European Colonization of the Americas: The Age of Discovery Explained

Hello! The topic of today's lecture is the European colonization of the Americas, the time known as the Age of Exploration or the Age of Discovery, when the Europeans began exploring the world

looking for trade routes, wealth, and knowledge. In order to understand this period, one first needs to analyze the political and the economic situation in Europe in the centuries that preceded it.

At the time of Columbus's discovery of America, Europe was in a state of economic crisis because its trade contacts with the Orient were disrupted. The contact between Europe and the East started during the Crusades the nine Crusades, carried

out between 1096 and 1272. The rise of the Mongol Empire intensified European contacts and trade with the East. The Mongol invasion of Europe in in the 13th and the 14th centuries was followed by a period

called Pax Mongolica, which marked a time of economic stability in which not only trade relations but also cultural and knowledge exchange between Mongolian-dominated parts of Europe and Asia occurred.

Trade from the East came to the European continent through the Byzantine Empire and then by sea to the city-states of Venice and Genoa, which became the chief trading centers for the import of commodities from the Far East.

Various trade routes appeared, like the famous Silk Road, on which goods such as spices, silk, opiates, etc. were carried to Europe from China and India. Contacts with the Orient also improved European scientific and technological knowledge.

For example, the Muslims knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, navigation, and medicine was far superior to that of the Europeans at the time. But the technological advances also came from China.

The Venetian Marco Polo spent 20 years in the Far East. His travel diary gave Europeans first-hand information about the geography and civilization of the Orient and valuable information about some of its technological advances.

One particular invention, which you can see here on this picture, that the Europeans borrowed from the East was the gunpowder. I'm just going to briefly tell you the story about the history of the gunpowder.

It is believed that gunpowder was discovered accidentally by Chinese alchemists who were trying to create an elixir of life sometime between the 6th and the 9th centuries. Yet, when it turned out not to be very effective as an elixir of life, the Chinese used the

gunpowder in festivities. Then they started using it in battles as psychological warfare to scare their enemies. Soon, however, the Chinese discovered that the stuff was lethal so, ironically, instead

of being an elixir that could make you live indefinitely, gunpowder became a killing tool, and it revolutionized weaponry and warfare. So, uh it was, however, the Europeans who took the invention and between the 15th and

the 17th centuries perfected this invention. So, they perfected the military use of gunpowder, which became crucial in putting Europe on the path of technological revolution and enabling them to conquer the rest of the world.

Yet, there was also something else that prompted the Age of Discovery and European conquest and that was the rise of the Ottoman Empire. The expansion of the Ottoman Empire as you can see here, it was a very long-lasting empire

that lasted from 1299 to 1923 and so the expansion of that empire affected trade in Europe. The situation became especially difficult in 1453, when the Turks occupied Constantinople and the old trade routes to the Orient completely closed, so spices and commodities could no

longer be carried overland to Constantinople. Now ships had to sail to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, and from there they went to Europe via the Mediterranean ports in Africa and Asia Minor.

So, the long route, coupled with the tolls that the ships had to pay on the way, made Oriental spices both scarce and expensive. And since the demand for spices grew rapidly in Europe, the Europeans started looking for

alternative routes that would facilitate their trade with the Orient and meet their demand for spices. In the 1400s, Europe began its explorations and colonizing activities beyond the Mediterranean.

Geographical knowledge at the time was very limited. However, the Europeans by then had the general idea that the Earth was round. In the in the 1450s, Prince Henry of Portugal gathered the best sailors, astronomers, shipbuilders,

and mapmakers from all over Europe. He had a huge vision, a huge dream. He wanted to make a very long-distance journey.

And so, together, they developed a smaller and stronger type of ship called the caravel, whose hull design and sail helped it to sail faster and brave strong winds and high waves. The prince sponsored several expeditions that made Portugal the first European country to

begin the exploration of Africa. Lisbon is on the furthest western coast of the Iberian Peninsula (here), and from that launching point, the Portuguese crown authorized sailors to sail down the western coast of

Africa and to make discoveries of the new lands. uh Prince Henry's dreams dream of finding a new sea route to the Orient unfortunately did not come true during his own life, but it was fulfilled 20 years after his death,

in 1497, when his compatriot Vasco da Gama set out on a quest for spices. Da Gama sailed along the west coast of Africa, along the Cape of Good Hope and arrived in Goa in India in 1498.

