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how did european exploration and settlement affect the americas

by Alexandra Tillman Published 3 years ago Updated 2 years ago
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Overview. Colonization ruptured many ecosystems, bringing in new organisms while eliminating others. The Europeans brought many diseases with them that decimated Native American populations. Colonists and Native Americans alike looked to new plants as possible medicinal resources.

Full Answer

What are three reasons for European exploration?

  • Spreading Religion in the Age of Exploration. The Age of Exploration brought many European traditions to other places in the world.
  • Southeast Asia During the Spice Trade. Pirates, gold, and spicy food.
  • Urban Geography & Settlement Models.
  • The Italian Wars and Weakening of Papal Authority.

What were the causes and effects of European exploration?

What were the major causes and effects of European Exploration? *Cause: Spanish explorers came to America looking for gold and silver. Effect: Conquistadors attacked Native American cultures and claimed lands for their country. *Cause: European explorers brought many diseases with them. Effect: Missions were built to convert Native Americans.

What impact did European exploration have on Europe?

European explorations led to the Columbian Exchange and an increase in international trade. European nations competed for colonies. The European economy underwent major changes. Today, as in the days of mercantilism, some groups want to restrict global trade to protect certain jobs and industries from competition.

What were the reasons for European exploration of the Americas?

What were the three 3 reasons for European colonization and exploration? There are three main reasons for European Exploration. Them being for the sake of their economy, religion and glory. They wanted to improve their economy for instance by acquiring more spices, gold, and better and faster trading routes.

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What were some effects of European settlement in the Americas?

European colonization of North America had a devastating effect on the native population. Within a short period of time their way of life was changed forever. The changes were caused by a number of factors, including loss of land, disease, enforced laws which violated their culture and much more.

How did the European exploration change America?

Geography The Age of Exploration caused ideas, technology, plants, and animals to be exchanged around the world. Government Several European countries competed for colonies overseas, both in Asia and the Americas. Economics Developments during the Age of Exploration led to the origins of modern capitalism.

What are 3 effects of exploration?

Basic Effects Europeans gained new materials like gold, silver, and jewels. The Europeans enslaved the Native Americans and took most of them back to Europe. The explorers also gained new foods like corn and pineapple. Columbus also discovered tobacco seeds and brought the seeds back to Europe.

What were the positive effects of European exploration?

European exploration opened new ways of trade to Asia as well as India, that helped other nations to source products quickly and make high profits. The revenues generated benefited both the defeated and the conqueror.

Which is an effect of European exploration of the Americas quizlet?

1. death of millions of natives and enslavement of those who lived. 2. Europeans becoming wealthy and Native Americans became poor.

What were the 3 main reasons for exploration by European explorers?

Overview. Historians generally recognize three motives for European exploration and colonization in the New World: God, gold, and glory.

What were some of the effects of the Age of Exploration?

Impact of the Age of Exploration New food, plants, and animals were exchanged between the colonies and Europe. Indigenous people were decimated by Europeans, from a combined impact of disease, overwork, and massacres.

What were the causes and effects of the Age of Exploration?

Due to these explorations, the trade network has significantly expanded, which improved the European economy and has increased the geographic knowledge of the world. The cause of these explorations arose due to the appealing demand for fame, wealth, and knowledge as well as to increase the faith of Christianity.

What were the effects of European settlers on North America?

Whatever the motivations, those who settled North America left in their wake a legacy of poverty, domestic, drug and alcohol abuse, and an impenetrable sense of hopelessness among Native American communities.

How did European settlement affect Native Americans?

European settlement in the New World had a number of impacts on Native Americans. Mainly, though, settlement pushed Native Americans off their lands. It led to them either dying or being forced onto reservations. When the Europeans first came to the New World, they had two main effects. First, they brought germs that spread through Indian ...

What happened to the American Indians as more Europeans came?

As more Europeans came, the Europeans eventually wanted more land. This land belonged to the American Indians. Thus began a long series of conflicts and war between the Europeans and the American Indians. In most cases, the American Indians lost their land to the Europeans.

Is Native American unemployment higher than the population?

In the United States, Native American unemployment rates are significantly higher than the population in general. Rights to their lands are still being denied to them in some places. Child and maternal mortality rates tend to be higher than average.

Do Native Americans have unemployment?

To this day , Native Americans continue to be marginalized in society. In the United States, Native American unemployment rates are significantly higher than the population in general. Rights to their lands are still being denied to them in some places. Child and maternal mortality rates tend to be higher than average. All this can be traced back to European settlement that did much to destroy the way of life of countless native peoples.

How did European exploration begin?

Contrary to how we’ve mythologized Columbus, European Exploration began long before he set sail in 1492.

What was the motivation behind the expansion of the world?

The motivation behind this expansion was simple. Early explorers sought wealth and fame. Spain and Portugal showered early explorers like Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama with gold and glory when they returned home.

Why did the European monarchies sponsor the spice trade?

They sought to bring their country’s wealth via the spice trade and secure their legacy by bringing prosperity to their people.

What was Marco Polo's next leg of exploration?

The next leg of exploration was overland. Marco Polo traveled the Silk Road in the 13th century to find China. The stories and goods he brought back would greatly influence Christopher Columbus’ journey west to find the Indies.

How many Africans arrived in America in the 15th century?

