UNITED STATES HISTORY NOTES: GRADE 5
CHAPTER 3
LESSON 1: TRAVELING ASIA’S SILK ROAD
I. YOU ARE THERE (page 102)
-The year is 1274 and Marco Polo has just reached China. It has taken him, his father, and his uncle three long years of hard traveling to get here. They traveled by ship, on foot, on horseback, and by wagon.
-Young Marco is now thousands of miles from the land of his birth. How different and exciting everything must look to him! What is this money the people are using? It’s made out of paper not the gold and silver used at home. What are they burning for fuel? Instead of wood, they use black stones that burn like logs.
-And then there is that colorful display he sees in the night sky. What is the strange powder they lit to send spinning rockets skyward? Yes, he feels far, far from home.
II. THE SILK ROAD (page 103)
-Paper money, coal, gunpowder—all of these were new to Marco Polo. They were completely unknown in Europe, where he came from. He was only 17 in 1271, when he set out on his great adventure with his father and uncle. The left their home in Venice, a trading city in what is today Italy.
-The Polos were merchants. Their goal was to bring back valuable trade goods from China. When they reached Shangdu, they became guests of Kublai Khan, the emperor.
-The royal palace astounded the Polos with its riches. Marco Polo described it in his book, The Travels of Marco Polo. “The hall is so vast and so wide that a meal might well be served there for more than 6,000 men.”
-What caused such wealth? Hundreds of years earlier, the Chinese had learned how to weave silk cloth. Over the years demand for silk grew, coming from people as far away as Europe and Africa. It was said that silk became worth its weight in gold.
-The Chinese also developed other trade goods, including tea and spices. Europeans wanted spices to preserve food and to improve its flavor. The major trade route between China and other lands was a network of routes known as the Silk Road.
-Traders and trade goods were not all that traveled the Silk Road. So did ideas, skills, and customs. Marco Polo’s journey made people in both Asia and Europe want to know more about each other.
III. CHINESE SAILORS (page 104)
-In about 1400, China began to build an enormous naval fleet. Its mission was to expand Chinese trade and to show Chinese power. With more than 300 ships, it
was the largest fleet ever assembled up to that time.
-A Chinese invention, the magnetic compass, made it possible for the sailors to determine their direction far out at sea.
-The fleet sailed under the command of Zheng He. He and his fleet set sail in 1405. Over the next 28 years, Chinese fleets made seven voyages of trade and exploration. They reached such far-off lands as the spice-rich East Indies, India, the Persian Empire, Arabia and the Red Sea, and the east coast of Africa.
-Wherever Chinese ships stopped, demand grew for Chinese trade goods.
IV. ZHENG HE (page 105)
-Zheng He was born in southern China. His family opposed the rise to power of a new government supported by the Chinese army. Zheng He’s father was killed in battle. Zheng He was captured and made the servant of a prince who was the emperor’s uncle.
-Zheng He impressed the prince with his intelligence and loyalty. The two became friends, and together they plotted to overthrow the emperor. They were successful and the prince became the emperor. He made Zheng He the commander of the army.
-The new emperor wanted to show China’s greatness to the world, so he sent out a huge fleet of ships to trade with other countries. He put the fleet under the command of Zheng He.
-Zheng He led seven major voyages. He visited and traded with India and countries of Southeast Asia, the Persian Gulf, and the eastern coast of Africa.
-After Zheng He’s death, a new emperor stopped all overseas voyages. China focused only on events at home. But a lasting knowledge of other lands was established and would not soon be forgotten.
LESSON 2: AFRICA’S TRADING EMPIRES
I. YOU ARE THERE (page 106)
-For three long months, you have been on your way. For three long months, you have been sitting on a camel, swaying back and forth.
-You are traveling across the huge Sahara. it is hot during the day and cold at night. The Sahara is like a great sea of sand. But instead of waves, you cross endlessly shifting sand dunes. No wonder they call the camel “the ship of the desert.” It is the only kind of transportation that can carry you across the endless miles of sand.
II. GHANA, KINGDOM OF GOLD (page 107)
-A caravan is a group of traders traveling together. For centuries, caravans on camelback traveled the Sahara, bringing goods to and from West Africa. This region became home to several powerful trading kingdoms.
-The earliest kingdom, which was named Ghana, thrived around 700. Visitors called Ghana a “land of gold.” Ghana received this name because its land was rich in the precious mineral. But Ghana lacked an important resource—salt.
