1. First Encounters

2. Objectives Identify the goals of Christopher Columbus.
Explain the consequences of his journey to the Americas.
Analyze the effects of European contact with the people of the Americas.

3. Terms and People
Bartolomeu Dias – Portuguese mariner who sailed around southern Africa in 1487
Vasco da Gama – Portuguese mariner who sailed around southern Africa to India in 1498
Christopher Columbus – Italian mariner sailing for Spain who in 1492 sailed west to reach Asia but reached the islands of the Caribbean instead
John Cabot – Genoese mariner employed by the English who sailed to Newfoundland in 1497

4. Terms and People (continued)
Pedro Alvarez Cabral – Portuguese mariner who reached the coast of Brazil in 1500
Amerigo Vespucci − Genoese mariner who explored South America’s coast in 1501; Europeans mapmakers called the new continents America, a variant of his name
Ferdinand Magellan − mariner whose 1519−1522 expedition succeeded in encircling the globe
conquistador − Spanish soldier who explored and conquered central Mexico

5. Terms and People (continued)
Hernán Cortés − conquistador who invaded present-day Mexico in 1519 and conquered the Aztecs
Moctezuma − Aztec ruler  
Columbian Exchange − the global exchange of plants, animals, ideas, and diseases between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas after Columbus made his first transatlantic voyage in 1492

6. In the 1400s, the Portuguese sought a route to India, the East Indies, and China.
Bartolomeu Dias
In 1487, Dias used the winds of the South Atlantic to get around the southern tip of Africa.
Vasco da Gama
In 1498, da Gama exploited Dias’s discovery to reach India, opening an enormously profitable trade route.
The Portuguese dominated the trade routes south and east around Africa.

7. Routes of Exploration

8. By default, the Spanish looked westward into the open Atlantic.
The Spanish hoped to find islands in the west that they could exploit.
They also hoped that, by leaping from one set of islands to another, explorers could one day reach the coveted coast of China.

9. The Italian mariner Christopher Columbus had heard stories about mysterious lands to the west.
Columbus was determined to make a westward voyage in search of China.
He hoped to convert the Chinese to Christianity and use their wealth to begin a new crusade against Islam.

10. Columbus Comes upon a New World
Christopher Columbus persuaded the Spanish to support his expedition on their behalf.
On October 12, 1492, he and his crew landed on an island in the Caribbean (the Bahamas).
Columbus returned in 1493 to the Caribbean island of Hispaniola.

11. John Vanderlyn
Artist
Oil on canvas 12' x 18'  1846; placed in 1847 Rotunda U.S. Capitol

12. Constantino Brumidi
Artist
Frieze of American History Rotunda U.S. Capitol
Brumidi created a sketch for the Rotunda frieze in 1859 but was not authorized to begin work until 1877.

18. Did Columbus “discover” America?
Intro and 4:00

19. Columbus’s Voyages,

20. Conquistadors extended Spain’s empire in the Americas, treating Native Americans brutally in the process.
The Spanish killed or enslaved thousands of Native Americans.
Many were forced to convert to Christianity.
The Spanish destroyed their cities, stole their gold, and exploited their natural resources.

21. With steel-edged swords, guns, and horses, the conquistadors destroyed native civilizations.
Hernán Cortés conquered the Aztecs.
Francisco Pizarro defeated the Incas.

22. Europeans who came to the Americas in the 1400s began the Columbian Exchange.
Plants, animals and diseases were exchanged between the two worlds.
This affected Native Americans in both positive and negative ways, but they adapted.
People in Europe increased their yields by growing plants from the Americas.

23. The Columbian Exchange

25. The Columbian Exchange helped trigger enormous population shifts around the world.
European Population Growth
Large harvests aided by new American crops caused the European population to grow from 80 million in 1492 to 180 million by 1800.
Native American Population Decline
The Native American proportion of the global population collapsed from 7 percent in 1492 to less than 1 percent in 1800.