The 1st Europeans believed to have arrived in North America were Vikings around about 1000CE. Leif Eriksson, a Viking explorer, led a party to Newfoundland and established a colony called Vineland. Earlier, Bjarni Herjulfsson, a sailor, had been blown off course while sailing from Iceland to Greenland and spotted an unknown shore. He returned to describe the land he saw, prompting Leif Eriksson to lead an expedition in 1001 to explore it further.
The Vikings seem to have abandaned their settlements in North America after only a few years. European interest in the continent did not resurface significantly until the late fifteenth century. Christopher Columbus's first voyage to the Caribbean in 1492 initiated an era of extensive European exploration.
Following Columbus’s voyage, Spain, Portugal, and other European powers began exploiting opportunities in the Americas, leading to permanent colonization. Spain undertook exploration, conquest, and settlement, driven by the pursuit of "gold, glory, and God." The conquest of the Aztec Empire between 1519 and 1521 marked a key event in early Spanish colonization. Portugal claimed lands in North America (Canada) and colonized much of eastern South America, naming it Santa Cruz and Brazil. Portuguese colonizers brought millions of enslaved Africans to Brazil from the 1500s to the 1800s.
European colonization dramatically impacted the indigenous population and culture of North America. Diseases carried by Europeans caused the native population to decline by an estimated 80%.
Economic theories like mercantilism, which aimed to maximize a nation's trade and stockpile of gold and silver, underpinned European colonization. The Columbian Exchange facilitated the transfer of commodities (e.g., horses, tomatoes, sugar), people, and diseases across the Atlantic. This exchange spurred population growth in Europe, introduced new crops, and shifted Europe toward a capitalist economy.
The motivations for European migration to the Americas revolved around "God, gold, and glory." Colonizers sought to extract valuable resources such as gold and sugar, spread Christianity, and enhance their nations' global status and military strength. Technological innovations, including compasses, astrolabes, and caravels—small, fast ships—enabled these ventures. The caravel, used by Spanish and Portuguese explorers, facilitated large-scale trade networks between the Old and New Worlds.
The Columbian Exchange initiated cultural and biological exchanges between indigenous peoples and European colonizers. This exchange brought new crops to Europe, promoted population growth, and accelerated economic shifts toward capitalism. The process moved commodities, people, and diseases across the Atlantic, reshaping both hemispheres.
European colonists encountered abundant land and natural resources but faced chronic labor shortages. Establishing settlements, building forts, clearing farmland, raising crops, and managing livestock required significant labor. Colonists had to produce goods for trade or earn income to procure essential supplies from Europe. With limited capital and a shortage of workers willing to emigrate, settlers devised various strategies to address their labor needs.
Some aristocratic investors initially sought to develop their holdings with European tenants, but the widespread availability of land undermined this approach. Others attempted to coerce Native Americans into labor, but this strategy failed on the mainland. By the early seventeenth century, British colonists, perceiving overpopulation in England, recruited impoverished English men and women to fill the labor gap. These individuals worked under indentures, providing unpaid labor for several years to repay the cost of their passage to the colonies.
ibliography
Books
Axtell, James. After Columbus: Essays in the Ethnohistory of Colonial North America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Axtell, James. Beyond 1492: Encounters in Colonial North America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Bailyn, Bernard. Atlantic History: Concept and Contours. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005.
Berlin, Ira. Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998.
Blackhawk, Ned. The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2023.
Crosby, Alfred W. Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900–1900. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997.
Edelson, S. Max. The New Map of Empire: How Britain Imagined America Before Independence. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017.
Elliott, John H. Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492–1830. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006.
Fernlund, Kevin Jon. A Big History of North America, from Montezuma to Monroe. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2022.
Hinderaker, Eric, and Rebecca Horn. Territorial Crossings: Histories and Historiographies of the Early Americas. Williamsburg, VA: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 2010.
Jennings, Francis. The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975.
Kruer, Matthew. Time of Anarchy: Indigenous Power and the Crisis of Colonialism in Early America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2021.
Lockhart, James, and Stuart B. Schwartz. Early Latin America: A History of Colonial Spanish America and Brazil. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Mann, Charles C. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.
Morison, Samuel Eliot. The European Discovery of America: The Northern Voyages, A.D. 500–1600. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971.
Morison, Samuel Eliot. The European Discovery of America: The Southern Voyages, 1492–1616. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974.
Pagden, Anthony. European Encounters with the New World: From Renaissance to Romanticism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993.
Parry, J. H. The Age of Reconnaissance: Discovery, Exploration, and Settlement, 1450–1650. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981.
Reséndez, Andrés. The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016.
Taylor, Alan. American Colonies: The Settling of North America. New York: Penguin Books, 2001.
Thornton, Russell. American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987.
Articles
Bailyn, Bernard. "The Idea of Atlantic History." Itinerario 20, no. 1 (1996): 19–44. Explores the conceptual framework of Atlantic history as a field of study.
Blackhawk, Ned. "Recasting the Narrative of America: The Rewards and Challenges of Teaching American Indian History." The Journal of American History 93, no. 4 (2007): 1165–1170. Highlights the complexities and benefits of integrating Native American perspectives into historical narratives.
Crosby, Alfred W. "The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492." The William and Mary Quarterly 33, no. 2 (1976): 289–299. Examines the exchange of goods, diseases, and people between the Old and New Worlds.
Elliott, John H. "The Seaborne Empires." The Oxford History of the British Empire, Volume I: The Origins of Empire, 1485–1715. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Analyzes the economic and strategic factors driving early European exploration.
Hinderaker, Eric, and Rebecca Horn. "Territorial Crossings: Histories and Historiographies of the Early Americas." The William and Mary Quarterly 67, no. 3 (2010): 395–432. Discusses territorial interactions and historiographical debates on early American history.
Jennings, Francis. "Virgin Land and Savage People." American Quarterly 23, no. 4 (1971): 519–541. Critiques the myth of an untouched wilderness in colonial narratives.
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