THE AGE OF EXPLORATION
In the 1400s, European explorers first met Native Americans. For the next three centuries, European explorers and settlers expanded their influence across North and South America.
First Visitors From Europe
The first Europeans to visit the Americas were Vikings, a sea going people from Scandinavia. They explored Newfoundland in 1001. In the 1470s, Christopher Columbus, who was from Genoa, Italy, moved to Portugal, Europe’s main seafaring nation. He was there to plan a westward voyage to Asia, but Portugal’s king would not pay for it. After six years of asking Queen Isabella of Spain, Columbus won Spain’s help instead. In August 1492, his crew of 90 set sail on the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. On October 12, an island was sighted and Columbus claimed it for Spain. Believing he was in the Asian islands known as the Indies, Columbus called the people he saw Indians. Columbus built a settlement on Hispaniola. He returned to Spain in
January 1493, reporting that the West Indies were rich in gold. In September 1493, he returned to the West Indies as commander of 17 ships. The Spanish wanted to colonize the West Indies and convert the people to Christianity. Columbus built another settlement and enslaved Indians to dig for gold. In 1498, his third expedition reached South America, which he mistook for Asia. He tried to prove this on a fourth voyage in 1502, and died in 1506 in Spain, convinced he had reached Asia.
The Continuing Search for Asia
Other explorers looked for a western route to Asia. Amerigo Vespucci sailed twice to the new lands and believed they were not part of Asia. His descriptions led a mapmaker to label the region “the land of Amerigo,” later shortened to “America.” In 1510, Vasco Núñez de Balboa explored the Caribbean coast of what is now Panama. He hiked westward and became the first European to see the Pacific Ocean.
In 1519, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan searched the South American coast for a strait, a narrow passage that connects two large bodies of water, between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. He found what is now the Strait of Magellan and from there sailed into the Pacific. In the Philippine Islands, he and several others were killed. Only one ship and 18 men returned to Spain in 1522, making them the first to circumnavigate, or travel around, the Earth.
The Columbian Exchange
The Columbian Exchange was a transfer of people, products, and ideas between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. Europeans introduced hogs, cows, horses, and plants such as oats and wheat. The Americas introduced llamas, turkeys, and food crops. Diseases such as smallpox, chickenpox, and measles killed thousands of Native Americans.
Spanish Conquistadors
Spanish soldier-adventurers called conquistadors set out to explore and conquer the new lands. In 1519, Hernán Cortés sailed to Mexico with more than 500 soldiers. Conquered earlier by the brutal Aztecs, many Native Americans joined Cortés as he marched on Tenochtitlán. The Aztec leader Moctezuma offered gold to get Cortés to leave, but instead he was captured when Cortés claimed Mexico for Spain. In June 1520, the Aztecs forced the Spaniards out. A year later, Cortés returned, destroyed Tenochtitlán, and built Mexico City—the capital of New Spain—in its place.
In 1531, Francisco Pizarro came to seek gold and copied Cortés’s methods to defeat the Incas of Peru. In 1532, Pizarro captured the Inca ruler, Atahualpa. The Incas paid a huge ransom to get him back, but Pizarro executed him. By November 1533, Pizarro had defeated the Incas and took their capital city of Cuzco.
The Spanish, with their armor, muskets, cannons, and horses, were easily able to defeat the Aztecs and Incas. In addition, the Native Americans were divided among them- selves and did not present a unified force.
Spanish Explorers in North America
In 1513, Juan Ponce de León sailed north from Puerto Rico to La Florida. He became the first Spaniard to enter what is now the United States. In 1528, Spaniards landed near the site of St. Petersburg, found no gold, and marched further into Florida. They were attacked by Native Americans and fled by boat. About 80 survivors, led by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, landed on the Texas coast. All but 15 died. The rest were enslaved by Native Americans. Cabeza de Vaca, an African named Estevanico, and two others escaped years later, wandering the Southwest. They finally found their way to Mexico City in 1536, telling tales of seven great cities filled with gold. Estevanico led a failed quest for the cities. Francisco Coronado also searched New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and Kansas in vain. Hernando de Soto found the Mississippi River but no gold.
Colonizing Spanish America
At first, Spain let the conquistadors govern the lands they conquered. Later, Spain set up a formal system to rule its new colonies. Government officials gave land to settlers to set up mines, ranches, and plantations, or large farms. Land grants called encomiendas let settlers demand labor or taxes from Native Americans. Forced to work on plantations and in mines, many Native Americans died.
