Timeline of European Conquest of the Americas

The Timeline of European Conquest of the Americas provides the essential dates involved in the European conquest of North, Central, and South America.

1400's

 * 1492: Christopher Columbus land in Hispaniola.
 * 1494: The Treaty of Tordesillas "allowed Portugal to occupy Latin American territories below a dividing line traced by the Pope.

1500's

 * 1508: A papal bull grants Spain all future tithes collected in America.
 * 1522: All 18 survivors of Magellan's round the word expedition return to Spain.

North America
This section covers the modern day United States and Canada.

1400's

 * 1497: Giovanni Caboto (a.k.a. John Cabot) lands in Newfoundland on behalf of England.

1500's

 * 1519: Ponce de Leon lands in Florida.
 * 1524: Giovanni de Verrazano maps the North American coastline from Carolina to Nova Scotia for the French.
 * 1528: The first Spanish settlement in Florida is founded.
 * 1534: Jacques Cartier "made the first of several journeys up the St. Lawrence river into the North American interior."

1600's

 * December 20, 1606: Ships set sail from London, headed for Chesapeake Bay. The Virginia Company, who financed the voyage, directed the colonists to locate their colony at least a hundred miles inland to reduce the chance they would be attacked by Spain. They added that the colonist should take great care not to offend the native people there.hips anchored in the James River, at the southern periphery of Chesapeake Bay," in modern day Virginia.
 * May 14, 1607: The three British ships that left London the previous December "anchored in the James River, at the southern periphery of Chesapeake Bay," in modern day Virginia. This area was in the indigenous empire of Tsenacomoco. Sailing inland, the British colonists settled in "the most upstream uninhabited ground they could find... fifty miles from the mouth of the James." This location, Jamestown, was uninhabited for a reason: "the site was boggy and mosquito ridden" and the water was not always potable.
 * January 1608: Only 38 English in Jamestown are still alive.
 * 1610: The British import Nicotiana tabacum, the Caribbean species of tobacco that was considered superior to the variety found in Virginia, to Jamestown.
 * 1619: The first Africans arrive in Jamestown, on a Dutch pirate ship. By this time, Virginia tobacco is already a commercial success in England, and the Africans, who arrived at harvest time, were purchased from the pirates as labor for the tobacco harvest.
 * 1670: "The colony of Carolina was founded in 1670, when about two hundred [British] colonists from Barbados relocated to the banks of a river that empties into Charleston Harbor."

1400's

 * 1492: Christopher Columbus land in Hispaniola.
 * December 25, 1492: Columbus' flagship, the Santa Maria, is wrecked in Hispaniola. He does not have room on his other two ships to bring his entire crew home. He leaves 38 men behind in an encampment called La Navidad.
 * March 1493: Columbus returns to Spain "bearing golden ornaments, brilliantly colored parrots, and as many as ten captive Indians."
 * 1493: The King and Queen of Spain send Columbus on a second expedition, much larger than the first, with 17 ships, "a combined crew of perhaps fifteen hundred, among them a dozen or more priests charged with bringing the faith to those new lands." Columbus still believed he had found a route to Asia and the goal of this trip was to establish a permanent base for Spain "in the heart of Asia, a headquarters for further exploration and trade."
 * November 28, 1493: Columbus returns to La Navidad, Hispaniola, and finds it in ruins, with none of his crew alive. The native Taino people say that the Spanish had "angered their neighbors by raping some women and murdering some men" and a conflict had ensued.
 * 1493: The first recorded epidemic among the indigenous in the Americas, perhaps swine flu, hits Hispaniola.
 * January 2, 1494: Columbus founds La Isabela on the island of Hispaniola in the modern day Dominican Republic.
 * April 24, 1494: Columbus sets sail to find China, leaving 400 men with his military commander, Pedro Margarit, and ordering them to seek Indian gold mines. Margarit does so but finds little gold. He returns to find La Isabela starving, hijacks three ships, and flees to Spain. The remaining colonists in La Isabela steal food from the Indians, provoking a war.
 * 1494: Columbus returns to La Isabela five months after he left. He is ill and has not reached China.
 * March 10, 1496: Columbus leaves Hispaniola for Spain to ask the King and Queen for more supplies. He never returns to La Isabela.
 * 1498: Columbus returns to Hispaniola, to the settlement of Santo Domingo, founded by his brother Bartolome, who he had left behind.

