Notes on Iberian Exploration and the Early Atlantic World
Iberian Context and Series Purpose
Iberian Peninsula described as the western edge of Europe that niche-stretches into the Atlantic and includes Spain.
The lecture frames exploration as an exchange of goods and ideas in a cross-cultural, multicultural, and romantic world; builds on prior lectures about Native Americans and Europeans.
Acknowledges lack of time for a separate Africa-focused lecture; uses some Africa-related material to frame discussion of the African American experience and the Atlantic world.
The current series begins examining the initial exploratory missions of Europe and how Europe, Africa, and the Americas came into contact.
Portugal’s Early Exploration along the West African Coast
Portugal leads the way with exploratory missions: not directly sailing across the Atlantic to the East, but sailing down the West African coast to reach Asia by a water route.
The primary aim: access the wealth of Asia (India, China, silks, spices, perfumes) and reach the East via a sea route rather than overland routes with expensive middlemen.
Marco Polo’s travels are cited as a precedent; Polo’s land route showed Europe that long overland journeys were expensive and difficult due to Muslim middlemen taking profits.
As a consequence, Europeans imagined a water route around Africa to the riches of the East.
By the 15th century, Portuguese sailors gradually inched down the West African coast and, by 1488, rounded the tip of Africa and continued toward India.
Along the African coast, they encountered several Atlantic islands and archipelagos off North Africa (e.g., the Canary Islands).
Establishment of race-based plantation slavery on Canaries and other Atlantic islands: these islands became sites for growing sugar in a climate ideal for sugar cultivation; Africans were brought from the African continent to work on these plantations.
The Portuguese model of slavery and plantation agriculture on these Atlantic islands would later be transplanted to the New World.
The Portuguese success inspired the Spanish to pursue colonization and conquest in the New World, including establishing sugar islands off the West African coast as part of broader Atlantic ventures.
Sugar, Slavery, and Early Atlantic Plantations
Sugar became a major commodity of the era and an economic driver of plantation slavery.
The climate of the Canaries and other West African Atlantic islands made them ideal for sugar production.
This plantation slavery was race-based and involved Africans imported from the African continent; the system laid groundwork for later plantation economies in the Americas.
Spain Enters the Atlantic: Columbus and Central Motives
Spain’s first major exploratory effort in the Atlantic is led by Christopher Columbus in 1492.
A historical question posed: Why 1492 and not 1491 or 1493? Reasons tied to broader historical context and contemporaneous political consolidation.
The Renaissance context: monarchical centralization in Spain culminates in the 1469 marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, uniting two rival realms and enabling Spain to marshal resources for-wide campaigns, including the Reconquista.
The Reconquista (counter-muslim campaigns) lasted roughly seven hundred years and culminated in the expulsion of the Moors from Spain—exit from Granada in 1492.
The Moors had invaded and ruled parts of the Iberian Peninsula earlier; their presence shaped Spanish culture (architecture, cuisine, etc.).
The Alhambra Decree (1492) expelled Spain’s Jewish population; approximately 200,000 Jews were given three months to leave or convert. Converts, called conversos, were often viewed with suspicion.
With the Moors expelled, Ferdinand and Isabella turn to overseas expansion and seek wealth from the East via Western routes.
Columbus’ pitch: the possibility of reaching the East by sailing west; the Spanish listen and fund his voyage after he had been rejected by France, England, and Portugal.
The flat-earth myth is addressed: educated people in Columbus’ day already knew the Earth was round; the misconception was about the size of the Earth, not its shape.
Columbus believed Asia could be reached by sailing a relatively short distance west, but he underestimated global size and failed to anticipate the Americas; distances involved include a much larger oceanic crossing than he assumed.
Columbus’ Voyages and Ship Details
Columbus sailed in 1492 with three ships: the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María; these vessels were small and not designed for a long transatlantic crossing.
The lecture humorously notes Columbus’ ships as leaky old boats, emphasizing the risk and audacity of the voyage.
After two months at sea, Columbus landed on an island he named Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic) and at the time believed he had reached the Indies near Asia.
The first encounter with Indigenous peoples led to his mistaken belief that he was in Asia; he referred to Indigenous people as Indians.
The voyage’s aftermath included a broader Spanish interest in exploiting the wealth of the New World, which would drive further exploration and conquest.
Columbus’ Motivations and the Conquistadors’ Ethos
Columbus’ motivations were multifaceted: wealth (economic incentive), power (titles and status), faith (divine mandate and missionary impulse).
He sought a grand title: Admiral of the Ocean Sea, reflecting the era’s emphasis on status and authority.
Columbus had training at a navigational school associated with Prince Henry the Navigator, indicating a blend of practical expertise and patronage.
He believed his mission was divinely guided, combining economic, religious, and personal glory motives.
The broader generation of conquistadors who followed Columbus shared these mixed motives: wealth, glory, and religious expansion often bundled with violence.
A famous maxim from Bernal Díaz del Castillo summarizes the triple motive: to serve God and the king of Spain, to bring light to those in darkness, and to grow rich as all men desire to do.
The Naming of America and Vespucci’s Role
Amerigo Vespucci emerged as a popular figure in popular writings; his writings helped popularize the idea of a “new world.”
Although a German mapmaker, Martin Waldseemüller, used Vespucci’s name to label the new continents as “America.”