-Trading routes developed, bringing salt into Ghana in exchange for its plentiful gold. Arab traders from North Africa brought salt from the Sahara to cities on the southern edge of the desert, like Timbuktu. In Timbuktu, Arab traders bargained to get the best price for their salt in gold. Just as China’s silk had become worth its weight in gold, so too did salt.
-The Arab traders also brought their religion, Islam, with them to West Africa. The followers of Islam are known as Muslims. Islam began to spread through the region. The kings of Ghana hired Muslims as officials, to help them rule.
-Ghana’s rulers grew rich from trade. Its kings charged taxes on all imports and exports. The kingdom of Ghana weakened in the 1100s. But a new empire was emerging in the same area. It would become even larger and richer than Ghana.
- III. MALI AND SONGHAI (page 108)
-The kingdom of Mali controlled more land than Ghana. Like Ghana, Mali owed its wealth to trade. Caravans continued their trade of gold and salt. In addition, European ships from Spain, Portugal, and Italy brought cloth, horses, and other goods to North African ports. Mali traded gold, animal hides, and kola nuts for such goods.
-Mali reached its peak as an empire in the early 1300s, during the rule of Mansa Musa. The king was known for his immense wealth.
-Mansa Musa was a Muslim who in 1324 went on a pilgrimage. Mansa Musa’s pilgrimage took him to Mecca, a city in the Arabian peninsula that is holy to Muslims. With him came thousands of people. Among them were about 500 slaves, each carrying a bar of gold weighing four pounds. The gold was used along the way to pay traveling expenses.
-The king’s journey strengthened trade ties between Mali and other Muslim nations. He brought back many Muslim scholars and artists who contributed to life in Mali. Many of them settled in Timbuktu. This city, which had long been a center of trade, now also became a center of learning.
-Mansa Musa ordered a large building for study and worship, the Great Mosque, to be built in Timbuktu.
-Soon after Mansa Musa’s rule, another trading kingdom rose in West Africa. This was Songhai, which flourished from the middle 1300s through the 1500s. At its peak in the early 1500s, Songhai controlled more land than both Ghana and Mali.
- IV. CONNECTING DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE WORLD (page 109)
-Zheng He’s journeys showed that the Chinese were learning routes to India and Africa. Mansa Musa’s pilgrimage showed how people from West Africa and the Arabian peninsula travelled between their two regions. The people of Europe were learning about the people and geography of Africa and Asia.
-European map makers built on the knowledge of many travelers and geographers around the world. One tool that helped them was developed by Arabs. It was the astrolabe, an instrument that helped sailors use the sun and stars to find their location in latitude—their distance from the equator.
-With the astrolabe and other new tools and ideas, different parts of the world were becoming more closely connected.
LESSON 3 EUROPEAN EXPLORERS
- I. THE VIKINGS (PAGE 111)
-The Vikings were skilled sailors. Their homeland was Scandinavia in northern Europe. In their sleek wooden boats, powered only by sail and oars, they sailed as far east as Asia, as far south as North Africa, and as far west as North America.
-Eric the Red sailed west to the island of Iceland. But Eric was soon thrown out of Iceland too. So he sailed west again, and in about 982, he came to a place he called Greenland.
-Despite its name, it was a very cold land. But Eric wanted the place to sound like a good land to settle. He called it Greenland to encourage Icelanders to come.
-Eric’s son, Leif Ericsson, was interested in rumors of a land still father west. In 1000, he sailed to find it. When he and his crew set foot upon North America, they were probably the first Europeans to do so.
-Ericsson had landed on Newfoundland on the east coast of what is today Canada. According to legend, his men found grapes growing there. So they called the place Vinland or “Land of Wine.”
-Soon groups of Vikings came to settle in Vinland. But conflict broke out with the American Indians living there. By about 1015, those Viking settlers who survived had returned home.
-The Vikings did not have a written language. So how do we know about these adventures of a thousand years ago? They created long spoken tales called sagas, repeated from one generation to the next. Later, these sagas were written down.
- II. THE RENAISSANCE (PAGE 112)
-For centuries, the Vikings had shown a spirit of adventure and curiosity about the rest of the world. By about 1350, a similar spirit was emerging far to the south of Scandinavia, in Italy. There, a new age was beginning that would last about another 250 years. It was known as the Renaissance a word that means “rebirth.”
