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Jan 1, 1492
christopher columbus
Columbus, an Italian explorer working for the Spanish crown, originally sought a short water route to China that would give Spain an advantage in the spice trade. Native peoples, however, were at first little troubled by the arrival of Christopher Columbus's ships off the coast of Central America in 1492. -
Jan 1, 1492
Christopher columbus discovers islands
1492 – Christopher Columbus discovers the Bahamas, Cuba, and Española (Hispaniola) -
Period: Jan 1, 1493 to Jan 1, 1494
Discovers more islands
1493-94 – Columbus discovers Dominica and Guadeloupe, among other islands of the Lesser Antilles; also discovers Puerto Rico. The following year he discovers Jamaica. -
Jan 1, 1498
Christopher columbus finds south america
1498 - Columbus discovers the mainland of South America -
Jan 1, 1500
columbus
The Columbian exchange, comprising what the Europeans obtained from the American Indians and what the Indians obtained from the Europeans, became a hot topic for historians in the last decades of the twentieth century. Europeans obtained mineral wealth, new foods (including corn, beans, squash, potatoes, tomatoes, tobacco, and chile peppers), Christian converts, slaves, and other products. After observing the Native inhabitants, the newcomers also began to be interested in new ideas -
Jan 1, 1500
exploration
First Spain and then France considered the area now know as Oklahoma to be a likely spot for economic expansion in the New World. Native peoples who already lived there were seen both as a barrier to conquest and as a resource to exploit for economic and religious purposes. Oklahoma lay on the northern fringe of Spanish exploration of North America, which took place in the 1500s and 1600s, and on the western fringe of French exploration, which took place in the 1600s and 1700s -
Period: Jan 1, 1502 to Jan 1, 1503
Christopher columbus discovers north america
1502-03 - Columbus explores the North American mainland from Guanaja off modern Honduras to the present-day border of Panama and Colombia. -
Jan 1, 1539
De soto
Another Spanish expedition penetrated the interior from the east. In 1539 Hernando de Soto began an exploration designed to find gold and converts in "Florida." The men traveled further and further westward and reached west-central Arkansas before turning back. Soto died of a fever in May 1542. Early histories of Oklahoma credit his men with crossing into and exploring far eastern Oklahoma. Best evidence, based on geographical description, indicates that scouting parties from the Soto expedition -
Jan 1, 1542
Do campo
Andrés do Campo, a Portuguese soldier, and several Franciscans, including Friar Juan de Padilla, had been with the Coronado expedition on its journey from New Mexico to Kansas and back. Interested in establishing a mission to convert the Wichita people, they returned to Quivira, probably in spring 1542. In 1544 they were attacked by a party of Kaw (Kansas) Indians, who killed Padilla and held do Campo and two others captive for a year. After escaping, the prisoners fled due south across the cent -
Jan 1, 1550
exploration travel
It took a generation or more for European explorers to visit the interior of North America for the first time. When they came, they were looking for gold and, as had become their custom, for Native peoples to convert to Christianity. Spaniards came northward out of Mexico to investigate New Mexico in the mid-1500s. Their efforts were prompted by rumors of seven golden cities, called "Cíbola," which Friar Marcos de Niza said he had discovered there in 1539. These towns, with buildings said to be -
francisco leyva
A generation later, others became interested in the Quivira story. A small party led by Francisco Leyva de Bonilla and his lieutenant, Antonio Gutiérrez de Humaña, left Mexico for the north, wintered among the Pueblos in 1591, and, without permission from the Spanish government, headed east in search of Quivira. They perhaps traveled across the present Oklahoma Panhandle on their way north to Wichita settlements in Kansas in 1592-93. -
activities of spain
More importantly for Spain, the activities of these intrepid explorers over a fifty-year period made it possible for that nation to lay tentative claim to the region, despite the fact that ownership seemed to offer little in the way of economic compensation. The vast area that contained present Oklahoma technically remained French Louisiana from 1682 to 1763. The "border" between the two New World empires was unsurveyed and vaguely defined. Mythical Quivira notwithstanding, however, the Spanish