He returned to Lisboa/Lisbon two years later with a ship full of spices. Around the mid-15th century, Portugal comes into conflict with its neighbor, Spain, which also was interested in establishing colonies and trading posts in Africa.

The dispute between these two nations is taken to the papacy in Rome, and the Pope Nicholas V resolves the dispute by issuing a bull, a legally binding order called Romanus Pontifex, and under that bull, the Pope recognized Portuguese sovereignty and dominion over all of Africa.

In other words, the Pope essentially granted the right to conquer and colonize all of Africa and its so-called heathen and infidel peoples to the kingdom of Portugal. And this Papal license to engage in colonizing activities over Africa was backed by the sanction

of excommunication. Basically, that meant that if any Christian monarch at that time should interfere with Portugal's monarchy, they would be excommunicated.

And in Christian Europe in the 15th century, excommunication basically meant that a monarch lost his or her power to control and rule. And so, the Papal bulls, granting Portugal a monopoly over Africa, required other European

nations with colonizing and imperial interests to look elsewhere. And this brings me to the story of Columbus and Spain's imperial ambitions. A decade before the Da Gama's journey, in the 1480s, another mariner, Christopher Columbus

from Genoa, approached the Spanish crown. The Italians were the group that had controlled much of the shipping and navigation in the Middle East during the Crusades.

They were holding navigation licenses and approaching European monarchs with various proposals to extend their imperial domains. Likewise, Columbus approached the Spanish crown crown with an idea that because of the

Papal bulls Spain is not allowed to exercise its power in Africa, the riches of the Middle East and the Indies India, China, silk, spices might be reached by a shorter sea route rather than by sailing around Africa.

So, Columbus believed that since the Earth was round, it was possible to find another sea route to the Orient by sailing directly west. In 1492, the Spanish crown accepts Columbus's proposal and funds a voyage of three ships

the famous Ni a, Pinta, and Santa Maria and a small crew of only 88 men in search of a shorter spice route to the Indies. 33 days upon sailing off the Canary Islands, on October 12, 1492, Columbus and his crew landed at a small island in the Caribbean, in today's

Caribbean, which they named San Salvador. Columbus, of course, did not reach the Orient but, rather, discovered the New World. As no one knew of the existence of America then, Columbus believed that he had, in fact,

found the shorter route to India and that the Natives that he encountered as well as the silver and other valuable items came from there. When Columbus and his crew first landed on San Salvador, they were greeted by the local

Taino (or Arawak) people in a very friendly manner, which was in line with Native American values and their hospitality and generosity. Columbus, however, described the event in his diary in the following way: They brought

us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned.

They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features. They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance.

They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane. They would make fine servants.

With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want. So, as you can see, Columbus was not interested in establishing friendly relations and fraternizing with the locals.

Instead, he looked at everything as commodities, as resources. He immediately set about exploring the economic potential of the land and looking for the gold mines in particular: As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first island which I

found, I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts. Throughout his first voyage, Columbus plants Spanish flag in the new territory, claiming

these lands under dominion and sovereignty of Spanish King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. And then, he sails back to Spain and informs the Spanish crown of his discovery. So, on his return to Spain, he starts spinning stories about the riches of the distant land

and benevolence of its occupants, trying to persuade the Spanish king and Queen to fund another expedition that will make Spain the richest country in the world. The Indians, Columbus reported, are so naive and so free with their possessions that no

one who has not witnessed them could would believe it. When you ask for something they have, they never say no. To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone.

He concluded his report by asking for a little help from their Majesties, and in return he would bring them from his next voyage as much gold as they need and as many slaves as they ask.

So, the Spanish crown decides to fund his second trip. He gets 17 ships and more than 1200 men. The goal of his trip is clear: slaves and gold.

Columbus is, Columbus is appointed the first governor of the settlements in the New World and is authorized to use Natives as free labor for raising cattle, growing sugar, and digging gold and silver in the mine.

On their return to America, Columbus and his men go from island to island, taking captives and committing mass crimes. Believing that the island of Hispaniola, which is today's Haiti and Dominican Republic, is

full of gold, they roam the island in gangs, looking for gold, killing men, and taking women and children as slaves for sex and labor. They order (pardon) all persons, all male persons 14 years old or older to collect a

certain quantity of gold uh every three months. If they are able to produce their gold quota, they are given a copper token to hang around their necks.

