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European Exploration
Of The New World
Justin Bluett
4/28/16
AP World History

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European exploration was originally supposed to help the country that each explorer came
from secure a place to colonize and receive resources from. While it did do this, it also helped
prepare the world for seeing new people and things. Europeans had many reasons for exploring
such as gold, god, glory, etc.
When the land that is known today as the United States of America was discovered by the
Europeans, they immediately claimed where they were for their country and made settlements
there. While there, they established a relationship with the people that had already inhabited the
area. This affected the rest of the world by allowing the European explorers to bring home
foreign goods to trade with other countries and Asia. This trade was called the Columbian
exchange, named after Christopher Columbus. When these goods were traded, it helped that
countrys economy and made the people that they traded these goods with want them more,
because they were not accessible to them any other way. Goods and resources were not the only
thing brought to the new world though. The European explorers and their crews brought over
diseases that were new to the natives of the land, making them unable to be prepared for these
illnesses. These diseases, specifically smallpox, ended the lives of about 90% of the natives who
never suspected anything bad would happen because of the new settlers.
When the Europeans began bringing things such as horses to the new world, they realized that
they would need thousands of people in order to do the work that they would have to in order to
continue living there. Once they realized that, they began using the people that had inhabited the
area before, because they were gentle and kind people who were easily able to be enslaved. Later

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they began bringing Africans from their homeland to work for them because they did not have
enough people to complete the work they needed done.
The slaves being brought from Africa was the last step in establishing triangular trade.
Triangular trade was the trade between Africa, the Americas, and Europe. Europe would send
cloth, beads, guns, etc. to Africa in exchange for slaves which would then be sent to the
Americas, which would then be traded for sugar, cotton, tobacco, etc. which would then be sent
to Europe.
Later, since Christopher Columbus had come upon the new world, many more explorers from
many different countries began to sail to the new world. The main countries to explore the new
world were Spain, England, and France, although Portugal had also been exploring the new
world.

Ponce de Leon, Hernando de Soto, Amerigo Vespucci, Hernando Cortes, and Francisco
Pizarro all discovered and claimed more land for Spain, which only made Spains influence on
the new world greater.

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John Cabot claimed Nova Scotia and Newfoundland for England; Jacques Cartier and Samuel
de Champlain claimed land in the new world for France.
Some Europeans came to the new world to go to a place where they can be free. In Europe
everything had to do with religion, food, clothing etc., so they came to the new world not only to
help explore, but to go where they could do what they would like to without the church and
government shaming them for it.
At the end of the sixteenth century the dominating country was Spain due to the amount of
land they had claimed in the new world and their influence on it. European exploration of the
new world helped create the first global trade system. It caused new communication and trade
routes to be established worldwide. New plants, animals, resources, and technologies were
introduced to the explorers. European exploration and colonization of the new world led directly
to the deaths of about 23 million natives.
If it werent for the European explorers, the old world wouldve never come into contact with
corn, potatoes, peanuts, tomatoes, etc.; the new world wouldve never come into contact with
rice, wheat, onions, peaches, cows, sheep, etc.
After many years of having discovered the new world, some adventurers began heading
into the unknown land. Although they sometimes resulted in good findings which were not what
was being searched for, these adventures into the unknown usually only led to misery and death:
intense climates (for Europeans, who are used to warm climates), wide plains, angry natives,
hunger and thirst, disease, and death.

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Hernando De Soto (Spanish) searched from 1539-1543 for gold, a suitable colony site, and an
overland route from Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean. Every chance they got, they ransacked the
Indians homes searching for food and anything of value. Although De Soto himself was not able
to complete the voyage due to fever on the river banks, his crew continued to Texas. At the
beginning of their voyage there were over 600 men, but in the end there were only 300 and all
they had discovered was the Mississippi River.
Francisco Coronado (Spanish) gathered over 300 soldiers and 1000 Indians to help him find
gold, god, and glory in the new world. Although, he didnt find what he was searching for, he did
find the Grand Canyon.
Samuel De Champlain (French) credited as the founder of Quebec, was also a diplomat for
the Indians (Huron) in order to create ties with the French and Indians. The French traded with
the Indians, mainly furs, and fought with them. They even introduced them to guns as they aided
them in the siege on the Iroquois, which they did not believe in using in the beginning of their
connection.
Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet (French) explored the Mississippi River in 1673 to answer
the questions is the Mississippi the route to the Pacific Ocean and are the kingdoms of Quivira
and Theguaio real. While the Mississippi was not a route to the Pacific Ocean, they were never
able to answer the second question. Before they could fulfill the second purpose of their journey,
they were frightened by the possibility of attack by the Spanish. While on their journey they
encountered Illinois Indians, catfish, and buffalo for their first time.

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With the many explorers and their crews from many different places, came the need for work
and resources, which required more people who would do the work and prepare the resources.
After Christopher Columbus had arrived and built his colony, he forced the Taino Indians to do
labor in the fields and mines of Hispaniola. Around 50,000 of them died within two years of this
forced labor due to European diseases and mistreatment. After this a new source of labor was
necessary, so the Spanish king began allowing slaves to be brought from Africa which was the
beginning of slave trade from Africa, which lasted until 1888.
The exploration of the new world also had an effect on the rest of the world. The fact that
these individuals had the courage to explore land that they had never been to allowed more
people to have that same courage to explore and learn to explore. Prince Henry opened a school
to teach people to navigate and taught navigators to sail. Bartholomew Diaz sailed to the cape of
good hope at the tip of Africa. The Portuguese created plantations and trading posts in west
Africa, and discovered a new way to India. More explorers such as John Cabot and Francisco
Pizarro conquered more of the new world, in what is now current day Mexico and Central
America. The trade of African slaves became a much larger industry due to the amount of land
that began needing workers.

Bibliography

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Mann, Charles C. 1493 Uncovering The New World Columbus Created. New York. Knopf.
2011.
Milanich, Jerald T, Milbrath, Susan. First Encounters: Spanish Explorations in the Caribbean
and the United States, 1492-1570. Florida. University of Florida. 1989.
Parsons, Timothy H. The Rule of Empires: Those Who Built Them, Those Who Endured
Them, and Why They Always Fall. United Kingdom. Oxford University. 2010.
Keen, Benjamin. Readings in Latin-American Civilization: 1492 to the Present. Boston.
Houghton Mifflin. 1955.
Sherriff, Mary D. Cultural Contact and the Making of European Art since the Age of
Exploration. Chapel Hill. University of North Carolina. 2010.

http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/amerbegin/exploration/exploration.htm

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/European_History/Exploration_and_Discovery