Motivations? Gold, Glory, and God!

Hispaniola (Haiti and Dom. Rep.), Cuba, and Puerto Rico

Native Americans – suffered terribly as they contracted European diseases

Hernan Cortes – Mexico in 1519, headed to Tenochtitlan› Formed alliances with groups

that didn’t like the Aztecs to rally an army

› Moctezuma welcomes him into the capital, quickly don’t get along

› Spaniards pushed out, retreat and plan, return and conquer Tenochtitlan – Mexico City

Francisco Pizarro – finds the Incan empire in the midst of civil war and easily takes over

Spanish forces stretch from Ecuador to Chile and continue adding most of the rest of S. America (except Brazil)

Reasons for Spaniards success?› Superior military

technology (horses, gun powder, and thick armor)

› Diseases of the Europeans

Stretched from California to S. America Catholic Church played a key role – see it

as a perfect opportunity to spread Christianity – Jesuits help a great deal

Economic Benefits are HUGE:› Raw materials exported back to Europe› Colonies can only by Spanish manufactured

goods› Silver and gold brought back by the shiploads› Sugar cane plantations› Encomienda system (labor from locals)

• Peninsulares – Iberian descent, top gvt and Cath Ch

• Creoles – American born, own plantations, ranches, and mines• Mestizos – Native American + European• Mulattoes – African + European• Lowest Classes – Native American and then

Africans

• Priest who wrote letter to the king condemning the encomienda system

• King bans enslavement of the Natives• Spain and Portugal turn to Africa for labor

Brazil is their biggest colony Also use Africans and the Native

Americans to work sugar plantations

The rest of Europe is very frustrated by Spain’s control over colonial trade

Privateers (pirates) who were Dutch, English and French begin preying on Spanish ships carrying supplies (esp. gold and silver)

European governments often encouraged and facilitated the privateers› Ex. Queen Elizabeth and Sir Francis Drake

Samuel de Champlain – first permanent settlement, Quebec, Canada – 1608

New France Louis XIV, powerful absolutist (and

Catholic) French King – prohibits Protestants from settling in France.

By early 1700s French forts, missions, and trading posts stretch from Quebec to Lousiana

Jamestown, Virginia – 1607 Plymouth, Massachusetts - 1620 1600 and 1700s – 13 English colonies

established› Commercial ventures› Havens for religious persecution

Spain, Netherlands, Portugal, England, and France

France and England emerge as major powers during the 1700s

Caribbean, North America, and India› Seven Years War – (French

and Indian War in N. America, 7 yrs war in India)

› 1763 – Treaty of Paris Britain gets land East of the

Mississippi River, France gets Canada

France forced out of India France gains some sugar-

producing islands in the Caribbean