The Spaniards punished those found without a copper token by cutting off their arms and leaving them to bleed to death. A very similar strategy was used by Belgians in the Congo, Belgian colony, which was a

Belgian colony acquired in 1885, ruled by Belgian king Leopold II. Forcing uh the people of Congo to work, Belgians terrorized them by having their hands and feet cut off if they were unable to bring certain amounts of rubber, ivory, and other

goods valuable to their colonizers. And this holocaust in the Congo was vividly depicted described in Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness, which I assume you read in your in the Survey of British Literature

II. So, the strategy used by the Belgians uh was actually the same strategy that had been used by Christopher Columbus a couple of centuries before.

How do we know about Columbus's atrocities, about what was going on in the New World? Well, the main source of information on atrocities perpetrated by Columbus and his men is the book written by this guy here.

His name was Bartolome de las Casas, and the title of the book is Historia de las Indias (The History of the West Indies). Las Casas was a young missionary who participated the conquest of Cuba, and in his book, he

describes in detail how the Spaniards what the Spaniards did. So, he says, he describes how they "grew more conceited every day and after a while refused to walk any distance.

They rode the backs of Indians if they were in a hurry or were carried on hammocks by Indians running in relays. In this case they also had Indians carry large leaves to shade them from the sun and others

to fan them with goose wings. Total control led to total cruelty. The Spaniards thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices

off them to test the sharpness of their blades. Las Casas tells how two of these so-called Christians met two Indian boys one day, each carrying a parrot; they took the parrots and for the fun beheaded the boys.

After six or eight months in the mines, which was the time required of each crew to dig enough gold for melting, up to a third of the men died. While the men were sent many miles away to the mines, the wives remained to work the

soil. They were forced into the excruciating job of digging and making thousands of hills for cassava plants.

Las Casas describes how husbands and wives were together only once every eight or ten months, and when they met, they were so exhausted and depressed on both sides . . . they ceased to procreate.

As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and famished, had no milk to nurse them, and for this reason, while I was in Cuba," says Las Casas, "7000 children died in three months.

Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desperation. . . . in this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, and children died from lack of milk . . . and in a short time this land which was so great, so powerful and fertile was depopulated.

My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write, said Las Casas in his in his book. uh It was on the second voyage, on Columbus's second voyage that he took some 1600 slaves

from the Arawak tribe uh, sending some 560 of them back to Spain with 200 of them dying during the voyage and the rest arriving very very sick in Spain. And this is how the door to the commodification of the Indigenous population was opened not

just to that but also to the Otherization and genocide because as soon as Columbus and Europeans arrived on the shores of America, this is what happened. It is estimated that in less than 10 years after Columbus's arrival, over 3 million Indigenous

people had perished from war, slavery, and the mines. 150 years after their first contact with the Spaniards, none of the original San Salvador Arawaks or their descendants were left on the island.

uh So, talking about Columbus today is a very controversial topic, especially in the United States uh and especially for the Native Americans. Today, Columbus Day is a national holiday in Spain, which is celebrated in Spain on

October 12, and uh in the United States, it is celebrated on the second Monday in October. It is also a day when U.S. Indigenous people protest against celebrating the man who they claim was not a great navigator and explorer but a person that initiated and committed

mass genocide. So, if you take a look at social media during the time of Columbus Day, you may come across certain pictures, certain posts like this one: Christopher Columbus wanted for grand

theft, genocide, racism, initiating the destruction of a culture, rape, torture, and maiming of Indigenous people, and instigator of the big lie. 500 years of tourism.

And thanks to those protests, eight states, eight states in the United States and more than 130 cities across the United States no longer celebrate Columbus Day, which, they say, glorifies the mistreatment and colonization of Native Americans.

And so, instead, they now observe Indigenous People's Day as an alternative to the federally recognized Columbus Day holiday. Okay, let us now talk about the first imperial partition of the world.

Columbus's journey was a prelude to the era of European imperialism or the Age of Colonization. As Columbus sails back to Spain following his first voyage and informs the Spanish crown of his discoveries, Portugal tries to dispute Spanish entitlement to the lands he has he

has discovered, claiming that the newly discovered territory might be in the area of Portugal's monopoly over Africa. So, eventually, the dispute is again taken to the papacy in Rome, and Pope Alexander

VI awards the territories that Columbus claimed to the Spanish crown based on their discovery by Columbus on behalf of Spain. And so, Alexander VI issues a bull the title of the bull is Inter Caetera Divinae which

basically divides the world between Spain and Portugal. So, everything to the east of the Papal line of demarcation is granted to Portugal, so that Portugal gets all of Africa and a good part of Brazil.

