European Exploration and Settlement of the Americas

Spanish Exploration and Settlement

Most Europeans saw the Americas as virgin land ripe for exploitation by settlers, and their mission to civilize the indigenous peoples and put them to work.

The Columbian Exchange of plants, animals, diseases, and human societies - including ideas about religion, time, and land ownership and use - had far-reaching effects.

1 Christopher Columbus

The discoverer of America: Columbus Day is celebrated as an official holiday in most states on the second Monday of October, commemorating his landing on San Salvador (Bahamas) on 12 October 1492, although he never set foot on U.S. territory and Viking sailors had visited Newfoundland 500 years before.

Many Native Americans regard Columbus and other European explorers and settlers as the bearers of death: their population in North America was reduced to only half a million by 1650.

2 Juan Ponce de León

Participated in Columbus’s second expedition to the New World in 1493, visiting Hispaniola and Puerto Rico.

Appointed governor of a province of Hispaniola in 1504 and led the first official expedition to Puerto Rico in 1508, eventually becoming its governor and establishing the encomienda system on the island.

Granted royal contract to search for the ‘Islands of Benimy’ (Bahamas) in 1512, associated with the legend of the Fountain of Youth.

3 April 1513: took possession of La Florida, landing just north of St. Augustine.

1521 voyage: landed in Charlotte Harbor on the southwest coast of Florida; attacked by native warriors and died of a poisoned arrow wound after sailing back to Cuba.

3 Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca

Spent 8 years in the Southwest/Gulf of Mexico region, learning to respect and sympathize with the natives. Wrote a detailed account of his experiences, first published as La Relación (later Naufragios) in 1542.

Treasurer to Pánfilo de Narváez’s expedition to colonize the mainland of Florida (600 men), which arrived in Tampa Bay in April 1528. Continued on foot to northwest Florida, suffering from attack, disease, and starvation, and built 5 vessels to get to Mexico, eventually reaching the mouth of the Mississippi before 3 were lost in a hurricane.

40 survivors were enslaved for years on the Isle of Misfortune (Galveston Island), effectively turning native. • 4 men escaped, traveling through the American Southwest and Northern Mexico, finally reaching New Spain and Mexico City in 1536. • Became a trader and shaman, gathering a large group of native followers who believed in his healing powers. • Sent to Argentina as adelantado of the Río de la Plata in 1540, he clashed with the encomenderos and was sent back to Spain in disgrace in 1544, eventually dying in poverty in 1558.