Why europeans traveled to the americas

At the same time, nations saw trade as a way of increasing their wealth. Merchants dreamed of new sources for goods such as gold and spices. For centuries, Arab traders had controlled existing trade routes to Africa and Asia, which meant European merchants were forced to buy from Italian traders at high prices. They wanted to trade directly with Africa and Asia, but this meant that they had to find a new sea route. The stakes were high. Whoever succeeded in establishing trade relationships would in all likelihood become rich and achieve great famefor himself and for his country.

However, exploration of this nature was very dangerous business. There were no maps or charts and very little knowledge of winds or currents. Since the Portuguese were at peace and not locked in war the way France and England were, they became the first to accept the challenge of sailing uncharted waters, thanks to Prince Henry, who became known as Prince Henry the Navigator.

Cabot explored the North American continent, correctly deducing that the spherical shape of the earth made the north—where the longitudes are much shorter—a quicker route to the New World than a trip to the South Islands where Columbus was exploring. Encouraged, he asked the English monarchy for a more substantial expedition to further explore and settle the lands. He was successful in obtaining the expedition and the ships departed, never to be seen again.

In the north, the Hudson Bay Company actively traded for fur with the indigenous peoples, bringing them into competition with French, Aboriginal, and Metis fur traders. At the start of the 17th century, the English had not established a permanent settlement in the Americas. Over the next century, however, they outpaced their rivals. The English encouraged emigration far more than the Spanish, French, or Dutch. They established nearly a dozen colonies, sending swarms of immigrants to populate the land.

England had experienced a dramatic rise in population in the 16th century, and the colonies appeared a welcoming place for those who faced overcrowding and grinding poverty at home. Thousands of English migrants arrived in the Chesapeake Bay colonies of Virginia and Maryland to work in the tobacco fields.

Another stream, this one of pious Puritan families, sought to live as they believed scripture demanded and established the Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, New Haven, Connecticut, and Rhode Island colonies of New England. European exploration and invasion of the Americas brought with them many foreign diseases, causing widespread depopulation among indigenous cultures. Different European colonial settlements in the New World exposed indigenous populations to Christianity, forced labor, expulsion from their lands, and foreign diseases.

Rampant epidemic disease, to which the natives had no prior exposure or resistance, was one of the main causes of the massive population decline of the indigenous populations of the Americas.

As Europeans and African slaves began to arrive in the New World, they brought with them the infectious diseases of Europe and Africa. Soon after, observers noted that immense numbers of indigenous Americans began to die from these diseases.

This death toll was initially overlooked or downplayed because once introduced, the diseases raced ahead of European invasion in many areas. Disease killed off a sizable portion of the populations before European observations and written records were made. After the epidemics had already killed massive numbers of indigenous Americans, many newer European immigrants assumed that there had always been relatively few indigenous peoples.

One of the most devastating diseases was smallpox; other deadly diseases included typhus, measles, influenza, bubonic plague, cholera, malaria, mumps, yellow fever, and pertussis whooping cough. The indigenous Americas also had a number of endemic diseases, such as tuberculosis although once believed to have been brought from Europe, skeletal remains found in South America have since provided evidence of tuberculosis before the Spanish arrival and an unusually virulent type of syphilis, which became rampant when brought back to the Old World.

The transfer of disease between the Old World and New World was part of the phenomenon known as the Columbian Exchange. The diseases brought to the New World proved to be exceptionally deadly to the indigenous populations, and the epidemics had very different effects in different regions of the Americas. The most vulnerable groups were those with a relatively small population and little built-up immunity. Many island-based groups were annihilated: the Caribs and Arawaks of the Caribbean nearly ceased to exist, as did the Beothuks of Newfoundland.

While disease swept swiftly through the densely populated empires of Mesoamerica, the more scattered populations of North America saw a slower spread. Estimates of the pre-Columbian population have ranged from 8. In Peru, the indigenous pre-contact population of approximately 6. Storming of the Teocalli by Cortez and His Troops : While epidemic disease was by far the leading cause of the population decline of the American indigenous peoples after , there were other contributing factors—all of them related to European contact and colonization.