The name may reflect Vespucci’s influence, but some scholars note that Native groups in the New World may have used terms similar to America in reference to places or peoples, suggesting a more complex naming history.
Variants of terms referring to the Americas in Native languages include forms like Americo, Ameria, and other regional equivalents; some playful or apocryphal variants (e.g., “America Coca Cola”) are mentioned in the lecture, illustrating the playful nature of etymology discussions.
The lecture emphasizes that the term America could reflect broader cultural exchanges in the Atlantic world, not solely European imposition.
The Treaty of Tordesillas (1494)
By 1494, both Spain and Portugal engaged in Atlantic exploration and established island-based colonies; both powers sought to protect their interests and minimize direct conflict.
The pope intervened to broker a division of the world: the Treaty of Tordesillas drew a line on the map separating spheres of influence.
Territories found west of the line were assigned to Spain, and territories found east of the line to Portugal.
Brazil fell on the eastern side of the line, which is why Portuguese is spoken there today.
The line neglected the perspectives and sovereignty of Indigenous peoples and did not involve Native American input or consent.
Rise of Spanish Exploration: Second Voyage and Conquests
Columbus’ second voyage featured a large fleet: 17 ships and 1,200 men, signaling a major offensive in the New World.
Spanish conquistadors fanned out across the Caribbean and into Central and South America.
Notable early explorations and claims in the Americas (early 16th century):
1513: Juan Ponce de León searched for the Fountain of Youth in Florida.
1513: Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and became the first European to see the Pacific Ocean.
1530s–40s: Coronado explored the Southwest region of what is now the United States.
1542 (implied in course material): Hernando de Soto traversed the Southeast U.S. in search of wealth and to claim lands; Juan Cabrillo explored and sailed along the California coast.
Spain’s first permanent settlement in what would become the United States: Saint Augustine, Florida, established in 1565.
In the broader Americas, Spanish conquests established a vast empire: in Peru, Francisco Pizarro toppled the Inca; in Mexico, Hernán Cortés defeated the Aztec Empire and captured Tenochtitlan; both led to vast mineral wealth (silver and gold).
Within a few decades of Columbus’ first voyage, these conquests created the largest and wealthiest European empire since ancient Rome.
Characteristics of the Spanish Colonial World
The crown maintained tight centralized control over colonies, with a hierarchical governance structure that limited regional autonomy.
Large numbers of Roman Catholic priests (Dominicans and Franciscans) accompanied colonization to enforce religious conformity and convert Indigenous populations.
Demographic patterns featured predominantly male European colonists who often took Indigenous (and later African) women as partners or wives, creating mixed-race populations (mestizos and mulattos).
The most famous encounter of Spanish and Indigenous people involved Cortés and Malinche (Doña Marina), who served as translator, mediator, and intermediary; she bore Cortés’ child, Martín, and later married one of Cortés’s officers.
Relative tolerance for racial mixing in Spanish colonies contrasted with other colonial powers (e.g., English) and contributed to more extensive racial intermixing and social blending.
A key feature of Spanish colonialism was the exploitation of Indigenous populations and the use of imported African slaves; wealth in the Spanish colonies rested on forced labor and extraction of resources.
Columbus is described as becoming the first slave trader of the New World through the establishment of systems that legalized and organized Indigenous labor exploitation.
The system referenced (commonly known as the encomienda system) granted conquistadors and settlers the right to extract labor from Indigenous peoples; this system laid the groundwork for ongoing coercive labor practices in the colonies.
Indigenous and African Labor, Social Dynamics, and Ethics
Intermarriage and the emergence of mixed-race populations (mestizos, mulattos) reflect ongoing cultural interchanges and power dynamics in the colonies.
The English colonial pattern differed, with less intermarriage and more rigid racial hierarchies, contributing to different social arrangements in English colonies.
The Spaniards’ emphasis on evangelization intersected with political and economic goals, creating a complex web of religious, cultural, and economic conflicts and negotiations with Indigenous populations.
Pre-Columbian Contacts and Evolving Names for the New World
The lecture acknowledges pre-Columbian Norse exploration: Viking explorers reached Newfoundland (Vinland) in the eleventh century and established a brief settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows but did not establish a lasting colonial presence.
Leif Erikson is referenced as a famous Viking explorer who led these early incursions; the broader point is that Europeans had visited North America before Columbus, although these visits did not lead to sustained cross-Atlantic colonization.
Summary and Significance
The era marked a shift from late medieval to early modern global interaction, driven by the Iberian powers’ search for wealth, routes to Asia, religious motivations, and consolidation of political power.
The Treaties and the rapid expansion of colonies reshaped global geography, economies, and societies through migration, conquest, and cultural exchange.
The period’s legacies include the exploitation and suffering of Indigenous populations, the transatlantic slave system, and the long-lasting mixing of peoples that produced new cultural and ethnic identities in the Americas.
The narrative also cautions against simplistic single-motive explanations for complex historical decisions; Columbus’ voyages result from a blend of economic, political, religious, and personal ambitions.
1492, 1469, 1494, 3{,}000 miles, 10{,}600 miles, 200{,}000 Jews, 17 ships, 1{,}200 men, 1496/1500s (conquest period), and 1565 (Saint Augustine) are among the key numerical anchors used to ground the discussion.