Vasco Nunez de Balboa is a Spanish conquistador who spent many years exploring the Isthmus of Panama and the surrounding areas in the early 1500’s. Balboa was sent to explore anywhere in the New World as long as another explorer was of had not already explored there. The only other request of Balboa was that he had to give one fifth of the riches he found to Spain. We believe that Balboa’s personal motives in exploring this area were to take over the land and acquire gold and other riches. He would stop at nothing to acquire these riches.
Intros During the period of 1450 to 1800, empires began to form across the globe, most notably the Spanish and the Ottoman empire. After the Battle of Tours, in which the French won, Christianity began to spread across all of Europe, competing against Islam from the Arab nations. As Christianity continued to spread, Christopher Columbus set sail, hoping to find spices in India, but arrived on the shores of the New World, the beginning of Age of Exploration. During this age, Spanish conquistadors colonized the indigenous populations, forcing them into a rigid labor system and hierarchy.
In the 1500’s spanish explorers called conquistadors started going out and conquering foreign lands. The conquistadors had three motives for what they did, the G's god gold and glory. They wanted gold and wealth for the lands they conquered. The conquistadors wanted to be remember for glorious things they did and they want to spread god's message and convert most people they encountered. Two of the most known conquistadors were Francisco Pizarro and Hernan Cortez.
During this time, “ambitious conquistadors in the Spanish colonies and early settlers there and in Brazil sought to become genuine aristocrats with all the seigneurial rights such status implied,” thus the Crowns became concerned with having influential, formidable nobility come to power so far out of the Crowns’ line of control. The time and distance that existed between Spain and the colonies in Latin America caused communication to be strained—a crucial illustration of this distance is how Spanish fleets and ships carrying messages usually returned to the Indies “fourteen to fifteen months” after leaving, demonstrating how taxing and intense the separation was. One of the ways Spain oversaw their chosen officials and the people in the colonies was to place an emphasis on the Church and on the Inquisition; the Church was “undoubtedly the single most important institution in Colonial Latin America,” and it had a significant amount of control over the lives of the colonial people “from birth, through marriage, and until death.” The Church acted, in part, as the eyes and ears of the Spanish Crown in the colonies, and it controlled nearly every element of life in Colonial Latin America, allowing Spain the opportunity to employ the
The exploration and colonization practices of the Portuguese and Spanish had many similarities and differences to their British counterparts. Exploration and colonization where a very important aspect of any country during this time period (1450-1750), as colonies across the world led to greater profits and more control. The Portuguese and Spanish has very specific exploration and colonization practices. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella highly supported exploration (by supporting Columbus’s exploration and establishing empires in the New World).
Reference Page Spanish Conquest of the new world: Walbert. D (n/d.) Spain and America: From Reconquest to Conquest. Learn NC Retrieved from: http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-twoworlds/1677
Colonization of The New World was a new concept at the time of The Age of Exploration. Spain was becoming a major superpower with the discovery and colonization of the Americas. “The English Monarch Queen Elizabeth told Sir Walter Raleigh to organize a colonizing mission,” (Tindall,Shi 36). With this expedition Sir Walter settlers were able to settle an area called Roanoke with little knowledge of this new world called America. Although the Roanoke Colony was never heard of again, Roanoke failed as a colony because it had a lack of communication with its only investor.
The end of the fifteenth century is attributed as the time period in which Christopher Colombus “discovered” the Americas. Although he was allegedly the first European to have reached these unknown lands at the time, many sought to reach the new world, for a variety of reasons. Most of those people could be divided in two: the settlers and the conquerors. In North America, there were more of the former, people looking for a new home where they could rebuild their families and lives. In Meso-America, however, the goal was to exploit the lands in order to produce and extract new goods which they could trade.
The motivation of Europeans who participated in early imperialism in the New World encompassed their desire for gold, thirst for glory, and aspiration of expanding their religion. Their desire for gold was one of the main causes of early European Imperialists. This was the case for the Portuguese and the Spanish for exploration in the New World. Also, the European’s thirst for glory contributed to the participation of early imperialism. The Portuguese and the Spanish competition with each other motivated both nations to colonize quickly and aggressively.
In 1492, Christopher Columbus, an Italian explorer sponsored by Isabella and Ferdinand, discovered the New World for Europe and claimed the rich, unspoiled territory for Spain. Ferdinand and Isabella’s subsequent decision to encourage vigorous colonial
When Columbus came to the Americas in search of land for his king, he also came to claim land for God” (Spreading Religion in the Age of Exploration). The Europeans spread Christianity, and it became very popular among the colonies of the New World. “Roman Catholicism was the official religion of Spain, so the Spanish conquistadors sought to spread Catholicism throughout their colonies, in addition to accumulating wealth and power” (Spreading Religion in the Age of Exploration). The Spanish missionaries worked very hard throughout the Americas and attempted to evangelize Native American groups.
European explorers and conquistadors during the age of exploration were motivated by three things: God, gold and glory. The two most prominent of the three between 1492 and 1607 were gold and glory. Beginning in 1492 gold motivated many explorers, from Christopher Columbus’s voyage to the New World to the Virginia Company’s colonization of America. Gold is a symbol for wealth, and many explorers soon realized the New World’s potential for wealth. The Spanish’s interest in wealth inspired Columbus’s expedition in the first place, as he was sent to India to trade for spices.
The English were more concerned with finding gold rather than building functioning societies; which were primarily built around biblical teachings, while the Spanish intended for European national power to extend to western civilization beginning with Catholicism and influence of the pope. English settlers were driven from England due to religious practices and perceived themselves as saving the Indians from the Spanish and their tyrannical ways. For the English, owning land would give men control over their own labor and the right to vote in most colonies, and this land possession would show wealth. This new obtained wealth would not only have demonstrated power, but it could also be used to influence a society a certain way to convince others to follow suit. The English believed that their motives for colonization were pure, and that the growth of empire and freedom would always go together, unlike the Spanish.
The Catholic Church and Latin America The Catholic Church was a great power ruling many civilizations in Europe during the period between 1492 and 1830. Therefore, the role of the Catholic Church was of utmost importance to the colonization and development of Latin America as it was a great force in Spain and Portugal. Despite the peaceful teachings of the Church, greed and a hunger for power led them to make decisions harming Latin America and Christianity, rather than thriving it. In this paper, I will show that the Catholic Church is significantly responsible for the colonization and development of Latin America through, the Christianizing mission, the Treaty of Tordesillas, and the Spanish Inquisition.
From this the Spain were able to grow their army and hence, their political power. Next in line were the France who landed in North America and discovered the land to be ripe with animal pelts which brought great wealth to the French. The Dutch had found the same success as the France.