade with China and Japan. Later, other European powers and the U.S. joined in. However, both countries would maintain relatively isolationist trade policies until the 19th century, when the British forced China into very unfavorable trade terms following their victory in the First Opium War in 1842, and the Americans forced Japan to open up during the Black Ships incident in 1853.

Italy did not develop its own colonial empire until the late 19th century — they took Eritrea in 1882, Somalia in 1889, Libya in 1911, Ethiopia in 1936, and had a few small concessions in China — but many of the explorers in the early days were Italians. These included Columbus, Cabot, Verrazzano, Amerigo Vespucci and Magellan's chronicler, Antonio Pigafetta.

Along with military conquest and commerce, the other goal of imperialism was Christianizing the indigenous peoples, which was the role of missionaries. And except in Muslim , Hindu , Sikh and most Buddhist areas, and nations with their own longstanding Christian churches, they were very successful in attaining converts, eventually leading to Christianity becoming the world's most prolific religion, a position it maintains today. Many of the early missionaries to nations far from Europe took fascinating journeys which can be retraced, and there are many historical missions around the world with functioning churches and museums that can be visited.

The Europeans often maintained control over their colonies through a "divide and conquer" strategy, in which they would deliberately stoke tensions between different groups. Moreover, many people were shipped between far flung regions of the colonial empires to provide labour for the respective colonial masters. This has resulted in significant ethnic and religious tensions that have persisted even after the colonies gained independence, sometimes even resulting in civil wars, ethnic cleansings or genocides.

At the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the industrial era, the inland of many continents, as well as the polar regions, remained uncharted. Among famous inland expeditions were the Lewis and Clark expedition across North America, and the voyages of Sven Hedin across Central Asia. The North and South Pole were reached by humans only in the 20th century.

Eat and drink [ edit ]

The Age of Discovery also had a huge impact on global culinary culture, and many ingredients now seen as integral parts of many European cuisines such as potatoes, tomatoes and cocoa actually have their origins in the Americas . Turkeys are native to North America, and originally domesticated by the ancient Mesoamericans, but are today an integral part of the traditional English Christmas dinner. Similarly, chillis have become an integral part of many Asian and African cuisines despite their origin in what is today southern Mexico and Central America , having been brought to these areas by Spanish and Portuguese traders in the 16th century. Maize (corn), which is native to southern Mexico, has become a staple in many African cuisines. Sweet potatoes are originally from South America, but today China is the largest grower.

Unlike native American ingredients, native Australian ingredients have a comparatively minor impact on the global culinary scene, the sole exception being the macadamia nut, which is now one of Hawaii 's major exports.

Crops and animals originally domesticated in Ancient Mesopotamia — barley, wheat, cattle, sheep and others — spread to Europe in ancient times, and the Age of Discovery spread them to the rest of the world. Today agriculture in many temperate zone former colonies — including Canada, the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Argentina — is largely based on them.

Coffee had its origins in the Horn of Africa , but is now also grown in many other parts of the world, including parts of the Americas and Southeast Asia. Tobacco has also spread widely from its origins in the Americas.

Tea was introduced into Europe from China during the Age of Discovery, with Russia being the main player in the overland caravan routes via Siberia and Central Asia , while Portugal and the Netherlands initially dominated the sea routes though later the British took over much of the trade. The United Kingdom in particular took a liking to this new beverage, and tea drinking became a status symbol among the British nobility, thus giving rise to the traditional afternoon tea. The British also introduced commercial tea growing to their colonies in attempt to break the Chinese monopoly, and today, India , Sri Lanka , Kenya and Malaysia are major tea producers.

Explorers [ edit ]

This section lists many of the more famous explorers of the period.

Christopher Columbus [ edit ]

Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) was a Genoese colonizer and explorer who made several voyages across in Atlantic in the service of the Spanish crown from 1492-1502, thus kickstarting the Age of Discovery and the formation of the Spanish colonial empire . While he never set foot in what are now the states of the United States of America , his voyages are celebrated in the form of the public holiday Columbus Day.

John Cabot [ edit ]

John Cabot, or Giovanni Caboto, (c. 1450 – c. 1500) was a Venetian working for the English King who made three trips west from Bristol in 1497 and 1498. The records are scanty and their interpretation controversial, but it seems that he was the first European since the Vikings to reach Newfoundland .

One of his sons, Sebastian, was also an explorer; working for the English King between 1504 and 1512 he explored the North American coast as far south as Chesapeake Bay and became the first to look for the Northwest Passage, following the north coast of what is now Quebec until the weather forced him to turn back. Later he worked for Spain exploring South America.

Vasco da Gama [ edit ]

Vasco da Gama (c.1460-1524) was a Portuguese explorer who became the first European to reach India by sea, going around Africa in the process. His voyages thus allowed Portugal to establish a colonial empire in much of Africa and Asia.

Ferdinand Magellan [ edit ]

Ferdinand Magellan (c.1480-1521) was a Portuguese explorer in the service of the Spanish crown who organised the first circumnavigation of the globe, and became the first European to reach Asia from the east, by first sailing through the strait that was later named after him . Magellan himself was killed in a tribal war in Mactan in what is now the Philippines , and the circumnavigation was completed by his subordinate commander Juan Sebastián Elcano.

Hernán Cortés [ edit ]

Hernán Cortés (1485-1547) is best known as the Spanish conquistador who conquered the Aztec empire, paving the way for the rise of the Spanish Empire in the Americas. The conquistadors were the earliest Spanish explorers in the Americas, but they were motivated mostly by greed and glory, seeking dominion over the indigenous peoples and appropriation of their gold and silver (which they found in abundance in Mesoamerica). Cortés conquered a large area stretching from Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico across Central Mexico to the Pacific coast.

Jacques Cartier [ edit ]

Jacques Cartier (1491-1557) was a Breton who explored the Gulf of Saint Lawrence (which he named, because he arrived there on the Saint's feast day) and the Saint Lawrence River for France between 1531 and 1542. He was the first European to reach what were then indigenous settlements and are now Quebec City and Montreal . He could not go beyond Montreal due to rapids.

