The Early Explorers
The Renaissance was a time when exploring the world in search of new discoveries was becoming popular. The North Atlantic Ocean has one of the most violent and severe currents in the world but unfortunately needed to be crossed even thought they were horrible conditions to be sailing. When these sailors are sending themselves to sea they are setting out on a mysterious and incredibly dangerous journey out into the unknown. Travelling out into the middle of the ocean without any guarantee to find land or even survive the trip is a very brave and courageous thing for these young men to do knowing that each embark could be their last.
This is all sounding horrible and I bet your thinking why in the world would anybody want to do this? There are actually a few good reasons for taking these risks. Europeans were very religious people and their faith was a big part of their lives. When men first started getting interested in exploring their parents and grandparents were very resistant against this idea for fear that their young sons were going to arrive at new lands and come across bad people that would influence the sailors to sin. Eventually it was realized these men were going to go on expeditions anyways despite what the families wanted and the men were then convinced by their elders that it was their duty as Christians to go looking for people that didn’t belong to any faith and were in desperate need of help to not go to hell. They thought if there were people out there who weren’t Christians then it would be the right thing to do in the eyes of god to convert and change the sinners and help them to become better people.
Another thing these sailors were all looking for was money. When living in this era the majority of people were of the lower class and were extremely poor. If you were born into a poor family, sadly you would most likely live your entire life in that