1513; searched for "fountain of youth"; explored Fl, found lots of flowers & named it Florida
motives: getting old, looking to revive w/ the fountain of youth
Vasco de Balboa
first white eyes to see the Pacific Ocean from the American continent (not panama); he fought the natives & and jungle; proved that there is a Pacific Ocean
Ferdinand Magellan
fell out of favor w/ Portugal, went to the enemy and sailed for Spain
the first to circle the world (crew was bc Magellan died in the Philippines)
destination: spice islands
lost 4/5 of boats, took 3 years, went around the tip of South America, Magellan died bc of an argument with locals
Hernando Cortez
ambitious, cocky, believed he was the highest authority
a superior governor grants Cortez permission to explore and then takes it back; Cortez leaves Cuba anyways without permission even though punishment would be death
his crew starts to doubt him, he burns the ships and eliminates an option of leaving; go on to glory or die here
governor finds out about him leaving and organizes a plot to kill him
they find the Aztecs and take over (30,000 Aztecs vs 300 Spaniards)
spaniards have extremely high motivation
natives are unexperienced with diversity; white people are walking dead, metal armor looks like skin (shiny skin), lots of body hair; ghosts, demons, gods;
Cortez realizes and plays on this
spaniards pretend to be magic; thunder is loudest thing NA hear; Cortez claims that he can control nature; guns can kill things without touching; their biggest animal was a deer, sees human riding a horse and thinks its a horse/human; spaniards can control animals too
ancient aztec ruler claimed he would come back as dead, during same year that Cortez
came, out of a tortoise mouth; Aztecs though Cortez was him
the mightiest warrior strikes a Spaniard and club breaks against the armor; they are gods
battle strategies: aztecs and Spaniards are matched in numbers on a bridge to Tenochtitlan, S put the NA who turned S in the front and S in the back; Spanish built boats; the city is infected with small pox and people are weak; the Aztec Empire collapsing;
Emperor Montezuma II of 1519; they took gold and shook the European economy
translation from spanish to aztec language is through Cortez's mistress who had a talent for language; she made herself valuable to Cortez
Francisco Pizarro
1532; lieutenant of Cortez, gets bored of being rich from Aztec gold, finds Incan Empire
Incan Empire in turmoil; Pizarro uses same technique as Cortez
imprisons Emperor Atahualpa, knows he will die, promises that he will fill a room with gold; the spanish cheat the incans, incans fill up room and spanish take some out so they are constantly refilling the
room; gold is decoration to incans while it is wealth and power for Spaniards
Pizarro kills Atahualpa and mines for gold; Spaniards incredibly rich, Incan gold even better than Aztec gold
Cabeza de Vaca
(head of cow, name from ancestors, a head of a cow was placed on top of a hill for spanish victory
shipwrecked looking for the 7 cities of gold, built small ships, landed in Texas
3 men; Cabeza and two others
wanders into Spanish village, Natives said the 7 cities aren't real; lost in translation, the gold glow off of 7 cities to 7 cities of gold
buried in Mississippi River after being trapped in Tuscaloosa
vicious and cruel to NA; GOLD AT ALL COSTS
lots of things in Alabama are named after him which is controversial
tricked natives and stole from them then burned the village
not a lot of gold in South East, Natives had very little to give to Spanish, Spanish believed that Natives were holding out on them
Tuscaloosa is a NA leader; Tuscaloosa named after him; he hears of white devil, traps him, hurts them, releases them
Desoto and men get sick very easily and start to die
about to die when get to Mi River
2 theories
spanish: de Soto died of sickness and received proper Spanish burial in Mi River
NA: attacked de Soto and men, killed a few men and de Soto while some got away, de Soto buried face down in Mi River so soul couldn't escape to afterlife
truths: de Soto dies near Mississippi River
ones who escape leave with
gold; leave pigs that go feral
quickly; grew tusks and black
skin from sun
Coronado
first white eyes to see the Grand Canyon
Juan de Oñate
explored and set up New Mexico, brutal towards NA but determined, controversy over whether he was a hero or a monster