The Columbian Exchange People

Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) was a navigator and explorer whose famous 1492 voyage from Spain to the West Indies marked the beginning of successful European colonization of the Americas. On 12...

Francisco Pizarro (1475-1541) was one of the most successful Spanish conquistadors. In 1532, Pizarro led a small force of Spanish soldiers and conquered the mighty Inca Empire. He then founded the...

Hernán Cortés (1485-1547) was perhaps the most famous of the Spanish conquistadors, the conqueror of the mighty Aztec Empire of Central America. From 1519 to 1521, Cortés commanded t...

Hernando de Soto (1496-1542) was a Spanish conquistador who led a disastrous expedition of conquest into the North American interior between 1539 and 1542. De Soto, who hoped to follow in the foots...

René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (1643-1687) was a French explorer and colonist who established French claims to lands around the Great Lakes region and in the Mississippi Valley. In 16...

John Winthrop (c. 1587-1649) was a devoutly religious Puritan elder who led a large migration of Puritans from England to America in 1629 and became the first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony o...