Those were the two main reasons why Spain’s King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella backed Christopher Columbus’s voyages. Columbus made four journeys across the Atlantic Ocean between 1492 and 1502. He didn’t find a trade route to India. Instead, he landed in the Americas. Thinking it was India, he called the land “the Indies” and the people there “Indians.” And he claimed the land for Spain.
Columbus also found gold. Gold was discovered in rivers on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), Cuba, and Puerto Rico. With money replacing barter as a way to do business, Europeans wanted precious metals. Those Caribbean islands on which Columbus first landed supplied Spain with an average of one ton of gold annually for many years before the supply gave out. But the Spanish rulers sought greater riches than that.
The Search Continues
In 1508, King Ferdinand opened the mainland of the Americas to Spanish exploration, conquest, and settlement. Conquistadors jumped at the opportunity. Vasco Núñez de Balboa had failed miserably at farming on Hispaniola. To escape his creditors, he stowed away on a ship bound for the northern coast of South America.
Balboa founded the first Spanish settlement on the American mainland—present-day Panama—in 1510. His tireless searches for gold led to the discovery of the Pacific Ocean in 1513. He also heard stories of a wealthy nation with plenty of gold that lay to the south. But when a rival accused him of treason, he was executed before he had a chance to look for those treasures.
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Putting the Pieces Together
Americans needed to begin to put the past behind them, come together, and plan for the future in the spring of 1865. But Abraham Lincoln, the man best equipped to lead them and who had hoped to restore the country as smoothly and peacefully as possible, had been assassinated.
LAST SHOTS
The last Confederate forces in the Civil War didn’t surrender in the spring of 1865 or on a battlefield.
AND IN OTHER 1865 NEWS
A group of African Americans stop at the White House’s annual public reception on January 1, where they shake hands with President Abraham Lincoln.
A Plot to Kill President the
For several months, actor John Wilkes Booth’s band of conspirators had plotted to capture President Abraham Lincoln and hold him hostage in exchange for Confederate prisoners.
Let the Thing Be Pressed
In June 1864, Union Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant began a nearly 10-month campaign in Virginia.
HEALING THE NATION
President Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office for the second time on March 4, 1865.
A Helping Hand
The spring season is hard in any agricultural society. Plants and animals are too small to eat.
WAR SHERMAN-STYLE
As far as Union Major General William T. Sherman was concerned, the Civil War had gone on long enough.
PEACE TALKS
The fall of Fort Fisher made clear that the Confederacy’s days were numbered. Southerners were tired and hungry.
FORT FISHER'S FALL
Outnumbered Confederate soldiers inside Fort Fisher were unable to withstand the approach of Union troops by land and the constant Union naval bombardment from the sea.
