How Did Portugal Influence The Achievement Of American Exploration

Numerous European countries in the 15th and 16th century took a leap from their own territory to explore the vast terrain of the New World, now known as the continents of North and South America. It teemed with resources lost or foreign to Europe and offered expansion as well as new trade and tools. This hurried interest in exploration was due in part to new tools and ships like the compass and the astrolabe for navigation and triangular sails and sternpost rudders for long distance sailing. This advance in navigation and increase in European colonists in the New World is what led to the heavily populated North and South America today. Portugal led this surge of exploration with it’s sea based economy and durable, lightweight ships like the caravel. This sudden interest in the exploring was largely due to a man called Prince Henry the Navigator, although he mostly promoted development in the African coastal area. Portugal's most significant New World achievement was in 1500 when Pedro Álvares Cabral discovered and claimed Brazil for Portugal. Aside from this settled territory, the Portuguese were further interested in trade. The Portuguese did not claim large amounts
He instead found the Bahamas, Cuba, and Haiti, all locations in the Americas. He named the native people who resided there Indians because he believed he was in the Indian Ocean. Portugal thought otherwise and rightly believed that Spain was claiming parts of Brazil that they had already claimed, causing a dispute that was settled by the pope with the Treaty of Tordesillas. This treaty solidified Spain’s presence in what they thought was East Asia. With more exploration and discoveries by Columbus and others who found that this territory was not Asia, this nearly untouched land was named the New