European Conquest of America by Geo History - A Historian Reacts

welcome back everybody to another reaction video where we are going to uh explore a brand new youtube channel today this one's called geo history it showed up in my suggested videos today and i watched the first couple of minutes just enough to get an understanding and i thought it was a really cool take on history to do so from the standpoint of looking at a map and looking at it this way haven't checked out too many of their other videos yet because i want to save those in case i do more reactions but i'll put a link in the description to this particular original video so you can check out their original content this one here is the european conquest of america so basically we're talking about the time of exploration and then conquest by the european powers of north and south america so uh it's about a 17-minute video so we're gonna watch this and i'll i'll jump in from time to time just to kind of add my own thoughts and obviously there's going to be some more background to this than what they're going to explore as with any video please make sure you check out the original content creator give them a like and make sure you support them we don't want to piggyback off their work without giving them due credit for that so with that said let's check this out and this coming week you can be expecting two things specifically uh part two of my look at reconstruction on forgotten history and also uh the next couple of chapters of our look at the history of turkey the ottoman empire so those will be coming soon here we go let's dive into this one [Music] in the 15th century these are approximately the known lands in europe to the east are the indies from where spices and silk come in europe the trade of these luxury products is controlled by the powerful republics of genoa and venice but in 1453 the ottomans seized constantinople and bring down the byzantine empire by extending their influence over the mediterranean they put an end to the golden age of the italian republics this is something really super important in discussing all of this because this is not something that gets talked about a whole lot uh typically the story of the exploration and conquest of the americas at least as it's taught in schools here at least from what i can remember it's been a long time since i was in school but uh starts with christopher columbus and looking for another way to get to the indies but we don't really talk about why that is this is why that is exploration that leads to the discovery or the rediscovery we should say of the americas really is born out of necessity it's about trying to find another way to get to the spice uh trade without having to go through ottoman uh the ottoman empire and the eastern part of the mediterranean sea they're trying to find another route to do that [Music] in the west portugal dreams of opening a new trade route to the indies and seizing the monopoly on the spice trade they take advantage of the development of the caraval a more robust ship capable of handling the oceans to send explorations to africa and this is another important point is it's not only necessity of trying to find another way with the trade it's also the availability of new technology that makes this possible you know you got to remember and we've talked about this in other videos uh that for the most part throughout all of human history um you've had to stay close to land where you could see land not only because of navigation because you don't have a way of navigating an open water which they've also developed a way to deal with that about this time but also because you just don't have the technology to have ships that can handle the uh the rough open seas and carry enough supplies to get you where you need to go so this is kind of the sweet spot of necessity and technology and all of that coming together at the right moment in history in 1484 christopher columbus a genoese navigator living in lisbon proposes to the portuguese king to try to reach asia by sailing west according to his calculations cathay and sapango currently china and japan are close enough for the crossing to be feasible don't let anyone tell you i don't know if they still teach this to people but christopher columbus was not unique in believing the world was round by this point we had known the world was round for a really long time uh it goes back to the at least to the ancient greeks that they knew that the world was around so we've known the world was round for a good 2000 years at this point uh so that's not new the the issue was how far is it to go that way to get to japan china the spice trade the indies things like that and is there anything in the way in between the issue is whether or not it was feasible to do that not whether or not you know there was a way around the other side but the king rejects the project confident christopher columbus tries his luck with the rival queen of castile but in vain two years later while portugal reaches the cape of good hope the spanish monarchy completes the reconquista by seizing grenada nothing seems to stop its ambitions it must now catch up with portugal in its race towards the indies so um castile and aragon still separate kingdoms at this point it's not combined into spain quite yet uh so you have ferdinand and isabella who are the king and queen of these two nations and they've married and they have children together uh one of their daughters uh is catherine of aragon uh who will go on to famously not too long after this marries henry viii of england uh well first marries his brother arthur and then later marries henry viii uh and so you know those two countries will be united uh under eventually under uh