Europeans in North America

Unit 2 Lesson 1

European Exploration

• Europeans traded with Asians mostly by land.– Travel was slow, difficult, and dangerous

• Europeans began to look for faster and safer ways to reach Asia– Christopher Columbus– Spanish conquistadors

The Spanish Reach North America

• August 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed west from Spain across the Atlantic Ocean hoping to reach Asia

• October reached the island of San Salvador in the Caribbean Sea– Thought this island was part of Asia– Native Americans named “Indians” after the Indes

in Asia– He reached North America instead (unknown land).

• Columbus returned to Spain with: plants, animals, gold, Native Americans from San Salvador

Spanish-Asian Trade Routes

Conquistadors

• The Spanish had claimed vast areas of land in North and South America by the 1500s.– Conquistadors Spanish explorers

• Native Americans lived in many of the areas that the Spanish claimed– Many were defenseless (no horses or weapons)– Died from diseases European explorers and

soldiers accidentally brought over

• Europe Comes to the New World

The Spanish and French

• Europeans established colonies in the Americas to strengthen their claims of the land.– Colony a settlement that is ruled by a faraway

government

• Reasons for colonies:– find gold or riches– religious freedom

• For a free voyage, indentured servants promised to work in the colonies for a number of years.

North America: 1750

The Spanish and the French

• Not all people who came to the colonies were there by choice.

• Native Americans = slaves– (slavery the practice of holding people against

their will and forcing them to work)– Tend to crops– Mine gold and silver

• Traders captured Africans and sold them as slaves to Europeans in the colonies.

• Africans also sold their own people for money.

New Spain

• New Spain– Land stretched from present-day Central America to

California– Also had lands in the Caribbean and what is now Florida

• Many colonies began as missions.– Missions religious settlements

• Priests were missionaries.– Missionaries people who teach their religion to

others• Goal = spread Christianity & strengthen New Spain

New Spain

New France

• The French explored and claimed lands in present-day eastern Canada.

• 1608 first French settlement in North America was founded = Quebec

• Reason for settlement = fur trade– European companies sent fur hunters and

trappers to North America & traded with Native Americans for fur

New France

• New France– Midwest region of the United States

• Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle explored the majority of this land from 1669 – 1673 – May have been the first European to see the

Ohio River

Rene-Robert Cavalier, Sieur de La Salle

New France

The English Colonies

• The English settled mostly in present-day central Canada and the eastern United States (Atlantic Coast)

• Jamestown first English settlement, 1607– Present-day Virginia

• Plymouth, MA Pilgrims settled in 1620 for freedom to practice their religion

13COLONIES

The English Colonies

• Europeans fought for years over land and trade.

• North America: – French and English wanted to control the fur

trade– Both wanted more land

• This conflict lead to war.