The Age of Encounter

📋 Course Outline

1. Indigenous Americas Before Contact
2. Aztec and Inca Civilizations
3. Motives for European Conquest
4. Columbus and Spanish Conquest
5. The Columbian Exchange
6. Exploration of North America

📅 Key Dates

1. 1492Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic and arrived in the Caribbean under the Spanish crown
2. 1513the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León explored Florida while primarily seeking gold and was repelled by the Indigenous population
3. 1523Giovanni Verrazzano, an Italian explorer sent by France, explored the New York area while seeking new trade routes, especially a sea route to the Pacific Ocean
4. 1532the Inca leader Atahuallpa surrendered to the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro, marking an important stage in the conquest of the Inca Empire
5. 1534 and 1541the French explorer Jacques Cartier explored Canada in search of gold and a sea route to the Pacific Ocean, contributing to a fur trade with Indigenous populations

📖 1. Indigenous Americas Before Contact

• Before 1492, approximately 90 to 110 million Indigenous people lived throughout North and South America, including between 2 and 10 million in the area that is now the United States.