king charles v who will also be the um the holy roman emperor the queen of castile and the king of aragon authorize and finance the expedition of christopher columbus [Music] on august 3 1492 christopher columbus leaves palos with three ships and 90 men after a short stopover in the canary islands they head west and sail for 36 days into the unknown the crew finally see an island columbus lands and meets with the local taino people convinced he has reached the indies christopher columbus names them indians after a few exchanges he leaves and explores the surrounding islands so you know don't let people fool you when they say first of all that christopher columbus discovered america we know that wasn't the true we know that the vikings and others had discovered north america long long before this many hundreds of years before this and and they had been back many times um and also christopher columbus never set foot in what we would call north america uh and on his initial trip didn't even set foot in south america he landed on i think the islands called san salvador is what he named it uh he explores a little bit of cuba and hispaniola which is um haiti in the dominican republic but that's really as far as he gets at least on that first voyage thinking he's in asia he looks for the kingdom of the great khan mentioned in the writings of marco polo on an island called kiskaya which he renames la hispaniola he builds the fort of the nativity leaves 39 men behind and returns with seven tynos gold pearls and parrots as proof of the success of his expedition welcomed as a hero he returns to the nativity a few months later this time with 1500 men to found a permanent colony of which he would be the governor but he finds the 39 men left behind dead he then founds la isabella in honor of the queen of castile and continues his explorations and you know obviously we want to tell the whole story here you know we need to recognize the fact that they immediately start oppressing these people they start enslaving a lot of them they start using their power over these people and that's going to become a part of the story so you know this is a story of exploration and conquest and obviously they're not going to tell every detail of everything that every person did yes we can acknowledge christopher columbus did some really bad stuff uh and on top of that whether willingly or not they bring diseases that the natives are not immune to like smallpox which just ravages them during this time the spanish monarchy in portugal to avoid conflicts around the newly conquered territories agree to draw a meridian the lands to the east can be claimed by portugal those to the west by the spanish monarch and at this point spain's probably thinking this is a pretty good deal right because their figure in their all the land they found so far has all been to the west of that line so as far as they are concerned there's probably nothing over here but just empty water they have no idea that south america is down here and sticks out really far and that all of what will become brazil is on the portuguese side of the line anarchy [Music] england in turn begins to search for a new maritime route to india an expedition is sent further north and reaches a land that is unknown to them vasco de gama for portugal crosses the cape of good hope enters the indian ocean and reaches india on may 20th 1498. a second portuguese expedition leaves for india but as it moves away from the coast to take advantage of the sea currents the expedition reaches a new land and you know how often in history do accidents turn into discoveries right and this is a perfect example of that he's not looking for south america he's not looking for this new continent and an extension of what they've already discovered he's looking for a quick way to kind of slingshot around the cape of good hope and get to that side and in the end he ends up discovering the coast of what will become brazil located east of the meridian of tortillas there an exotic wood grows from which can be obtained a red dye like an ember or brassa in portuguese this will later give the name of brazil to their new colony [Music] while the spanish colonists discover products unknown in europe such as potatoes tomatoes tobacco and cocoa ships loaded with gold emeralds and pearls returned to spain think about that until this point in history people in europe potatoes and tomatoes not a part of their lives cocoa not a part of their lives tobacco these things that are part of everyday life now were new discoveries to them that hadn't been found yet but of course what they're really after is not that stuff they're after gold they're after wealth they're after gems they're after slaves uh you know they bring back they enslave people there but then eventually of course the slaves from africa which motivates the departure of many colonists to the new spanish lands they bring with them domestic animals and seeds but also diseases that were previously unknown to the indigenous populations who are therefore not immune these diseases spread throughout the continent faster than the colonists and decimate the populations see understand that you know even in europe uh diseases like smallpox would ravage the population but but it didn't do quite the damage to the population that it does to the natives because generations of immunity have been built up so you know it's kind of like the idea of natural selection right uh you've built up a natural immunity the woman that you're married to builds up a natural immunity you pass some of that onto your kids and and so just through generations of uh experiencing these outbreaks of these pandemics and overcoming them there's a natural immunity that's built up among