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Systematic European colonization began in 1492. 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.
1496: Santo Domingo, the first European permanent settlement, is built. [7] 1497: John Cabot reaches Newfoundland. [8] 1498: In his third voyage, Columbus reaches Trinidad and Tobago. 1498: La Isabela is abandoned by the Spanish. 1499: João Fernandes Lavrador maps Labrador and Newfoundland
The two main countries in the first wave of European colonialism were Portugal and Spain. [3] The Portuguese started the long age of European colonization with the conquest of Ceuta, Morocco in 1415, and the conquest and discovery of other African territories and islands, this would also start the movement known as the Age of Discoveries.
Colonists from Europe saw the American landscape as wild, savage, dark, a waste, and thus needed to be tamed in order for it to be safe and habitable. Once cleared and settled, these areas were depicted as "Eden itself." [94] The advent of European colonization resulted in the disruption of existing social structures in indigenous lands.
Furthermore, local tribal leaders did not simply give up their own people for the aforementioned commodities but rather through intertribal wars, debts, and civil crime offenders. [5]: 54 Labor in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies became scarce. European diseases and forced labor began killing the indigenous people in insurmountable numbers.
A History of European Diplomacy 1815–1914 (1922), basic introduction; Page, Melvin E. ed. Colonialism: An International Social, Cultural, and Political Encyclopedia (3 vol. 2003); vol. 3 consists of primary documents; vol. 2 pages 647-831 has a detailed chronology; Porter, Andrew.
The European early modern period began with the Turkish colonization of Anatolia. [50] [dubious – discuss] After the Ottoman Empire conquered Constantinople in 1453, the sea routes discovered by Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator (1394–1460) became central to trade, and helped fuel the Age of Discovery. [51]
Spain sponsored a major exploration led by Italian explorer Christopher Columbus in 1492; it quickly led to extensive European colonization of the Americas. The Europeans brought Old World diseases which are thought to have caused catastrophic epidemics and a huge decrease of the native population. Columbus came at a time in which many ...