Age of
Exploration
The Powers That Be (Were)
 The “Big Three” countries in Europe who were
competing for land were…
France
England
Spain
The Three G’s
All three countries explored for the same reasons:
“The Three G’s”
Gold
God
Glory
Why they set out
 Gold: Natural resources and precious metals
brought many explorers. Native American
tales of cities of gold like El Dorado in
South America and Cibola in North America
also spread around Europe.
 God: Missionaries where sent to spread
Christianity to native groups.
 Glory: Wanted to become famous and
wealthy for adding land to their empires.
 Travel/Trade: Wanted to find a route to trade
with Asia by sea, for faster trade.
Technology
 Sailors now had instruments such as the
astrolabe and the compass to find new routes.
 More accurate maps allowed sailors to travel
from one port to the next using the open sea
and not having to follow the coast.
 Shipbuilding, especially by the Portuguese,
made new ships with better sails and better
steering.
Spain
Conquistadors
Spain jumped out to an early lead in the race
for empire.
In 1492, Christopher Columbus claimed
the Americas for Spain.
Within a few years, Spanish explorers had
brought amazing amounts of riches back to
Spain.
Hernán Cortés conquered the Aztecs in
1521. Mexico (New Spain) became the
center of Spanish rule in the New World.
More conquistadors (conquerors)
followed . . .
Conquistadors
Did I turn
off the
coffee pot
before we
left???
This metal
underwear
is killing
me!!!
Who
brought the
map???
Cabeza de Vaca
In 1527, survivors of a failed
Spanish expedition to Florida
were shipwrecked on
(probably) Galveston Island.
One of them, Álvar Núñez
Cabeza de Vaca, spent
several years living with local
Indian tribes (including the
Karankawa and
Coahuiltecans).
Cabeza de Vaca
It took Cabeza de Vaca
8 years to walk from
Texas to the Pacific
Ocean.
He later wrote a book
about his experiences
called La Relación
(The Report).
In it, he mentioned
Indian legends about
Cibola, the Seven
Cities of Gold.
Francisco Coronado
In 1540, Coronado led a large
expedition from New Mexico to search
for Cibola.
He found . . . no gold. Coronado did not
treat the Indians he met very well,
killing or enslaving many of them.
Also, horses from his expedition
escaped and bred. Much later, the
Plains Indians like the Comanche
learned how to tame them and become
extraordinary hunters and warriors.
France
France Moves In
(and Spain is NOT happy about it)
Meanwhile, France was exploring further
east. In 1682, René-Robert Cavalier, Sieur
de La Salle canoed down the Mississippi
River.
He claimed the whole region for France
and named it Louisiana in honor of the
French king.
In 1684, King Louis XIV gave La Salle 4
ships to sail to the mouth of the Mississippi
and set up a colony there (before the
Spanish could interfere).
But La Salle sailed too far and actually
landed near Matagorda Bay in Texas.
La Salle
La Salle built Fort St.
Louis in 1685.
In 1687, en route to
Canada to gain help for
his beleaguered
colony, the explorer
was ambushed and
killed by several of his
men in east Texas.
The next year,
Karankawa Indians
attacked the fort and
killed all the settlers.
France vs. Spain
VS
Spain hears about La Salle’s expedition and becomes
concerned about French ambitions. A Spanish expedition
sent to destroy the fort finds it ruined in 1689.
Is France after Mexico?
Since Texas lies between Spanish Mexico and French
Louisiana, Spain takes a renewed interest in exploring and
settling Texas. Spain decides to develop a system of
missions and presidios to assert their control over their
The MissionPresidio System
The MissionPresidio System
 A mission was a settlement set up in Indian territory by Spanish
Friars, members of the clergy who belonged to religious groups
called “orders.”
 Friars invited natives to live at the missions and learn about
Christianity and the language and customs of Spain.
 The goal of missions was to transform natives into Christians
who were loyal to Spain
A typical Spanish
crucifix of the mission
era.
A reconstructed scene of Mission San
Jose by artist Ernst Schuchard helps
bring the color and cultures of the
Spanish mission to life.
The MissionPresidio System
 Missionaries believed that after about 10 years, they could
move on and leave behind Spanish settlements, which worked
well in Mexico.
 Presidios were forts that protected missions from unfriendly
natives and helped control the natives living in the missions.
 Soldiers from the presidios caught natives who ran away from
the missions.
The MissionPresidio System
 In 1718 , a Spanish expedition went to Texas to find a good
halfway point between the Rio Grande and East Texas.
 The Spanish picked an area on the San Antonio river and built
Mission San Antonio de Valero, a site offering many benefits
to its settlers.
 The Spanish soon built a presidio nearby called San Antonio de
Bexar (BEH-hahr), proving to be one of the most important
communities in Spanish Texas.
 The site of this mission is today known as the Alamo.
Problems
with the MissionPresidio System
 An epidemic is the rapid spread of a disease over a short
period of time. Thousands of natives died due to epidemics,
and some entire tribes died out.
 The survivors often blamed the Spanish and became hostile.
 While some natives devoted themselves to Christianity and
took up ranching and farming, many natives refused to accept
the Spanish lifestyle of living in missions and working the land.
England
England
 The British sent explorers around the same time, but
were late to the scene in terms of colonization
 Because there was no money left after war with Spain,
private funds rather than royal treasury funded English
settlement in North America.
 Joint-stock companies, the forerunner of the modern
corporation, were formed to establish colonies.
Individuals bought stock in the companies, which paid
for ships and supplies, hoping to realize a profit from
their investment.
England vs. France
VS
Both sides traded for fur with the Native Americans living in
the Ohio Valley. British colonists kept pushing farther
westward into France’s territory in search of more land to
farm.
This escalated into the Seven Years War when France
captured British trading posts and built Fort Duquesne at the
present day site of downtown Pittsburgh.
Initially France dominated the battlefield, but England
succeeded in either forming alliances with or otherwise
convincing France’s Native American allies to abandon her.
Problems
with the MissionPresidio System
 When France lost the Seven Years War to Great Britain in
1763, they decided to cede (formally give up ownership)
Louisiana to Spain.
 Since Spain no longer had to worry about competing with
France for Texas and Louisiana territory, in 1767 they decided
to send Marqués de Rubí to Texas to review their North
American colonies.
Problems
with the MissionPresidio System
 Rubí reported that Spanish power was spread too thin, and
Comanche and Apache attacks on missions and presidios
were only getting worse.
 As a result of Rubí’s findings, Spain decided to close most of
the missions and presidios in Texas. By the 1770s, only a few
remained and although Spain still claimed much of North
America, they didn’t have enough people living there to actually
control it.
Portugal
What about the Natives?
Remember the Columbian Exchange?
While contact with Europeans provided the Indians with
horses, better weapons, cloth and metal, it also
meant they were exposed to diseases like smallpox.
Perhaps as many as 80-90% of Native Americans were
eventually killed by those European diseases.