He did not command the third voyage in 1541-42. This was to be France's first attempt at establishing a permanent settlement in the New World, and overall command was given to de Roberval who was to be governor of the colony; Cartier was chief navigator. The colony failed, but by then Cartier was already retired in St Malo which now has a Jacques Cartier Museum .

Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo [ edit ]

In 1542, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo (c.1497-1543) was a Spanish explorer who sailed north from Mexico to explore the North American west coast. He is recognized as the first European to set foot in what is now the U.S. state of California and his crew sailed as far north as the Rogue River in Oregon before winter weather caused the ship to turn south to return to Mexico. The place where Cabrillo first landed in San Diego is the site of a U.S. National Monument . Cabrillo would never finish his exploration of the west coast, he died in the Channel Islands in 1543 after shattering his leg in a fall.

St. Francis Xavier [ edit ]

St. Francis Xavier (1506-1552) was a Navarrese Catholic missionary who was one of the founders of the Society of Jesus ( Jesuits ). He led evangelization efforts in much of the Portuguese colonial empire in Asia, in particular Goa and Malacca , and became the first Christian missionary to reach Borneo , the Maluku Islands and Japan . He was on a diplomatic mission to China when he fell ill and died on the island of Shangchuan near Taishan , Guangdong . Initially buried on a beach on the island, his body was later exhumed and moved to St Paul's Church in Malacca (now in ruins). He would later be moved again to the Basilica of Bom Jesus in Goa , where he lies to this day.

• 21.748896 112.774402 1 St. Francis Church , Shangchuan Island, Taishan , China . Church built in memory of St. Francis Xavier on the spot where he died. ( updated Jul 2023 )
• 31.591154 130.551173 5 Xavier Park ( ザビエル公園 ), Kagoshima , Japan . Park commemorating the stay of St. Francis Xavier in Kagoshima, with statues of him and his two Japanese disciples Anjiro and Bernardo, the former of whom was the first record Japanese Christian, and that latter of whom was the first Japanese to set foot on European soil. The park is also home to the ruins of the Xavier Church that was built in his honour in 1908, but destroyed in a World War II bombing raid. ( updated Jul 2023 )
• 31.603706 130.571803 6 Monument of St. Xavier’s Landing ( ザビエル上陸記念碑 ), Kagoshima , Japan . Located in Gionnosu Park, on the site where St. Francis Xavier first landed in Japan. ( updated Jul 2023 )

Sir Francis Drake [ edit ]

Sir Francis Drake (1540-1596) was an English explorer and privateer, famous for sailing around the world, including leading the first circumnavigation of the globe under a single commander from 1577 to 1580, and for his many raids on Spanish waters. The most notable of these were his attack on Cartagena de Indias in April 1586 with 23 ships and 3,000 men, burning 200 houses and the cathedral, and departing only after a ransom was paid a month later; and the "singeing of King Philip's beard" in 1587, against Cádiz , A Coruña and the Spanish Armada, occupying the harbours and destroying 37 naval and merchant ships. Legend says, on his return, he raided and destroyed the old Sagres school, a Spanish asset at this time; when Golden Hinde arrived and docked at the Tower of London, Queen Elizabeth I went aboard with the French ambassador, announced him "Sir", and handed the Frenchman a sword to perform the deed (and embroil the French and Spanish empires against each other). His legacy is mixed; in Latin America, El Draque is remembered mostly as a pirate, whereas the Anglosphere sees him as a bona fide explorer.

Matteo Ricci [ edit ]

Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) was an Italian Jesuit priest who led Roman Catholic evangelization efforts in China. Born in Macerata , then part of the Papal States, he joined the Society of Jesus while studying in Rome at the Roman College in 1571. He set off from Lisbon on a missionary expedition to Asia in 1578 and arrived in the then-Portuguese colony of Goa later that year. He was then dispatched from Goa to Macau , then a Portuguese trading post, in 1582, where studied Chinese language and culture, becoming one of the first Westerners to master the Chinese writing system and literary classics. From Macau he would later travel into the Chinese heartland, eventually reaching the capital Beijing in 1598. While in Beijing, Ricci became an advisor to the imperial court of the Ming Dynasty, becoming the first Westerner to be invited into the Forbidden City. Ricci introduced Western knowledge to China, including by publishing the first world map in the Chinese language in 1602, and managed to convert several important Chinese officials to Christianity by, rather controversially, promoting interpretations of Christian doctrine that were compatible with China's dominant philosophy of Confucianism, and incorporating elements of Confucian rites into Chinese Catholic rites, before dying in Beijing in 1610. Although Chinese law at that time required foreigners who died in China to be buried in Macau, due to Ricci's contributions to China, the emperor granted a special exception for him to be buried in Beijing as per his wishes.

• 22.197425 113.541239 7 Statue of Matteo Ricci , Macau . Unveiled in 2010 on the anniversary of Matteo Ricci's arrival in the city, the statue sits on the site where the College of St. Paul, where Ricci had stayed while in Macau, once stood. ( updated Jul 2023 )
• 23.047291 112.477692 10 Former site of Temple of Flowers of the Saints ( 利玛窦仙花寺遗址 ), Zhaoqing , China . The former site of the Temple of Flowers of the Saints, the first Roman Catholic church in the Chinese mainland, which was founded by Matteo Ricci. A plaque commemorating the former existence of the church now stands on the site. ( updated Jul 2023 )

Henry Hudson [ edit ]

Henry Hudson (1565-1611?) was an Englishman who led several expeditions to the New World. Most were under the English flag, searching for the Northwest passage, though on one he explored areas further south for the Dutch East India Company, leading to that company founding "New Amsterdam" which later became New York City . The Hudson River, Hudson's Bay and various other things were named for him.

Samuel de Champlain [ edit ]

Samuel de Champlain (1567–1635) was a French colonist, navigator, cartographer, draftsman, soldier, explorer, geographer, ethnologist, diplomat, and chronicler. He made over twenty trips across the Atlantic Ocean, and founded Quebec City and New France in 1608. An important figure in Canadian history, Champlain created the first accurate coastal map during his explorations, and founded various colonial settlements.

