Q1.
What impelled those nations to undertake such campaigns?
Answer
Four things, and the chapter puts them in order of weight.
- Political competition between European powers. This came first. Rivalry between Spain, Portugal, Britain, France and the Netherlands created a race for territorial expansion and global influence — if one power took a coast, its rival wanted the next one.
- Economic advantage. Territorial expansion gave access to new natural resources, new markets and new trade routes — and, the chapter adds pointedly, often, plunder.
- Religious conversion. Converting indigenous populations to Christianity was “another powerful motivation”.
- Scientific inquiry. “A lesser one, but significant nonetheless” — the desire to explore unknown lands and build up knowledge of the planet’s geography and natural history.
Why the order matters: the first two explain the violence. The chapter has just said that these conquests “often… involved the massacre or enslavement of native populations”. Curiosity does not lead a state to massacre; competition for wealth and power does. The last two motives were real, but they also served as justifications — a conquest carried out for markets could be described afterwards as a mission to save souls or to advance knowledge.