The American Promise – Lecture Notes
Chapter 2 - Europeans Encounter the New World
Europe in the Age of Exploration (Slide 2) Page 27
A. Mediterranean Trade and European Expansion
1. Discovery of New Trade Routes and New Lands—From the twelfth through the
fifteenth centuries, goods traveled overland from Asia and Africa and then
funneled into Europe through Mediterranean trade routes dominated by Italian
cities; the vitality of these routes offered few incentives to look for alternatives.
2. Bubonic Plague (Black Death)—the Black Death killed about a third of the
European population; reduction of population made food more plentiful; people
inherited more property; peasants moved from their homes to seek opportunity
elsewhere; people turned to religion and family for comfort.
3. European Exploration—the Black Death caused some people to take greater
risks; exploration promised fame and fortune; monarchs sponsored journeys in
hopes of gaining territory and subjects; innovations like movable type and
navigational instruments like compasses, hourglasses, the astrolabe, and the
quadrant were known by many people but first used by Portuguese.
B. A Century of Portuguese Exploration Page 30
1. Reconquest—Portugal cooperated with Spain to expel Muslims from Iberian
Peninsula; religious zeal justified expansion into what the Portuguese viewed as
heathen lands.
2. Prince Henry the Navigator—most influential advocate of expansion; collected
information on sailing techniques and geography and pushed explorers to find
new trade routes to find gold and items for trade.
3. Caravel—fast, sturdy ship that could stow supplies for long periods at sea and
withstand battering of ocean waves; allowed Portuguese to sail as far south as
the Congo by 1480.
4. Discovery of New Sea Route to Asia—Bartolomeu Dias sailed around the
Cape of Good Hope in 1488; ten years later, Vasco da Gama sailed all the way
to India; this allowed the Portuguese to obtain goods from the East Indies and
sell them at lower prices since they did not have to pay Mediterranean
merchants; broke the old monopoly.
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A Surprising New World in the Western Atlantic (Slide 4) Page 31
A. The Explorations of Columbus
1. Christopher Columbus and Felipa Moniz—Columbus married Moniz; her father
had been raised in the household of Prince Henry the Navigator; Columbus
gained access to maps and information about sailing the Atlantic; believed Earth
was round, but he dramatically underestimated the distance west to Asia (2,500
miles vs. 11,000 miles).
2. Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand—Spanish monarchs financed Columbus’s
voyage west after Portugal, Spain, England, and France turned him down; they
saw small potential loss, but big potential gain in financing the trip.
3. San Salvador and the Tainos—the ships the Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria
landed on a Caribbean island about 300 miles north of Cuba in 1492; Columbus
claimed it for Isabella and Ferdinand; named it San Salvador in honor of Jesus
Christ; called people “Indians,” believing he was in the East Indies; the people
called themselves Tainos; Columbus knew he made a monumental discovery but
was disappointed by the Tainos’ lack of riches; Ferdinand and Isabella, however,
were overjoyed with the news of Columbus’s discovery, and he joined the ranks
of the nobility.
4. Treaty of Tordesillas—Portuguese and Spanish monarchs negotiated the
treaty in 1494; drew an imaginary line 1,100 miles west of the Canary Islands;
land discovered west of the line belonged to Spain, land to the east belonged to
Portugal; Spain sent Columbus back, and he found his sailors had terrorized the
Tainos and sexually abused their women; the Tainos killed the sailors in
response; foreshadowed what would happen between Native Americans and
Europeans in the future.
B. The Geographic Revolution and the Columbian Exchange (Slide 7) Page
34
1. Further Exploration after Columbus—European monarchs hurried to claim new
land; John Cabot sailed to find a Northwest Passage to the Indies in 1497;
landed at Newfoundland, went back to England, but was never heard from again
after he returned to the New World; Spanish expedition accompanied by Italian
businessman Amerigo Vespucci landed on the northern coast of South America
in 1499; Portuguese Pedro Álvars Cabral accidentally made landfall in Brazil
while en route to the Indian Ocean.
2. Ferdinand Magellan—Sponsored by King Charles I of Spain, Magellan led an
expedition to circumnavigate the globe in 1519; crossing the Pacific took four
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The American Promise – Lecture Notes
months; Magellan was killed by Philippine tribesmen, but a remnant of his
expedition made it back to Spain; left no doubt that America was separated from
Asia by the Pacific Ocean and that sailing west to India was inefficient.
