The American Yawp — Chapter Two: Making an Atlantic World
Abridged for Intermediate-High Learners

In 1492, Europeans knew little about the wider world, yet the globe was already connected. Long before Columbus, the Chinese admiral Zheng He led a fleet of giant ships across the Indian Ocean, reaching East Africa between 1405 and 1433. Arab traders carried Islam and sailing technology across the same waters. Around the year 1000, the Norse explorer Leif Erikson reached Newfoundland in Canada, though his settlement failed within a decade.

European merchants were drawn toward Asia. Italian traders from Venice and Genoa controlled the routes to the Silk Road, and Marco Polo's account of China increased Europe's hunger for spices, silk, and porcelain. But in 1453, the Ottoman Empire captured Constantinople and closed the old land routes. Mediterranean merchants began to look west, toward the Atlantic Ocean.

In Spain, the 1469 marriage of Ferdinand and Isabel united two powerful kingdoms. In 1492, their armies captured Granada, ending eight centuries of war against the Muslim Moors. The Catholic monarchs then ordered Muslims and Jews to convert to Christianity or leave Spain.

Meanwhile, Portugal led Europe into the Atlantic. From 1415, Prince Henry the Navigator began to sponsor voyages along Africa's west coast, seeking gold and a sea route to Asia. Portuguese sailors developed the caravel, a fast and sturdy ship, and used the astrolabe to measure latitude at sea. In 1497, Vasco da Gama sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and reached India. In 1500, Pedro Alvares Cabral's ships were blown far west and landed in Brazil, which Portugal claimed for itself.

West Africa was already part of a rich trading world. The Mali Empire grew wealthy from gold and salt, and its ruler Mansa Musa became famous across the world after his 1324 pilgrimage to Mecca. The city of Timbuktu became a center of Islamic learning and trade. The Portuguese built small trading posts along the African coast to trade gold and enslaved people.

Christopher Columbus, a sailor from Genoa, believed he could reach Asia by sailing west across the Atlantic. Because he did underestimate the size of the Earth, he thought the voyage was possible. In 1492, Spain's monarchs gave him three ships. After two months at sea, he landed in the Bahamas, still believing he had reached islands near Japan.

Columbus found the Tainos living in the Caribbean islands. They farmed, fished, and traded. He described them as gentle, but he had come for gold and slaves. On later voyages, the Spanish enslaved the Tainos and forced them to work in gold fields and on sugar plantations. New diseases and Spanish violence destroyed the Taino population within a few decades.

Spanish conquistadors soon pushed beyond the Caribbean. Hernan Cortes led armies to conquer the Aztec Empire in Mexico, and Francisco Pizarro conquered the Inca Empire in Peru. As one soldier said, "We came here to serve God and the king, and also to get rich."

In the 1540s, the Spanish discovered enormous silver mines at Potosi in modern-day Bolivia and at Zacatecas in Mexico. American silver paid for Spain's armies and made it the most powerful empire in Europe.

To control Native labor, Spain created the encomienda system, which granted colonists the labor of entire villages. The system brought terrible abuse. Bartolome de Las Casas, a former colonist turned friar, wrote shocking accounts of Spanish cruelty and begged the Spanish monarch to stop it. Dutch and English writers used his stories to paint Spain as uniquely cruel, a narrative known as the Black Legend.

The meeting of Europe, Africa, and the Americas created a new Atlantic world. Europeans brought new crops, animals, and diseases, while American crops such as corn and potatoes traveled east. But the cost was enormous: millions of Indigenous people died, and the demand for labor drove the growth of the African slave trade.