4. Discuss the reasons scholars give as to why the Iberians--and the Latin West--in general chose to sponsor maritime exploration and trade. 5. Discuss the important contributions Henry the Navigator made for later Portuguese explorers in his efforts to sail to India. Describe what was traded and exchanged. Briefly compare the Portuguese exploration of the South Atlantic to that of the Spanish.

In the years that followed, Henry’s explorers made an important addition to the maritime revolutionby learning how to return speedily to Portugal.Instead of battling the prevailing northeast trade windsand currents back up the coast, they discovered that by sailing northwest into the Atlantic to thelatitude of the Azores, ships could pick up prevailing westerly winds that would blow them back toPortugal.The knowledge that ocean winds tend to form large circular patterns helped explorersdiscover many other ocean routes The first financial return from the voyages came from selling intoslavery Africans captured by the Portuguese in raids on the northwest coast of Africa and the CanaryIslands during the 1440s.However, the gold trade quickly became more important than the slave trade as the Portuguese madecontact with the trading networks that flourished in West Africa and reached across the Sahara6.Compare/Contrast the European Caravel with the Muslim Dhow as maritime vessels.Caravels were small, only one-fifth the size of the largest European ships of their day and of the largeChinese junks. Their size permitted them to enter shallow coastal waters and explore upriver, but theywere strong enough to weather ocean storms. When equipped with lateen sails, caravels had great