Transcript for:
European Exploration and Colonization

the european exploration and ultimate colonization of the western hemisphere or as we will call it in this lecture the americas resulted from several key developments during the 15th century among these were dramatic intellectual changes and scientific discoveries that were brought about by the renaissance era added into this was sustained population growth in europe which had the effect of transforming religion transforming warfare transforming family life and ultimately transforming national economies in addition to all of these key developments the resurgence of old devices old vices such as greed and conquest and exploitation oppression racism and slavery all of these things help to fuel european expansion abroad what we want to do in this lecture is we want to explore this idea and these concepts of european uh exploration and colonization of the western hemisphere between the 15th century and the 18th century that's the 1400s and the 1700s and what we'll do here is we'll seek to understand three main concepts the first why did europeans ultimately explore the americas or the western hemisphere number two why did europeans colonize the western hemisphere or the americas and then finally where in the americas did some of the more dominant european powers explore and colonize so what we're doing in this lecture is we're starting at a very high elevation and we're lowering we're diving deep right and that's how we'll we'll approach it so let's start with the first one why did europeans explore the western hemisphere among the many causes for amer for european exploration of the western hemisphere the primary or the principal cause was trade going all the way back to the second century bce uh eurasian trade routes had been established between some of the the rising kingdoms of europe and the markets of asia this map shows you some of the principal trade routes that existed the one in red is perhaps the most famous or the most iconic of these trade routes and it was known as the silk road these trade routes had the effect of combine of of increasing the national economies of both asia but especially of europe now these trade routes which existed for thousands of years were obstructed in 1453 by the establishment of the ottoman empire now the ottoman empire's origins go all the way back to the 11th century to the 13th century but it was in 1453 that the ottoman empire which was you can see on this map here in a principal position straddling most of these eurasian trade routes in 1453 the ottoman empire and put in place an embargo of all trade between the east and the west and this had the effect of eliminating then europe's traditional trade routes to asia such as the silk road and other water routes through what we know today as the suez canal and even markets or even trade routes that went around the tip of africa now why is this important the ottoman empire's embargo in 1453 of all trade between europe and asia this is what historians agree sparked the age of exploration and discovery now if you don't see where we're going here see what's happened is that europe is going to be searching for an alternative trade route to asia because its traditional trade routes have now been obstructed by the ottoman empire beginning in the 1450s and so this is why historians agree uh europeans began to explore and quote unquote discover now what you see on this map here are a whole bunch of primary european voyages of exploration which began in the 1400s and lasted all the way into the 1500s you'll notice on this map that most of these voyages are leaving europe and they're not heading east they're going west and here's why this is the geonose map of 1457. it's an excellent representation of what europeans conceptualize the world to be educated europeans and educated asians understood the world to be round by the 15th century what they didn't know was just how big it really was so this map shows you what europeans and asians believe to be the known world in the 15th century now let's let's remove all of the detail here and just look at its at itself it's remarkably accurate is one thing that you'll notice but if this was the known world to europeans at the time and you can't go from east to west anymore uh uh west to east anymore and this is why europeans began to go to the west believing that if they sailed from europe headed to the west they would eventually circumvent the globe and arrive in asia thereby bypassing the embargo established by the ottoman empire and establishing re-establishing in this case trade routes with the profitable economies of asia so this map here is what's showing you this right this is why all of those uh these the voyages you see leaving europe are headed west and what you see is they begin to run in to a brand new continent so what we want to do now is we want to talk then about the european exploration of the western hemisphere what happened once europeans headed out here well what did they end up doing in this western hemisphere and that's what we want to talk about next now we know with hindsight that europeans are going to ultimately colonize this western hemisphere that they're going to bump into on their way hopefully to asia so let's talk for a second about some of the principal reasons europeans are going to end up colonizing this western hemisphere and the first and one of the most important was religion and what i mean by this is there were a lot of religious motivations for europeans to explore and then to colonize the americas and one religious motivation was to extend christianity to expand it by spreading christianity to the native inhabitants of the americas and forcing them um or urging them but mostly forcing them to convert to christianity so there was a religious motivation for europeans to explore and to colonize in the americas uh in terms of converting the native inhabitants of the americas to christianity but another reason uh involving religion that