Journal # 5
After the initial voyages during the Age of Discovery by European adventurers/explorers, what were several of the main purposes for settling and moving permanently to the Americas? (Provide specific examples citing which Europeans settled where and why.)
After America was discovered everyone wanted to claim a piece of it. The portuguese colonized mostly brazil under the commandment of Cabral, while the spanish with the voyages leaded by Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro claimed the rest of south america and bits of north. Later came the france the netherlands and England, who played a significantly small role in the voyage and took most of north America. Jacques cartier claimed quebec and most of canada to France. The English settled in north america and on the other hand found other settlements on on west indian islands such as Jamaica. Netherlands dident play a major role in the voyages instead they were more interested in setting up trading routes, and they did and called it New Amsterdam in manhattan which is in now day New York. Europeans had many reasons to settle preminitle in in the Americas. Some of the reasons are, religious desires, expansion, and probably the most important gaining wealth. one example for religious desires are a religious group called the Pilgrims. The Pilgrims were persecuted in england and were considered as dissenters by the english church. They came to the americas in hopes to claim their religious rights and set up their own theocratic state in now day massachusetts. Expansion was another huge reason for europeans moving to the early Americas. America had tons of free space where cities could be built. The free space in the early americas allowed a lot of crops to be grown and caused a big increase in the agricultures of all arriving countries, an estimate of 10 to 24 million african slaves were brought to the americas to work on farms. Wealth was probably the biggest factor why people would want to stay in the states. Governments wanted to move to the Americas to gain wealth; for example after columbus explored central america he brought back gold as evidence to Spain so that they would support voyages to the Americas. Because spain supported the voyages spain gained a lot of wealth. The government weren't the only ones who would gain wealth from the Americas. As we know every city needs banks, shops and a parliament. All of these places offered a big variety of jobs and opportunities to people who had nothing in the past, for example a person who in the past life in europe was a shoe cleaner could easily become a politic or a banker in a newly built city in the americas. As you can see people had lots of reasons to stay in the Americas starting with religious desires, expansion, or simply wealth.