Abel Tasman [ edit ]

In November 1642, Dutch East India Company commander Abel Tasman (1603-1659), exploring from Mauritius under orders of Anthony van Diemen, governor-general of the Dutch East Indies , found Tasmania island, and claimed it. He named it "Van Diemen's Land" after his patron; it was re-named to its current name after him in 1856. A cape and a group of islands in northern New Zealand are still called by names given by Tasman, and Abel Tasman National Park on the South Island is named for him. He reportedly reached Fiji and Tonga , later returning to Batavia .

His second voyage took place in 1644; he mapped a part of Australia's northern coast, but failed to find the Torres Strait and a possible trade route, and the expedition was deemed a failure.

Vitus Bering [ edit ]

Danish cartographer and explorer Vitus Jonassen Bering (1681-1741), also known as Ivan Ivanovich Bering, an officer in the Russian Navy, explored the Bering Sea region and claimed Kamchatka (1725-28) and Alaska (1741) on behalf of the Russian Empire . The Bering Strait, the Bering Sea, Bering Island (where he is buried, after dying while underway), the Bering Glacier and the Bering Land Bridge were all named in his honor. He was neither the first Russian to sight North America (that having been achieved by Mikhail Gvozdev during the 1730s), nor the first Russian to pass through the strait which now bears his name (an honour which goes to the relatively unknown 17th-century expedition of Semyon Dezhnev). Reports from his second voyage were jealously guarded by the Russian administration, preventing Bering's story from being retold in full for at least a century after his death. Nonetheless, Bering's achievements, both as an individual explorer and as a leader of the second expedition, have never been doubted. Captain James Cook, despite knowledge of Dezhnev's earlier expedition, chose to use the name "Bering Strait".

James Cook [ edit ]

Born in 1728, Cook joined the Royal Navy in 1755, eventually rising to the rank of captain. He saw action in the Seven Years' War and subsequently surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege of Quebec, which brought him to the attention of the Admiralty and Royal Society. This led to his commission in 1766 as commander of HM Bark Endeavour for the first of three expeditions around the Pacific Ocean, during which he achieved the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand, as well as the first European contact and waypoint naming on the eastern coastline of Australia. He was killed at Kealakekua Bay in Hawaii on 14 February 1779, in a conflict with locals.

Louis Antoine de Bougainville [ edit ]

Louis-Antoine, Comte de Bougainville (1729–1811) from Saint-Malo was a French admiral and explorer. A contemporary of James Cook, he took part in the Seven Years' War in North America and the American Revolutionary War against Britain. Bougainville later gained fame for his expeditions, including a scientific circumnavigation of the globe in 1763, the first recorded settlement on the Falkland Islands which he named "Isles Malouines", and voyages into the Pacific Ocean. Bougainville Island of Papua New Guinea , as well as the Bougainvillea genus of tropical ornamental plants, were named after him.

George Vancouver [ edit ]

Vancouver was a British officer of the Royal Navy best known for his 1791–95 expedition, to lay formal British claim and start colonization of North America's northwestern Pacific Coast regions previously mapped by James Cook. The Canadian city of Vancouver , as well as the nearby Vancouver Island were named after him. The colony was called British Columbia , and became a province of Canada in 1871.

Matthew Flinders [ edit ]

Captain Matthew Flinders (1774–1814) was an English navigator, cartographer and officer of the Royal Navy who led the second circumnavigation of New Holland, that he would subsequently call "Australia", and identified it as a continent. Flinders made three voyages to the Southern Ocean between 1791 and 1810.

Today, Flinders is often forgotten about in his home country (England), but he is well known to Australians, and many places in Australia are named after him.

See [ edit ]

Wikivoyage has itinerary articles for some of the greatest voyages of the Age of Discovery:

• Voyages of Columbus — Spain to the Caribbean, 1492
• Cape Route — Vasco da Gama, Portugal to India by going south around Africa, 1498
• Magellan-Elcano circumnavigation — around the world, by going past the southern tip of mainland South America, 1519-1521
• Voyages of James Cook — United Kingdom to the Pacific , 1766-1780
• Voyages of George Vancouver — United Kingdom to the west coast of North America , 1791–1795
• Voyages of Matthew Flinders — United Kingdom to Australia , 1791-1810

Europe [ edit ]

In Lisbon , the capital of Portugal, see the Torre de Belém where Portuguese explorers embarked on their voyages to distant lands, and where they disembarked on their return to the motherland. The Museu da Marinha (Maritime Museum) in the Belém district, evokes Portugal's domination of the seas. Its collections include model ships from the Age of Discovery onward. The oldest exhibit is a wooden figure representing the Archangel Raphael that accompanied Vasco da Gama on his voyage to India.

Seville was the main base for Spanish expeditions in this period and has the General Archive of the Indies , a library of documents on Spanish exploration and colonization.

In Saint-Malo , France, you can visit the Jacques Cartier Museum in his former house, which has been restored and fitted out to evoke the daily life and travels of Cartier who explored and claimed Canada for France in the mid-16th century.

In Bristol , in the United Kingdom, you can board the Matthew of Bristol , a replica of the ship used by John Cabot (an Italian also known as Giovanni Caboto) to explore the coast of North America for England.

In London , in the United Kingdom, you can board a replica of Sir Francis Drake's The Golden Hinde built using traditional methods. Buckland Abbey, in Yelverton near Plymouth , was owned by Sir Francis Drake, and is now a museum. A number of mementos of his life are displayed there.

Americas [ edit ]

In Santo Domingo , the capital of the Dominican Republic, you can visit the "Faro a Colon", a huge lighthouse and monument built to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Columbus' arrival in the Americas in 1492. It is also a museum that claims to house his remains. Santo Domingo was the first major European settlement in the New World. Christopher Columbus walked these streets! The Cathedral of Seville , Spain, has the results of DNA testing to back its claim to having the explorer's remains.