amer that europeans would explore and colonize was religion at home there were a lot of religious groups in europe that were fringe on outside the mainstream christianity uh and these were groups that were heavily persecuted for example the pilgrims which we'll talk about later and that's depicted here in this painting so there were a lot of europeans that were going to flee europe and to colonize in the americas because of the religious persecution they faced at home uh is also conflict in europe between protestants and catholics if you were a catholic living in a protestant kingdom or a protestant nation you would have been persecuted and vice versa so there were a lot of religious groups that would leave because of that and then finally there was a religious motivation for some in europe to come to the new world to establish model societies right to establish uh perfect societies that blended the exact amount of religion and and government in one and one of these groups was of course known as the puritans which we will talk about uh in a later lecture so religion played a very big role here in leading to not only european exploration of the americas but also european colonization of the america another motivation was wealth we're going to see here in a second that there was a lot of wealth to be made in the americas and the quickest way to make wealth would be to get your hands on gold europeans were always convinced there were just millions upon millions of dollars of just gold right just tangible gold that was anywhere all you had to do was explore the americas and you'd find this gold it would be hard you just had to search for it and gold was of course the currency of the realm back then everything was backed by gold gold was how they measured uh themselves against one another and so wealth uh in terms of gold was a big motivation for europeans to come over here explore and ultimately cause but it wasn't just about gold most people that came here weren't able to actually find gold in fact the overwhelming majority of them weren't however the new world or the americas could be exploited for its natural resources and so the establishment of lucrative industries like the tobacco industry could generate you tremendous amounts of wealth right wealth that you would not have been able to attain by the uh by remaining in europe uh additionally the fur industry the fur trade which was instrumental for a lot of europeans uh acquisition of wealth and was a principal motive for europeans to come over here was instrumental in convincing people uh in addition the lumber industry right just fresh forests that have never been harvested before and so what i'm going for here is that if if you ca if europeans came and searched for gold some found it most didn't but they came in search of wealth and there were other alternative methods of getting wealth right instead of just gold lumber fur natural resources uh agricultural commodities like indigo sugar and we as we saw there a second ago tobacco so not only did you have religious motivations but you had motivations of what and then you had glory added into all of this was a massive competition among the dominant european powers to be the best and conquering new lands and conquering new peoples and absorbing that territory and absorbing that that territory's wealth uh gained you influence gained you power in the world and it was all about furthering the glory of your mother country whether it be england whether it be france whether it be spain or whether it be portugal so if you're trying to understand why europeans ultimately colonized the western hemisphere or the americas it came down to what historians call god gold and glory but it's more complicated than that we're talking about things like wealth right things that could make you wealthy we're talking about not just christianizing native americans but also escaping religious persecution and we're talking about glory furthering glory for your country in some cases for the furthering glory simply for yourself so we've looked now at why europeans explored the americas and we've looked now at why europeans would want to colonize the americas what we want to do to finish out this you this lecture here is we want to talk a little bit about why or where exactly uh did some of the more dominant european powers explore and colonize the first dominant european power i want to discuss was the most dominant european power of the 15th century 16th century and well on into the 17th century and that is of course spain this map shows you that spain was a primary driving force behind the first exploration and ultimately then colonization of the americas spain had established itself by the 15th century as the principal power of europe the principal power broker it was incredibly wealthy incredibly influential incredibly powerful and as a result it explored almost every portion of the americas and in the end as you can see by this map uh ended up creating quite an empire in terms of its colonies in the americas they had colonies in north america central america as well as virtually half of south america so let's talk for a second about spanish exploration and colonization by looking at some of the more famous of these explorers that explored on behalf of spain and oddly enough uh the first one which most of us uh that have grown up in this country uh know of wasn't even actually a spaniard his name was christopher columbus and he was actually italian uh columbus who had grown up uh on uh on a boat basically i mean the guy from a very young age was uh was a very good navigator he was a horrible uh uh governor of of of colonies in the new world and he ends up going down to history as one of the more genocidal maniacs of the of of history but columbus was an italian explorer that was hired by the spanish crown to in 1492 to actually go westward and find asia a establish that westward water route all the way to asia and so in 1492 that's what he did now he thought in 