Priest, conquistador and ship

While the Vikings, Egyptians, and other groups had visited other parts of the Americas several hundred years before, Christopher Columbus and the conquistadors were the first ones to explore the “new world” in depth and try to claim it as their own.

Christopher Columbus was a Genoese navigator who set out on a journey to find a new trade route from Spain to the Eastern countries. He left with a fleet of ships in 1492, and when he arrived at what we call the Americas, he thought he had landed in the Eastern lands he had set out to find.

When the Europeans heard about the New World Columbus had “discovered,” they envisioned lands of great riches. So they sent out armies of conquistadors (conquistadors-Spanish for “conquerors”) to take away the power from the people who were already living here-people Columbus called “Indians.”

Many of the people who came to the new world wanted to convert the native people to the Catholic religion. So priests were often sent from Europe with the conquistador armies to preach to the native people and teach them about the Church.

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