From Exploration - Spokane Community College

Exploration
and
the Colonies
Part One
Exploration
Historical Perspective: Chronology to 1600
50,000 - 12,000 B.C. - No one is quite certain as to when Asians first
migrated to North America. These dates represent the extreme earliest
possible date of entry and the extreme latest possible date of
migration. Perhaps as early as 8,000 B.C. the migration had reached
the southern tip of South America. Estimates range as to the
population of the Americas in the late fifteenth century, when the
first important contact was made with Europeans. Some scholars
believe that as many as 100 million people lived in Central and South
America at this time, while others believe about 10 million dwelled in
those areas. Population estimates for North America, above Mexico,
are less extreme, with estimates ranging from 4 to 10 million. In
1492, some estimates state that the population of Hispaniola, the
island where Columbus landed, was home to between 7 and 8 million
inhabitants - a population roughly equivalent to that of Spain at the
time. This estimate too varies, with a low of about one million.
1001 A.D. - Leif Ericsson establishes a settlement in Newfoundland,
but word of the settlement, which he called Vinland, never reaches
Europe and he soon abandons the site.
1275 - 1295 - Marco Polo travels to China from Italy. The exotic
goods with which he returned inspired voyages of exploration, as
merchants were anxious to find a faster, safer route to the Orient.
Accounts of Marco Polo's travels were not published until 1477, more
than 150 years after his death, but at a time when navigational skills
and technology had improved to the point that exploring a sea route to
the Orient became a possibility.
c. 1300 - Rise of the Aztec empire. The Aztecs, who invaded central
America, built on the achievements of the Mayas, who had built cities
with palaces, bridges, aqueducts, baths, astronomical observatories,
and temples topped by pyramids. Mayan priests developed a written
language; their mathematicians discovered the zero, and their
astronomers devised a calendar more accurate than any other then in
existence. During the 1300s, the Aztecs created an empire of several
million people with a capital city, Tenochtitlán (current-day Mexico
City), which featured the Great Temple of the Sun in its center.
Through canals, the thriving capital transported gold, silver, exotic
feathers, cocoa, and millions of pounds of maize. While the Aztecs
conquered other peoples primarily to obtain slaves, human sacrifices
(thousands would be killed annually when priests sliced open chests to
offer the sun god a still-beating heart), and wealth, and while they
developed an elaborate administrative, educational, and medical system
comparable to the most advanced in Europe at the time, they did not
force conquered city-states to take their language and customs nor did
they station their people in conquered areas. Yet these conquered
areas bitterly resented Aztec rule. Thus by the arrival of the
Europeans around 1500, the Aztec empire found itself vulnerable to
division within and attack from abroad.
1347 - First outbreak of the Black Death, a catastrophic epidemic of
the bubonic plague, wipes out perhaps as much as half of the
population of Europe.
1492 - Columbus discovers America. Commanding ninety men and three
ships (the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria), Columbus left Spain
in August and on October 12 set anchor on the island he called San
Salvador. He assumed he had reached an island off Asia.
1497 - John Cabot (born in Genoa as Giovanni Caboto) explores North
America under the sponsorship of King Henry VII. Cabot discovered
Newfoundland and told of the tall trees that could be used in ship
building and of the plentiful codfish off the island's coast. In 1498
Cabot set sail to search for a Northwest Passage to Asia; he and his
five ships were never heard from again.
1517 - The Protestant Reformation begins in Germany when Martin Luther
posts his 95 theses challenging basic practices and beliefs of the
Catholic Church. Luther, a Catholic priest, was excommunicated, but
the influence of his theses spread rapidly throughout Europe. He
believed that every individual should read and interpret the Bible for
himself and that human nature was innately evil; he himself despaired
of leading a life that gained salvation. Salvation, he argued, was a
"free gift" from God to undeserving sinners. The ability to live a
good life could not be the cause of salvation but its consequence,
once individuals believed they had been granted saving faith.