In Punta Arenas , Chile, the Museo Nao Victoria hosts a replica of the Nao Victoria , one of the ships used by Juan Sebastián Elcano, a Spaniard, who completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth (1519-21). It also has a replica of the HMS Beagle .

Sitka in Alaska is a Russian-born city, the former capital of Russian Alaska.

Africa [ edit ]

Mossel Bay , South Africa, has a Bartolomeu Dias Museum Complex with information about European explorers and a replica of the ship used by 15th-century Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias.

At Kwaaihoek , Alexandria, near Port Elizabeth in South Africa, the Dias Cross Memorial is a replica of the cross erected in 1488 by Bartolomeu Diaz, the famous Portuguese navigator.

Asia [ edit ]

Malacca was first colonised by the Portuguese in 1511, after Alfonso de Albuquerque defeated the Malacca Sultanate in a war. The Dutch would gain control of it after defeating the Portuguese in a war in 1641. It would remain under Dutch rule until the signing of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty in 1824, when the British took over Malacca in exchange for the Dutch taking the British colonies in Sumatra. Today, you can visit the Portuguese settlement, where descendants of the Portuguese colonisers who intermarried with the locals reside, and some continue to speak a Portuguese-based creole. It is also a good place to sample the distinctive Portuguese Eurasian cuisine. Other sites dating back to the Portuguese colonial era include the ruins of the A Famosa fort and the Church of Saint Paul. Several Dutch colonial buildings also survive, including the Stadhuys and the adjacent Christ Church.

Penang was colonised by the British in 1786, when the Sultan of Kedah sold it to Captain Francis Light of the British East India Company, making it the first British colony in Southeast Asia. Today, George Town , the capital of Penang, is known for being one of the best preserved examples of a British colonial capital in Southeast Asia. Light died of malaria in 1794, and is buried in the Old Protestant Cemetery on the island, where his grave can be visited.

Macau was colonised by Portugal in 1557, when China's Ming Dynasty granted them the right to establish a permanent trading post as gratitude for helping the Chinese to eliminate coastal pirates, making it the first European colony in East Asia. Portugal would hold on to Macau until 1999, when it was returned to China, which incidentally also marked the end of European colonialism in Asia. Today, Macau is home to an exceptionally high concentration of well-preserved Portuguese colonial architecture, particularly around the Largo do Senado , complete with the traditional Portuguese pavement, and you could easily mistake it for somewhere in Europe were it not for the people and Chinese-language signs. There is also the Ruins of Saint Paul, the remnants of a Portuguese Roman Catholic church that was destroyed in a fire in 1835. Another legacy of Portuguese rule is the unique Macanese cuisine, with perhaps its most famous dish being the Macanese egg tart, which was originally derived from the Portuguese pastel de nata .

Taiwan ' s history is more complex. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to sight it in 1544 and named it Ilha Formosa (beautiful island), the name by which it first became known to the West. Formosa was the usual name in English until it was replaced by the Chinese name "Taiwan" in the late 20th century. The Spanish held parts of it in the early 1600s but were driven out by the Dutch, who were driven out by Ming Dynasty loyalist Koxinga (known in China as Zheng Chenggong) in 1661. He set up an independent kingdom which lasted until the Qing Dynasty invaded in 1683. The Qing kept control until 1895 when Japan took the island. Japan was forced to give it back to China in 1945 after their defeat in World War II .

Gulangyu in Xiamen has a museum for Koxinga who drove the Dutch out of Taiwan. Although popularly remembered as a pirate in the West, he is one of the few historical leaders considered a hero by the governments in both Beijing and Taipei; defeating the foreign devils makes him a good guy in everyone's books. There are also numerous sites dedicated to him across the strait in Tainan , including the Chih-kan Tower and several temples. Tainan is also home to the ruins of several forts that were built during the Dutch colonial period.

The first Europeans to reach the Philippines were a Spanish expedition under Magellan in the 1520s, during which Magellan himself was killed in Mactan by local tribal chief Lapu-Lapu. The Spanish returned to colonize in the 1560s and held it until 1898 when the Americans took it over (along with Cuba , Puerto Rico and Guam ) after the Spanish-American War. Today many attractions in the country are remnants of the Spanish colonial period, with the city of Vigan being perhaps the best preserved example of a Spanish colonial city in the country.

See also [ edit ]

Wikivoyage also has a number of articles on things that were influenced by European exploration and colonialism.

The "Big Five" colonial empires were:

• British Empire including its "jewel in the crown", the British Raj
• Dutch Empire
• French Colonial Empire
• Portuguese Empire
• Spanish Empire

Other articles on related topics include:

• Austro-Hungarian Empire
• Atlantic slave trade
• Danish Empire
• German Empire
• Italian Empire
• Swedish Empire
• Russian Empire and its successor, the Soviet Union
• Indigenous cultures of North America
• Indigenous cultures of Mesoamerica
• Indigenous cultures of South America
• Indigenous Australian culture
• Maori culture
• Western food in Asia

The Belgians also built a smaller colonial empire. Wikivoyage does not have an article on the Belgian colonial empire (as of October 2022). The descendants of European colonists in thirteen British colonies in North America would declare independence as the United States of America in 1776, with the new country beginning its expansion shortly after, and subsequently building a colonial empire of its own in the 19th and 20th centuries.

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Voyages of Discovery Captain Cook and the Exploration of the Pacific

• by Lynne Withey (Author)
• January 1989
• First Edition
• Paperback $31.95,  £27.00

Title Details

Rights: Available worldwide Pages: 520 ISBN: 9780520065642 Trim Size: 6 x 9

About the Book

Voyages of Discovery is the story of the last great age of European sea exploration, when state-supported expeditions driven by both scientific and political motives set out to map the remaining unknown parts of the globe. Focusing on the voyages of the preeminent explorer, Captain James Cook, who commanded three round-the-world expeditions between 1768 and 1780, Lynne Withey illuminates the Pacific islanders' views of their "discoverers" as well.

About the Author

Lynne Withey has taught history at the University of Iowa, Boston University, and the University of California at Berkeley. She is the author of Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams.

