Norsemen ,
Vinland (
Newfoundland),
Helluland (
Baffin Island), and
Markland (
Labrador) travelled by the
Icelandic Sagas, including in the
Saga of Erik the Red and
Saga of the Greenlanders Norse Viking explorers were the first known Europeans to set foot in North America. Norse journeys to
Greenland and Canada are supported by historical and archaeological evidence. The Norsemen established a colony in Greenland in the late tenth century, which lasted until the mid 15th-century, with court and parliament assemblies (
þing) taking place at
Brattahlíð and a bishop located at
Garðar. The remains of a settlement at
L'Anse aux Meadows in
Newfoundland, Canada, were discovered in 1960 and were dated to around the year 1000 (carbon dating estimate 990–1050). L'Anse aux Meadows is the only site widely accepted as evidence of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact. It was named a
World Heritage Site by
UNESCO in 1978. It is also notable for its possible connection with the attempted colony of
Vinland, established by
Leif Erikson around the same period or, more broadly, with the
Norse colonization of the Americas. Leif Erikson's brother is said to have had the first contact with the native population of North America which would come to be known as the
skrælings. After capturing and killing eight of the natives, they were attacked at their beached ships, which they defended.
Spain voyages|thumb|250px and his crew are landing in the
West Indies, on an island named
San Salvador, on October 12, 1492. ) wakes up "America" in
Americae Retectio, engraving by the Flemish artist
Jan Galle (circa 1615). The systematic and long-term European colonization began in 1492 with Spain. A
Spanish expedition sailed west to find a new trade route to the
Orient, the source of spices, silks, porcelains, and other rich trade goods. Ottoman control of the
Silk Road, the traditional route for trade between Europe and Asia, forced European traders to look for alternative routes. The
Genoese mariner
Christopher Columbus led an expedition to find a route to East Asia, but instead landed in
The Bahamas. Columbus encountered the
Lucayan people on the island
Guanahani (possibly
Cat Island), which they had inhabited since the ninth century. In his reports, Columbus exaggerated the quantity of gold in the
East Indies, which he called the "
New World". These claims, along with the slaves he brought back, convinced the monarchy to fund a second voyage. Word of Columbus's exploits spread quickly, sparking the Western European exploration, conquest, and colonization of the Americas. and other explorers of the Pacific|thumb|250px Spanish explorers, conquerors, and settlers sought material wealth, prestige, and the
spread of Christianity, often summed up in the phrase "gold, glory, and God". The Spanish justified their claims to the New World based on the ideals of the Christian Reconquista of the
Iberian Peninsula from the Muslims, completed in 1492. In the New World, military conquest to incorporate indigenous peoples into Christendom was considered the "spiritual conquest". In 1493,
Pope Alexander VI, the first Spaniard to become Pope, issued a series of
Papal Bulls that confirmed Spanish claims to the newly discovered lands. After the final
Reconquista of
Iberia, the
Treaty of Tordesillas was ratified by the Pope, the two kingdoms of
Castile (in a
personal union with other kingdoms of Spain) and Portugal in 1494. The treaty divided the entire non-European world into two spheres of exploration and colonization. The
longitudinal boundary cut through the Atlantic Ocean and the eastern part of present-day Brazil. The countries declared their rights to the land despite the fact that Indigenous populations had settled from pole to pole in the hemisphere and it was their homeland. After European contact, the native population of the Americas plummeted by an estimated 80% (from around 50 million in 1492 to eight million in 1650), due in part to Old World diseases carried to the New World.
