Social Studies Chapter 2 - European Exploration and Settlement

Marcos de Niza

A Spanish priest claimed to have seen a shimmering golden city in what is now New Mexico. He raced back to Mexico City with the news.

Christopher Columbus

After studying maps of the world, which at that time did not include the Americas, he became convinced that the shortest route to the Indies lay to the west, across the Atlantic Ocean. In August 1492, he sailed west with three small ships. After more than a month at sea, his sailors raised the cry of "Land!" The land turned out to be a small island in what we now call the Caribbean Sea. He was thrilled. In a later letter, he wrote, "I write this to tell you how in thirty-three days I sailed to the Indies..., where I discovered a great many islands, inhabited by numberless people." Mistakenly believing that he had reached the Indies, he called these people Indians.

The "Seven Cities of Cíbola"

Another legend sparked new Spanish expeditions into North America. An old European tale told of this. These were said to be so fabulously rich that the streets and houses were decorated with gold and jewels. When the Spanish heard Indians tell similar tales, they became convinced that they were somewhere in North America. Spanish explorers first looked for them in Florida and present day Texas. They found plenty of adventure, but no golden cities.

Pueblo Indians

At first, these of New Mexico welcomed the newcomers. Unfortunately, the Spanish repaid them kindness with cruelty. Indians were made to work for the settlers as slaves. Catholic priests ordered the whipping of the religious leaders who continued to practice their traditional rituals. Such treatment led the people to rise up in revolt and drive the Spanish out. Twelve years would pass before Spanish settlers returned to New Mexico. During the 1600s and 1700s, settlement of the Spanish borderlands proceeded slowly. But in time, the language, religion, and culture of Spain spread across much of the American Southwest.The arrival of Spanish settlers had a great impact on the native peoples of the borderlands.

John Cabot

Columbus's voyages inspired him, an Italian living in England, to seek his own western route to Asia. In 1497, he had moved to England from Venice, sailed west across the Atlantic. He landed in Newfoundland, an island off the coast of Canada. A fellow Venetian living in London wrote of Cabot's brief landing. He coasted for three hundred leagues and landed; saw no human beings, but he has brought here to the king certain snares which had been set to catch game, and a needle for making nets; he also found some felled trees, by which he judged there were inhabitants, and returned to his ship in alarm... The discoverer... planted on this newly-found land a large cross, with one flag of England and another of St. Mark [the patron saint of Venice] on account of his being a Venetian. Like Columbus, he mistakenly believed he had landed in Asia. Later, however, England would claim all of North America because of the flag planted by him in 1497.

Spain began sending soldiers called these to across the Atlantic.

Conquistadors. Their mission was to conquer a vast empire for Spain. The conquistadors hoped to get rich along the way.

Which traders made deals with members of the powerful Iroquois Confederacy?

Dutch traders, an alliance of five Indian groups who lived across the northern portion of New Netherland. The French had long supplied the Huron, the Iroquois's great rivals, with guns in exchange for furs. It made sense for the Iroquois to become partners with the Dutch, who supplied them with the weapons they needed to stand up to the Huron. This partnership also made sense for the Dutch. The French were their main rivals in the European fur trade. For most of the 1600s, the Iroquois kept the French from moving into the fur-rich Ohio Valley. New Amsterdam As the fur trade expanded, the Dutch settlement on Manhattan swelled to over 1,000 people. In 1647, the Dutch West India Company hired Peter Stuyvesant as the colony's new governor. When he arrived at Manhattan, Stuyvesant declared that the settlement would be called New Amsterdam, after the capital city of the Netherlands.

When Marco Polo's book was published, very few people in Europe could read. Those who did read it were fascinated by its description of riches to the east. Merchants and traders were eager to find the fastest way to get there. The land route Polo had traveled was long and dangerous. His tales inspired explorers to...

Find an alternative route by sea. Some explorers would seek a route to China by going around the southern tip of Africa. But a few brave souls looked to the west for another route. Such a trip took courage, because no one knew how far west sailors would have to sail to reach Asia or what monsters and terrors might await them far from Europe's shore.

Columbus made this many voyages to the Caribbean

Four trips to the Caribbean, finding more islands, as well as the continent of South America.

In both Mexico and Peru, conquistadors found what?

Gold and silver riches beyond their wildest dreams. Hoping for still more, they pushed north into lands that are now part of the United States. Because these lands were located on the far edges of Spain's North American empire, they were known as the Spanish borderlands.

Columbus did this every time he came across a new island

He claimed it for Spain.

Columbus died still believing this.

