And Genoan navigator Christopher Columbus sailed on a voyage of discovery to find a more direct route to the Orient. All of these factors turned out to have great importance for the next 300 years of Spanish history, and for all subsequent Latin American history.
Columbus returned to Spain, convinced he had succeeded in finding the Orient and not realizing his discovery was, instead, much greater. He was quickly followed by others: Francisco Pizzaro (1475-1541), Vasco Núñez de Balboa (1475-1519), Hernan Cortés (1485-1547), and others. Within a few decades, Spain had explored most of South and Central America, and had found the Americas to be rich with precious metals and stones. Meanwhile, Spanish priests discovered a new continent full of, in their opinion, savages whose souls needed to be saved. So Spain descended on the Americas with a cross in one hand and a gun in the other, determined to convert the natives while stripping their lands to fill the Spanish treasury.
While this description may sound unnecessarily harsh, Spain's actions are understandable to some degree. Spain had just emerged from centuries of domination by a foreign power and (by their lights) heathen religion.
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