The law required the government to negotiate removal treaties fairly, voluntarily and peacefully: It did not permit the president or anyone else to coerce Native nations into giving up their land.
Only late in the 15th century did an emerging modern Spain become fully committed to the search for new trade routes overseas. In 1492, Christopher Columbus’s expedition was funded in the hope of bypassing Portugal’s monopoly on west African sea routes, to reach “the Indies.”
On the evening of August 3, 1492, Columbus departed from Palos de la Frontera with three ships. Land was sighted on October 12, 1492 and Columbus called the island (now The Bahamas) San Salvador, in what he thought to be the “West Indies.” Following the first American voyage, Columbus made three more.
A division of influence became necessary to avoid conflict between the Spanish and Portuguese. An agreement was reached in 1494, with the Treaty of Tordesillas dividing the world between the two powers.
After Columbus, the Spanish colonization of the Americas was led by a series of soldier-explorers, called conquistadors. The Spanish forces, in addition to significant armament and equestrian advantages, exploited the rivalries between competing indigenous peoples, tribes, and nations.
One of the most accomplished conquistadors was Hernán Cortés, who achieved the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. Of equal importance was the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire under Francisco Pizarro.
In 1565, the first permanent Spanish settlement in the Philippines was founded, which added a critical Asian post to the empire. The Manilla Galleons shipped goods from all over Asia, across the Pacific to Acapulco on the coast of Mexico.