He had found Asia. Later explorers quickly realized that he had actually stumbled on a world previously unknown to Europe—the continents of North and South America.

Juan de Oñate

He had made a fortune mining silver in Mexico, led the settlement of New Mexico. In 1598, he brought 400 settlers and 7,000 animals from Mexico to New Mexico. The long overland journey took a year and a half to complete.

John Smith

He was one of the members of the Jamestown expedition. A natural leader, he took control of Jamestown in 1608. "If any he wrote an account of how he met an Indian girl whose help saved the colony from starvation. While scouting for food, he was captured by the Indians and brought to a smoky longhouse. Seated at one end, he saw Powhatan, the Indians' powerful chief. The Indians greeted him with a loud shout and a great feast. But when the meal ended, the mood changed. He was about to be clubbed to death when a young girl leapt out of the shadows. "She got [my] head in her arms and laid her owne upon [mine] to save [me] from death," He later wrote. His savior was Pocahontas.

Hernán Cortés

In 1519 he arrived in Mexico with horses and 500 soldiers. There he heard about the powerful Aztecs who ruled much of Mexico. When he and his men reached the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, they could not believe their eyes. A beautiful city seemed to rise out of a sparkling lake. One Spaniard wrote, "Some of our soldiers even asked whether the things that we saw were not a dream." The Aztecs were unsure what to make of the strangers. They had never seen men dressed in metal armor and riding horses. Some mistook him for the great Aztec god Quetzalcoatl and welcomed him as a hero. They would soon change their minds.

Jacques Cartier

In 1534, France sent him to explore the Atlantic coastline of North America. His goal was to find a Northwest Passage, an all-water route through the North American continent to the Pacific Ocean. Such a passage would provide a shortcut for ships sailing west to Asia. He failed to find such a passage. But he did claim for France the land we know today as Canada. He later named this land New France. He also discovered something almost as valuable as Spanish gold—beaver fur. Beaver hats were a fashionable item in Europe, and French hatmakers were willing to pay high prices for beaver pelts.

Francisco Vásquez de Coronado

In 1540, a famed conquistador set out from Mexico City with a large expedition and de Niza as his guide. Their goal was to find the legendary golden cities.After traveling north more than 7,000 miles, the expedition found an American Indian pueblo. A pueblo is a village of apartment-like buildings made of stone and adobe rising four and five stories high. To de Niza, this might have looked like a golden city. But to Coronado, it was a "little, crowded village . . . crumpled all up together." The enraged expedition leader sent the priest back to Mexico City. His expedition continued north onto the Great Plains before giving up the search for golden cities. Disappointed, he reported to Spain, "Everything is the reverse of what he said, except the name of the cities and the large stone houses . . . The Seven Cities are seven little villages."

Pedro Menéndez de Avilés

In 1565 a Spanish naval officer was sent to Florida to protect the area from French explorers. He successfully drove the French out of their Florida base and built a fort on the peninsula's Atlantic coast. He named the fort St. Augustine. Over the years, Spanish soldiers based at St. Augustine successfully defended the fort—and Spanish claims to Florida—from both French and English rivals. Today, St. Augustine is the oldest permanent settlement founded by Europeans in the United States.

Peter Minuit

In 1626, the Dutch West India Company sent him to New Netherland as the colony's governor. Wanting peaceful relations with the Indians, the company told him that any native peoples on Manhattan Island "must not be expelled with violence or threats but be persuaded with kind words . . . or should be given something." Following orders, he offered the island's Indians iron pots, beads, and blankets worth about $24 in exchange for their land. The American Indians didn't believe that anyone could own land. Laughing at the foolishness of the white men, they made the trade.

Marco Polo

In the late 1200s he traveled through Asia with his father, a merchant and trader from Venice, Italy. Spent 17 years in China. When he returned to Venice, people flocked to hear his stories of "the Indies," as India and East Asia were then known. He was called "the man with a million stories." Eventually, a writer helped him put his adventures into a book. The book described the wonders he had seen in China. It told of rich silks and rare spices, gold and jewels, and luxurious palaces.

The Columbian Exchange for the American Indians

It began very badly. The Europeans who came to America brought with them germs that caused smallpox and other diseases deadly to Indians. Historians estimate that in some areas, European diseases wiped out 90 percent of the native population.

Spain claimed these new territories

It extended west from Florida across present-day Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.

Sir Walter Raleigh

Nearly a century later, an English noble tried to start a colony on Roanoke Island off the coast of present-day North Carolina. Indians on the island welcomed the settlers and gave them traps for catching fish. The newcomers, however, were more interested in looking for gold than fishing. When their supplies ran low, they returned to England. In 1587, he sent a second group of colonists to Roanoke. Unfortunately, they arrived too late in the season to plant crops.