1500's

 * 1514: Spanish count the number of Indians in Hispaniola "for the purpose of allocating them among colonists as laborers" and finds only 26,000 Taino. Modern researchers estimate there were originally between 60,000 and 8 million Taino on the island.
 * 1518: Smallpox enters Hispaniola. "it spread to Mexico, swept down Central America, and then continued into Peru, Bolivia, and Chile."
 * 1548: Fewer than 500 Taino remain on Hispaniola.

1500's

 * 1510: The Spanish begin their conquest of Panama.
 * 1513: Vasco Núñez de Balboa crosses the Isthmus of Panama, becoming the first European to view the Pacific Ocean from the Americas.
 * 1520: "A smallpox epidemic devastated the Aztecs after the failure of the first Spanish attack in 1520 and killed Cuitlahuac, the Aztec emperor who briefly succeeded Montezuma.
 * 1521: Hernán Cortés re-conquers Tenochtitlan in Mexico for Spain.
 * 1523: "Pedro de Alvarado launched the conquest of Central America."
 * 1535: Viceroyalty of New Spain is formally established and governed from Mexico City.
 * 1558: By this time, the Spanish have found silver in both Guanajuato and Zacatecas in Mexico, and they are also using the mercury amalgam process to extract silver.

1600's

 * July 1698: Five ships set sail with 1200 Scottish colonists and a years' supply of food. They land in Panama, where they create the colony of New Edinburgh.
 * May 1699: The three hundred surviving Scots in New Edinburgh, Panama set sail for home. A second set of ships brought another 1300 Scottish colonists, with similar but even results. Fewer than 100 of the second group arrived home alive.

1500's

 * 1526: Around this time, smallpox reaches the Incans, killing the Incan emperor, Huayna Capac, and most of his court. Then it killed his heir, Ninan Cuyuchi. This led to a succession battle between half brothers Atahuallpa and Huascar.
 * 1527: Francisco Pizarro lands on the Peruvian coast.
 * November 16, 1532: Atahuallpa had just definitively won a civil war among the Incas. Francisco Pizarro, representing Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, captured Incan emperor Atahuallpa at Cajamarca in the Peruvian highlands. Pizarro had only 168 Spanish soldiers, whereas Atahuallpa was surrounded by an army of 80,000 soldiers. Pizarro receives a ransom of "enough gold to fill a room 22 feet long by 17 feet wide to a height of over 8 feet" and then executes Atahuallpa.
 * 1533: Pizarro enters Cuzco, the Incan capital.
 * 1540: Pedro de Valdivia, having crossed the Atacama Desert, founds Santiago de Chile.
 * 1542: Viceroyalty of Peru is established and governed from Lima and La Paz (in modern day Bolivia).
 * 1545: Discovery of silver at Potosí, Bolivia.
 * 1573: The city of Potosí has 120,000 residents, "the same population as London and more than Seville, Madrid, Rome, or Paris."

1600's

 * 1650: The city of Potosí, Bolivia has 160,000 residents.

1500's

 * 1531: Portugal sends an expedition to establish a colony in Brazil.

1500's

 * 1520s: Spanish attempt to conquer the Malaku Islands, located south of the Philippines, but fail. Andres Ochoa de Urdaneta y Cerain is among the failed group of Spanish would-be conquerors.
 * November 21, 1564: Andres Ochoa de Urdaneta y Cerain and his cousin Miguel Lopez de Legazpi set sail for Asia with 5 ships, hoping to establish a Spanish base in Asia. They reach the island of Cebu in the Philippines.
 * May 1570: The Spanish in the Philippines learn of annual trading between indigenous Mangyan people and the Chinese. After an initial encounter with the Chinese, the Spanish (under Legazpi) take over Manila. The Chinese return home reporting that the Europeans are in the Philippines and they have silver.
 * Spring 1572: Three Chinese junks arrive in the Philippines to begin an annual trade with the Europeans there.

Related Sourcewatch Articles

 * Taino
 * Timeline of the Exchange of Crops After 1492