And this is the reason why Brazil is the only Portuguese-speaking Latin American country. Yet, the territories to the west of that line of demarcation, inhabited by the savages quote the savages and infidels of the new world unquote, are granted to Spain.

So in a manner reminiscent of Europeans claims to the land of infidels and heathens during the Crusades, the Papal bull establishes the basic legal argument by which European nations assert their rights over lands occupied by the tribes of the New World.

Christopher Columbus made four voyages to the new continent, between 1492 and 1504. Believing that the people he encountered as well as the silver and other valuable items came from the Indies, Columbus named the natives Indians and their land West Indies.

He never really figured out that he had discovered a new continent. So, until his death in 1506, he continued to believe that he had reached Asia through an alternate route.

So, it was this guy here, Amerigo Vespucci, another Italian working under the Spanish monarch, who cleared this misconception. Between 1497 and 1505, Amerigo visited the new continent four times.

From there, he wrote a series of letters to his friend in Italy, describing the New World. Published in 1507, these letters provided valuable information to Europeans on the shape, size, flora, and fauna on the of the continent.

So, it was Amerigo, his pioneering study and exploration of the New World, that gave the continent its name America. uh It is also very interesting to to mention that the European Age of Discovery is also

the age of text. The Gutenberg Bible, the first printed book in Europe, was printed in 1455. So, that was just a couple of decades before Columbus's journey.

The printing press was invented in 1440, and after the invention of the printing press, manuscripts didn't have to be copied by hand anymore. So, this brand-new technology revolutionized the flow of information and the growth, created

the kind of growth of the reading public. More people had access to text, and that made writing crucial to the whole process of settlement. And so, it is indicative that the first European explorers were also writers.

They wrote diaries, like Columbus for example, or they wrote letters which they sent back to their patrons, and in those texts, they described the New World the flora and the fauna, its inhabitants, etc.

excelled in mathematics, astronomy, architecture, and agriculture had existed in the Americas. Many of them emerged in Central America, where climatic conditions were most favorable. And some of those civilizations were the Olmecs, which was the earliest civilization.

It is dated circa 1500 B.C. The Olmec civilization arose in the Gulf of Mexico, and it was both a culture and a religion. The main god of the Olmec religion was the Rain God, a figure with both human and jaguar-like

features. And this Rain God was worshiped by later civilizations, like the Aztecs and the Mayans. Civilizations like the Olmec, the Zapotec, and the Mayans shared many things in common,

and chief among them was their calendar system that consisted of two calendars a solar solar year of 365 days and the ritual cycle of 260 days. And the two calendars worked in such a way that they converged once every 52 years.

Another great civilization was uh the Teotihuacan civilization. uh It had it's known for its majestic pyramids. It was located near modern-day Mexico City.

So, if you ever uh visit Mexico City, uh this is a very famous tourist attraction. uh The Teotihuacan civilization flourished in 150 B.C., and it was a very long-lasting civilization.

It lasted for a millennium. Teotihuacan was a well-planned city. it was neatly divided into neighborhoods known as barrios.

Besides the pyramids (there are over 600 pyramids in total), the town also had beautifully carved temples and a huge marketplace. This civilization grew due to its fast stretches of irrigated fields, so you can see how advanced

they were. Another huge civilization was the Toltec civilization. It is dated between uh 900 and 1200 AD.

Its capital city was called Tula, which was a center for soldiers and merchants who controlled the entire region of ancient Mexico and Central America. In the 12th century, Tula was razed to the ground.

So, we have no information uh why that happened, what happened. The people had to flee for some reason, and the civilization just disappeared. What we still have today uh are those sculptures that you can see on on this picture.

They're called the uh Atlantean Sculptures at Tula, and they represent the Toltec warriors. Then, another huge civilization was the Aztec civilization of Mexico. And the Aztec civilization is considered to be one of the greatest pre-Columbian civilizations.

It came out of the heritage of the Mayan and Zapotec and the Toltec cultures, and their ancestors were the Mexicas, who had come to the Valley of Mexico during the 12th century. capital of the Aztec Empire, they found themselves in a city bigger than all the European capitals

of the time but London. Tenochtitl n had a highly developed urban infrastructure, irrigation canals, street cleaning service, huge temples, and hospitals with surgeons who were as advanced as their

counterparts in Europe. More than 60 thousand merchants sixty thousand merchants! came to the great marketplace of the city every day.

