The Explorers

• NOT a sailor• Never made an ocean voyage• In the early 1400’s• brought together mapmakers, mathematicians,

and astronomers• sponsored many explorations

• First European country to venture out into the Atlantic

• Beginnings of the Age of Exploration and the Portuguese empire

Prince Henry the Navigator

• Portuguese• 1497, led four ships to find a sea

route to Asia• Made trade connections all along

the West and East coasts of Africa• In 10 months hit India• First discovery of actual sea route

to Asia

Vasco da Gama

• Made three more trips to the Americas• Died in 1506 still believing he had

discovered a sea route to Asia• Was not until 1507 that an explorer

named Amerigo Vespucci suggested that Columbus had discovered a “New World”

Columbus

 ”With fifty men I could subjugate them all and make them do everything that is

required of them”

~ Christopher Columbus, Journal (14 October 1492)

Columbus

• Spain and Portugal laid claim to all of the newly discovered worlds

• Asked the Pope to settle who gets

what• Line of Demarcation, 1493• Treaty of Tordesillas, 1494

Dividing Up the World

• Portuguese• 1519, with 5 ships and 260 man crew• looking for a route to Asia• Renamed South sea to Pacific Ocean• Because it was so calm• Originally discovered by Balboa of

Spain

Magellan

• Reached the Philippines, killed in a tribal dispute between warlords

• 1522, after 3 years, 18 crew and one ship made it back to Spain

• Proved once and for all• World was round• Columbus had not discovered Asia• The oceans were all connected• The world was much larger than most people

believed

Magellan

• More interested in conquest than trade• Unlike Portugal who was more interested

in trade• Conquistadors – “conquerors”

“We came to serve God and his Majesty,to give light to those who were in darkness,and to grow rich as all men desire to do.”

Spain

• Cortes – conquered the Aztecs

• Pizarro – conquered the Incas

• Slaughtered thousands of Aztecs and Incas

Spain

Cortes told the Aztecs,

“I and my companions suffer from a disease of the heart which can be cured only with

gold.”

Spain

• The encomienda system• Monarchs granted land• And gave those landowners the right

to use the Native Americans as labor • First 50 yrs of Spanish rule• Millions of Native Americas died• Disease, enslavement, working in

mines, and plain ole massacre

Spain

• Bartolome de Las Casas• Spanish priest who fought against the

abuse of the Native Americans• Forced Spain to pass new laws in 1542• Forbade enslavement• Spain was too far away to enforce it

Spain

“The Indians were totally deprived of their freedom and were put into the harshest,

fiercest, most horrible servitude and captivity which no one who has not seen it can understand. Even beasts enjoy more

freedom when they are allowed to graze in the field.”

~ Bartolomé de las Casas, History of the Indies (1510)

Treatment of the Native Americans

So many Native Americans died from Spanish rule that there were not enough laborers left in the colonies to enrich landowners and Spain.

What did Spain do?

Spain