3. Columbian Exchange—Transatlantic trade of goods launched by Columbus’s
expedition; Spaniards brought to the New World Christianity, iron, horses,
firearms, sailing ships; also unknowingly brought smallpox, measles, and deadly
diseases; ancient American goods (corn and tobacco), people, ideas, and even
diseases (syphilis) made the return trip back.
Spanish Exploration and Conquest (Slide 8) Page 36
A. The Conquest of Mexico
1. Hernán Cortés—Had experience in the New World fighting in the conquest of
Cuba and elsewhere in the Caribbean; in 1504, he led an expedition of about six
hundred men to investigate rumors of a wealthy kingdom on the mainland.
2. Malinali (“Marina”)—A gift to Cortés from a Tobasco chief; she spoke several
languages and served as Cortés’s translator; Cortés would not have been able to
communicate without her; Spaniards called her Marina; she knew many
languages because her step-father had sold her as a slave to Mayan-speaking
Indians. Malinali was also Cortés’s mistress and bore him a son.
3. Emperor Montezuma and the Riches of Tenochtitlán—Mexican emperor
Montezuma feared the Spaniards were led by the god Quetzalcoatl; Marina told
Cortés this so they dressed in regalia, played horns, and displayed swords;
Cortés marched inland to find Montezuma, who welcomed him on November 8,
1519; Montezuma showed Cortés the riches of the city; Cortés took Montezuma
hostage and hoped to rule through a puppet government; Montezuma was killed
by an unknown assailant during a revolt; the Mexica mounted a ferocious assault
on the Spaniards, who fled to Tlaxcala, a stronghold of enemies of the Mexica.
4. Cortes Invades and Conquers Mexica—With the help of Indian allies, Cortés
returned to the Mexican capital in the spring of 1521; conquered Tenochtitlán by
August; succeeded due to several advantages: they were using weapons of iron
and steel against weapons of stone, wood, and copper; smallpox arrived with
Cortés and decimated the Mexican population; Spaniards also sought total
victory in war, while the Mexicans only sought surrender; key point is that Cortés
could exploit the tensions between the Mexica and the people they ruled in their
empire; exploited Indians fought alongside the Spanish.
B. The Search for Other Mexicos (Slide 10) Page 39
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1. Tales of Wealth—Spanish conquistadors (soldiers who fought in conquests)
searched for other Mexicos.
2. Francisco Pizarro—Conquered the Incan empire in Peru in 1532; Pizarro and
his men captured the Incan emperor Atahualpa, who gave the Spaniards a
ransom of gold equal to half a century of precious metal production in Europe;
the Spaniards killed Atahualpa in spite of the ransom.
3. de Soto, Coronado, and Cabrillo—Tales of wealth attracted more
conquistadors; in 1539, Hernando de Soto tried to find another Peru in the North;
landed in Florida and searched for riches in southeastern North America; died of
a fever in 1542; Francisco Vásquez de Coronado searched for the mythical
Seven Cities of Cíbola, which turned out to be a small Zuñi pueblo of about a
hundred families; Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo died in an attempt to find wealth along
the coast of California in 1542.
C. Spanish Outposts in Florida and New Mexico
1. Menéndez and the Founding of St. Augustine—St. Augustine was founded in
1565, the first permanent European settlement in what became the United
States; by 1600, it was the only remaining Spanish beachhead on the North
American Atlantic shore.
2. Oñate and the Founding of New Mexico—Oñate and about 500 people settled
present-day New Mexico in 1598; soldiers planned to mutiny, and relationships
with Indians deteriorated; Indians in the Acoma pueblo revolted; Oñate
suppressed the rebellion, killing 800 men, women, and children; no peace or
stability in region; many of his settlers returned to Mexico after another pueblo
revolt in 1599.
D. New Spain in the Sixteenth Century (Slide 16) Page 41
1. New Spain and Spanish Domination of the Western Hemisphere—New Spain
was more interested in colonization than other powers that mostly wanted to
trade or deal with domestic issues; allowed Spain to become the dominant
European power in the Western Hemisphere during the sixteenth century.