1492 when he arrived in the americas on an island that we know today as a hispaniola uh he believed he had found that water route he believed he had landed in asia and he believed he believed he was in india and so he called the native inhabitants indians and he kept telling everybody we have found india we have found our water route to asia um it turns out he was wrong and he went to his grave uh believing that he had found it or you know that he had landed in asia that this new world or this new continent that he had discovered to the west and i'm using discovering very strong quotation marks uh he went to his grave believing that it was asia now columbus isn't really that much of an important figure except for the fact that when he returned to europe he sparked a tremendous amount of influence among europeans not just in spain not just in italy but also in europe and also in england and france and portugal uh to explore um you know he was kind of the litmus test if if he could find something well then then he's found something let's go and when you combine the idea that that columbus's exploits in 1492 coincided also with the emergence of the printing press in europe that meant that columbus's uh exploits and his uh his voyages were widely widely known and this just had columbus if he's significant for any reason it's because of that he just had a tremendous influence in sparking this this interest among a lot of europeans to explore but since columbus went to his grave believing he had only found asia the title of the americas is held by the second important explorer on behalf of spain another italian and a cartographer that's a map maker his name was amerigo vespucci now amerigo vespucci uh you see on this map here in 1499 uh he was the first to realize by mapping right huge portions of south america he was the first to realize that this was not asia that this was a much larger continent than previously believed uh it was a very densely populated continent so he was the first to kind of say this is not asia and as a result uh europeans would describe the new world quote-unquote as the americas in his name and so this map shows you where america vespucci was exploring uh what he's going to end up doing here along with columbus is he will establish for the spanish kind of a base of operations which was known as the spanish west indies this would have included some of the major islands that we know today is cuba hispaniola puerto rico and this was kind of going to be the launching pad for spanish explorations and ultimately spanish colonizations of the new world so what you have with columbus and what you have with america vespucci is you have you know the this this realization that this is not asia something bigger is going on here and we need a base of operations to begin exploring this vast new world and that's what uh begins to happen so let's start talking then about some of the spanish explorers then of not these are guys that are not looking for a water route that's given up on now these are guys that are looking to explore this new continent and the first that's worth mentioning is uh balboa who was a spanish explorer and conquistador and conquistador is a spanish term that means a conqueror and that's really what balboa was now the expedition of balboa in 1512 1510 to 1513 he was in a way looking for a water route through this vast new continent but what what all of these guys that i'm about to talk about are doing is they're really for spain just laying claim to vast portions of the continent so this shows you where balboa was he was exploring uh portions and colonizing portions of northern south america there in central america as well uh he lands you know you can see there he lands and realizes that it's not a very long distance between the two uh land uh portions here uh but balboa is worth so to his uh palms de leon he was also a spanish explorer conquistador this map shows you the voyage of de leon he's going to be exploring portions of what is today florida uh so he'll be kind of the first to to be looking at portions of north america that will become the united states one day then there's of course ferdinand magellan he's a portuguese explorer however he was uh hired by the spanish government the spanish crown magellan is of course famous because he'll be the first to circumnavigate the entire globe so what he did is he came down from spain and he traveled all along the coast of south america eventually finding his way around and then he's off to the races after that uh another spanish explorer and conquistador worth knowing is famous or infamous hernan cortez cortez was the explorer for spain that explored central america he was the one that uh quote unquote discovered the aztec empire and of course overthrew it this is why he was he's very infamous but you can see cortez's exploits here in his conquest of mexico uh in the early 1500s another famous spanish explorer that's worth shooting is of course cabeza de vaca uh very famous uh figure from not only spanish history world history american history but also texas history uh cabeza de vaca was not the uh the person in charge of this exploration that originally was going to explore the coast of uh florida where ponce de leon was and they were going to be exploring the gulf of mexico but they had a shipwreck in galveston de vaca was one of the survivors and then he had quite an odyssey after that as he was adopted into a native american tribe and was considered to be a healer because he was he was a doctor and you know he was able to help native americans in ways they've never seen before they thought he was a some type of shaman you know they thought he was some type of uh special healer uh that's pretty much what kept him alive and he he just wandered uh portions of the the american uh the north american southwest until he finally made his way back to mexico city in 1536. love to talk more about him but we just don't have time nothing to spanish exploring conquistadors