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Portuguese Cochin
Cochin, located on the southwest coast of India, was a Portuguese colony from 1503 to 1663. Known to the Portuguese as Cochim, it was one of several important cities on India’s Malabar Coast and a great trade centre for spices like pepper...
Article
Indian Ocean Trade before the European Conquest
Finding a maritime route to the East and gaining access to the lucrative spice trade stood at the root of the European Age of Exploration. However, when Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope and reached the Indian Ocean in 1493, he...
Article
European Discovery & Conquest of Sri Lanka
The island of Sri Lanka (formerly known as Ceylon) became a focus of European attention soon after the Portuguese entry into the Indian Ocean in the late 15th century. Large swaths of the island would come first under Portuguese control...
Video
European Conquest of America - Summary on a Map
Let's retrace here the colonization by Europeans, from the discovery by Christopher Columbus until the end of the Seven Years’ War.
Video
Expansion & Consequences: Crash Course European History #5
European exploration had a lot of side effects. When the Old World and the New World began to interact, people, wealth, food, animals, and disease began to flow in both directions. In the New World, countless millions were killed by smallpox...
Definition
Bartolomé de Las Casas
Bartolomé de Las Casas (1484-1566) was a Spanish Dominican friar and former conquistador who revealed the atrocities of the conquests of New Spain and Peru and who strove to protect the basic rights of indigenous peoples in the Spanish Empire...
Video
European Migration: Crash Course
Between 1840 and 1914 CE, an estimated 40 million people left Europe. This is one of the most significant migrations in human history. So, who was leaving Europe? And why?
Definition
Council of the Indies
The Council of the Indies (El Real y Supremo Consejo de las Indias) operated from 1524 to 1834 and was the supreme governing body of the Spanish Empire in the Americas and Spanish East Indies. Reporting directly to the monarch, the Council...
Article
European Discovery & Conquest of the Spice Islands
Clove, nutmeg, and mace are native to only a handful of tiny islands in the middle of the vast Indonesian archipelago – cloves on five Maluku Islands (the Moluccas) about 1250 km (778 mi) west of New Guinea, and nutmeg on the ten Banda Islands...
Definition
Portuguese Goa
Goa, located on the west coast of India, was a Portuguese colony from 1510 to 1961. The small coastal area was conquered by Afonso de Albuquerque (c. 1453-1515) and became an important trade hub for the Eastern spice trade. Goa was the capital...