Table of Contents

Preface Prologue: The Royal Society Plans a Voyage I Foundations: Pacific Exploration Before Cook 1. The World Beyond Europe 2. Old Ideas and New Strategies 3. Paradise Discovered 4. Preparations II The Discovery of Polynesia 5. Tahiti 6. Amateur Ethnographers 7. In Search of the Southern Continent 8. Homeward 9. Mr. Banks's Voyage III Circumnavigating the Antarctic 10. To the Antarctic 11. Return to Tahiti 12. The Second Antarctic Summer 13. Island Hopping Across the Pacific 14. The Islands of Quiros 15. Mai IV The Search for a Northwest Passage 16. The "Friendly Islands" 17. Mai Returns 18. To the Arctic 19. Kealakekua Bay 20. Cook the Hero V Exploration and Empire: The Legacy of Cook's Voyages 21. Exploiting the Pacific: Convicts, Furs, and Breadfruit 22. The End of an Era: Vancouver in the Pacific References Index

• Silver Medal, Commonwealth Club of California

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Greek and Roman philosophers had predicted the existence of a great southern landmass some 2000 years ago. As the earth was a sphere, they believed there must be a huge continent to the south to counterbalance the continents in the north.

Originally postulated by Aristotle, Ptolemy then expanded this notion of  Terra Australis Incognita  - the unknown southern land.

It would take until the 18th century before this mysterious continent was finally located, charted and later named  Australia . Explore the State Library's incredible maps, journals, drawings and books to understand how the pieces of our continent were gradually put together. 

Voyages of Discovery - the Great South Land  is made possible through a partnership with the  Bruce & Joy Reid Foundation .

The process of cartography or map making has developed over thousands of years. The evolution of maps in European history reflected the growing public interest in the geography of the world and the new discoveries made on ambitious voyages of exploration.

Advances in mathematical sciences and navigation techniques increased the accuracy of territorial surveys, permitting explorers to reach distant and mysterious places.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, these world maps became an important tool for imperial European powers to develop lucrative trade routes and extend their political influence beyond the equator.

The Spanish and Portuguese were very active in expanding their empires in the 16th century, followed closely by the Dutch who made important discoveries in the Pacific regions in the 17th century. By the 18th century, France and England had also become powerful political rivals and empire builders, helping to piece together the final unknown aspects of  Terra Australis Incognita .

A long held fascination with the undiscovered Southern Continent inspired authors to imagine and write about this mythical land. As a literary and philosophical genre, imaginary voyages to  Terra Australis Incognita  were almost as popular in their day as authentic travel accounts, featuring utopian landscapes and curious inhabitants.

Italian Giovanni Botero (1540-1617) was one of the many writers inspired by this uncharted region. 

Botero's  Le Relationi Universali  (1618) included fifteen woodcuts of imaginary monsters that he believed likely to inhabit the lands to the east and south. These evolutionary fantasies, partly the work of artist Hans Burgkmair, were a wild mix of man and beast.

Mundus alter et idem  (1643) by Joseph Hall gave another account of the mythical south, and was the earliest imaginary utopia, or dystopia, to be specifically set in  Terra Australis Incognita . Far from an ideal world, Hall's imagined land full of gluttons, bandits and snobs was intended to satirise the status quo of England at the time. 

A map, accompanying his 1643 edition, by accomplished engraver Pieter van der Keeve, portrayed a deliberately exaggerated southern continent as large as all the continents north of the equator combined.

As the years progressed and knowledge of the South Land improved, imaginary voyages were taken over by more sophisticated travel writing and utopias tended to be set in more realistic frameworks.

By the end of the 18th century, exploration had proven the extent of the region and mythical stories of the missing southern continent disappeared.

Europeans had been searching for rich new lands in the Southern Hemisphere long before Captain James Cook arrived on the east coast of Australia in 1770.

In a quest to advance Catholicism and discover new sources of natural resources and precious metals, early Spanish explorers opened up many parts of the world to European settlers. They are considered the first Europeans to discover Vanuatu and what is now known as the Torres Strait.

In December 1605, Portuguese captain Pedro Fernandes de Queirós (Quirós in Spanish) led a two-ship Spanish expedition in search of the Great South Land. They reached the largest island of Vanuatu in May 1606 and attempted to settle it as a Spanish colony, naming it  Australia del Espiritu Santo .

Separated during a storm, Queirós sailed on to Mexico, leaving the remaining party on their south-westerly course. On the 27 June, having reached 20.5 degrees latitude with no land in sight, Luis Vaes de Torres, second in command, sailed north for Manila, taking the expedition through what is now known as the Torres Strait and along the southern coast of Papua New Guinea. They reached Manila in May 1607.

One vigilant sailor, Don Diego de Prado y Tobar, took great care to keep track of what was ultimately the first European voyage through the strait between Australia and New Guinea. The journey proved that New Guinea was an island and not a northern projection of the Great South Land as some geographers had thought.

Although the Spanish didn't find the expected southern continent, they were the first European expedition to land on several islands that are now part of  Australia . Prado's manuscript is also significant for his use of the name  Australia  to describe this missing continent.

Queirós wrote many petitions or 'memorials' to King Philip III of Spain, requesting another expedition to the South Land. He was eager to secure the region's fabulous wealth for Spain and convert its peoples to the Catholic faith. Queirós was finally given the opportunity in 1614, however died at Panama in 1615 before he could set sail.

The State Library has the world's pre-eminent collection of Queirós presentation memorials, holding 13 of the 14 known memorials in the Mitchell and Dixson Libraries.

The most significant exploration of Australia in the 17th century was by the Dutch. Commissioned by the world's largest trading company at the time, the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Campaignie or VOC), Dutch explorers charted much of the Southern Hemisphere in search of its famed riches.

Dutch sailors made their first landfall on Australian shores in 1606. By the time Captain Cook arrived nearly 170 years later, the Dutch had charted all but the south-eastern coastline of the continent they called 'New Holland'.

