What Did Spain Do Before American Exploration

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Beginning in the 1400s Europe, starting with Spain and Portugal, began a rapid period of exploration and expansion. This was spurred by the need for improved trading routes and access to resources. This led to contact and eventually conflict with peoples across the globe and changed the understanding of the true scale of the world. For thousands of years long range sea travel was not common, although there were some longer voyages by Vikings that reached North America. This meant that the European world view was much smaller than we know now. With the constant push for more efficient ways to reach good trading points other than across the Indian Ocean, which had long been the easiest way to connect Asian, Indian, and Arab merchants. The beginning …show more content…
From this moment, the rapid competition to claim and explore the Americas began. The Europeans saw how resource rich the Americas were and began enslaving the indigenous people and taking its resources, like silver. Portugal did not have too large of a hand in American expansion due to the Treaty of Tordesillas, which drew a line through the Atlantic generally determining who had claim to what land between Portugal and Spain united in spreading Christianity, as well as Portugal’s methods of only establishing coastal control of a territory not affecting its inhabitants as much, and its focus on eastern trade with Asia. Spain, on the other hand, swept across Central America defeating both the Aztec and Inca Empires. Their arrival led to massive changes to the way of life for many indigenous people. The conquered peoples were enslaved and used to farm whatever resources the Spanish wanted under the encomienda system which allowed conquerors the right to control and organize the native people. As Europeans settled, they brought with them their way of living which included large stationary

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