Early European Exploration
I. Columbus Sights a New World
A. In October, 1492, Christopher Columbus and the crews of his ships sighted
several Caribbean islands after crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
B. Columbus was an Italian, sailing under the Spanish flag to find a route to
the East.
C. The Spanish established an empire consisting of most of South America,
many Caribbean islands, Mexico, Central America, and part of the presentday
United States.
II. New Spain
A. Spanish soldiers, called conquistadores, sought wealth and glory for Spain.
B. With superior weapons, they made their way through the Americas,
defeating Native Americans as they went.
C. Friars, or members of Catholic religious orders, helped Spain control
the Americas by converting many Native Americans to Catholicism,
the religion of Spain.
D. Friars settled the land and created religious settlements called missions.
III. Cortés Lands in Mexico
A. Sailing from Cuba in 1519, Hernando Cortés landed his army of 600
soldiers on the eastern coast of Mexico, near present-day Vera Cruz.
B. When Cortés arrived at Tenochtitlán, he was impressed by the wealth and
advanced civilization of the Aztecs.
C. Cortés and his forces imprisoned and then killed the emperor, Moctezuma,
and burned the city, plundering its treasures.
D. Cortés rebuilt and renamed the city, Mexico City, and it became the capital
of New Spain.
IV. Pineda Explores the Texas Coast
A. Alonso Alvarez de Pineda became the first European to explore the Texas
coast in the same year Cortés landed in Mexico.
B. He sailed along the coastline from Florida to Mexico and mapped the land.
V. Shipwrecked in Texas
A. Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca was a member of an expedition sent in 1527
to conquer the area from Florida to Mexico.
B. He and a few others became stranded after a shipwreck in Galveston Bay.
C. The Karankawas helped the shipwrecked explorers survive.
D. Cabeza de Vaca and his companions spent nearly six years among the
people of South Texas and then journeyed west toward Mexico.
Lesson 4-2
I. The Quest for Texas Gold
A. Cabeza de Vaca described seeing buffalo and the fertile land of Texas.
B. Although he saw no gold, he reported stories of riches that inspired the
Spaniards to send a treasure-seeking expedition into Texas.
II. Fray Marcos Leads a New Expedition
A. In 1539 Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza sent a priest, Fray Marcos de Niza,
to head an advance party to check on stories of treasure in the new land.
B. Estevanico, who rode ahead, sent back reports of Cíbola, a land with seven
cities of gold and other riches.
C. Cíbola actually was a pueblo near the present-day boundary of Arizona and
New Mexico. Fray Marcos probably saw the pueblo at sunset, which made
it look golden.
III. Coronado Is Disappointed
A. Francisco Vásquez de Coronado led an expedition of more than 300
soldiers,
accompanied by Fray Marcos, to find Cíbola.
B. Coronado’s group went east to present-day Santa Fe, New Mexico, where
they met a Pawnee Native American they called Turk.
C. Turk told of fabulous riches located farther east, and he led Coronado
onward, bringing him to the plains of Texas.
D. Disappointed at not finding treasure, Coronado put Turk to death and
claimed the entire Wichita country for the King of Spain.
IV. Moscoso Explores East Texas
A. Hernán de Soto landed in Florida in 1539, marking the first time a
European expedition reached the Mississippi.
B. After de Soto died in 1542, Luis de Moscoso took command and led the
expedition into East Texas.
C. Exploring perhaps as far as the Brazos River, the party met Native
Americans, found no riches, and returned to the Mississippi River.
V. New Mexico Is Founded
A. In 1609 Spaniards set up a permanent colony on the upper Rio Grande
and named it New Mexico. Finding no gold, they made few attempts to
settle the region.
B. They explored as far as present-day San Angelo.
Lesson 4-3
I. France Challenges Spanish Claims
A. France challenged Spain’s claim to Texas.
B. In 1682 La Salle led the first expedition that navigated the Mississippi
River to the Gulf of Mexico, claiming the inland region surrounding the
Mississippi for France and calling the area Louisiana.
C. La Salle returned to France and proposed a French colony be founded at
the mouth of the Mississippi.
D. In July 1684 four ships with 300 more colonists set sail for Louisiana in
search of the Mississippi but landed instead at Matagorda Bay.
II. The French Flag Flies Over Texas
A. La Salle and the colonists built the outpost Fort St. Louis and flew the
French flag.
B. La Salle left the colonists to find other settlements and returned to Fort
St. Louis to find that one ship had sailed back to France and the other
had been wrecked on a sandbar.
C. Most of the stranded colonists died because of crop failure, disease, and
fighting with Karankawas.
D. Although La Salle was murdered on March 19, 1687, he had managed to
shift the focus of Spanish interest from western Texas to eastern Texas.
Lesson 5-1
I. Spain Looks to Texas
A. In 1682 Spanish friars founded the mission of Corpus Christi de la Ysleta
near present-day El Paso.
B. During the 1690s Spain concentrated on building missions, presidios, and
towns in eastern Texas, near Louisiana.
II. A Tejas Mission
A. De León led his troops northeast and met a large group of Hasinai people.
They called them the Tejas, a word meaning “friend.”
B. In 1690 Father Damian Massanet established the mission San Francisco de
las Tejas near the present-day town of Weches.
III. A Mission Abandoned
A. The mission failed because crops failed, disease killed many Native
Americans, and the Tejas rejected the Catholic religion.
B. The experiment strengthened Spain’s claim to Texas.
C. From 1693 to 1714, Spanish settlements along the Rio Grande flourished.
D. Mission San Juan Bautista was located five miles from the Rio Grande. It
eventually grew into a complex of three missions, a presidio, and a town
and was called “Mother of Texas Missions.”
IV. France Threatens Again
A. The French established colonies throughout the Mississippi Valley several
years after La Salle’s venture in the 1680s.
B. French traders won Native Americans’ friendship and made large
profits trading.
C. The French governor appointed Louis de St. Denis, who had traded
successfully
with Native Americans in Louisiana, to negotiate with the Spanish
officials on the Rio Grande.
D. The Spanish became alarmed, thinking that the French were trying to
occupy East Texas.
E. Although St. Denis insisted that France had no plans to occupy East Texas,
the Spanish viceroy ordered new missions to be built in East Texas, and
trade between the Spanish and French was stopped.