One of these factors was warfare. From the 15th century onward, European nations invaded the New World and began establishing empires throughout the continent. While the Americas remained firmly under the control of indigenous peoples in the first decades of European invasion, conflict increased as colonization spread and Europeans placed greater demands upon the indigenous populations, including expecting them to convert to Christianity either Catholicism or Protestantism.

The Spanish, English, and French were the most powerful nations to establish empires in the new lands. Beginning with the arrival of Christopher Columbus, the Spanish Empire expanded for four centuries — across most of present-day Central America, the Caribbean islands, Mexico, and much of the rest of North America.

The empire also claimed territory in present-day British Columbia; the states of Alaska, Washington, and Oregon; and the western half of South America. This area was inhabited by the Chibchan speaking nations, including the indigenous Muisca and Tairona people. He explored areas to the north, looking for a Fountain of Youth, and landed on a peninsula on the coast of North America, which he named Florida. The conquistadors, believing they held considerable military and technological superiority over the native cultures, attacked and destroyed the Aztecs in By the early 16th century, Spanish conquistadors had penetrated deep into Central and South America.

They were also looking for a legendary king named Prester John who had supposedly built a Christian stronghold somewhere in northwestern Africa. Henry hoped to form an alliance with Prester John to fight the Muslims. His school developed the quadrant, the cross-staff and the compass, made advances in cartography and designed and built highly maneuverable little ships known as caravels. Dias sailed around the tip of Africa and into the Indian Ocean before his frightened crew forced him to give up the quest.

A year later, Vasco da Gama succeeded in reaching India and returned to Portugal laden with jewels and spices. Born in Genoa, Italy, around , Columbus learned the art of navigation on voyages in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Columbus, hoping to make such a voyage, spent years seeking a sponsor and finally found one in Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain after they defeated the Moors and could turn their attention to other projects. After ten weeks he sighted an island in the Bahamas, which he named San Salvador.

Thinking he had found islands near Japan, he sailed on until he reached Cuba which he thought was mainland China and later Haiti. But the territorial disputes between Portugal and Spain were not resolved until when they signed the Treaty of Tordesillas, which drew a line leagues west of the Azores as the demarcation between the two empires.

Despite the treaty, controversy continued over what Columbus had found. He made three more voyages to America between and , during which he explored Puerto Rico , the Virgin Islands, Jamaica, and Trinidad. Each time he returned more certain that he had reached the East.

More Spanish expeditions followed. In and , Pedro de Mendoza went as far as present-day Buenos Aires in Argentina, where he founded a colony.

As European powers conquered the territories of the New World, they justified wars against Native Americans and the destruction of their cultures as a fulfillment of the European secular and religious vision of the New World. That idea had two parts: one paradisiacal and utopian, the other savage and dangerous. Ancient tales described distant civilizations, usually to the west, where European-like peoples lived simple, virtuous lives without war, famine, disease or poverty.

Such utopian visions were reinforced by religious notions. Early Christian Europeans had inherited from the Jews a powerful prophetic tradition that drew upon apocalyptic biblical texts in the books of Daniel, Isaiah and Revelations. They connected the Christianization of the world with the second coming of Christ.

If secular and religious traditions evoked utopian visions of the New World, they also induced nightmares. The ancients described wonderful civilizations, but barbaric, evil ones as well. Moreover, late medieval Christianity inherited a rich tradition of hatred for non-Christians derived in part from the Crusaders' struggle to free the Holy Land and from warfare against the Moors.

European encounters with the New World were viewed in light of these preconceived notions. To plunder the New World of its treasures was acceptable because it was populated by pagans.

In , Giovanni da Verrazzano was commissioned to locate a northwest passage around North America to India. He was followed in by Jacques Cartier , who explored the St. Lawrence River as far as present-day Montreal. In , Jean Ribault headed an expedition that explored the St. Johns River area in Florida. But the Spanish soon pushed the French out of Florida, and thereafter, the French directed their efforts north and west.

Instead, the French traded with inland tribes for furs and fished off the coast of Newfoundland. New France was sparsely populated by trappers and missionaries and dotted with military forts and trading posts.

Although the French sought to colonize the area, the growth of settlements was stifled by inconsistent policies. Initially, France encouraged colonization by granting charters to fur-trading companies.