Luther's ideas greatly influenced the Puritans.
1518 - 1530 - Smallpox decimates Indian populations. Native Americans
were tragically vulnerable to such illnesses as influenza, measles,
typhus, and above all, smallpox - diseases to which Europeans had,
over time, developed at least a partial immunity. Populations were
virtually wiped out. On Hispaniola (Domincan Republic and Cuba),
where Columbus established a colony, perhaps millions of Native
Americans were destroyed, so that within a few decades, the Native
American population fell to 500. In the Mayan areas of Mexico, as
much as 95% of the population was destroyed within a few years of the
natives' contact with the Spanish.
1519 - 1522 - Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese sailing under the
Spanish flag, conducts the first expedition to circumnavigate the
globe. Magellan himself died in a conflict with the natives in the
Philippines in 1521, but his sailors completed the circumnavigation.
1521 - Tenochtitlán surrenders to Cortés after a siege of eighty-five
days. The Spanish conquistadors, by just about all accounts, were
brutal and greedy. They conquered the sophisticated Aztec empire and
later, under the Pizarro brothers, conquered the Incas., The Spaniards
took advantage of superior technology, the edge of surprise, disease,
and political disunity in the Indian empires. The sight of ships, the
explosion of guns, men on horseback (whom the Indians first thought a
single creature), terrified the Indians. In addition, the
conquistadors found eager allies among resentful tribes ruled by the
Aztecs and Incas.
1524 - Giovanni da Verrazzano explores the eastern coast of the
present-day United States, discovering the mouth of the Hudson River.
1528 - Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca arrives in Tampa Bay under an ill-
fated expedition led by Pánfilo de Narváez. Cabeza de Vaca would
later write about his eight-year life among Indian tribes.
1550s - Conquistadors, led by the Pizarro brothers, sail along South
America's Pacific coast and conquer the Incas in Peru, a civilization
as impressive as the Aztecs, and claim Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, and
Bolivia for Spain. The conquistadors, it should be noted, resented
the Spanish monarchy and had hoped to establish themselves as a
colonial nobility independent of Spain. The monarchy did not allow
their idea to take root, and sent imperial officials to rule the
colonies.
1558 - Elizabeth I becomes queen of England.
1565 - St. Augustine, Florida founded. The modest Spanish fort of St.
Augustine represents the first permanent settlement in the present-day
United States. The settlement was little more than an outpost and
headquarters for unsuccessful missionary campaigns.
1576 - 1578 - Martin Frobisher's search for a Northwest Passage to
Asia is unsuccessful. He returns to England with an Eskimo, whom he
took with a kayak right from the Atlantic Ocean, and a large black
stone, which he futilely hoped would be gold ore.
1584 - 1590 - The English attempt to establish a colony on the island
of Roanoke. With Queen Elizabeth's support, Sir Walter Raleigh sent a
small group of men on an expedition to explore the North American
coast. After their return, Raleigh named the area they explored
Virginia, after Elizabeth, who was unmarried and called the "Virgin
Queen." An attempt to establish a settlement first failed in 1586
after conflicts with the Indians. Frustrated and dispirited colonists
abandoned the island. Raleigh was undeterred and tried again in 1587.
John White was appointed governor, but upon arrival fighting again
broke out with local Indians. Seeking reinforcements, White returned
to England on the ship that brought him. However, by the time he
arrived home, England was at war with Spain, and White had to put off
his return to Roanoke for three years. When he landed on the island
next in 1590, he found Roanoke deserted. There was no clue as to the
fate of the settlers except for the cryptic inscription "Croatian"
carved on a post. The mystery of the "Lost Colony" has never been
solved. (See John White's painting, Natives of Roanoke Island, in the
center section.)
1588 - The English defeat the mighty Spanish Armada as it sails to
attack England. The smaller English fleet was able to outmaneuver the
much larger Spanish fleet. The E