Elizabethan Exploration

Elizabethan Exploration:
Key Question: Why did Elizabethans go on overseas voyages?
-The invention of new navigation instruments e.g. the compass.
-The development of fast light ships called CARAVELS and CARRACKS.
-The invention of guns.
-Money and encouragement from monarchs and wealthy merchants.
-1550's cloth trade collapsed so merchants needed to find new markets in which to sell their goods.
-Richard Hakluyt wrote a book to encourage British sailors to go on long voyages. He called it 'The principal navigations, voyages and discoveries of the English Nation'.

How successful were voyages of English seamen?
John Cabot 1497:
-Italian sailor who thought he could sail around north america to reach India.
-Henry VIII funded his voyage which left in 1497 .
-Reached Newfoundland (off the coast of Canada) but found only good fishing grounds no silk, spices or gold.
-He never returned from his 2nd voyage in 1498.

Sir Hugh Willoughby and Richard Chancellor 1553:
-Thought they could reach China by sailing around north Asia.
-Hugh was killed when his ship was trapped in ice north of Norway.
-Chancellor reached Muscovy (modern Russia) and formed the Muscovy Company which England used to trade with Russia.

John Hawkins 1562-8:
-Made 3 voyages in the 1560's
-Sailed to the west coast of Africa and captured Africans.
-Sailed to West Indies and Central America to sell captured slaves to Spanish settlers.
-In 1567 (3rd voyage) the Spanish attacked his fleet and Hawkins lost 4 ships and over 200 men.
-Hawkins worked in England designing and building ships…