2. The “Royal Fifth” and the System of Encomienda—Spanish monarchy allowed
conquistadors to keep all loot, giving the crown one-fifth, the “royal fifth,” of what
they confiscated; encomienda empowered conquistadors to rule Indians; Spanish
encomendero owned the town and thus received the tribute the town previously
paid to the Mexican empire; the encomendero was supposed to be responsible
for Indians’ well-being, guarantee order and justice, and convince Indians to
convert to Christianity.
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3. Repartimiento Replaces Encomienda—Encomenderos overworked and
abused Indians; believed they were superior and therefore had the right to use
Indians as slaves; a few Catholic missionaries, including Friar Bartolomé de Las
Casas, protested the brutal treatment; the Spanish monarchy replaced
encomienda with the repartimiento; limited labor an encomendero could
command to forty-five days per year from each adult male; did not, however,
challenge the principle of forced labor or prevent encomenderos from cheating,
mistreating, and overworking Indians.
4. Intermarriage Creates Sharp Social Hierarchy—Most Spanish settlers were
poor young men of common lineage who came directly from Spain; men vastly
outnumbered women, which meant that Europeans never made up more than 1
or 2 percent of the total population; also meant Spanish men often married Indian
women or used them as concubines; created strict social hierarchy; from highest
to lowest: peninsulares (natives of Spain), creoles (children born in the New
World to Spanish men and women, together with peninsulares constituted 1 to 2
percent of population), mestizos (children of Spanish men and Indian women, 4
to 5 percent of population), and Indians (the overwhelming majority) of the
population.
E. The Toll of Spanish Conquest and Colonization (Slide 19) Page 45
1. Demoralization of Indian Society—By 1560, Indian civilizations had been
conquered, their leaders overthrown, their religion held in contempt, and their
people forced to work for Spaniards.
2. Virulent Epidemics—Indians had no immunity to measles, smallpox, and
respiratory illnesses; by 1570, the Indian population of New Spain had fallen
about 90 percent from what it was when Columbus arrived.
3. Labor Shortage and the Importation of African Slaves—Indian deaths depleted
the labor supply; in response, colonists began to import African slaves; only
15,000 slaves were imported from Africa before 1550; 36,000 imported from
1550 to1600.
The New World and sixteenth-Century Europe (Slide 21) Page 47
A. The Protestant Reformation and the Spanish Response
1. Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation—Luther publicized his criticisms
of the Catholic Church in 1517; he preached a doctrine known as “justification by
faith”: Christians could only obtain salvation by having faith in God, not by giving
money to the church, following orders of priests, or participating in church rituals;
also argued the Bible was more important than the Church; charged that Catholic
Church was fraudulent.
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2. Anti-Reformation Monarchs—King Charles V and his son and successor Philip
II pledged to exterminate Luther’s Protestant heresies; they used wealth of
Spain’s New World empire to defend orthodox Catholic faith against Protestants,
Muslims, Jews, or other nations.
3. New Spain’s Effect on the Spanish Economy—New Spain’s wealth made
Spain rich and powerful, but the monarchs’ expenses for constant warfare
outstripped their revenues; they raised taxes, exempting the nobility and
therefore putting the burden of taxation of the poor; they also borrowed heavily
from European bankers. As a result, Spain ended up far in debt by the end of the
century; although it was not economically profitable, New Spain did increase
Spanish pride, as people believed it demonstrated their superiority over Indians
and other Europeans.
B. Europe and the Spanish Example
1. Expansion of European Influence—Spain’s New World conquests
demonstrated to other Europeans that the New World and its people could be
used to expand European wealth and influence.
2. Failed Expeditions—In 1524, France sent Giovanni da Verrazano to the
Atlantic Coast to search for a Northwest Passage; the search failed; in 1535,
Jacques Cartier sailed up the St. Lawrence River; Cartier established a colony in
1541, but it came to nothing; England tried to find a Northwest Passage again in
1576; Martin Frobisher of the Cathay Company hoped to open trade with China;
he believed he found gold, but it was worthless ore; Cathay Company collapsed,
and the English interests turned South; Sir Walter Raleigh organized an
expedition to settle Roanoke Island off the coast of present-day North Carolina;
when he sent settlers to the area two years later, they all disappeared, leaving
only the word Croatoan in a tree; by the end of the century, England had no New
World beachhead.
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