the population herd immunity if you will they don't have that over here but the same thing's true in reverse uh i believe i want to say diseases like syphilis were unknown to europe but were brought to europe from the native so it kind of works both ways in 1506 after a fourth trip christopher columbus dies a few months later the word america appears on a map in honor of the explorer amerigo vespucci the continent would henceforth be called america in the spanish territories colonists notice it's really south america that first gets called america you know at least as a as an american you know in the united states when we when we talk about america we're usually talking about our country but america first applied to central and south america and you know if you go to central america today at least when i was there 20 years ago they refer to us as north americans you know to distinguish from south americans and you know central americans so the term america means a very different thing depending on where you are let's impose forced labor on the local populations but the spanish monarchy influenced by the roman catholic church opposes the mistreatment and tries via new laws to increase its control over the new territories and to improve the conditions of the natives the catholic church also sends missionaries to evangelize the local populations from the spanish colonies conquerors called conquistadors explore everywhere to the north they discover a land they name florida and ponce de leon is going to be looking for the legendary fountain of youth you know that whole story with things like that this is all think about this this is all really in a span of 25 years or so that all of this has happened everyone's understanding of the map of the world is changing by the minute changing by the by the year you know every year new discoveries are being made new lands are being made which means new opportunities for wealth new opportunities to conquer uh and these conquistadors are going to go in and it's not very long between when the they're saying with the catholic church hey we want to get along with these people we want to treat them right to where conquistadors are going to go in and say how can we very quickly defeat the natives that are here and i think it starts with the aztecs to the south an expedition goes inland and discovers a sea on the other side of the ocean finally in 1518 an expedition goes north along the coast passes a peninsula and meets representatives sent by an emperor the governor then decides to assume the mission there and i'm sure they're not going to get into too much detail on this but uh it's pretty horrible how how they take down montezuma and the aztecs the conquistador hernan cortes leaves cuba in 1519 on his way he recovers a spanish shipwrecked man who survived eight years in mayan country and then he obtains a mistress after a confrontation both will assist him as interpreters once on dry land he understands that he is in the aztec empire whose capital tenochtitlan controls the surrounding regions all right so let's talk a little bit about the aztec empire the aztecs originate as a nomadic tribe in northern mexico they arrive down more in central america they found tenach chitlin which is this incredible uh capital city it's one of the jewels of the americas at this point and unfortunately it very quickly is brought down by cortez uh but uh you know just some of the lasting effects of uh what they did here when the aztecs an eagle perched on a cactus on the marshy land near the south uh southwest border of lake tex coco they took it as a sign to build their settlement there they drained the swampy land that's no small achievement constructed artificial islands on which they could plant gardens and establish the foundations of their capital city in 1325 and so they grow maize which is corn beans squash potatoes tomatoes avocados they're just incredible things that they're doing here at their height the city of tenochtitlan has 140 000 people by the early 16th century the aztecs rule over 500 tiny states some five to six million people this is an incredible kingdom i mean that's a a significant population and you know just some of the things that uh they leave behind today i mean some of our words come from them things like chili avocado chocolate coyote peyote guacamole ocelot i mean these are words that we still use today even in the english language that come from the aztecs the aztecs um worshiped many gods including the god of war and of the sun a feathered serpent they have a calendar which is based on a solar cycle of 365 days so you know very educated people uh completely cut off from the western world but still developed a rich culture and a rich education uh you know rule over a large area but of course uh just by 1520 smallpox has reduced their population just of the capital city by 40 in one year and so when cortes comes along they're already pretty well devastated and they're ripe for uh conquest impressed by the firearms and horses they've never seen before some of the people choose to join the spanish crown cortez is guided to tenochtitlan where the emperor welcomes him peacefully at the same time to the south of the continent ferdinand magellan who's also trying to reach the indies to the west passes through a strait that will one day bear his name and enters a new ocean that is unknown to him and to this day this is a brutal place to go by ship it is not easy and even on the best of conditions it can be an absolutely brutal area in many many ships throughout the centuries and many many lives have been lost going through the straits of magellan in tenochtitlan a war breaks out between the aztecs and cortez who had been chased out of the