A Spanish priest, Bartolomé de Las Casas, tried to improve the encomienda system. The Spanish set up Catholic missions, or religious settlements, to convert Native Americans to Christianity. As more and more Native Americans died, Spanish colonists began enslaving Africans.
In Spanish colonies, the social system was based on birth place and blood. At the top were peninsulares, or colonists born in Spain. Colonists born in America of two Spanish parents were Creoles. People of mixed Spanish and Indian parentage, mestizos, could prosper but never enter the upper levels of society. Mulattos, people of Spanish and African heritage, were held at the bottom of society.
Asia Continues to Beckon
After Columbus’s first voyage to the Americas, Italian explorer John Cabot decided a northern route to Asia would be shorter. Only England was interested in supporting his voyage. Cabot left in one ship, in May 1497. On his second voyage in 1498, his ships vanished without a trace. Europeans realized, however, that Cabot had reached a land they had never seen. England, France, and Holland all agreed to pay for voyages to North America to find a northwest passage, a sea route from the Atlantic to the Pacific that passed through or around North America. This would mean a shorter route to Asia that would make trade easier.
In 1524, Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazano searched for a northwest passage for King Francis I of France. He explored the Atlantic coast from North Carolina to Newfoundland. He discovered the mouth of the Hudson River and New York Bay.
French explorer Jacques Cartier made three trips to North America for France. His search led to the St. Lawrence River, which he explored as far as present-day Montreal.
English explorer Henry Hudson lost support from the English after two failed voyages in the Arctic Ocean in 1607 and 1608. The Dutch paid for a third voyage in 1609, which led him to New York and the river later named after him. This won English support for a voyage in 1610. After reaching what is now Hudson Bay, however, icy waters halted the voyage. The crew turned against Hudson and set him, his son, and seven loyal crew members adrift. They were never heard from again.
New France
In 1603, Samuel Champlain of France mapped the St. Lawrence River. He set up France’s first settlement, a trading post, in Nova Scotia in 1604. Independent traders called coureurs de bois, French for “runners of the woods,” lived among the Native Americans and went deep into the wilderness to trade for pelts. In 1608, Champlain set up Quebec and explored what is now Lake Champlain. France influenced the area for 150 years. Unlike New Spain, New France grew rich from fish and furs, not precious metals.
In the late 1600s, French colonists began farming as the market for furs weakened. This was due to the Indian wars and the landing of thousands of new French colonists sent by King Louis XIV. In 1673, French missionary Jacques Marquette and French Canadian trader Louis Joliet explored the Mississippi River. This gave the French a water route into North America. In 1682, explorer René Robert Cavalier, who was called La Salle, reached the mouth of the Mississippi River at the Gulf of Mexico. He claimed the Mississippi Valley for France and named it Louisiana after King Louis XIV.
New Netherland
In 1610, Dutch traders arrived in the Hudson River valley. Their trade with Native Americans was so good that the Dutch West India Company set up a permanent colony, called New Netherland. In 1624, about 300 settlers from the
Netherlands moved to Fort Orange, later named Albany. In 1626, another colony and its governor, Peter Minuit, bought the island at the mouth of the Hudson River from Native Americans. They named it New Amsterdam. This Dutch colony made it impossible for English colonies to spread to the west. In 1664 the English took over New Amsterdam. They renamed it New York after England’s Duke of York.
The Impact on Native Americans
Because of the rich profits made from furs, the French and Dutch valued Native Americans as trading partners. In exchange for pelts, the traders provided goods such as cloth, iron pots and tools, and guns. In addition, the French and Dutch made alliances, or agreements, with Indian nations. Many alliances, however, proved harmful to Native Americans and led to warfare among the tribes. The Huron, for example, allied with the French. The Iroquois had an alliance with the Dutch. Using guns from the Dutch, the Iroquois attacked the Hurons—their longtime enemies—and almost wiped them out.
Diseases caused by contact with Europeans also killed many Native Americans. In addition, the over-trapping of animals weakened the food chain on which Native Americans depended. As fur-bearing animals disappeared, Native Americans were no longer needed by the Europeans. Their land, however, became valuable to the colonists.
Check Your Progress (Please type or print neatly).
1. In what years did Columbus’s voyages occur?
2. What other European explorers sailed to the new lands?
3. Who were the conquistadors, and what did they seek?
4. What were the four levels of Spanish colonial society?
5. What was the advantage of a northwest passage?
6. What enabled La Salle to claim the Mississippi River valley for the king of France?
7. What caused the decline of the fur trade in North America?