In 1605 Willem Janszoon (c.1570-c.1638) was sent on the ship  Duyfken to discover the 'great land Nova Guinea and other unknown east and south lands' for the powerful Dutch East India Company (VOC).

Janszoon charted parts of New Guinea's south coast, sailed past the entrance to Torres Strait and landed on Cape York Peninsula, believing it was a continuation of New Guinea. Whilst some accidental encounters with Australia's western coast followed, it wasn't until the voyages of Abel Tasman that a clearer picture of the Great South Land emerged.

In 1642 Abel Tasman (c.1603-1659) was commissioned by Anthony van Diemen, the head of VOC (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) in Batavia (now Jakarta), to explore the southern oceans and find profitable new trading markets for the Company. 

With his two ships  Heemskerck  and  Zeehaen  and a crew of 110, Tasman charted the southern coasts of Tasmania (which he named Van Diemen's Land), the west coast of New Zealand, parts of Tonga and Fiji and the north coast of New Guinea. It was a remarkable voyage, however Tasman didn't find the famed riches sought by the Company.

On his second voyage in 1644, Tasman unsuccessfully tried to chart a passage to the rich trading markets of South America. Although he charted the south west coast of New Guinea and much of Australia's previously unknown northern coastline, this exploration was also deemed unsuccessful.  

The  Tasman Map  is one of the few documentary sources relating to the second voyage. Drawn on delicate Japanese paper, the map combines the results of Abel Tasman's first and second voyages with those of earlier Dutch navigators, revealing a surprisingly accurate general outline of the Australian coastline.

In recognition of the  Tasman Map's  significance, a stunning marble mosaic reproduction forms part of the floor of the historic Mitchell Library vestibule at the State Library of New South Wales.

Tasman kept journals on board during both these voyages. The full journal of his first voyage of 1642-1643 was lost, but two abridged versions survived. The State Library holds one of these edited copies, the  Huijdecoper manuscript , compiled sometime between 1643 and 1647. 

The journal of the second voyage was also lost, however no copies are known to exist.

Disappointed that Tasman had failed to find rich trading routes, the Dutch turned their attention to America. This left the way clear for the British Empire to begin their explorations further south.

Fanciful notions of the far South Land were also common in the English imagination. Successful explorers were held in high-esteem, as many longed to discover the untold treasures that lay beyond the equator.

Whilst English exploration of the Southern Hemisphere began in 1577 with the voyages of Francis Drake, it wasn't until the late 18th century that expeditions finally revealed the true extent of the region and the final pieces of  Terra Australis Incognita .

Francis Drake is one of England's most renowned navigators. In 1577 he was chosen to lead an expedition intended to pass around South America through the Strait of Magellan and to explore the coast that lay beyond. 

Drake returned to England in September 1580 having circumnavigated the world, his ship laden with gold, silver and spices plundered from the Americas. Though he didn't find the Great South Land, his expedition would pave the way for further English voyages in the following centuries. The Queen personally boarded Drake's ship the  Golden Hind to bestow a knighthood in recognition of his achievements.

In 1766 the British Admiralty officially took up the search for  Terra Australis Incognita , sending out Captain Samuel Wallis (1728-1795) in command of HMS Dolphin , accompanied by Philip Carteret in HMS Swallow .

Although Wallis failed to find the mythical continent, he discovered a string of Pacific Islands including Tahiti in June 1767, which he named King George the Third's Island after the English sovereign. He charted and accurately recorded the longitude of the Tahitian islands, thus determining Tahiti as the destination for James Cook's first Pacific voyage.

Wallis is known to have made at least 40 drawings on the voyage, many of them offshore coastal views of the islands he encountered. In most of these drawings, his ship HMS Dolphin is prominently positioned in the foreground, while native canoes can often be seen in the surrounding waters. A skilled artist, Wallis' drawings add greatly to existing accounts of the voyage.

Alexander Dalrymple's overriding passion in life was determining the existence of a Great Southern Continent.

At the age of fifteen, Dalrymple joined the British East India Company, and was posted to Madras, India. He travelled widely in Asia over the next thirteen years, visiting China and the East Indies, where he became passionately interested in trade, geography, astronomy, charting and exploration. He trawled libraries and offices looking for any information and charts related to discoveries in the Pacific and the history of European trading in the region.

Using the knowledge he had gathered about the history of exploration in the Pacific, Dalrymple started to build his own hypothesis about the Great South Land. When he returned to London from South East Asia in 1765, Dalrymple used his sources to compile a book entitled  An account of the discoveries made in the South Pacifick Ocean, previous to 1764  outlining his belief in the existence of this missing southern continent and analysing the discoveries made on previous voyages to the South Pacific, primarily by the Dutch and Spanish.

Dalrymple's book was read with interest by those mounting the 1770 expedition to view the Transit of Venus in Tahiti. Joseph Banks, members of the Royal Society and the Admiralty took Dalrymple's research into account, particularly when issuing Captain James Cook's expedition with secret instructions to seek the Southern Continent after their scientific observations in Tahiti.

Dalrymple was desperate to be given charge of the expedition and his exclusion from the party remained a source of bitter resentment for the rest of his life.

Dalrymple returned to Madras for the British East India Company in 1775, despite having been dismissed by them four years earlier for being difficult and demanding. He became the Company's hydrographer in 1779 and published hundreds of charts.

He remained argumentative however, entering into many heated disputes over the correct names and locations of various Pacific Islands. In 1786, he also published  A serious admonition to the publick, on the intended thief-colony at Botany Bay , convinced that the new penal colony was a cover for illegal trade in defiance of the British East India Company's charter 'of exclusive trade and navigation'.

Dalrymple's arguments were ignored and the British government went ahead with the plan to establish a colony in Botany Bay.

Dalrymple was appointed the Admiralty's first Hydropher in 1795. He continued in this role until his death in 1808 and is credited with the development of Admiralty Charts. Issued by the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office, these nautical charts were constantly reviewed and updated in order that comprehensive and accurate maps of the world's oceans exist.

Dalrymple's legacy lives on in thousands of printed charts and maps, many of which are now held in the State Library of New South Wales.

