Position:Home>History> TWO QUESTIONS ABOUT THE SPANISH! EASYY! help ♥ ♥ ♥?

1) Why did the Spanish want to explore and colonize America!?

It can be broken into three reasons: Gold, Glory, God!.

Gold: The Spanish wanted more money!. Europe is not the most resource rich continent on Earth!. The Spanish of Columbus' day understood that new lands equaled more access to natural resources, and that meant money!. The more money Spain had, the greater their power in Europe and the world!.

Glory: Spain was in direct competition with the increasingly nationalistic nation-states of Europe!. On the political stage, the more land a nation could claim under its domain, the more it was respected!. This created a great impetus to travel abroad in search of new lands to conquer and claim as one's own!.

God: Europeans, especially the Spanish, were always on the lookout for new people to convert to Christianity!. The greater the Christian numbers, the greater the number of people in God's service!. The peoples of the Americas were people Columbus described as ripe for conversion!. Some natives were even taken back to Europe to give them a proper 'European education'!.


2) What impact did the search for the Northwest Passage have upon exploration and colonization!?

Certainly it had enough impact that people continued to look for it even into the 19th Century!. It is probably Hudson who is most famous for his attempt at finding the ever elusive passage!. In the end, the attempt to find the Northwest Passage did, in a minor way, affect exploration (at least some explorers), but it did not affect colonization efforts much!.


For websites, this is a list I threw together very quickly:

http://www!.millersville!.edu/~columbus/da!.!.!.
http://encarta!.msn!.com/encyclopedia_7615!.!.!.
http://www!.bartleby!.com/67/908!.html

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