capital he allies with the rebels and enemies of tenochtitlan then besieges the city and cuts off its drinking water supply but the inhabitants suffer above all from smallpox which decimates the city after 75 days of siege tennoch's cheat land collapses and cortes becomes the governor of new spain now one of the things that cortez does at one point on one of his conquests is when he lands uh in what is now mexico he has his men burn their ships and burning your ships has actually come down as kind of this um this metaphor for no turning back uh and that's what he was trying to accomplish with that he wanted them to be singularly focused on their mission which is basically we either accomplish this or we die there's no freaking out getting scared and going back to spain because there's no ships anymore and so that's kind of become a metaphor you know when you burn your ships when you burn everything there's no turning back you can only move forward despite strong resistance the spaniards continued to extend their control in central america spain which is indebted to german bankers authorizes them in return to found a colony in an area where houses are built on stilts and which is then named little venice or venezuela and there's something you don't hear about much either little venice venezuela you know it's very interesting how some of the names that we just assume have always been the first came to be to the south an expedition goes inland and rumors circulate about a certain piro kingdom the navigator francisco pizarro then leaves to search for it he lands and learns that he's in the inca empire which is in a full war of succession after several contacts by intermediate embassies a meeting is organized in kahamarca with the emperor arawaba but the meeting degenerates and pizarro arrests the emperor nine months later in spite of the enormous gold and silver ransom received for his liberation pizarro executes atahualpa and then seizes cusco the capital of the empire and this you know i mean this is an empire that's a lot of it's up in the andes mountains uh it's difficult to reign but just look how quickly spain just shows up and just wipes out empires executes emperors takes control of these places it's in one way i don't want to use the word impressive because there's nothing nothing impressive about murder and conquest necessarily but it is impressive how quickly they do these things and how quickly they can come in and uh take down empires that have built up and like with the aztecs five or six million people and just like that the spanish take them over [Music] while strong rivalries appear between the colonists who want to monopolize the inca wealth in the north of tomebomba a pocket of inca resistance is organized around the general ruminahui but finding himself in a difficult situation he decides to burn quito and to hide all the inca wealth captured and tortured he does not reveal the location of this treasure which if it exists has never been found further south pizarro founds a capital the city of kings which later will become lima in 1536 in cuzco the incas rebel and take the city almagro pizarro's ally who returns from unsuccessful conquests in the south takes the city and proclaims himself governor of cusco a war breaks out between pizarro and almagro taking advantage of the chaos the incas found the kingdom of vilcabamba which will resist the spaniards for 36 years further south a group of populations called the mapuches also firmly resist the spanish intrusions in the north spain continues to enlarge its territory considerably the priest bartolome de las casas denounces the cruel treatments imposed on the natives spain in 1542 passes new laws in order to return freedom to the slaves by abolishing the encomienda and by affirming equality of the rights of the natives so this is you know this is a pretty progressive thing now again we're still talking just 50 years after columbus first lands in these areas new grenada um san salvador places like that uh and so this is all within a relatively short period of time there were plenty of people who were alive when this began and who are alive still when all this takes place so you have to give credit to some of these people who are willing to speak up on behalf of the natives because there probably weren't many people in spain who were on their side in peru these laws are very badly received by the colonists the viceroy tries to make them apply but a revolt breaks out and he is beheaded spain finally manages to regain control of the region and suspends the conquests in america although many populations still resist spanish colonization in europe new powers are interested in the riches of america france which does not recognize the treaty of tortosias sends expeditions to brazil the colony of france antartic is founded there annoyed by the new competition the portuguese destroyed the colony in 1560. they then developed colonization by sending expeditions deep inland in search of mines and slaves and this is you know this is some brutal ground i mean we're talking about the amazon rainforest in here and this is not an easy place to just go exploring it's huge i mean this is a massive massive brazil is a huge country england also has its eye on america irritated by the commercial monopoly that spain is establishing in the pacific ocean the queen of england secretly finances an expedition by francis drake who is abundant spanish wealth on the pacific coast further north drake founds new albion in the name of the english crown before heading west to return to england so isn't it interesting that he founds a colony in what is now california and francis drake is also one of the the people who will in 1588 help lead the uh the