francisco pizarro he is the one that begins exploring portions of south america on the western coast and laying claim to that area of the continent for spain he is also the one that is responsible for throwing overthrowing the inca empire there's a map that shows you his his expeditions there in the 1520s on into the 1530s another famous or infamous spanish explorer in conquistador is hernando de soto de soto was the first uh spaniard many probably the first european into portion of north america that we know today as the southern states where he lands in what is today florida and and with his men on an expedition up through uh what we know today is georgia and south carolina and mississippi and alabama um he didn't he didn't make it out of there obviously but so again spain laying claim to these areas and the last one i'm going to talk to you about concerning this is uh perhaps uh one of the more famous and and very very infamous uh francisco de coronado uh he was the one that led the expedition in 1540 uh up into the american what is today the american southwest uh where he made uh numerous numerous uh engagements and and interactions with native american tribes and you can see he was even in a portion of texas there in palodera canyon so this is where some of the more famous spanish explorers or explorers on behalf of spain were exploring and these are the areas then of north america that spain was uh not only exploring but ultimately colonizing another european power worth mentioning is the portuguese now the portuguese very small nation uh even in the 15th century but profoundly important in terms of exploring and colonizing uh portions of the americas because it is out of the portuguese exploration that we got the establishment of uh the colony of brazil and that title is given to uh pedro cabrillo uh he was a portuguese explorer and conqueror he did not mean to establish the colony of brazil he actually was using the south american coastline as a just a place to refi refit and refuel and resupply before he made his larger trip to india but while he was there in a portion of south america he and his men were able to conquer this area and establish uh that area of south america in the name of portugal so he's worth knowing because the portuguese were instrumental in the establishment or at least the the exploration and the colonization of south america uh let's turn now quickly to the french uh talk briefly about a couple of french explorers the french were exploring principally areas of far north america and the first french explorer worth mentioning is uh cartier and and and what he's doing is he is actually looking for a water route through this new continent that has been uh uncovered by the europeans and so he is primarily uh exploring up around what is today the uh the state of maine and the islands of newfoundland uh and he is the one that will find in 1535 he will uh begin to set sail down the st lawrence river and he'll be establishing trading posts along the way that will give rise to cities like quebec and uh montreal he's of course unsuccessful in finding that water route through um through the north american continent uh but he'll be followed by another famous french explorer and actually the founder of the larger colony in in north america known as new france this is samuel de champlain and he will pick up where cartier left off he will continue to push down that st lawrence river he will push into the great lakes region and what he will begin to establish is not only a vast colony known as new france which is all this area here in uh in blue but he will establish along the way countless trading posts uh where the french will trade with native americans anything native americans will want in exchange for fur that the french will then sell in the markets of europe for great great price now what's happened here with the french is that they will essentially create a colony along the major rivers and waterways of this area you see on the map of north america this will include then the great lakes area the st lawrence river in north where you get quebec and montreal they'll also establish trading villages along the ohio river where they'll establish places like louisville which is louisville kentucky today they'll establish places along the mississippi river places like saint louis and then also at the mouth of the mississippi river they'll establish the port city of new orleans so this is where the french are exploring this is where they are ultimately colonizing we're going to finish by looking at the english and briefly talk about one very important english explorer and then we're going to talk about the first attempt by the english to colonize the americas now you can see on the map here the the english were ultimately able to establish a global empire but we want to focus there on north america and uh the americas themselves and you can see that the english didn't have much of a presence in south america had a little bit of a presence in central america they had an even bigger presence in the caribbean sea but the the the place the english had the most influence and established the most prosperous colonies were going to be on what is today the eastern seaboard of the united states um and so that's what we'll focus on here and we're going to talk about an explorer that was italian by birth but he was hired by the english to explore now i already mentioned that news of the remarkable voyages right of columbus and of vespucci had this uh way of really stimulating a lot of interest among a lot of europeans to lead expeditions to the west to see what was there and to see if they could carve out something for themselves and the english were no exception uh in fact they jumped on board fairly early in this process when they hired sorry the king of england at the time king henry the uh the the seventh uh hired uh this italian by the name of giovanni cabato now he is known by his english version of his name by john cabot and cabot who