In his narrative The True History of the Conquest of New Spain, one of the chroniclers of Cort s's conquests, a soldier named Bernal Diaz del Castillo, reports in detail about the impressive Aztec capital, its spectacular palaces, the well-organized urban infrastructure,

sewage system, and spacious hospitals, confessing that conquistadores were left dumbstruck with admiration upon seeing the Aztec capital: uh The Spaniards gawped like yokels at the wide streets, ornately carved buildings, and markets bright with goods from hundreds of

miles away. Boats flitted like butterflies around the three grand causeways that linked Tenochtitl n to the mainland.

Long aqueducts conveyed water from the distant mountains across the lake and into the city. Even more astounding than the great temples and immense banners and colorful promenades were the botanical gardens none existed in Europe.

The same novelty attended the force of a thousand men that kept the crowded streets immaculate. (Streets that weren t ankle-deep in sewage!) like many European cities of the time.

(The conquistadors had never conceived of such a thing). Another huge civilization was the Maya civilization. The Mayas were contemporaries of the Olmecs.

While the latter civilization declined and disappeared, the Mayans had developed a remarkably advanced culture which flourished from uh 300 to 900 AD. From the ruins, scholars have gathered that the Mayans had built huge and aesthetically

beautiful temples. Besides their monumental architecture. So, they had huge cities, uh and they also had advanced astronomy, recording their observations

in screen folds, uh which were books made of lime-covered bark paper. They also had very advanced mathematics, architecture, and medicine. They (the Mayan) descendants still live in Mexico and Guatemala, and you can see that

they're very poor. They live on the fringes of society, and most of them do beautiful rugs, make beautiful rugs.

They do weaving, and they sell that, and this is how they support themselves and their families. Another huge empire was the Inca empire. At the time of Columbus's arrival, the Inca ruled the greatest empire on earth.

It was bigger than the Ming dynasty of China. It was bigger than Ivan the Great's expanding Russia. It was bigger than the uh the Songhay in the Saheli Kingdom of the powerful Great Zimbabwe

in the West Africa tablelands. It was bigger than the cresting Ottoman Empire, bigger than the Triple Alliance um as the Aztec Empire is known.

So, it was bigger by far than any European state. The Inca dominion extended over 32 degrees of latitude. Just to illustrate, try to imagine a country stretching from St. Petersburg in Russia to

Cairo in Egypt. The Inca Empire encompassed every imaginable type of terrain from the rainforest of upper Amazonia to the deserts of the Peruvian coast and the 20 000-foot peaks of the Andes.

Today, the cultural diversity and the size of the pre-Columbian Native population can only be speculated on. Various hypotheses range from 1.15 million to somewhere between 90 and 112 million inhabitants,

out of which 25.5 million are supposed to have lived in the Central Mexican Plateau. At that time, Spain and Portugal together numbered less than 10 million. So, if this calculation, this latter calculation is correct, which is the calculation by Henry

Dobyns, when Columbus arrived, America was more populated than Europe. Some sources claim that at the time of the first contact, the American soil was populated by more than 2 000 cultures that spoke 1200 different languages coming from as many as

180 language families 180 language families! think of that! By contrast, all of Europe has just four language families Indo-European, Finno-Ugric, Basque,

and Turkic and they had 1200 different languages coming from as many as 180 language families. Most of the Indigenous cultures did not have a written language but instead had their own laws, their poetry, their history kept in memory and passed on in oral tradition that

was more complex than Europe's, accompanied by song, dance, and ceremonial drama. They paid careful attention to the development of personality, intensity of will, independence, and flexibility, passion, and potency to their partnership with one another and with nature.

Around 1000 BC, at the time of major architectural upsurge in Egypt and Mesopotamia, Zuni and Hopi peoples of North America were building villages of large terraced houses which were built into the rocks nestled among the cliffs and mountains for protection from enemies.

Those dwellings contained hundreds of rooms. They were using sophisticated dams and irrigation canals, and they made magnificent works of art.

Before the arrival of the European explorers, they were using irrigation canals and dams, and they were doing ceramics, and weaving baskets, making cloth out of cotton, and so on and so on.

A huge agricultural revolution happened in the Americas approximately at the same time as in Asia, Europe, and Africa. American Indians developed three-fifths of the crops now in cultivation, most of them

developed in Mesoamerica, such as maize (hundreds of varieties), potato, squash, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries peanuts, chocolate, tobacco, rubber. So, they uh perfected the technology of producing rubber, harvesting rubber from the bark of

a tree. So, we can say that uh the geographic and the conceptual space in which European colonizers found themselves was definitely not an empty wilderness but a world which in some places

was as densely populated as Europe itself, where the culture was complex, where human relations were more egalitarian than in Europe, and where the relations among men, women, children, and nature were more beautifully worked out than perhaps in any place in the

world. Yet, the newcomers described this new land and its peoples as barbarous to justify their own barbarity.