british navy the english navy uh against the spanish armada in that famous battle that defeats spain's attempt to invade england at the same time the spanish monarchy takes over portugal the united provinces quickly followed by england take advantage of this and try to seize the trade routes and the portuguese colonies in south america further inland a region little explored by the spaniards and the portuguese attracts the covetous for a century the myth of el dorado the city filled with gold has been widely circulated this attracts hundreds of european settlers who devastate the region in search of gold igniting the fury of local populations this does not prevent the arrival of french dutch and british protestants who flee europe in search of lands far from catholic influences and to this day you can see that let's take a look at the map real quick so there you have it there you have you know you can already see um you know venezuela was founded up here you've got guyana suriname and french guiana these are those little colonies that were set up by the western european powers that for most of the next 400 years will still be controlled by them and it's only in the last couple of uh generations that that has changed to the north the coasts of newfoundland rich in fish are frequented by many fishermen from all over europe as early as 1603 france finances new expeditions to explore acadia and to found a first settlement at port royal despite conflicts with the local populations fishing and fur trading develop further south england founds jamestown its first permanent colony now before this a little further south than that there had been set up the colony of roanoke kind of out on the outer banks of north carolina and it lasted for a couple years long story and at some point we'll do an entire video talking about what they call the lost colony of roanoke because it's a fascinating story um the whole thing with what happened to those colonists when they were taken inland did they survive there's these things called the dare stones that may be a hoax some of them probably definitely are a hoax others may be real there's a really fascinating story that definitely deserves its own video at some point but yeah jamestown is the first permanent colony and it barely hangs on by a thread kind of like uh what will happen with plymouth 13 years later but while the french accelerate colonization with the creation of quebec the english attack acadia from then on the two countries and their respective local allies are constantly fighting over the region [Music] after founding new amsterdam on an island the dutch negotiate with the locals to purchase manhattan island in exchange for some goods equivalent to 60 florins which is currently worth about a few hundred dollars also in the south the dutch expand their possessions and take over a large part of brazil but in 1640 portugal regains its independence and recovers its territories the dutch are expelled and concentrate their efforts in the north of the continent by absorbing new sweden at the same time and you know these are things people don't talk about much um you know i think it's it's fairly well known that the dutch first held new york city and you can go there today and see uh still some of the influence of of new amsterdam uh being there and of course new sweden is less known but there were a lot and i descend from some of the swedish uh colonists who founded the area right around what is today philadelphia which is where new sweden was some of my swedish ancestors that's where they lived uh but yeah sweden's there uh the united provinces which is you know the dutch they're there but they lose most of it uh eventually it you know it kind of becomes england and france and then eventually just england when the french and indian war happens british take jamaica from the spaniards to develop the sugar trade they also obtained permission to exploit wood on the coast of new york the growing commercial rivalry between the united provinces and england provokes a war that turns to the advantage of the british at the peace treaty the united provinces seed their north american territories and recover suriname which was occupied by the british new amsterdam becomes new york [Music] in the west indies mainly the french and the british take over islands from the carobs in order to develop large sugar plantations that require a large workforce the caribs it's where you get the word the caribbean sea and of course here now this is where slavery is first going to become essential to the economy in fact you know by the time you get to the middle of the 1700s if you live anywhere in this part of the world your life is significantly impacted in some way by slavery and by the slave trade whether you are actively involved with it and own any slaves yourself or not but these sugar plantations are are completely made possible because of the slave trade european merchants leave for the african coasts where they buy slaves these are then transported to america to be sold in the mines or on the plantations their life expectancy is about seven years the ships then return to europe loaded with precious metals and luxury goods so you you would think on one hand that okay the life expectancy of slaves about seven years because of these brutal conditions you would think that would make them uh financially unfeasible right you're investing all this money just to have them die no alls it does is make you go get more slaves and so it just makes the slave trade that greater in demand i've talked about this before and and you've heard me emphatically say that it absolutely does not matter who sold these slaves into slavery and i should explain that a little better i understand