European Exploration of the New World

The period of time from the late 1400s to the early 1700s is often referred to as the age of exploration; this is because during this time frame many explorers from Europe were racing to examine the Americas. Some explorers wanted to journey to the Americas, just to explore, and gain knowledge and glory, but to do that they needed financial backing and with the royalty’s money came the political agenda. First, Spain sent crews to examine the newly found lands. Soon after, England and France followed. While their timing may have been different, the goals of the European powers were very similar. The Europeans ventured to the new world with a hope of spreading Christianity and in search of gold and spices. According to the historian Robert Mackenna, a big factor of European expansion between 1415 and 1715 was Charles V‘s call for expansion of Christendom by converting the Natives of the new world. Many explorers also served as missionaries. While with the native people of the Americas, men on voyages would teach the people about their religion. This was not only done by explorers who set sail from England, but from Spain as well. The Catholic Church had a huge role in the Spanish expeditions and he colonization. They built missionaries, and converted many of the Native people of Mexico. What drives our society? Money and the answer was the same in the 1400s one of the driving forces behind European exploration of the Americas was gold. When trying to convince the Spanish monarchy to finance a return trip to the Americas, Columbus told the couple that there were “great mines of gold and other metals.” Another explorer, Hernan Cortez, was quoted saying “ We Spaniards suffer from a disease of the heart, the specific remedy for which is gold.” The Spaniards did in fact find a lot of gold, but they found even more silver when they conquered the Aztecs in Mexico. The explorers set out on a mission to bring home valuable metals, and they did. The other major