Download Reading Europeans Explore the New World

U.S. History
Unit 1: Building a Nation
Donaldson
Europeans Explore the New World
1.
2.
I felt called by God to explore the unknown
Atlantic. My patience finally paid off. After 15
years of waiting and two rejections by Portugal, I
persuaded King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in
1492 to accept my terms of authority and money in
the event of a successful expedition to the East
Indies. Four trips across the Atlantic left me
somewhat confused about my accomplishments.
Penniless after finding some wealth and
discouraged after failing to suppress an Indian
uprising on my colony of Hispaniola, I returned to
Spain disgraced and brokenhearted. My real
accomplishment, the discovery of a new world was
not realized until after my death when Europeans
raced to settle and exploit the Americas.
–Christopher Columbus
I left Bristol, England aboard the Mathew on May
2, 1497. My crew of 18, my son Christian, and I
landed either on Cape Breton Island,
Newfoundland, or on the coast of Labrador – no
one knows for sure, but I thought I had reached
northeastern Asia and could quickly sail south and
west to Japan. I claimed these lands for King Henry
VII of England and he was so impressed that he
gave me a large purse and additional funding for a
larger expedition in 1498. I was going to help him
acquire access to Asian goods without customs
barriers, pirates, or go-betweens. My 1498
expedition failed to find Asia, but inspired my son
Sebastian and other English explorers who
continued to search for a Northwest Passage to
Asia.
John Cabot
3.
Under the guidance of the experienced sailor,
Bartholomeu Dias, my ship rounded the Cape of
Good Hope in Southern Africa and completed a
hazardous, 13- week voyage from Portugal to
Calicut, India. I announced that we were searching
for Christians and spices, but I really hoped for
profits the new route to India seemed destined to
bring. I chose to use my ship’s 20 guns to defend
ourselves and make a show of force as part of my
effort to establish an armed commercial embassy.
My voyage gave Portugal a new trade route to the
Far East and revealed inaccuracies in Ptolemy’s
Geography, particularly with reference to the size
of the earth and shape Asia.
Vasco da Gama
4.
It was my goal to find lots of treasure like that of
the Incas captured by Francisco Pizarro or that
captured from the Aztecs by Hernando Cortez.
Legend had it that lots of treasure existed in a great
city located somewhere in the north. I also hoped
to find a passage from the Atlantic Ocean or maybe
the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. Leaving
Florida with 600 men and 213 horses in May 1539, I
proceeded to march over 350,000 miles of North
America in a four-year period. Unfortunately, the
only wealth I found was fresh-water pearls. We
fought Indians along the way, but my expedition
discovered a “large river,” which we hoped would
lead to the Pacific Ocean. I died before I could
completely navigate this might river. I left its
exploration and the quest for North American
treasure and a Northwest Passage to Asia to future
explores.
Hernando de Soto
U.S. History
Unit 1: Building a Nation
Donaldson
5.
Armed with knowledge of Balboa’s discovery of the
Pacific Ocean and more precise geography of the
eastern coast of South America, I set out in 1519 to
prove the validity of Columbus’ original plan. My
native Portugal had no interest in my plan-so I
persuaded the Spanish government to sponsor five
ships on an expedition to discover rich lands in the
East, within the Spanish sphere indicated by the
Line of Demarcation and by an all-Spanish route.
Only one of my five ships, the Victoria, completed
the three-year journey around the world. In the
seemingly endless voyage across the Pacific, my
men were reduced to gnawing leather from the
masts and eating rats and biscuits soaked with rat
urine. I was killed in the Philippines, but Sebastian
del Cano assumed my command and guided fifteen
crewmen back to Spain with precious cargo from
the East. Thus our voyage demonstrated the
vastness of the earth and the great expanse of
water separating North America and Asia.
Ferdinand Magellan
7.
My life was driven by a passion to find a northern
passage to Asia. During my four voyages that
began in 1607, I explored the Arctic seas of
northern Europe, the middle Atlantic coast of North
America, and the bay that bears my name. My trips
were never dull as I saw various bears, walruses,
whales, and even a mermaid or two. In August
1608, my men forced be me to return home, thus
ending my second voyage prematurely. My third
voyage resulted in the exploration of the nowfamous river bearing my name, and my final voyage
allowed me to penetrate the strait opening to the
great bay of the north. After a terrible winter of
suffering, my men mutinied again and sent me
adrift in a small boat to die. Without me, they
returned to England and were later acquitted of
murder in a British court. I am convinced that they
were freed only because they had seen the lands I
had discovered and could tell the English our
findings about the Northwest Passage.
Henry Hudson
6.
With royal support from King Charles V of Spain, I
made my third attempt to conquer the treasures of
the Incas of Peru in 1531. Reports indicated that
Peru’s wealth was even greater than that of
Mexico. As the illegitimate and illiterate son of
Spanish peasants, I longed for the wealth of and
prestige of other conquistadors. I was able to take
advantage of a civil war between rival factions by
posting to each side as the enemy of the other. My
task was made easier, too, because the Inca
population had already been cut in half with the
introduction of European diseases. I captured
Atahualpa, the Inca chief, and my men put him of
trial, charged him with idolatry, polygamy, and
other crimes, and executed him. The great wealth I
acquired from the Incas brought a steep rise in
prices in Europe and prompted English seadogs to
attack our ships.
Francisco Pizarro
8.
