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the colonization of the spanish
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The encomienda system begins, granting Indians to Spanish encomenderos as slaves. The Spaniards are tasked with protecting the natives and teaching them Christianity. The system is rife with abuses.
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Ferdinand Magellan's ships are the first to circumnavigate the globe. Magellan himself is killed by natives in the Pacific.
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La Noche Triste: The "Night of Tears" in which almost two thirds of Cortés's men (nearly 800 in total) are killed as they try to escape Tenochtitlan after the death of Moctezuma.
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The Spanish import the first African slaves to the territory that will later become the United States
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The first printing press is set up in Mexico City. Printing comes to the New World
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Jacques Carter explored the northeast part of the continent and discovered the st. lawrence river. he explored it over three vcoyages between 1535-1541
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Francisco Vázquez de Coronado leads an expedition in search of El Dorado, the mythical Seven Lost Cities of Gold. He travels for two years through the territories that will later become the American Southwest. He finds much desert but no gold.
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Silver is discovered at Potosí in Bolivia. Spain begins to reap huge financial rewards from its New World colonies.
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Bartolomé de Las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda debate the rights of Indians in the New World in Valladolid, Spain.
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Santa Fe, the capital of present-day New Mexico, is founded.
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samuel de champlain works ceaselssly to explore and build the fur trade
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Richelieu forms in 1627 the Company of New France, consisting of One Hundred Associates (of whom Champlain is one). The Associates pledge themselves to transport at least 200 settlers to the colony each year, but this target is never reached. By 1660 New France still has only about 2300 European inhabitants (Boston at the time has a larger population).
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In these circumstances the French fur traders find it very hard to get their wares to the St Lawrence, particularly after the friendly Huron have been driven west by the Iroquois in 1648-50. In 1660 the settlers appeal to Louis XIV for help. He responds by turning New France into a royal province.
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It will henceforth be ruled by a governor, with military, religous and educational support supplied by France. The new resolution is accompanied by a rapid increase in settlement. During the 1660s more than 3000 colonists are sent out, including a due proportion of girls of marriageable age.
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In 1668 a Jesuit mission is established at the junction of the three western Great Lakes, in a settlement which the missionaries name Sault Sainte Marie. This pivotal point is selected in 1671 as an appropriate place from which to claim the entire interior of the American continent for the king of France.
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The great central valley of north America, watered by the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri rivers, is first visited by Europeans during the late 1660s and 1670s. This development is the direct result of the growth of the colony of New France during the 1660s. As the French explore through and around the Great Lakes, they begin also to move down the rivers running south from this region.
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Jacques Marquette and Louis Joleit in 1673 went to explore the mississippi river as thry traveled they described the landscape and creatures such as the monster fish (catfish) however shortly turned around and retreated in fear of being captured by the spainish
