DC US History CH 2.1 Atlantic World: Portuguese & Spanish Exploration

$1400s$ : Portuguese colonization of Atlantic islands inaugurates aggressive European expansion; Atlantic World forms through early globalization.
Prince Henry the Navigator key figure; establish eastward route to Africa and a foundation for a trading empire in the 15th–16th centuries.
Atlantic outposts: Canary, Cape Verde, Azores, Madeira; used as embarkation points for further voyages.
From these posts, Portugal expands down the western African coast to the Congo; reaches western India, Brazil on the eastern coast of South America; trading posts in China and Japan.
Strategy valued control of islands/coastal ports over large landholdings; enabled a global empire of trading posts in the 1400s.
Encounter with African slave trade develops as the Portuguese export enslaved Africans along with ivory and gold; sugar plantations on Atlantic islands fuel the slave trade and transform the Atlantic World into a large sugar-plantation complex.
$3$ major elements: island outposts, coastal ports, and long-distance trade networks that connected Europe, Africa, and the Americas.

Built in $1482$ at present-day Ghana as a fortified trading post; cannons faced the sea; traders feared naval attacks from Europeans more than inland attack.
Town grows around the fort; by the 16th century the dungeon becomes a holding pen for enslaved Africans from the interior before shipment across the Atlantic.
Enslaved people lived in the dungeon for weeks to months; the dungeon was often the last sight of home.

1492: Reconquista completed; Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile sponsor Christopher Columbus' westward voyage to reach Asia.
Columbus’ expedition: three ships $Nina, Pinta, Santa Maria$ ; landfall on $1492$ in the Bahamas; later reaches Hispaniola.
Columbus is named Admiral of the Ocean Sea and governor; his voyages inaugurate sustained Spanish activity in the Americas.
1493 probanza de mérito (proof of merit): Columbus’s letters describe wealth and wonders to win royal patronage; primary sources with bias, illustrating expectations of wealth and underestimation of indigenous resistance.
Amerigo Vespucci (1499–1502) explores the South American coast; his accounts circulate widely and influence European understanding of the New World.
Martin Waldseemüller, inspired by Vespucci, labels the new continent "America" on a map in $1507$ .

Probanza de mérito documents, while biased, reveal explorers’ incentives (wealth, status) and assumptions about native peoples.
These letters helped secure patronage but require critical reading to separate myth from fact.

Pope Alexander VI issued papal decrees in $1493$ legitimizing Spanish claims in the Atlantic at Portugal’s expense.
Treaty of Tordesillas ( $1494$ ) drew a north–south line through South America; Spain west of the line, Portugal east (Brazil falls on the Portuguese side).
The Cantino World Map ( $1502$ ) shows the line and evolving geographic knowledge of the era.

Hernán Cortés: arrives on Hispaniola in $1504$ ; sails to Yucatán; 1519 enters Tenochtitlán; captures Moctezuma and lays siege with native allies (notably the Tlaxcalans, up to $200{,}000$ fighters).
1521: Tenochtitlán falls; Cortés renames it Mexico City; Aztec wealth and religious practices (e.g., human sacrifice) sorprenden Europeans; disease (smallpox) kills many before or during siege.
Malintzin (La Malinche/Doña Marina): translator who facilitates Cortés’ communications; her role highlights native responses to conquest and the emergence of mestizo identities.
Francisco Pizarro: 1509 Caribbean voyage; conquers Inca wealth; captures Atahualpa in $1532$ and executes him in $1533$ ; founds Lima in $1533$ ; slain in $1541$ by rival Spaniards.

Hernando de Soto: 1539–1542; explores the southeastern U.S. (Florida to the Carolinas); dies in $1542$ ; mortality due to disease and hardship.
Francisco Vázquez de Coronado: 1540–1542; expeditions through the American Southwest and Great Plains; Tiwa warfare in present-day New Mexico; fails to find expected riches; leaves explorers bankrupt.

Wealth from the Americas fuels a Spanish cultural renaissance in art and literature.
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes: two volumes published in $1605$ and $1618$ ; iconic tale of chivalry and reality vs. illusion.
El Greco: important painter who influenced Spanish Renaissance.
Diego Velázquez: Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor), painted in $1656$ ; a landmark royal portrait that plays with viewer’s position.
The Cervantes Project: resources related to Cervantes’ works and early modern Spanish culture.