Discovering Our Past The American Journey Chapter 1 Summary

In chapter 1 of Discovering Our Past: The American Journey, by Glencoe, the main idea is exploration and its impact on the Americas. Clearly, exploration made a huge impact on the world by discovering new places, finding new routes, and riches. Portugal and Spain unleashed a new era of exploration by searching for sea routes to Asia by ship, Portugal mainly started the “Age of Exploration” because a sailor named Bartholomeu Dias reached the southern tip of Africa which was new land to them and a little while after, Vasco da Gama found the “long awaited” Sea route to Asia which inspired other people to sail as well. Other people had different goals while exploring the sea, like Ferdinand Magellan who was the leader of the first crew to sail around the world.

Trading encouraged many different things, for example; Nations became stronger because of exporting more than importing, taxes were also made because of trading to make extra money. In some cases, sailing wasn’t that great, people found new places and abused them. For example, Francisco Pizarro sailed down to South America where Pizarro had “heard tales of the incredibly wealthy Inca Empire,” when he had gotten there he captured the Incan ruler, destroyed much of the Incan army, and controlled most of the Incan Empire. Pizarro and Cortez conquered the lands by using things the Native Americans didn’t have, for example, they had guns and cannons, dogs, horses, friendly Natives who hated their gods and fought with them, and (because of the dead) disease spread unknowingly and most of the Native Americans were defeated. In conclusion, Sailing and trading benefited most people in the 1200’s to the 1500’s, but Native Americans didn’t like it as much, that was the “Age of