Smallpox was especially devastating, for it could be passed through touch, allowing native tribes to be wiped out, and the conditions that colonization imposed on Indigenous populations, such as forced labor and removal from homelands and traditional medicines. Some scholars have argued
that this demographic collapse was the result of the first large-scale act of
genocide in the modern era. , in what is now Bolivia. It was the source of vast amounts of silver that transformed the
world economy. For example, the labor and tribute of
inhabitants of Hispaniola were granted in
encomienda to Spaniards, a practice established in Spain for conquered Muslims. Although not technically slavery, it was coerced labor for the benefit of the Spanish grantees, called
encomenderos. Spain had a legal tradition and devised a proclamation known as
The Requerimento to be read to indigenous populations in Spanish, often far from the field of battle, stating that the indigenous were now subjects of the Spanish Crown and would be punished if they resisted. When the news of this situation and the abuse of the institution reached Spain, the
New Laws were passed to regulate and gradually abolish the system in the Americas, as well as to reiterate the prohibition of enslaving Native Americans. By the time the new laws were passed, in 1542, the Spanish crown had acknowledged their inability to control and properly ensure compliance with traditional laws overseas, so they granted to Native Americans specific protections not even Spaniards had, such as the prohibition of enslaving them even in the case of crime or war. These extra protections were an attempt to avoid the proliferation of irregular claims to slavery. However, as historian
Andrés Reséndez has noted, "this categorical prohibition did not stop generations of determined conquistadors and colonists from taking Native slaves on a planetary scale, ... The fact that this other slavery had to be carried out clandestinely made it even more insidious. It is a tale of good intentions gone badly astray." A major event in early Spanish colonization, which had so far yielded paltry returns, was the
Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519–1521). It was led by
Hernán Cortés and made possible by securing indigenous alliances with the Aztecs' enemies, mobilizing thousands of warriors against the Aztecs for their own political reasons. The Aztec capital,
Tenochtitlan, became
Mexico City, the chief city of the "
New Spain". More than an estimated 240,000
Aztecs died during the
siege of Tenochtitlan, 100,000 in combat, while 500–1,000 of the Spaniards engaged in the conquest died. The other great conquest was of the
Inca Empire (1531–35), led by
Francisco Pizarro. During the early period of exploration, conquest, and settlement, 1492–1550, the overseas possessions claimed by Spain were only loosely controlled by the crown. With the conquests of the Aztecs and the Incas, the New World now commanded the crown's attention. Both Mexico and Peru had dense, hierarchically organized indigenous populations that could be incorporated and ruled. Even more importantly, both Mexico and Peru had large deposits of silver, which became the economic motor of the Spanish empire and transformed the world economy. In Peru, the singular, hugely rich
silver mine of Potosí was worked by traditional forced indigenous labor drafts, known as the
mit'a. In Mexico, silver was found outside the zone of dense indigenous settlement, so laborers migrated to the mines in
Guanajuato and
Zacatecas. The crown established the
Council of the Indies in 1524, based in Seville, and issued
laws of the Indies to assert its power against the early conquerors. The crown created the
viceroyalty of New Spain and the
viceroyalty of Peru to tighten crown control over these rich prizes of conquest.
Portugal Over this same time frame as Spain,
Portugal claimed lands in North America (Canada) and colonized much of eastern South America naming it
Santa Cruz and Brazil. On behalf of both the Portuguese and Spanish crowns, cartographer
Amerigo Vespucci explored the South American east coast and published his new book
Mundus Novus (
New World) in 1502–1503 which disproved the belief that the Americas were the easternmost part of Asia and confirmed that Columbus had reached a set of continents previously unheard of to any Europeans.
Cartographers still use a
Latinized version of his first name,
America, for the two continents. In April 1500, Portuguese noble
Pedro Álvares Cabral claimed the region of
Brazil to Portugal; the effective
colonization of Brazil began three decades later with the founding of
São Vicente in 1532 and the establishment of the system of
captaincies in 1534, which was later replaced by other systems. Others tried to colonize the
eastern coasts of present-day Canada and the
River Plate in South America. These explorers include
João Vaz Corte-Real in Newfoundland;
João Fernandes Lavrador,
Gaspar and
Miguel Corte-Real and
João Álvares Fagundes, in Newfoundland, Greenland, Labrador, and Nova Scotia (from 1498 to 1502, and in 1520). During this time, the Portuguese gradually switched from an initial plan of establishing trading posts to extensive
colonization of what is now Brazil. They imported millions of slaves to run their plantations. The Portuguese and Spanish royal governments expected to rule these settlements and collect at least 20% of all treasure found (the
quinto real collected by the
Casa de Contratación), in addition to collecting all the taxes they could. By the late 16th century
silver from the Americas accounted for one-fifth of the combined total budget of Portugal and Spain. In the 16th century perhaps 240,000 Europeans entered ports in the Americas.
