Causes

1. Better ships, sailing tools and weapons

   1. Goal: finding better trade routes

2. “God, Gold, and Glory” - spread Christianity, get rich, and be famous

Explorers

• Prince Henry (1419) - had a school of navigation

• Bartolomeu Dias (1487) - sailed to South Africa

• Vasco da Gama (1498) - sailed to India

• Cristoforo Colombo (1451-1506) - wanted to find a sea route to Asia

  • main voyages: 1492, 1493, 1498, 1502

• Juan Ponce de Leon (1471-1521) - 1st to try and establish a Spanish colony in the U.S, searched for fountain of youth

• Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512) - where name for America comes from

• Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1512) - 1st to sail around the world

Spanish Conquests

• Aztecs (1511) - Hernan Cortes vs Moctezuma II

  • Hernan Cortes - conquered the Aztec empire

  • Moctezuma II - welcomed Cortes

• Inca (1532) - Pizarro vs Atahualpa

  • Francisco Pizarro - conquered Inca empire aggressively

  • Atahualpa - was forced to convert to christianity

Spanish Economic Policy

• mercantilism - your power depends on your wealth

• Triangular Trade & Atlantic Slave Trade - trading network of slaves, tobacco, sugar, and other goods between Europe, Africa, and the Americas

• New Social Order - caste system

  1. Peninsulares: Spaniards born in Spain

  2. Creoles: born in New World by Spanish parents

  3. Mestizos: born of Spanish and Native American parents

  4. Native Americans and African Slaves

• Columbian Exchange - global transfer of plants, animals, and diseases between Europe, Africa, and the Americas