Dreaming of finding a northern Peru, I accepted my
government’s funding for expeditions in in 1534
and 1535 to find a passage to the Pacific and plant a
French colony in North America. In my early travels
I explored the Bay of Fundy and the northern coast
of Newfoundland. I braved the bitter winter,
suffered from scurvy, and faced the constant
danger of ice as I sailed up the St. Lawrence only to
encounter rapids and learn that the waterway was
a river and not the coveted strait to the Pacific
Ocean. Discovering fertile soil in the lower St.
Lawrence Valley and Indians eager to trade furs for
European trinkets seemed minor compared to my
real dream. My final disappointment was the
failure of my 1541 attempt to establish a French
colony in the northern parts of the continent. As a
result, my lack of success discouraged further
French colonization for decades to come.
Jacques Cartier
U.S. History
9.
Unit 1: Building a Nation
I first traveled to the Americas with Columbus on his
second voyage in1493. I moved with my family to the
island of Hispaniola and was appointed deputy governor.
In 1506, I discovered the island of Puerto Rico and was
ordered by the Spanish king to establish a colony there. I
remained in Puerto Rico until 1510 when I received news
that the king was replacing me as governor with
Columbus’s son. This upset me so I set out to explore
new lands located in the north. While in the Bahamas I
heard of a legendary, magical spring from local Indians
whose water was believed to make older people look
young again. My quest for the fountain of youth and lust
for gold led me to a beautiful new land in 1513 located in
the north that I called La Florida or “place of flowers.” I
explored both the east and west coasts of Florida and
helped found a settlement near St. Augustine and
another on the west coast near Charlotte Harbor. In
1521 I was seriously wounded in the thigh in an ambush
by the Calusa Indians so we abandoned our western
colony and returned to Cuba where I eventually died at
age 61, never having found the fountain of youth.
- Ponce de Leon
10. Although my mother and father were members of the
Spanish nobility, I knew that I could not expect much of
an inheritance because I was the third of four sons. Thus,
I joined the Spanish army. I made my first journey to
South America in 1500 where our expedition raided the
northeastern coast. In 1502 I used my money to establish
a pig farm on the island of Hispaniola, but I was not a
very good farmer or businessman so I fled to the Darien –
a region of dense jungle – in Panama just north of
present-day Colombia and eventually became mayor of
the city we founded, Santa Maria la Antigua de Darien.
While exploring the harsh environment of southwestern
Panama looking for gold and other possible sources of
wealth in September 1513, our expedition, which
included Francisco Pizarro, sighted a huge body of water
we named the South Sea (the Pacific Ocean today).
Tragically, before I could secure the ships and raise an
expedition to explore the South Sea, I was arrested by a
squad of soldiers led by Pizarro and charged with treason
by a Governor Davila, my chief political rival. On January
1, 1519, I was beheaded along with four of my closest
allies.
Vasco de Balboa
Donaldson
11. Growing up in western Spain, I had a reputation as an
excellent student and spent some time in law school.
Upon hearing great stories of the riches of the Americas, I
dropped out of school and sailed to Santo Domingo in
1504 and settled in Cuba in 1511 I helped the Spanish
army conquer Cuba. Hearing of a land to the west that
had just been discovered that contained great wealth, I
sailed for Mexico in 1518. Upon our landing at what is
now called Veracruz, I made an alliance with some of the
natives. From these Indians, I learned about a great
civilization in the central part of Mexico called the Aztecs
who were led by an emperor, Montezuma II. In 1519, I
set out for the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, and we arrived
after a grueling three month journey. Montezuma
welcomed us a friends by bringing many gifts ( maybe
because he thought we were gods on horseback) and we
took him hostage and demanded a huge ransom in gold.
The Aztecs soon drove us away, but we retreated to the
coast where I organized a larger force to complete our
conquest. By 1521 we had defeated the Aztecs with the
help of European diseases that they had no immunity to.
We built a new city, Mexico City, on top of the ruins of
Tenochtitlan. I was made governor of a colony called
New Spain and served from 1523-1528, but was recalled
to Spain because the king grew suspicious of my power.
While governor, I discovered and named California
before my death in 1547.
Hernando Cortez
12. Along with my cousin, John Hawkins, I went along on one
of the first slaving voyages in 1567 for England bringing
slaves from Africa to work in the New World. Our
expedition was attacked by a Spanish squadron and at
that moment the hated Spaniards became my personal,
lifelong enemy! In 1572 I commanded two ships and led
a marauding expedition against Spanish ports in the
Caribbean Sea. When returned to England with a cargo
of Spanish treasure, I learned that my reputation as an
accomplished privateer (that is a polite term for a pirate)
and Queen Elizabeth I secretly commissioned me to raid
the Spanish colonies on the American Pacific coast.
When I arrived home from this voyage with much
Spanish plunder after sailing west, I became the first
Englishman to circumnavigate the globe. Seven months
later, our queen knighted me to the dismay of the
Spanish king. In 1585, I sacked Spanish settlements in
Florida and picked up unsuccessful English colonists at
Roanoke off the Carolina coast. In 1588, I served as vice
admiral of the fleet that destroyed the Spanish Armada
and saved England from invasion. I gave my life in
service to my country until my death from dysentery off
the coast of Panama in 1596.
Sir Francis Drake
U.S. History
13.
Unit 1: Building a Nation
Donaldson