European Exploration and Settlement

How did Europeans explore an establish settlements in the

Americas?

Marco Polo

• 1200s Marco Polo travels Asia

• “the man with a million stories”

• Wrote a book about China

• Ri₵he$ of China:– Silk

– Rare spices

– Gold & jewels

– Luxurious palaces

• Inspired European Exploration

Getting to Asia

Surely, there is a shorter way!

Columbus’s Discoveries

• Inspired by Marco Polo

• Believed shorter route to Asia

was in the west

• Spain sponsored trip in 1492

• Found island in Caribbean

• Encounters Taino “Indians”

• Died thinking he found Indies

The Columbian Exchange

Slavery Comes to America

• Settlers forces Indians to work for them.

• European diseases kill them in great numbers.

• Africans are brought to replace them.

• Europeans traded guns and alcohol for slaves.

• Africans captured and sold slaves to Europeans.

Cortes Conquers Mexico• Conquistadors: Spanish soldiers

• Mission: conquer an empire for Spain

• Hernán Cortés mistaken for Aztec god

• Guns, germs, and steel help conquer Aztecs

Pizarro Conquers Peru

• Francisco Pizarro conquers Incan Empire

• Smallpox kills thousands before Pizarro

• Incan ruler captured (Atahualpa) and ransomed for gold.

• Incans fill three rooms with gold and silver.

• Pizarro kills him anyway and takes over.

Settling the Borderlands

• Florida: Juan Ponce de Leon

• “Fountain of Youth”

• Dies from poison arrows

• Borderlands:– Florida

– Texas

– New Mexico

– Arizona

– California

• Soldiers and missionaries settle in presidios

New France

• Jacques Cartier’s Northwest Passage

• France claims Canada

• Quebec: trading post

• French= explorers, soldiers, missionaries, traders, and fur trappers (coureurs de bois)

• Did not attract many settlers

• Indian business partners (Huron)

• Louisiana and Mississippi River

New England

• 1497: England John Cabot sails to Newfoundland (island off the coast of Canada)

• Roanoke: colony disappears

• 1607: Jamestown colony in Virginia

• Hunger and disease make life difficult

• Pocahontas saves Jamestown

• Starving Time: 60/500 survive the winter

• John Rolfe, Tobacco, & marriage

New Netherland

• Henry Hudson and that Northwest Passage

• Netherlands=Dutch

• Dutch West India Company start a colony

• Albany, New York

• Profit from fur trade like the French

• Peter Minuit buys Manhattan island for $24

• Iroquois Confederacy

• New Amsterdam: diverse (Europeans, Africans, Jews)

• English chase off the Dutch due to wet gunpowder

Manhattan Island

Homework:

1. How did Marco Polo encourage European exploration?

2. How did the Columbian Exchange affect American Indians? Europeans? Africans?

3. What kind of relationship did the French have with American Indians?

4. What was the goals of: Columbus? Conquistadors? Missionaries? French & Dutch?

5. How was New Amsterdam different from other settlements?