United States History Student Edition

gradually going farther south until, in 1487, Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope. Eventually, between 1497 and 1498, Vasco da Gama rounded the cape and sailed across the Indian Ocean to Calicut, achieving Portugal’s goal of finding a sea route to Asia. Meanwhile, in 1492, Christopher Columbus embarked on a bold expedition to sail west, across the Atlantic, to reach India. Columbus was an Italian who had sailed for Portugal, but his 1492 voyage of exploration was sponsored by the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella. When Columbus reached the West Indies, he claimed the land for Spain. Other Spanish explorers followed. In 1502, an Italian explorer named Amerigo Vespucci recognized that the lands that Columbus had reached were not Asia at all, but a new continent that was previously unknown to Europeans. Several years later, a mapmaker honored Vespucci by naming the new continents after him—the Americas. Explorers from England, France, and the Netherlands also came to the Americas in the 1500s in search of a sea route west to Asia. They visited most of the Atlantic coast from Newfoundland to the Carolinas. Plunder, Colonization, and Trade After Columbus’s success, Portugal and Spain were concerned about protecting their territorial claims from each other. They signed the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, dividing the Americas between themselves and ignoring the land rights of the native peoples living there. The quest for wealth continued in the Americas, and Spain especially sought the region’s gold. Between 1519 and 1522, Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés conquered the Aztec Empire of Mexico and pillaged huge amounts of gold. In 1533, Francisco Pizarro conquered the Inca Empire in South America and took control of its wealth. The Spanish established colonies throughout their conquests in the Americas. Colonies provided the home country with gold, silver, and raw materials. These materials supported the home country’s manufacturing industry. France and the Netherlands also set up colonies based on their explorations in North America. The arrival of Europeans brought together two parts of the world that previously had not had contact: the continents of Europe, Asia, and

Africa in the Eastern Hemisphere and the Americas in the Western Hemisphere. Through the resulting Columbian Exchange, each continent was introduced to crops, animals, goods, technology, ideas, and diseases it had never seen. People on both sides of the Atlantic experienced profound changes in ways of life. Native Americans Encounter Europeans The native peoples of the Americas saw their lives change greatly. Diseases unintentionally brought by the Europeans devastated Native American populations. Millions of Native Americans died from epidemics of smallpox, measles, and malaria. Native Americans also were unable to defend themselves against the technology brought by European conquerors. For example, Cortés and Pizarro were able to conquer mighty South American empires because, unlike the natives, they had powerful weapons and animals. Many Native Americans suffered in slavery, forced by the Europeans to labor on farms and in mines. Eventually, Europeans forced enslaved people from Africa to work in their American possessions. In the early 1600s, another European people arrived to colonize the Americas. Their beliefs and ideas would, over time, lead to the creation of a great new nation and affect the course of human history.

This drawing from the 1500s illustrates enslaved people, either Native Americans or Africans, working in mines in Spain's American holdings.

Heritage Images/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

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The English Colonies Are Settled and Grow