Captain James Cook's three epic voyages to the South Seas between 1768-1779 would transform the way Europeans viewed the Great South Land and the Pacific Ocean.

Born in Yorkshire in 1728, Cook joined the merchant navy in the coastal town of Whitby at about 17 and spent his apprenticeship and early career working on trading ships along the English coast and in the Baltic. After 10 years in the merchant navy, Cook entered the Royal Navy, and showed an aptitude for surveying, mapping and navigation. The Royal Society, keen to send British ships to the Pacific for research and exploration purposes, soon noticed his talents.

Captain James Cook was given command of the  Endeavour  in 1768 and set sail from Plymouth in August of that year on an expedition mounted by the Admiralty and the Royal Society.

The main aim of his voyage was to chart and explore the Pacific Ocean, and to observe and record the transit of Venus across the sun in April 1769 from Tahiti. The second goal of the journey was to chart the coastlines of the islands visited in the South Pacific and to take detailed scientific observations about the land, its flora and fauna and the local indigenous peoples.

However, there was also a final and secret aim of this expedition - to locate and claim the Great South Land.

The secret instructions, which Cook carried with him, were orders from the British Admiralty to seek 'a Continent or Land of great extent' and to take possession of the country 'in the Name of the King of Great Britain'.

After sailing up the west coast of New Zealand, proving that it did not form part of a large southern continent as Abel Tasman had proposed, Cook sailed west and reached the southern coast of New South Wales in April 1770. He sailed north, charting the coastline and claimed the east coast of New Holland for Great Britain at Possession Island on 22 August 1770.

Cook described his discoveries and experiences in his logbook, and copies were required to be sent back to the Admiralty at various ports to report on the expedition's progress. The Mitchell Library holds the copy sent to the Admiralty from Batavia.

A group of 'gentlemen scientists' and artists travelled on the  Endeavour in order to record, observe and collect plants, specimens and cultural items from the various peoples encountered.

The scientific work was financed and directed by a wealthy young gentleman botanist, Joseph Banks. Banks contributed to the expedition from his personal fortune and outfitted the scientists with a fine reference library, collecting equipment and ample space on board ship to store specimens and work.

The journal kept by the then 25-year-old Banks on board HMS Endeavour  is one of the Library's most significant manuscripts. His original observations of the land and people, plants and animals contribute significantly to our understanding of Australia before European settlement. For the rest of his life, Banks influenced almost every aspect of Pacific exploration and early Australian colonial life, actively supporting the proposal of Botany Bay as a site for British settlement.

The Library holds an extensive collection  relating to Sir Joseph Banks  including correspondence about Australia sent or received by Sir Joseph Banks over a thirty year period. His letters reveal his prodigious natural history networks, his place at the centre of a widespread, energetic and productive world of science, exploration and politics and his interest and engagement with colonial NSW.  

Sixteen-year-old James Roberts was a servant to Sir Joseph Banks on the  Endeavour  voyage. 

His journal includes a list of the officers and ship's company on board  Endeavour . The list shows the name and 'quality' (rank or occupation) of each person, with remarks on promotions and dates of death until August 1771. The journal also recorded weather observations, position of the ship and events on board.

Sydney Parkinson was the botanical illustrator and natural history artist on board the  Endeavour . He created hundreds of sketches and paintings during the three years voyage, many of which survive. His most famous works are the botanical drawings used to illustrate Banks' Florilegium. 

Parkinson died at sea in January 1771 after contracting dysentery.

Although Cook's  Endeavour  voyage visited and claimed the east coast of New Holland for Great Britain, many still believed that the legendary Great South Land was yet undiscovered.

Captain Cook's second Pacific voyage (1772-1775) aimed to establish whether there was an inhabited southern continent in what we now know as Antarctica. Two ships,  Resolution  and  Adventure , were fitted out for the expedition.

In 1772, before setting out, Cook created a map showing the discoveries made in the Southern Ocean up until 1770 and sketched out his proposed route for the upcoming voyage. It included the tracks of Abel Tasman in 1642, Louis-Antoine de Bougainville in 1767, Samuel Wallis (HMS  Dolphin  1766-68) and Cook's own  Endeavour  voyage of 1770, as well as ships of the East India Company.

The images below come from a collection of drawings, paintings and sketches held in the Mitchell Library. Most are by William Hodges, official artist aboard the  Resolution , and Henry Roberts who sailed with Cook on his second expedition to the Southern Ocean from 1772 - 1775. The album was once owned by Cook's widow, Elizabeth.

The pictures document the people and landscapes the expedition encountered - from tropical Tahiti to the stark icebergs of the Antarctic. The very still, dramatic images belie the inherent danger of exploring in such high Antarctic latitudes, and dispel the perception of Pacific voyages as only journeys to idyllic paradises.

William Wales and William Bayly were the astronomers on board  Resolution  and  Adventure . Their work involved navigational measurements, particularly to do with longitude. This was a relatively new navigational calculation devised in 1761, dependent upon the measurement, with a sextant, of the angular distance between the moon, sun and seven selected stars.

The astronomers were also well equipped with other navigational equipment, including chronometers for each ship. These timepieces were used to keep time at sea.

Wales' journal records the measurements and details of the voyage on board the  Resolution . He kept a log of the ship's course, the wind and weather, along with a detailed and lively account of life on board and ashore. 

His journal recounts the scenery and people of New Zealand, Easter Island, Tonga, Tahiti and the Society Islands, New Caledonia and Norfolk Island. Wales also writes of the ice islands encompassing the ship as the  Resolution  crossed the Arctic Circle, retrieving chunks of ice for drinking water and the stunning Aurora Australis that appeared in the evening sky.

During the 18th century, scurvy and disease were terrible problems for those at sea for any length of time. Captain James Cook employed various methods during his second voyage to maintain the health and longevity of his crew.

He ensured a ready supply of vegetables, fruit and fresh water for the men whenever possible, and prevented their undue exposure to the elements. Maintaining the cleanliness of the ship, as well as the crew, was also of great importance. Despite three years spent circumnavigating the globe, not one of his crew died of scurvy during the voyage.