France by 1750, before the
French and Indian War, which was part of the greater worldwide conflict known as the
Seven Years' War (1756 to 1763). Possessions of Britain (pink), France (blue), and Spain. White border lines mark later Canadian Provinces and US States for reference. France founded colonies in the Americas: in eastern North America (which had not been colonized by Spain north of
Florida), a number of Caribbean islands (which had often already been conquered by the Spanish or depopulated by disease), and small coastal parts of South America. Explorers included
Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524;
Jacques Cartier (1491–1557), and
Samuel de Champlain (1567–1635), who explored the region of Canada he reestablished as
New France. The first
French colonial empire stretched to over at its peak in 1710, which was the second largest colonial empire in the world, after the
Spanish Empire. In the French colonial regions, the focus of the economy was on
sugar plantations in the
French West Indies. In Canada the
fur trade with the natives was important. About 16,000 French men and women became colonizers. The great majority became subsistence farmers along the
St. Lawrence River. With a favorable disease environment and plenty of land and food, their numbers grew exponentially to 65,000 by 1760. Their colony was taken over by Britain in 1760, but social, religious, legal, cultural, and economic changes were few in a society that clung tightly to its recently formed traditions.
British British colonization began in North America almost a century after Spain. The relatively late arrival meant that the British could use the other European colonization powers as models for their endeavors. Inspired by the Spanish riches from colonies founded upon the conquest of the
Aztecs,
Incas, and other large Native American populations in the 16th century, their first attempt at colonization occurred in
Roanoke and
Newfoundland, although unsuccessful. In 1606,
King James I granted a charter with the purpose of discovering the riches at their first permanent settlement in
Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. They were sponsored by
common stock companies such as the chartered
Virginia Company financed by wealthy Englishmen who exaggerated the economic potential of the land. of North America: Dark Red =
New England colonies. Bright Red =
Middle Atlantic colonies. Red-brown =
Southern colonies. Mainly due to discrimination, there was often a separation between English colonial communities and indigenous communities. The Europeans viewed the natives as savages who were not worthy of participating in what they considered civilized society. The native people of North America did not die out nearly as rapidly nor as greatly as those in
Central and South America due in part to their exclusion from British society. The indigenous people continued to be stripped of their native lands and were pushed further out west. The English eventually went on to control much of
Eastern North America, the
Caribbean, and parts of South America. They also gained
Florida and
Quebec in the
French and Indian War.
John Smith convinced the colonists of Jamestown that searching for gold was not taking care of their immediate needs for food and shelter. The lack of
food security leading to an extremely high mortality rate was quite distressing and cause for despair among the colonists. To support the colony, numerous
supply missions were organized.
Tobacco later became a cash crop, with the work of
John Rolfe and others, for export and the sustaining economic driver of
Virginia and the neighboring colony of
Maryland.
Plantation agriculture was a primary aspect of the economies of the
Southern Colonies and in the
British West Indies. They heavily relied on African slave labor to sustain their economic pursuits. From the beginning of Virginia's settlements in 1587 until the 1680s, the main source of labor and a large portion of the immigrants were
indentured servants looking for a new life in the overseas colonies. During the 17th century, indentured servants constituted three-quarters of all European immigrants to the
Chesapeake Colonies. Most of the indentured servants were teenagers from England with poor economic prospects at home. Their fathers signed the papers that gave them free passage to America and an unpaid job until they came of age. They were given food, clothing, and housing and taught farming or household skills. American landowners were in need of laborers and were willing to pay for a laborer's passage to America if they served them for several years. By selling passage for five to seven years worth of work, they could then start on their own in America. Many of the migrants from England died in the first few years. The failure of the Darien scheme was one of the factors that led the Kingdom of Scotland into the
Act of Union 1707 with the
Kingdom of England, creating the united
Kingdom of Great Britain and giving Scotland commercial access to English, now British, colonies.
