European Background to Its Incursion in and Settlement

(Conquest) of North America

How did the United States come to be?

• Conquest of a continent was not a foregone conclusion.

• A unitary state did not have to emerge out of the conquered lands of native peoples.

• In many way, the European encounter with the Americas was an accident.

Portuguese Forays

• Along the African Coast to India (Prince Henry the Navigator)

• Bartholomew Dias around the Cape of Good Hope (1488)

• Vasco da Gama to India (1498)

• Pedro Cabral to Brazil (1500)

Spanish Forays

• Christopher Columbus (1492—first of 4 voyages)

• Columbus Controversy—hero or instigator of genocide?

Christopher Columbus

The Pinta and the Santa Maria

European Motives

• Escape disease and scarcity• Technological, economic, and political,

intellectual transformations• Why Europe and not China? Zheng He

commanded a large treasure fleet in the 1430s, but China had no incentive to explore beyond the Indian Ocean and East African Coast.

Spanish Empire in the New World

• Conquistadors conquer Mexica and Quechua (Cortes and Pizarro)

• Coronado and DeSoto explore interior of North America

• Focus on Silver in Mexico, especially rich strikes at Zacatecas.

• Encomienda• Great Biological Exchange

Reformation

• Martin Luther

• John Calvin

• English Reformation—from Henry to Elizabeth

Martin Luther

John Calvin

ELIZABETH I—1558-1603

• Marriage politics• Aided Protestants in

Netherlands• Supported “Sea

Dogs”—really pirates like Drake

Spanish Armada

• Phillip II desired to rid himself of both his English and Protestant problems in the north.

• Mythology of Armada or why we can’t get the obvious falsehood on page 40—[‘smaller . . . English vessels to go Away.]

Results of Armada

• English freer to exploit North Atlantic

• Spanish sea power was considerably weakened

• English morale heightened.

Walter Raleigh

• Established Roanoke on Carolina’s outer banks

• Armada interfered with supplying ti.

• “Lost Colony”

Roanoke