What do you think would motivate you to go into an unknown area, risking your life in the process?

EUROPEAN EXPLORATION OF THE AMERICAS

What do you already know about European exploration?

What was the reasoning for exploring West?

What did people believe about the Earth at this time and what fears did they have about sailing?

Inspired by Marco Polo’s writings.

Convinced King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain to sponsor a voyage.

August 1492, Columbus sailed west with three small ships. Pinta, Nina, Santa Maria

Two months later, Columbus stumbled onto a group of islands on a “new world.”

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

COLUMBUS

Believing he had reached the fringe of Asia, Columbus called these islands the “West Indies.”

Called the peoples of the island “Indians” because he felt he had reached India. (Taino - TY-noh)

Claimed the island for Spain and named it San Salvador, which means “Holy Savior.”

COLUMBUSDied in 1505

By this time he had led four expeditions across the Atlantic to explore new lands he had discovered.

No voyages matched in significance. (Two reasons)

Columbus had shown the way to two vast and unmapped continents, North and South America. Many would follow in the next century.

Columbus founded the first European colony in the Americas, a small Spanish settlement on the island he called Hispaniola (“little Spain”) - From this tiny seed would grow vast colonial empires - empires that would profoundly change the lives of millions of peoples in Europe, Africa, and the Americas.

SUMMARIZE

Take one minute to summarize in your own words what we have just talked about.

THE COLUMBIAN EXCHANGETransfer of people, plants, animals, and diseases back and forth across the Atlantic.

Still continues today.

Brought valuable new crops such as corn and potatoes to Europe.

Gave many Europeans reasons to cross the Atlantic to settle in the Americas.

Brought diseases (smallpox & others) to Native Americans. 90% wiped out.

What do you believe is the most important motivation for explorers/exploration?

What countries explored North and South America

During the 1500’s, seafarers from Portugal, France, England, the Netherlands, and other European countries followed Columbus and claimed land for their home countries.

Settlers followed turning their claims into colonies.

A Colony is a settlement begun by a group of people in a distant region that is governed by their home country.

By 1700, several European nations had claimed large colonial empires.

EUROPEAN NATIONS

Spain’s empire is the oldest and most extensive stretching from the sun-drenched valleys of California through Mexico, Central America and to South America.

One of the first Spanish expeditions into North America was led by Juan Ponce de Leon. Because he sighted the lush new land on Easter Sunday 1513, he called it La Florida (short for “flowery Easter”). 8 years later returned with 200 men to establish a Spanish settlement.

Portugal came to South America in the early 1500’s, claiming half of that continent as a huge colony it called Brazil.

Treaty of Tordesillas gave Portugal the claim to present day Brazil.

Ferdinand Magellan set sail around South America and entered the Pacific Ocean. The sailors in Magellan’s crew were the first people to sail around the world.

Sweden, the Netherlands, and England all came later to settle colonies . Still by 1650, all three had founded small colonies along the Atlantic coast of North America, a region bounded by French Canada to the north and Spanish Florida to the south.

Now, what do you think might have motivated those explorers and countries to explore and settle in North and South America, and other places around the world?

God

Gold

Glory

MOTIVATION

SUMMARIZE

Take one minute to summarize in your own words what we have just talked about.

In 30 seconds write everything you know about the Pilgrims.

GO

PILGRIMS

In the 1600’s, anyone who did not conform to the teachings of the official state church, whether Catholic or Protestant, was viewed with deep suspicion and often persecuted.

Such was the fate of a humble band of worshipers in the English village of Scrooby, a group called Separatists because they set up their church separate from the official Church of England.

A Separatist names William Bradford wrote that “some were taken, and clapt up in prison, others had their houses watched day and night.”

In 1608 the Separatists left England for the Netherlands where, Bradford wrote, there “was freedom of religion for all”.

Although they had religious freedom in the Netherlands, the Separatists felt like strangers in this foreign land. In 1620 some of the Separatists decided to become Pilgrims, crossing the Atlantic to start new lives in “those vast and unpeopled countries of America.”

The Pilgrims were soon followed by more religious non-conformists: Puritans, Quakers, Catholics, Jews, and Baptists. In the colonies they hoped to be left alone to follow their faith.

SUMMARIZE

Take one minute to summarize in your own words what we have just talked about.

Besides European Explorers and Settlers, who else came West?

WHO ELSE CAME?

SOME WERE NOT PUSHED OR PULLED

One group of colonists was neither pushed nor pulled to America. Instead they were kidnapped from their homelands in Africa and brought to the new world in chains.

The Portuguese began the practice of enslavement of Africans. In 1444, a half century before Columbus sailed into history Portuguese ships began returning home from Africa with human cargoes to be sold as slaves.

African slaves sailed to America with the early Spanish explorers.

WHAT WOULD YOU NAME THIS MAP?

You are going to see an image. Describe this image in your notebook. How does it make you feel?

SLAVERY COMES TO AMERICA

The high death rate of Native Americans contributed to the introduction of African slaves to the Americas.

Some of the Spanish settlers in the Caribbean had started gold mines. Others raised sugar, a crop of great value in Europe. At first the settlers forced Indians to work for them.

Slavery had existed around the world since ancient times. Often after a people lost a war.

By the late 1400’s, European explorers in West Africa were trading guns and other goods for slaves captured by Africans.

EUROPEAN EXPLORATION OF THE AMERICAS