was hired by the king of england set sail for the americas in 1497 so fairly early compared to a lot of what the spanish were doing as well as the portuguese and he actually made landfall uh along the coast of the island that we know today is newfoundland and it was called that because uh king henry called the the land that cabot set his eyes on uh quote the new found land and so the the name stuck now cabin didn't do a lot of exploring here but he was important for this regard he was the first european explorer to actually set his set their eyes on the north american continent before this columbus had only set his eyes on the caribbean and vespucci only his eyes on south america so it was actually john cabot and the english experiment in exploration that would be the ones that would set their eyes on the north american continent now cabot actually never made it home on his return voyage his his expedition disappeared but he holds kind of the title as kind of the first significant english explorer now it wasn't going to be until the 1580s during the reign of queen elizabeth the first who was one of the most one of the more significant and longest-serving monarchs of england very influential in english history english efforts to colonize the americas wasn't going to begin until uh really the middle of her reign the 1580s or so and the way it started was in 1584 queen elizabeth requested an english explorer by the name of sir walter raleigh here's raleigh right here to organize a colonizing mission uh to go to north to the north american coast and uh you know when the queen asks you to do something that you you do it and so siralta raleigh organized the uh an expedition that ended up discovering quote unquote discovering the outer banks of what is today the state of north carolina uh where he established a very small colony uh just kind of dipping their toe in the water here as it were he established a small colony on an island in those outer banks known as roanoke island the entire area raleigh named virginia in honor of queen elizabeth the first who was uh known as the virgin queen so this is where the word virginia ultimately came from now uh this was not going to be a success initially in 1584 in fact he tried a couple of other expeditions in 1585 and in 1586 and so these were all kind of false starts but in 1587 uh raleigh organized a much larger expedition to this area uh now he wasn't going to personally lead it he was just going to sponsor it the guy he put in charge of it was a guy by the name of john white uh it's not that important but the this this expedition had uh about a hundred colonists uh included 26 women uh and it included some children too so the purpose of this expedition was to actually settle right permanently you don't send women and you don't send children unless you're actually going to make a new life for yourself here this is in 1587 and uh they spent a whole month right launching this settlement on the roanoke island but then john white the the guy that raleigh hired to make this settlement he returned to england uh with a promise and another saying that he would uh return as soon as he could with more supplies and he actually left behind his daughter and granddaughter when he did this um his his granddaughter by the way if anybody is familiar with american history was a virginia dare uh who was actually the first english-born child in the americas anyway uh when he was set to return uh to england or to return to virginia he got delayed and the reason he got delayed is that uh the english were now locked in a pretty big war called the english spanish war with with the spanish and so he was uh uh recruited and and pressed into service uh for the crown uh and so his return to virginia with all these supplies for these colonists that he essentially dumped there uh was delayed and he was not able to actually return to the area until 1590 right he left him there in 1587 with an understanding he would come back with supplies and he couldn't return until 1590. and when he returned in 1590 the the colony that he had left was abandoned uh and what dwellings were there were pillaged and the only thing really that remained of these colonists that he left there was uh on a on a post to the uh on a tree to the entrance to the village they had established was the word croatoan and white believed this was the colonists telling them that they were having to abandon roanoke for some reason and that they were moving south to uh croatoan island which is uh at the very bottom of this map just south of roanoke island uh it's about 50 miles away where apparently some friendly indians lived and so the thought process by white is that they abandoned roanoke they went to croatoan island uh to go and live with some friendly indians now they searched this area but only briefly uh they couldn't devote a lot of time and a lot of energy they needed to get home and they were unable to locate these colonists they were unable to locate any remnant of these colonists and so these colonists just simply vanished and they were then referred to as the the lost colony of roanoke and you know historians come up with all these crazy ideas as what happened to these colonists but probably what happened was they they suffered some type of drought maybe uh perhaps a hurricane uh maybe they ran out of food you know they and so they had to go further south uh and they probably either lived there for a few years uh before native americans wiped them out or you know who really knows anyway this was the lost colony of roanoke now whatever the fate right whatever the fate of these lost colonists were there were no english settlements in north america when queen elizabeth died in 1603. on the other hand the spanish controlled just about every colonial outpost on the continent now this was about to change because inspired by the success of the spanish in exploiting the new world it turns out that the english the english would soon develop a colonial empire of their own