The Age of Discovery (also called the Age of Exploration) refers to the era, roughly from the early 1400s to the 1600s, in which European maritime powers—initially Portugal and Castile (later Spain), followed by England, France, and the Dutch Republic—launched sustained voyages of exploration, trade, and conquest beyond European waters. The period is conventionally dated from Portuguese expeditions along the West African coast under Prince Henry the Navigator in the early 15th century, through Christopher Columbus's 1492 transatlantic voyage under Castilian sponsorship, Vasco da Gama's 1497–1499 sea route to India, and Ferdinand Magellan's expedition (1519–1522), the first to circumnavigate the globe.
Key political and legal developments included:
- The Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), brokered with papal involvement, which divided newly encountered lands outside Europe between Portugal and Castile along a meridian in the Atlantic.
- The Treaty of Zaragoza (1529), which extended that division into the Pacific.
- The establishment of the Casa de Contratación in Seville (1503) and the Portuguese Estado da Índia, early bureaucratic structures for managing overseas trade and territories.
For IR and MUN purposes, the Age of Discovery is significant because it inaugurated the first wave of European colonialism, the transatlantic slave trade, and the Columbian Exchange—the transfer of crops, animals, peoples, and diseases between hemispheres that reshaped global demographics. Jurists such as Francisco de Vitoria and later Hugo Grotius developed early doctrines on sovereignty, just war, indigenous rights, and freedom of the seas (Mare Liberum, 1609) in direct response to questions raised by these encounters. These debates form part of the intellectual foundation of modern international law.
Modern scholarship increasingly contests the Eurocentric framing of "discovery," noting that the lands encountered were already inhabited and that parallel Asian maritime networks—including the Ming-era voyages of Zheng He (1405–1433)—predate or coincide with European expansion.
Example
In 1494, Spain and Portugal signed the Treaty of Tordesillas, dividing newly explored lands outside Europe along a meridian in the Atlantic Ocean—an emblematic act of the Age of Discovery.
Frequently asked questions
It is conventionally dated from the early 15th century—starting with Portuguese voyages along the African coast—through the 17th century, though exact endpoints vary by historian.
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