After America had been discovered and explored by the European nations, it was considered by several of the most ambitious ones as worthy of being settled and claimed as a part of their empires. In this unit we shall see how an advanced civilization was transplanted to a primitive environment. The English, as rivals of powerful Spain, were interested in obtaining new lands and greater natural resources.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed across the Atlantic in search of the northwest passage. In 1583 he made a second attempt and reached Newfoundland, where he selected a site for a colony, and claimed the island for England. On the return voyage he was lost at sea.

From the settlements in Canada, the French fur traders, missionaries and explorers pushed on through the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi River, building a chain of forts from the St. Lawrence through the Mississippi Valley to New Orleans, which was founded in 1718. By these activities the French laid a foundation for an empire in America, built on the fur trade. This vast area they held for about a century and a half, but in 1763 they were forced to yield most of it to the English.

In 1562 Jean Ribaut came to explore the coast of Florida and to find a place of settlement for French Huguenots. Ribaut landed at the St. Johns River and then went north to Port Royal harbor (now Paris Island, S. C.), where he built Fort Charles for the protection of the thirty men left there. The men soon abandoned the place, and in a boat built by themselves returned to Europe. In 1564, Ren6 de Laudonni6re brought over a larger group of Huguenot colonists, who built Fort Caroline, on the St. Johns River.

The Spaniards made it possible for Columbus to undertake the voyages which discovered America. Spanish leaders explored a large part of the New World and built an empire for Spain, most of which she held until well into the nineteenth century. St. Augustine, Florida, founded in 1565, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, settled in 1609, are the only important cities established by the Spanish that are within the present limits of the United States.

Ponce de Leon was the first of the Spanish to explore land in the present limits of the United States. He had come to America with Columbus on his second voyage. He had spent nearly twenty years in the West Indies and, while governor of Puerto Rico, had heard rumors of an island to the north that was rich in gold, and of a fountain whose water would give perpetual youth to all who drank from it.

One of the most daring of the Spanish explorers was Hernando Cortes. In 1519, with a force of about five hundred Spaniards, nearly three hundred Indians, and sixteen horses, he set out from Cuba for the conquest of Mexico. Reports had reached him of a civilized Aztec nation possessed of great wealth, especially gold and silver.

The Spanish Explorers; Balboa. On Columbus's second voyage to the New World, he established a colony in the West Indies which became the base for many of the Spanish exploring expeditions. Balboa, one of the settlers of this colony of Santo Domingo, played an important role in exploration. Misfortune overtook him and he became involved in debt. Pressure from his creditors made life so unpleasant for him that he sought to leave the colony.

The Explorers of the New World. Soon after America was discovered, exploration began. Many European countries were anxious to explore and claim part of the new lands as their own. The Spanish assumed the leadership in these undertakings, for the Portuguese were by the treaty of Tordesillas excluded from all the New World except the eastern part of South America (Brazil).

Columbus was not the first European to reach the Western World. Probably the first explorers were the Norsemen who, during the Middle Ages, occupied the Scandinavian peninsula. These people were bold and warlike and were not satisfied with the settled portions of Europe, but sought adventure by sailing the distant seas, looking for unclaimed land. They made a settlement in Iceland near the end of the ninth century, and about a hundred years later they planted a colony in Greenland under the leadership of Eric the Red.