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A major event in early Spanish colonization, which had so far yielded paltry returns, was the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519–1521). It was led by Hernán Cortés and made possible by securing indigenous alliances with the Aztecs' enemies, mobilizing thousands of warriors against the Aztecs for their own political reasons.
The economic model developed in the Netherlands would define colonial policies in the next two centuries. 1570: Failed Spanish settlement on Chesapeake Bay (Ajacán Mission). 1576: Spanish found León de los Aldama. 1576: Martin Frobisher reaches the coast of Labrador and Baffin Island. 1579: Sir Francis Drake claims New Albion.
The major battles took place in Europe, but American colonial troops fought the French and their Indian allies in New York, New England, and Nova Scotia with the Siege of Louisbourg (1745). At the Albany Congress of 1754, Benjamin Franklin proposed that the colonies be united by a Grand Council overseeing a common policy for defense, expansion ...
Religious zeal played a large role in Spanish and Portuguese overseas activities. While the Pope himself was a political power to be heeded (as evidenced by his authority to decree whole continents open to colonization by particular kings), the Church also sent missionaries to convert the indigenous peoples of other continents to the Catholic faith.
Before the expansion of early modern European powers, other empires had conquered and colonized territories, such as the Roman Empire in Europe, North Africa and Western Asia. Modern colonial empires first emerged with a race of exploration between the then most advanced European maritime powers, Portugal and Spain, during the 15th century. [2]
1846–47 – Scottish explorer John Rae maps over 1,046 kilometres (650 mi) of coastline from Lord Mayor Bay to Cape Crozier, discovering Committee Bay. [110] c. 1847–48 – António da Silva Porto reaches the upper Zambezi. [89] 1848 – German missionary Johannes Rebmann is the first European to sight Mount Kilimanjaro. [111]
The colonial period lasted approximately three centuries, from the early 16th to the early 19th centuries, when Brazil and the larger Hispanic American nations declared independence. The United States obtained independence from Great Britain much earlier, in 1776, while Canada formed a federal dominion in 1867 and received legal independence in ...
European demand for trade, commodities, colonies and slaves had a drastic impact on the rest of the world; during European colonization of the Americas, European colonial powers conquered and colonized numerous indigenous nations and cultures, and conducted numerous conversions and attempts at cultural assimilation both voluntary or forced.