that there are people that want to blame white europeans for the slave trade and that the reason behind people going out of their way to say hey but those those african slaves were sold to those white europeans by other africans that's true and to have an important a complete understanding of history we need to acknowledge that my only point in saying that is that for those slaves it didn't matter they were in bondage and taken to another continent and it didn't much matter to them who was responsible it just mattered that it happened uh and that's something we'll also cover at some point uh the slave trade itself is something we probably should talk about it was it was pretty brutal just just beyond the whole part of being enslaved just the conditions and how many of them died on the trip and and you know it's absolutely brutal in the 17th century this model becomes so profitable that the slave trade explodes as does piracy which flourishes in the caribbean many people are opposed to slavery notably the jesuits who found communities throughout america to protect the natives from the colonists they are evangelized and work for the communities which quickly become rich but spain and portugal will eventually expel them [Music] in the north of the continent while the british found philadelphia the french after an expedition claim louisiana and then expand along the rivers to link it to new france new france then signs a peace agreement with 39 nations mainly iroquois fearing that they would be surrounded the british attack acadia again and rename it nova scotia together with rupert's land and newfoundland are officially annexed in the treaties of utrecht which end the war of spanish succession spain and the united provinces are weakened great britain is now a great maritime and commercial power in 1733 it founds savannah which stops the spanish expansion from florida and keep in mind while all of this is going on while these european powers claim these lands there are millions of native americans living in these places who don't have any clue that somebody else is making claims on their land because for the most part even though on a map for example france has drawn up the louisiana territory as theirs they don't occupy most of this they're claiming it but they're mostly just traitors and trappers in this area that by and large get along with the natives they're not conquering this land not yet from russia a danish captain named vitus bering leads mapping expeditions on behalf of the tsar after exploring the strait that now bears his airing streak bearing sights in 1741 the coasts of alaska and the aleutian islands where he dies the abundance of prey on these islands attracts many russian hunters the russians gradually move along the coast to develop the utter fur trade [Music] in the ohio valley tensions rise between the french and the british who are fighting over control of the region a war begins which at first turns to the advantage of the french and who's the one who kind of kicks that all off in the ohio valley a young man named george washington who is leading troops uh in this area down around modern pittsburgh where the french have a fort fort duquesne and that's kind of where it all gets started is right down there in this area around pittsburgh and that's again a story for another day great britain then decides to deport on mass the french-speaking acadians still present in nova scotia many die on the way the survivors are scattered throughout the british colonies in europe the seven years war breaks out great britain which dominates the seas with its powerful royal navy imposes a maritime blockade on the french colonies which without reinforcements fall into the hands of the british when you have colonies that are thousands of miles away you've got to be able to win the naval war and the naval war is what makes the difference even though a lot of it's fought on land uh here in america we call it the french and indian war it's part of the larger seven years war which is also taking place in europe and caribbean and elsewhere but it's the the british navy that make the difference here in 1763 in the peace treaty signed in paris france gives up most of its american colonies spain receives the western part of louisiana in exchange for florida great britain dominates all its rivals but the war has weighed on its finances and it intends now to take advantage of its many colonies to replenish its coffers imposing taxes but of course that's a story for another day as well that's the american revolution um which again you know that's something we can talk about sometime it's not really a revolution it's a war for independence but it's not a revolution they're not trying to overthrow the british government they're just trying to form their own government so funny how we name things sometimes but let me know what you guys think of that map and of that channel and uh if you guys like it and and seem to respond well to it we'll look at some more of their videos down the road there's more to this story of course and what comes next the revolutionary war decolonization of america things like that but use the comment section below let me know your thoughts hit that like button if you would we'll see you again soon thanks for watching

Channel: Vlogging Through History

Views: 208,720

Keywords: history reaction, historian reaction, history of the entire world i guess, geo history, history of the world, american history, historian reacts, world history, colonization, conquistadors, aztec empire, incan empire, aztecs, incans, christopher columbus, central america, geo history reaction

Id: MqY1yKta7Kw

Length: 39min 13sec (2353 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 01 2021