-Why was the Renaissance a “rebirth?” Because it marked a new beginning in arts and sciences and a desire to learn more about the world. Italian cities like Marco Polo’s Venice had become centers of trade with places in other parts of the world. The wealth this trade created helped to support the arts and learning.
-Italians studied the learning of ancient European cultures, such as the Greeks and Romans, and of other cultures in the world, such as the Chinese.
-The Renaissance spread to other parts of Europe. In Germany, in about 1450, Johann Gutenberg developed a printing press, a machine that made it possible to print a large number of books rapidly.
-Until this time in Europe, books had to be written and copied by hand, one copy at a time. This was a very slow process and made books scarce and expensive. Thanks to the inventions of Gutenberg and other early printers, books became available to many more readers. Now ideas could spread more quickly.
-Other advances came in ship design and ship building. Europeans adopted improvements from other cultures, such as the magnetic compass from the Chinese and the astrolabe from the Muslims.
-Continuing to improve their ships, Europeans made them faster and safer to sail than ever before. As their ships improved, they were able to venture farther and farther from Europe.
- III. THE PORTUGUESE EXPLORE THE AFRICAN COAST (page 113)
-By the early 1400s, the demand of Europeans for goods from Asia, especially spices, was stronger than ever. But Europeans could not get these goods easily. The Silk Road and other land routes were long and dangerous. They were often controlled by merchants who charged a high price for trade.
-These problems sparked a drive to find new trade routes to Asia—sea routes. Beginning in the 1420s, the country of Portugal took the lead.
-The king’s son, Prince Henry, gathered together the best and most experienced sea captains, mapmakers, ship designers, and other experts from many countries. They shared their knowledge to hire crews and design ships that could develop new sea routes.
-And to guide ships along the way, the experts improved methods of navigation. Soon, Henry became known as “Prince Henry the Navigator.”
-Though Henry did not go himself, he began sending Portuguese ships south along the Atlantic coast of Africa. On each voyage, explorers traveled farther than the last, mapping the African shore and reporting sailing conditions. Portuguese ships began bringing home African gold.
-The Portuguese also profited from the slave trade, the buying and selling of human beings. Slavery had existed throughout the world for thousands of years. For example, slavery had existed among the Aztecs and in the West African kingdom of Mali.
-Slave traders took captured people into and out of Africa along the Sahara trade routes. Many Arabs, Africans, and Europeans all participated in the slave trade by capturing people and forcing them into slavery.
-In the 1400s, the slave trade grew. The Portuguese, and later other Europeans, began transporting African captives to Europe, where they became servants or slaves.
-A slave, unlike a servant, is owned by a person and has no freedom.
- IV. A SEA ROUTE TO INDIA (PAGE 114)
-After Prince Henry died in 1460, Portuguese exploration continued. In 1488, Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias and his three ships sailed within about 500 miles of Africa’s southern tip. Then violent storms lashed the tiny fleet for many days.
-By the time the fierce winds let up, Dias made a startling discovery. His ships had been blown around the southern tip of Africa. They had reached the Indian Ocean. But his crew, far from home and frightened, refused to go on. So Dias turned back for Portugal.
-Dias reported that he had found the tip of Africa, which he called “the Cape of Storms.” But the king of Portugal renamed it the Cape of Good Hope. This name showed the Portuguese hope for sea routes to Asia.
-Almost ten years later, in 1497, another Portuguese explorer left Portugal to sail around the Cape of Good Hope. Vasco da Gama and his four ships rounded Africa, sailed east across the Indian Ocean, and reached India in 1498.
-Before long, Portuguese merchants settled there in Calcutta, India. There they bought spices at low prices and shipped them back to Europe. Portugal’s sea routes made it a rich trading empire.
V. EXPLORATION CONTINUES (PAGE 115)
-You have read in this chapter how trade and exploration continued to increase among the peoples of Asia, Africa, and Europe. Of course, trade was nothing new. Caravans had traveled over land routes for centuries. Boats had always carried goods from place to place, often along coastal waters. Advances in sailing gradually increased how far and how fast ships could travel.
-By the late 1400s, Europeans had established new ocean trade routes to Africa and Asia. Soon they would be taking even longer sea journeys—journeys that brought them into contact with the peoples of the Americas. The Eastern Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere were coming at last into contact with each other.