Robert Cavelier de La Salle

Nine years later, he explored the entire length of the Mississippi River. On April 9, 1682, he planted a French flag at the mouth of the river and claimed everything west of the Mississippi River for France. He named this vast area Louisiana for the French monarch, King Louis XIV.

Juan Ponce de León

One of the first Spanish expeditions into North America was led by him. He had sailed with Columbus to the Caribbean and made his fortune by discovering gold on the island of Puerto Rico. Despite his wealth, he couldn't stop thinking about Indian rumors of a "fountain of youth" that made old people young again. Restless for more adventure, he set off to find the truth about these tales of everlasting youth. He landed on a sunny peninsula of North America in April 1513. Because he had sighted this lush new land on Easter Sunday, he called it La Florida, meaning "flowery." (The name is short for "flowery Easter.") Eight years later, he returned to Florida with 200 men to establish a Spanish settlement, or colony. American Indians in the area used poisoned arrows to drive off the invaders. Instead of finding a fountain of youth, he died from a poisoned arrow in his stomach.

John White

Roanoke Island off the coast of present-day North Carolina. Their leader sailed back to England for more supplies. While he was in England, however, fighting broke out between England and Spain. As a result, his return to Roanoke was delayed for three years. When he finally reached the island, the colonists had disappeared. Carved on a doorpost was the word CROATOAN. To this day, both the reason this word was carved and what happened to the lost colony of Roanoke remain a mystery.

Pocahontas

She was Chief Powhatan's favorite daughter. Historians disagree about the details of how Smith and her first met. They do agree, however, that she helped Smith save Jamestown by bringing food and keeping peace with her people. "She, next under God," Smith wrote, "was . . . the instrument to preserve this colony from death, famine, and utter confusion."To end that threat, the English kidnapped her and held her hostage. For a year, she remained a prisoner—but a willing and curious one. During that time she learned English, adopted the Christian faith, and made new friends.

By the late 1400s, European explorers in West Africa were trading guns and other goods for these.

Slaves that had been captured by African traders.

Francisco Pizarro

Smallpox also helped another Spanish conquistador he conquered an empire in South America. In 1532, he led an attack on the powerful Inca Empire in present-day Peru. Luckily for him, smallpox reached Peru many months before him, killing thousands of Incas and leaving their empire badly divided. He captured the Inca ruler, Atahualpa , but promised to release him in exchange for gold. To save their ruler, the Incas filled three rooms with gold and silver treasures. He killed Atahualpa anyway and took over the leaderless Inca empire. From there, Spanish conquistadors conquered most of South America.

King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain

Sponsored Columbus' voyage

What was Stuyvesant's biggest problem?

Stuyvesant's biggest problem was that the English wanted to drive the Dutch out of North America. England's king, Charles II, refused to recognize Dutch claims to New Netherland. In 1664, Charles gave his brother, James, the Duke of York, ownership of all Dutch lands in America—if he could conquer them. James promptly organized a small invasion fleet to take the colony. When the English arrived, they sent Stuyvesant a letter demanding his surrender. Stuyvesant tore up the note and refused to consider giving up until New Amsterdam's chief gunner reported that the city's supply of gunpowder was damp and useless. Without firing a shot, the English took over New Netherland and renamed the colony New York.

From Florida to California, some American Indians converted to the what faith?

The Catholic faith. The converts often lived and worked in and around the missions, growing crops and helping to maintain the churches and other buildings. However, even converts often continued to practice their traditional religious rituals as well. Unfortunately, wherever the Spanish settled, they brought with them diseases to which native peoples had no resistance. Smallpox, measles, and influenza often wiped out entire villages. Before Coronado's expedition, there had been more than 100 thriving Indian pueblos in New Mexico. By 1700, only 19 remained.

Samuel de Champlain

The first settlement in New France was founded by him. In 1608, he sailed up the St. Lawrence River and built a trading post he called Quebec. For the next 150 years, Quebec would be a base for French explorers, soldiers, missionaries, traders, and fur trappers. From Quebec, fur trappers pushed west in search of beaver. They called themselves coureurs de bois, which means "wood rangers" in French. Catholic missionaries followed the trappers, seeking converts among the native peoples.

Why did Europeans bring slaves to America?

