Scientific progress

At the same time, sea exploration became easier because of new scientific knowledge and technology. Some Europeans, for example, had begun to understand that the Earth was round. Also at this time European navigators became skilled in the use of the magnetic compass and other scientific instruments. Even out of sight of land they could now tell where they were. They were also able to draw more accurate maps.

Nonetheless, there remained a number of mistaken beliefs about the Earth. In the 15th century, for example, people assumed that the Earth was much smaller around than it really is. Because the trip east to the East Indies near Asia was known to be so long, navigators believed that the sea voyage west to those same islands would have to be much shorter. It was this mistaken belief that led to the journeys of Columbus.

Columbus

During four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean Christopher Columbus found the mainlands of Central and South America as well as the islands that are now called the West Indies. Until his death, in 1506, Columbus continued to believe that the lands he discovered were actually part of Asia. By 1510 most people realized that he was mistaken, but Columbus' trips inspired many others to seek a passage to Asia.

Magellan

The Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan followed the South American coast southward from Brazil and in 1520 found a sea route to Asia through what is now called the Strait of Magellan. Magellan himself was killed in the Philippine Islands, but some of his crew sailed one of his ships back to Spain by way of the Cape of Good Hope, at the southern tip of Africa. This was the first voyage around the world, and it provided the first practical proof that the Earth was round.

Magellan's success in sailing around the southern tip of America encouraged others to seek a route to the East Indies that would pass to the north of the American continents. Newfoundland and its fishing grounds had already been discovered in 1497 by John Cabot, an Italian navigator working for England. Both the English and the French continued to look for the so-called Northwest Passage throughout the 16th century and later.

French explorers

Working for France, Giovanni da Verrazano of Florence became in 1524 the first European to explore the coast of North America from the Carolinas northward. Eleven years later another French expedition led by Jacques Cartier sailed up the Saint Lawrence River. Cartier established the chief route by which the French were to enter North America. Samuel de Champlain later ventured further up the Saint Lawrence and on to the Great Lakes, leading to the establishment of the French colony of Canada. Other notable French explorers were Jacques Marquette, Jean Nicolet, Pierre Esprit Radisson, Louis Jolliet, Louis Hennepin, and Daniel Greysolon, Sieur DuLhut.

English explorers

Meanwhile, the English explorers Martin Frobisher (in the 1570s) and John Davis (in the 1580s) found channels between Greenland and the Labrador coast of Canada. In 1610 the Englishman Henry Hudson reached the bay that now bears his name. Hudson died in his attempt to find a route to the Pacific, as did John Franklin more than 200 years later. The first navigator to succeed was the Norwegian Roald Amundsen—in 1906.

South America

Francisco Pizarro sailed along the Pacific coast, defeating the Inca empire and conquering Peru for Spain. One of Pizarro's companions, Francisco de Orellana, followed the Amazon River to its mouth on the Atlantic Ocean in 1542. The Spanish plundered the native empires for gold and silver, but their ships were targeted in turn by pirates and other explorers. The English sea captain Sir Francis Drake captured much treasure from the Spanish in the course of his round-the-world voyage of 1577–80.

North America

Furs, not gold or silver, were the greatest treasure of the north. Incorporated in 1670, the Hudson's Bay Company gradually established trading posts in the Canadian west. In 1789 the trader Alexander Mackenzie traced to the Arctic the river that now bears his name. Four years later he found his way across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. He thus became the first European to cross the North American continent.

After the United States secured its independence in 1783 the government sent expeditions west of the Mississippi River. The first of these was the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–06) up the Missouri River, over the Rocky Mountains, and down the Columbia River to the Pacific.

Slave trade

The New World was colonized by Africans as well as Europeans. The Portuguese brought in slaves of African origin starting in 1502. Large numbers of laborers were needed on plantations to replace a native population that had been greatly reduced by European diseases such as smallpox. In New Spain alone it is estimated that the native population dropped from 50 million to 4 million by the 17th century.

In the 18th century the English became the chief suppliers of African slaves to the Americas. At first most of the slaves went to the Caribbean islands, but after the economies of the English colonies of North America began to prosper, slaves were introduced there. The first slaves taken to Virginia arrived in 1619. The slave trade was not abolished until the 19th century.

Spanish America

The Spanish took the lead in exploring and colonizing the New World. The earliest settlements were in the West Indies. Santo Domingo on Hispaniola was established in 1496 as the first capital of New Spain. In land area Spain's was the biggest of the colonial empires in the New World. At its peak it included the Greater Antilles—Cuba, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico—as well as the Bahamas and other islands, all of Mexico and most of Central America, large sections of South America, Florida, and the southwestern quarter of what is now the United States.

One distinctive feature of Spanish colonialism was the influence of Jesuit priests who were known as “black robes” among the native peoples they worked to convert to Christianity. With their schools and missions, the Jesuits took the culture of Europe, and of Spain in particular, into the wilds of Florida, California, and Mexico.

English America

The most significant English establishments proved to be the colonies along the Atlantic coast of North America that grew into the 13 original states of the United States. The first permanent settlement was made in 1607 at Jamestown in Virginia by a group of merchants called the Virginia Company of London. New England was first settled by people fleeing from religious persecution in England. They established the Plymouth Colony in 1620. Ten years later another group seeking the freedom to practice their religion, the Puritans, founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony. (See also United States history.)

England's settlements elsewhere in the New World included the Caribbean islands of Antigua, Saint Kitts, Nevis, and Barbados, which were colonized between 1609 and 1632. The island of Jamaica was seized from the Spanish in 1655. Belize in Central America was settled in 1638. Scattered settlements on the north coast of South America were united into the colony of British Guiana in 1831.

French America

The area claimed as New France was vast but never effectively colonized. Permanent communities were founded, particularly in the Caribbean and Canada, but France's main interest was to do business. The fur trade became the basis of the North American economy. This led the French to explore widely in the region, to make alliances with the Indians, and to set up forts and trading posts. But the population of New France was never close to that of the English colonies.

In 1608, only one year after the settlement of Jamestown, Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec, the first permanent French settlement in North America. French voyagers explored the upper Saint Lawrence River, the Great Lakes region, and the Mississippi River Valley. One of them, Sieur de La Salle, floated down to the mouth of the Mississippi River in 1682 and claimed for France all the land it drained.

In 1754 French and British troops began fighting in the upper Ohio Valley over territory that both countries claimed. The French and Indian War, as the conflict was called, ended in 1763 with the defeat of France and its Indian allies. Britain took control over French Canada and all other French territory east of the Mississippi River. French territories west of the Mississippi were sold to the United States in 1803. (See also Canada.)

France, like England, claimed islands in the Caribbean. By 1664 their principal possessions were Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Dominica. On the northeast coast of South America, the colony of French Guiana was founded in the mid-1600s.

Other empires

Although the Portuguese were among the earliest and most prominent explorers, the only colony they established was Brazil. The Portuguese farmers grew sugarcane in Brazil for export to Europe.

In 1609 Henry Hudson sailed the Dutch ship Half Moon into New York Harbor and up the river that is now named for him. Around 1626 the Dutch West India Company established a settlement called New Amsterdam. This colony was seized by the English in 1664 and renamed New York. The Dutch also planted colonies in the Caribbean that are now known as the Netherlands Antilles.

Unlike other colonial powers, Russia approached North America from the northwest. Following explorations by Vitus Bering in 1741, their first permanent settlement in Alaska was established in 1784. In their quest for furs the Russians set up trading posts as far south as California. In 1867, following a decrease in profits, Russia sold Alaska to the United States.