Dutch on lower Manhattan island, was captured by the English in 1665, becoming
New York. The Netherlands had been part of the
Spanish Empire, due to the inheritance of
Charles V of Spain. Many Dutch people converted to
Protestantism and sought their political independence from Spain. They were a seafaring nation and built a global empire in regions where the Portuguese had originally explored. In the
Dutch Golden Age, it sought colonies. In the Americas, the Dutch conquered the northeast of
Brazil in 1630, where the Portuguese had built sugar cane plantations worked by black slave labor from Africa. Prince
Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen became the administrator of the colony (1637–43), building a capital city and royal palace, fully expecting the Dutch to retain control of this rich area. As the Dutch had in Europe, it tolerated the presence of Jews and other religious groups in the colony. After Maurits departed in 1643, the
Dutch West India Company took over the colony until it was lost to the Portuguese in 1654. The Dutch retained some territory in
Dutch Guiana, now
Suriname. The Dutch also seized islands in the
Caribbean that Spain had originally claimed but had largely abandoned, including
Sint Maarten in 1618,
Bonaire in 1634,
Curaçao in 1634,
Sint Eustatius in 1636,
Aruba in 1637, some of which remain in Dutch hands and retain Dutch cultural traditions. On the east coast of North America, the Dutch planted the colony of
New Netherland on the lower end of the island of
Manhattan, at
New Amsterdam starting in 1624. The Dutch sought to protect their investments and purchased Manhattan from a band of
Canarse from
Brooklyn who occupied the bottom quarter of Manhattan, known then as the
Manhattoes, for 60
guilders' worth of trade goods. Minuit conducted the transaction with the Canarse chief Seyseys, who accepted valuable merchandise in exchange for an island that was actually mostly controlled by another indigenous group, the
Weckquaesgeeks. Dutch fur traders set up a network upstream on the
Hudson River. There were Jewish settlers from 1654 onward, and they remained following the English capture of New Amsterdam in 1664. The naval capture was despite both nations being at peace with the other.
Russia ), the capital of Russian America, in 1837 Russia came to colonization late compared to Spain or Portugal, or even England.
Siberia was added to the
Russian Empire and
Cossack explorers along rivers sought valuable furs of
ermine,
sable, and
fox. Cossacks enlisted the aid of
indigenous Siberians, who sought protection from nomadic peoples, and those peoples paid tribute in fur to the czar. Thus, prior to the eighteenth-century Russian expansion that pushed beyond the
Bering Strait dividing Eurasia from North America, Russia had experience with northern indigenous peoples and accumulated wealth from the hunting of fur-bearing animals. Siberia had already attracted a core group of scientists, who sought to map and catalogue the flora, fauna, and other aspects of the natural world. A major Russian expedition for exploration was mounted in 1742, contemporaneous with other eighteenth-century European state-sponsored ventures. It was not clear at the time whether Eurasia and North America were completely separate continents. The first voyages were made by
Vitus Bering and
Aleksei Chirikov, with settlement beginning after 1743. By the 1790s the first permanent settlements were established. Explorations continued down the
Pacific coast of North America, and Russia established a settlement in the early nineteenth century at what is now called
Fort Ross, California. Russian fur traders forced indigenous
Aleut men into seasonal labor. Never very profitable, Russia sold its North American holdings to the United States in 1867, called at the time "
Seward's Folly".
Tuscany Duke
Ferdinand I de Medici made the only Italian attempt to create colonies in America. For this purpose, the Grand Duke organized in 1608 an
expedition to the north of Brazil, under the command of the English captain Robert Thornton. Thornton, on his return from the preparatory trip in 1609 (he had been to the
Amazon), found Ferdinand I dead and all projects were cancelled by his successor
Cosimo II. == Religion and colonization ==