Spanish Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator Portuguese Established

Spanish & Portuguese

Prince Henry the Navigator • Portuguese • Established a school for navigators • Never actually sailed himself

Prince Henry the Navigator • Sponsored voyages along the African coast to: • Win the slave trade away from the Muslims • Stop Muslim expansion

Vasco da Gama 1497 -1498 • Portuguese • First to reach India from Europe by sea • Went around the Southern tip of Africa

Christopher Columbus 1492 • Italian (? ), but sailed for Spain • Wanted to sail west to reach India “It was my wish to bypass no island without taking possession…”

Christopher Columbus 1492 • Made landings in the Bahamas, Cuba & northern South America • Called the natives “Indians” because he believed that he was off coast of India

Amerigo Vespucci 1497 -1502 • Was the first to recognize that the Americas were new lands & NOT India • German geographer may have named the Americas after Vespucci

Ferdinand Magellan 1519 -1522 • Portuguese, but sailed for Spain • His crew completed the first ever circumnavigation

Ferdinand Magellan 1519 -1522 • Killed in the Philippines, but his crew returned to Spain • Significance: world is round, oceans connected, lands that Columbus discovered were not part of Asia

Magellan’s Route

Hernando Cortes 1519 -1521 • Spanish conquistador • Conquered the Aztecs

Hernando Cortes 1519 -1521 • Montezuma believed that Cortes was a god • Offered him gifts of gold • Cortes was not satisfied; killed a large # of Aztecs during a religious festival

Hernando Cortes 1519 -1521 • Spanish advantages over the Aztecs: • Guns, horses & disease

Juan Ponce de Leon 1513 • Spanish • Looking for the Fountain of Youth • Left Puerto Rico & arrived in Florida

Francisco Pizarro 1531 • Spanish • Sailed from Panama to Peru • Conquered Incas

French, Dutch & English

Samuel de Champlain 1608 • French • Founded Quebec • First permanent French settlement in the Americas

John Cabot 1497 -1498 • Italian, but sailed for England • Looking for a Northwest Passage

John Cabot 1497 -1498 • Explored coasts of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, & New England

Henry Hudson 1609 -1610 • English; sailed for the Dutch & the English • Looking for Northwest passage to India

Henry Hudson 1609 -1610 • Charted: • Much of coastal North America • The Hudson River • The Hudson Bay in Northern Canada