Although they were amazed by indigenous civilizations, the Spanish made every effort to destroy all their traces, inventing the non-civilized Native Other as a necessary alibi for their own cruelty.

What Columbus did to the Arawaks of the Bahamas, Cortes dId to the Aztecs of Mexico, and Pizarro did to the Incas of Peru. Indigenous civilizations were brutally conquered and destroyed.

According to some historians, such as Henry Dobyns, about 95 percent of the people in the Americas died in the first 130 years after Columbus's arrival. By 1650, only one and a half million pure-blooded natives remained in the Americas.

Besides their mass annihilation by the technologically superior conquistadors, America's Indigenous inhabitants were equally destroyed by European diseases. Diseases like influenza, measles, typhus, diphtheria, and, in particular, smallpox were

fatal and resulted in cataclysmic devastation, which some chroniclers describe as the greatest destruction of lives in human history. Something about North American Indigenous peoples.

Due to less favorable climatic conditions, most North American Indigenous groups did not settle down to do agriculture. Since the growing season in North America was too short for agriculture, they gathered

plants, nuts, and berries. Hunting and fishing were the chief activities. As far as shelter was concerned, some nomadic tribes used portable teepees while the others

built strong log homes. Communal sharing extended to land use, the hunt, and the home. The land was not individually owned but instead belonged to the entire tribe.

In some tribes, like the Iroquois and the Pueblo, the women played a major role in political matters. In Iroquois communities, for example, married men joined the family of their wives.

While the women did the farming, the men went out to hunt, fish, and engage in warfare. Yet, the authority of the Iroquois women was so influential, was so strong, that they sometimes prevented military expeditions by refusing to supply food or footwear to the men.

Within the tribes, there was a healthy spirit of competition in hunting, fishing, and fighting. Children were brought up on egalitarian values. They didn't have any written laws or jails.

Yet, order and discipline was maintained by way of ostracism within the community. Though civilized, their lack of technological knowledge and a lack of unity between various tribes were the main reasons for the inability of North American Indigenous cultures to resist

the European onslaught. It is estimated that 15 to 25 million Indigenous people lived in North America prior to European invasion.

Yet, according to the 1900 census data, only 237 000 Native Americans remained in the United States in the beginning of the 20th century 237 000! At the time of contact, North American Native groups spoke around 500 languages.

Some 500+ years later, less than 200 languages are still in use. Initially, these tribes accepted the white foreigners in their midst and helped them to adjust and learn about their new environment.

Yet, soon, a bitter struggle began, and it included the expeditions looking for gold and silver, and land grabbing, and the control of fur trade at the expense of the Native Americans in the North.

So, we can say that, like the rest of the American continent, North America was not discovered but conquered. uh Besides the Spanish, European countries with imperial ambitions in North America also

included France, England, the Netherlands, Sweden, and even Russia. It was from the Russians that the US purchased Alaska in 1867, and the Russians also had colonies in California in the 19th century.

It was the Dutch who in 1626 purchased Manhattan Island from a local Native American tribe for, reportedly, $25 worth of glass beads and similar trinkets and trade goods. uh The French uh created a huge empire, were the first to create a huge empire in in uh

North America. They went to towards today's Canada, set up a settlement called Quebec, which became the main military, political, religious, and economic center (the main trading post and fur trade

center). And from Quebec, the French quickly moved towards the West, and then, in the next 50 years, French explorers reached almost to the Rocky Mountains.

And by 1770, the French had occupied the Gulf of Mexico and the region from the mouth of the Mississippi River near today's New Orleans to the mouth of St. Lawrence's river in today's Canadian province of Quebec.

uh The Spanish: Now, based on the Papal bulls, Spain developed its empire in the New World, focusing for the most part on what is today Mexico, the Caribbean, and South America. But the Spanish empire also stretched to North America.

By 1550, several regions in America were under Spanish control. The Spanish control over these new regions lasted for more than two and a half centuries. The Spanish power in North America declined, however, when the English set up their colonies

there. But that is the topic of the next class, so we will discuss the English colonization of the New World in detail in our next lesson, and until then, thank you for your attention

and bye bye!