From there, slavers traded them for goods, which then returned to Europe, forming a triangle. Between the 15th and 18th centuries, over 15 million Africans arrived in America. Five million of them died in horrific conditions in camps during their first year.

How many people died from the European plague?

Nobody knows how many people died from these European plagues, but it was likely over half of their population.

Why did European powers enslave Africans?

Instead of meditating on the death and destruction, they caused, European powers enslaved Africans to replenish their dying workforce.

How did European colonization affect the North American environment?

Perhaps European colonization’s single greatest impact on the North American environment was the introduction of disease. Microbes to which native inhabitants had no immunity led to death everywhere Europeans settled. Along the New England coast between 1616 and 1618, epidemics claimed the lives of 75 percent of the native people. In the 1630s, half the Huron and Iroquois around the Great Lakes died of smallpox. As is often the case with disease, the very young and the very old were the most vulnerable and had the highest mortality rates. The loss of the older generation meant the loss of knowledge and tradition, while the death of children only compounded the trauma, creating devastating implications for future generations.

Why did Europeans travel to America?

Just as pharmaceutical companies today scour the natural world for new drugs, Europeans traveled to America to discover new medicines. The task of cataloging the new plants found there helped give birth to the science of botany. Early botanists included the English naturalist Sir Hans Sloane, who traveled to Jamaica in 1687 and there recorded hundreds of new plants ( [link] ). Sloane also helped popularize the drinking of chocolate, made from the cacao bean, in England.

How did the Europeans influence the slave trade?

The growing slave trade with Europeans had a profound impact on the people of West Africa, giving prominence to local chieftains and merchants who traded slaves for European textiles, alcohol, guns, tobacco, and food. Africans also charged Europeans for the right to trade in slaves and imposed taxes on slave purchases. Different African groups and kingdoms even staged large-scale raids on each other to meet the demand for slaves.

What were the reasons for the rise of slavery in the American colonies?

Explain the reasons for the rise of slavery in the American colonies. As Europeans moved beyond exploration and into colonization of the Americas, they brought changes to virtually every aspect of the land and its people, from trade and hunting to warfare and personal property.

What happened to Africans when they reached their destination in America?

When they reached their destination in America, Africans found themselves trapped in shockingly brutal slave societies. In the Chesapeake colonies, they faced a lifetime of harvesting and processing tobacco. Everywhere, Africans resisted slavery, and running away was common.

How many slaves were there in 1700?

By 1700, the tiny English sugar island of Barbados had a population of fifty thousand slaves, and the English had encoded the institution of chattel slavery into colonial law. This new system of African slavery came slowly to the English colonists, who did not have slavery at home and preferred to use servant labor.

What was the demand for labor in the colonies?

Everywhere in the American colonies, a crushing demand for labor existed to grow New World cash crops, especially sugar and tobacco. This need led Europeans to rely increasingly on Africans, and after 1600, the movement of Africans across the Atlantic accelerated.

How did the Reformation affect European expansion?

The most important effect of the Reformation on European expansion was probably the fact that it happened at all. In general, after the Reformation , European societies became better organized , wealthier, and more productive. That's true of almost all Protestant societies, and it's true of a few Catholic ones, so you can't really say Protestantism makes people richer or more efficient, but the general effect is clear. The Reformation was an episode in a political, social, and economic transformation centuries long, rather than a cause of anything itself.

Why did the Puritans move to New England?

Puritans in England began to have conflicts with the Church of England leadership. They wanted to conduct their congregations in their own ways , which were different than the way of the Church of England. Many Puritans decided to relocate to New England, where they would have more religious freedom. New England became a Puritan stronghold for many years.

What was the name of the group that settled in Massachusetts?

A group of separatists called the Pilgrims established a colony in Massachusetts. Soon other Christian groups, such as Quakers, Huguenots, and Anabaptists came to the New World. The New World became a symbol of religious freedom to some. It was a wilderness waiting to be molded and shaped.

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Columbus, Portugal, & The Spanish Conquest

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Trade between Europe and Asia had been ongoing since 130 BCE when the Han Dynasty of China (202 BCE - 220 CE) opened the routes known in the modern day as the Silk Road. Although there were contentions over these routes through the years, and different monarchies or tribes took control of them in whole or in part, t…
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France & The Netherlands

  • The colony of New France was founded in modern-day Canada by the French explorer Jacques Cartier (l. 1491-1557) in 1534. France would also claim land holdings in the regions of modern-day South America, the Caribbean, the state of Louisiana, and elsewhere. Cartier's mission, like Columbus', was to navigate a maritime passage to Asia and return to France with gold. On his fir…
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Early English Colonies

  • England, impressed by the wealth Spain was able to acquire from the New World, considered establishing their own colonies there but, first, found it easier to have privateers (state-sponsored pirates) stop Spanish vessels returning from the Americas and seize their cargo, among them Sir Francis Drake(l. c. 1540-1596), known to the Spanish as “the D...
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Conclusion

  • The Jamestown colony barely survived the first few years, losing 80% of its population in only a few months, primarily because those who made up the expedition were either upper-class aristocrats who refused to work for their food or lower-class laborers who had no skill in farming. The colony was saved first by Captain John Smith (l. 1580-1631), a soldier, sailor, and adventure…
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