In January 1773, Cook made his first crossing of the Antarctic circle. By February 1775, he had completed a high latitude circumnavigation of the Antarctic region, proving that the continent was neither as large nor as habitable as once thought. 

The ships returned to Plymouth on 29 July 1775 and the continent we now know as  Australia  was finally recognised as the Great South Land.

Robert Sayer was a noted publisher of maps in London at the time of Cook’s discoveries. In 1775, he sold an engraved double-hemisphere map of the world that could be dissected into 62 pieces to form a jigsaw puzzle.

The map shows the routes of several notable explorers, including Queirós, Wallis, and 'the track of Cook'. This is one of the earliest published maps showing Cook's circumnavigation along the East coast of Australia and exploration into the Southern Ocean.

Cook's third and final Pacific voyage (1776-1779), was as important for exploration of the North Pacific as the earlier two had been for the South. Following his successful discovery of the South Land, this voyage aimed to find a northwest passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. 

Again, Cook commanded  Resolution  while Charles Clerke led  Discovery . Leaving England in 1776, Cook first sailed south to Tahiti to return Omai, a Tahitian man, to his home. Omai had been taken on Cook's second voyage and had been an object of curiosity in London.

Cook sighted the Hawaiian islands in January 1778, becoming the first European to land there. They were named the 'Sandwich Islands' after the fourth Earl of Sandwich, Lord of the Admiralty. 

After a year spent among the islands of the South Pacific, Cook sailed north to explore the northwest coast of America to the Arctic Circle. James King served as second lieutenant on this voyage, recording his observations from the voyage in his log and journal.

Cook decided to return to Hawaii in 1779, a decision that would result in his own tragic death at Kealakekua Bay. Whilst initial relations between the Europeans and the Hawaiians had been friendly and peaceful, the genial atmosphere broke down after a series of thefts from the European stores. 

Tensions came to a head on the night of the 13 February, when the  Discovery's cutter boat was stolen. The following morning Cook, Lieutenant Molesworth Phillips and nine marines went ashore and attempted to take hostage Terreeoboo, the Hawaiian King.

This strategy of Cook's was intended to force the Hawaiians to return the cutter. However in the confusion, shots were fired and one of the high-ranking chiefs, Kalimu, was killed. The crowds on the shore responded in anger.

As Cook and the marines returned to their boats, they were attacked on the beach. Cook fired his gun and killed a Hawaiian warrior. In return, he was struck on the head by a club and speared by an iron dagger.

First lieutenant on the  Discovery , James Burney, recorded in his diary that 'the whole affair, from Capt'n Cook leaving the  Resolution  to the return of the boats, happened in the short space of one hour'.

In 1786, David Samwell, surgeon on the  Discovery , published an account of Captain Cook's death in Hawaii. 

'He was beloved by his people, who looked up to him as to a father, and obeyed his commands with alacrity. The confidence we placed in him was unremitting; our admiration of his great talents unbounded; our esteem for his good qualities affectionate and sincere.'

As well as an account of the tragic events, his book included an admiring character sketch of Cook himself and a medical description of the introduction of venereal disease to the Sandwich Islands.

James Cook’s widow, Elizabeth, treasured keepsakes of her husband long after his death. They included everyday items such as shoe buckles and drinking glasses, as well as mementoes of his travels, such as an unfinished waistcoast made of tapa cloth collected by Cook in Tahiti.

Many of these items were purchased by NSW Agent-General Sir Saul Samuel and sent back to Sydney to be added to the collections of the Australian Museum. In 1955 these items were transferred to the State Library of NSW to become part of the Mitchell Library's collection.

The Age of Discovery  lasted from around the 15th to the 17th centuries. Exploration by the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French, German and British powers led to the rise of European colonies in far-flung parts of the world and opened up lucrative trade routes between the New World and the Old.

During this time, scientific methods of ocean navigation were refined and perfected. Sailors were trained in the use of scientific instruments, such as astrolabes, quadrants, octants and sextants.

The term plane sailing refers to a basic method of navigation based on trigonometry, which is used to calculate short distances assuming the sea’s surface is flat (a plane).

Many young boys destined for a life at sea were trained in trigonometry, astronomy, meteorology and draughtsmanship as well as the use of the compass, parallel rules, octants and telescopes. These skills enabled sea captains and navigators not only to plot and set an accurate course using both scientific instruments and their observations of the skies, but also to create detailed nautical charts of the areas of sea and coast they explored.

As ships and the nautical industry grew in importance and became more sophisticated, understanding the terminology used on board ship was vital. Dictionaries and encyclopaedias of nautical terms became popular, not just for those involved in the industry, but for students and the general public interested in these voyages of discovery.

Exploration over several centuries by the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French, German and British powers led to the rise of European colonies in far-flung parts of the world and opened up lucrative trade routes between the New World and the Old.

It was the English explorer, Matthew Flinders who ultimately named our continent Australia on his map of 1804. In this naming, he was utilising an ancient term that had described the imagined southern landmass, Terra Australis Incognita . When Captain James Cook returned from his exploration of the southern Pacific Ocean and reported that no huge southern continent existed, the name Terra Australis or Australia was then applied to the continent of New Holland .

Voyages Of Discovery

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Definition of voyage noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

• an around-the-world voyage
• a voyage in space
• The Titanic sank on its maiden voyage (= first journey) .
• (figurative) Going to college can be a voyage of self-discovery.
• Darwin’s epic voyage of exploration
• reconnaissance
• Lady Franklin kept a journal during the voyage.
• The ship completed her maiden voyage in May.
• There were mainly scientists on the voyage.
• Bering's voyage of discovery was one of many scientific expeditions in the 18th century.
• The ship began its return voyage to Europe.
• The ship was badly damaged during the voyage from Plymouth.
• They set off on their voyage around the world.
• Writing a biography can be an absorbing voyage of discovery.
• during a/​the voyage
• on a/​the voyage
• voyage from
• a voyage of discovery

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