Causes and Effects of Early Exploration By: Jacob Reyes, For Mr. Meninga's class, World History, 03/16/17

The Colonization of the New World

After exploring the so-called Indonesian islands path that Columbus claimed to have discovered, many Spaniards followed it and discovered these new islands, they decided that this place could make them rich and powerful. This lead Spain to take over this new place, and essentially enslave and doom the entire new islands they found. Without these things happening, the places we have now might not exist the same way that we have them now. Although after the Spanish took over much of the New World, others came to get bits and pieces which had not been conquered as of that point in time, such as the English. This lead to a fight for power over territory, with the English eventually winning much territory and then losing it to the colonists, forming the United States.

The three causes of Colonization

The colonization of this new world was caused by many things, such as how without there being a spice rage, Columbus would have never actually found this place that made them so much money. This spice craze was for their own meats, and things like that, which needed flavor, which to us seems like a trivial small detail, but to them was a very important aspect of their life. This was because meat was very valuable at this time, giving good reason to eat it even if it had gone bad. That being said, it probably tasted disgusting without some kind of spice to make its' taste partly bearable, which made it very easy to make money off of these kinds of things. Columbus was also able to do this due to the fact that the Spanish still had plenty of money to spend after they took their homeland back in the Spanish reconquista, due to the fact that they had money for the army that they no longer had to fund which means plenty of money to work with. Although the biggest piece of this puzzle is the fact that Columbus' view of the world did not include the Americas and therefore he tried to sail through them, which does not make much logical sense.

The Three Effects of Colinization

One of the most immediate effects of colonizing the new world was that the Spaniards brought slaves to work in the new farms they created. This affected people all the way up to today at the least, as the natives were mainly replaced with African slaves, and therefore the majority that lives there now is African. Another of the biggest effects of this new colonization, is that with the new farms they had, many of the Spanish owners got rich, and decided to expand more to make more money. However, the most everlasting of these effects so far was the discovery of the Americas, which lead to all of the current countries being created and without this the United States might not even exist. These are all important due to the fact that so many people have been impacted by the things that came out of Columbus' exploration and many peoples colonization of this new world, as an explosion of social and world wide intellectual growth came soon after this point in time.

The Spanish invasion of the New World

After Columbus's big discovery, the natives already living in these lands thought that the new people that found them were extremely more advanced in a technological way than them. This happened to give the colonists a huge advantage as the unknown tends to scare people that the unknown comes to. The colonization of this new place also affected the population in the sense that the people coming here were of different skin color, making it east to tell the difference and probably disconcerting for both races as they both had been used to their own skin color, which in most places became the normal and any other color could be thought of as some kind of omen depending on how they thought of these things.

The Causes of This Invasion and the Enslavement

To start off this invasion, the place had to be found first of course, and this went down famously in history, as we still learn about Columbus finding this place. He was only able to find this place of course as stated earlier and only after the eventual spice craze. This place was especially liked for its' peppers that could be used for taste on other things and supplied a good need for them among those who had never seen these new spices before. Unfortunately, the Spaniards not only brought their great technology and force, but also their common cold. The common cold to these Spaniards of course seemed very usual and with the lack of medical experience of the past, they did not figure that all of these easy going viruses would extremely affect the new people whose immune systems were not used to these kinds of things attacking their systems. This gave the newcomers the advantage in overwhelming the natives as the simple sickness that was so common among the new comers could wipe away an entire army without an arm lifted. With this had hit to them already, the native people only had to hope that the they had more power on their side in spite of the overwhelming sicknesses, although unfortunately this just led to their disappointment as the newcomers had hugely advance skills and weaponry to back themselves up to the maximum.

The Effects of the Invasion and Enslavement

Some things that came out of this in the first place is the Spanish conquistadors, who appeared after the initial conquering of the Caribbean, and became a force to be reckoned with to the natives. This place also seemed promising as people then found the perfect place to grow both new and old crops that may not have grown as well and a prosperously in their original land. One of these being sugar, which attracted the Europeans with great interest as they loved the sweet but hard to grow crop. This changed when they found these islands and with the native population easily enslaved and put to work, they could easily grow much more here, and therefore increase the supply for this product by quite a bit. This of course led to more and more enslavement here, and eventually killed off the population. This being said the people that ran the farms were frantic to find more people to farm these fields, and therefore brought people form far away just to do this for them. This is what led to the massive enslavement of Africans at this time and also caused a huge market opening for the people to get slaves for personal use, as there were many Africans that were also in advanced compared to the Spanish. All of this came out of this Invasion that was just caused by a bit of spice

The English Defeat Spain

Before the Spaniards were able to find America, they had to have the funds to do so, but how could they in the middle of trying to fend off the invaders of their home country? Before leading explorations into the unknown, the Spaniards first had to take back their country of Spain, then they had to bring in the money they needed, which was easy. The biggest obstacle, though, was the fact that the Spaniards wanted to take down the English for both religious and political reasons. This lead to a large conflict between the two which led to an even bigger battle that the Spaniards were victorious in. This bolstered their confidence and made it much easier to travel from place to place without fear of attack.

The Cause of the Spaniards Defeat

The events that led to this big conflict started with the new queen of England that did not believe in the Catholic faith any longer, starting the fire of the Spaniards revenge. On top of this, the English also decided to pay people to invade Spanish ships to take their gold and silver treasures, leading to more people getting angry and more Spaniards dying due to the English. This ended up being the tipping point for the Spanish, initiating the rage that fueled their revolt, which of course the English expected and were therefore ready for the attack and ended up winning the battle

The Effects of the Defeat

This win for the English led to their increased riches and also an increased travel area without fear. This gave people a huge opportunity to take over the recently discovered land of America, which the English then invaded more with their recent victory spoils. The French also saw this as an opportunity, and went North to take over Canada without much worry of revolt by the weakened Spain. All of this obviously was caused by Spain's lost power, but with people taking advantage of this loss of power, they lost more in the process, meaning they lost more and more power until eventually falling back to just about the power they had before Columbus' discovery.

Report Abuse

If you feel that this video content violates the Adobe Terms of Use, you may report this content by filling out this quick form.

To report a Copyright Violation, please follow Section 17 in the Terms of Use.