The high death rate because of The Columbian Exchange. Many laborers were needed because some of the Spanish settlers in the Caribbean had started gold mines. Others raised sugar, a crop of great value in Europe. At first, the settlers forced Indians to work for them. But as native people began dying in great numbers from European diseases, the settlers looked for a new workforce. Before long, Africans were replacing Indians.

Taino

The islanders were native people. They lived in a peaceful fishing community. Never had they seen people like the ones who had suddenly appeared on their shores. Yet they were friendly and welcoming. Columbus wrote, "They are so unsuspicious and so generous with what they possess, that no one who had not seen it would believe it"

Father Marquette and Louis Joliet

The search for furs led the French far inland from Quebec. In 1673, two explorers explored the great Mississippi River. They hoped this waterway would be the long-sought Northwest Passage. But they discovered that, instead of flowing west to the Pacific Ocean, the river flowed south toward the Gulf of Mexico. Disappointed, the explorers returned to New France.

The Columbian Exchange

The voyages of Columbus triggered a great transfer of people, plants, animals, and diseases back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean. It brought valuable new crops such as corn, potatoes, and squash to Europe. These foods greatly improved the diet of the average European. Many Europeans also found new opportunities by crossing the Atlantic to settle in the Americas. They introduced crops such as wheat and rice to these lands, as well as domesticated animals like horses, cows, pigs, and sheep.

Catholic Missionaries

They accompanied the soldiers to the borderlands. They are religious people, like priests, who try to persuade people to convert to their religion. They built settlements, called missions, where they taught local Indians new skills and preached the Christian faith. Each one grew its own food and produced most of what the inhabitants of the group needed to survive far from towns and trading centers.

Over the next three centuries, millions of Africans would be carried across the Atlantic in crowded, disease-infested ships. The terrible voyage lasted anywhere from weeks to months. Many died before it was over. What happened when they arrived in the Americas?

They were sold to their new masters at auctions. Many perished from disease and overwork. Those who survived faced a lifetime of forced labor as slaves.

In the 1500s, European slave traders began shipping slaves where?

To the Caribbean for sale.

The London Company

Twenty years went by before a permanent English colony was established in America. In 1607, a group of merchants formed this to start a moneymaking colony in Virginia. The company crammed 105 settlers and 39 sailors into three tiny ships and sent them across the Atlantic. The settlers were to ship back valuable goods such as furs and timber.would not work," announced Smith, "neither should he eat." They were hungry, so they worked.

Jamestown

When they reached Virginia, the colonists settled on a swampy peninsula they believed could be easily defended against American Indians or Spanish ships. They called their new home after King James I. What the settlers didn't know was that the spot they chose to settle would soon be swarming with disease-carrying mosquitoes. It was also surrounded by a large and powerful American Indian group. To make matters worse, the settlers were a mix of gentlemen and craftsmen. None of them knew much about farming. Nor were they willing to work very hard at it. They thought they were in Virginia to look for gold, not to provide for themselves. As the food the settlers had brought with them disappeared, they began to trade with the Indians, bartering glass beads and iron hatchets for corn and meat. But barter wasn't easy. Many Indians decided they would sooner kill the English—or just let them starve—than trade. Hunger and disease soon took their toll. Every few days, another body was carried off to the graveyard. The following winter was the worst ever—so bad that it came to be known as the "Starving Time." Even with more settlers, the people of Jamestown lived in constant danger of Indian attacks.

Henry Hudson

While John Smith was struggling to save the colony of Jamestown, an English sailor was exploring the coastline farther north for the Netherlands. His voyage was sponsored by Dutch merchants who hoped to find the Northwest Passage. In 1609, he discovered a deep river full of fish and thought it might just take him all the way across the continent. It didn't, of course, but he claimed the land along its banks for the Netherlands. The river was later named the this in his honor, and the territory he claimed became known as New Netherland.

John Rolfe

While Pocahontas was trapped she made new friends. Among those new friends was a widower. He had already helped the colony survive by finding a crop that could be raised in Virginia and sold for good prices in England—tobacco. The happy settlers went tobacco mad, planting the crop everywhere, even in Jamestown's streets. Now he helped again by making a marriage proposal to Pocahontas. Both the governor of Jamestown and Chief Powhatan gave their consent to this unusual match. Maybe they hoped the marriage would help end the conflict between their peoples. The union of Pocahontas and him did bring peace to Jamestown.

How did Cortés conquer Tenochtitlan?

With the help of Indians who hated their Aztec rulers, and with the spread of smallpox—which killed large numbers of Aztec warriors. The Spaniards pulled the city down and used its stones to build Mexico City, the capital of a new Spanish empire called New Spain.