• Europeans were almost entirely unaware of the American continents before the fifteenth century

  • A few wanderers, such as Lief Erikson in the eleventh century, had crossed the Atlantic

  • This had no large impact because the voyage was still impossible for most

  • By the fifteenth century, technology had developed enough to consider the voyage

• Conditions in Europe had changed in the late fifteenth century

  • There was a reawakening of commerce

  • The bubonic plague had decimated the European population

• There was a growing interest in overseas exploration

  • There were advances in navigation

  • There were advances in shipbuilding, making long-distance travel more feasible

  • Explorers were looking for new markets

  • New trade routes were being opened with this new technology

• With previous shipbuilding and navigation, Europeans were not able to reach the Americas nor had a reason to

  • The sextant was a tool for determining latitude and longitude

  • Ships called caravels were able to make the long journey across the Atlantic

• Wealth, economic and militaristic competition among European states, and the desire to spread Christianity were all motivators for European exploration

Exploration and Conquest

• The Portuguese expanded overseas first, around 1400

  • They were the main participants in the African slave trade at this time

• Spain undertakes the first conquests in America

  • Spain devotes many resources and money to naval investments

  • They eventually supplant Portugal as the leaders of seafaring as well

Sixteenth Century

• Portuguese traders are traveling south and east

• The Spanish monarchs finance Columbus into the Caribbean

  • They sought to gain trade and build their empire by subsidizing Columbus’ voyages

Christopher Columbus

• An explorer from Genoa, Italy

• Set sail in August 1492

• Sailed for six weeks before arriving in the present-day Bahamas

• Sailed on three ships: The Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria

• He believed he had reached Asia

  • Traces of this mistake still linger today

  • Some Caribbean islands are still called “indies”

  • Native American groups are still often referred to as “American Indians”

• He was seeking a new route to Asia, but found the American continents instead

• He claimed the islands he found for Spain and continued exploring

• He demanded tribute from local groups

• Columbus left 40 men on the island of Hispaniola and returned to Spain

  • Hispaniola is now shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti

• Columbus immediately took on a derogatory and demeaning view of the native people

  • He generalized them as all being timid, simple, and gullible

Other Explorers

• Vasco de Balboa was a Spaniard who fought his way across the isthmus of Panama in 1513

  • He was the first European to see the ocean that separated America from China

• Prince Henry the Navigator wanted to explore the western coast of Africa, not find a route to China

  • This Portuguese explorer wanted to establish a Christian empire and aid in his country’s wars against the Moors of Africa

  • He was not able to do this but did explore as far south as Cape Verde

• Spain and Portugal divided these “heathen lands” of the New World

  • Most of it went to Spain

  • Portugal received land in Africa and Asia, as well as what would later become Brazil

• Ferdinand Magellan, employed by the Spanish, found the strait now bearing his name in southern South America

• In 1486, Bartholomeu Dias rounds the southern tip of Africa in the Cape of Good Hope

• In 1497 to 1498, Vasco de Gama completes this journey, making it to India

• In 1500, explorers bound for India were blown westward and ended up on the coast of modern-day Brazil