In 1539 Hernando de Soto landed in Florida from Cuba and traveled along the Gulf Coast and lower Mississippi River, which he discovered in 1541. During the early 1540s the Spanish explored the southern part of North America. In 1527, Sebastian Cabot was to lead an expedition over Magellan's route to the East Indies, but instead explored for gold on the Rio de la Plata in South America. In 1532, Francisco Pizarro led an expedition to Peru, where, after a number of years, the Inca empire was conquered. Meanwhile, in 1519 Hernando Cortez crossed from Cuba to Mexico, and by 1521 had conquered the Aztec empire and begun a search for ports for trade with the East Indies.
In September 1522 one ship, commanded by Sebastian del Cano, returned to Spain by way of the Cape of Good Hope, and thus became the first to circumnavigate the world. He passed through the Strait of Magellan, separating South America from Tierra del Fuego, the following summer and arrived at the Philippine Islands, where he was killed in a native war in April 1521. Proposing to follow a westward route around South America, Magellan, with a fleet equipped by capital provided by the Fuggers, sailed from Seville in the summer of 1519. The Spanish finally reached the East Indies in a voyage under the command of Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese mariner who had lived in the East Indies. The Venetians bought goods of better quality, while the expenses of long voyages, shipwrecks, and military forces for Portugal, and lack of goods for trading raised prices in the Portuguese trade. Soon, however, Venice reached a trade agreement with the Turks, the spice trade of the Levant returned to normal, and the Levantine trade in spices and Mediterranean goods remained larger and more important during the 16th century than oceanic commerce. Albuquerque's attacks on Muslim shipping and markets caused a shortage of spices in Alexandria, while the conquest of Egypt in 1517 by the Ottoman Turks temporarily cut off spice supplies to Venice.ĭuring the second decade of the 16th century, most of the spices for Europe arrived in Portuguese vessels by way of the Cape of Good Hope, and the Venetian merchants were forced to purchase spices in Lisbon to supply their customers. By 1513, Portuguese trade had extended to the East Indian Spice Islands and to Canton in China. In 1509, the Portuguese defeated a fleet of Arab and Indian Muslims, and, under Alfonso de Albuquerque, established trading centers at Goa on the Malabar Coast and at Malacca in Malaya. At the same time, the Portuguese feared that they could not compete in the spice trade for lack of capital, gold, or specialized products. The new route was expected to avoid the heavy expense and taxation that had greatly increased the cost of the route through the Levant. Portuguese entrance into the spice trade had led to mutual hostility with the Arab and Indian merchants, for these Muslim traders feared the competition afforded by the new sea route. Explorations of the interior of the mainland were begun in 1513, when Ponce de Leon explored Florida, and Vasco de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama to discover the Pacific Ocean, which he believed could be easily crossed to reach the Spice Islands and the Orient.
He finally reached the American mainland in 1498. In 1498–15–04, Columbus made two further voyages to America, which he still believed to be part of the East Indies. However, the Italians, especially the Genoese merchants of Seville, dominated Spain's American trade during the 16th century, importing gold and tropical products into Europe and exporting manufactured goods as well as slaves under contracts, or Asientos, to America. The Fuggers leased mines in Hispaniola and Mexico, while the Welsers leased Venezuela for twenty years. The succession of the Hapsburgs to the Spanish throne in the early 16th century promptly occasioned investments by South German banking houses in Spanish mines and then in American mines. As a result, the mapmakers irrevocably attached Amerigo's name to the newly discovered continents. Vespucci wrote accounts of his voyages they were immediately printed and received wide circulation. In succeeding years, Vespucci sailed in Spanish expeditions, and then from 1501 on sailed in Portuguese voyages to explore Cabral's discovery, Brazil. In 1495, on the death of Gianneto Berardi, who had contracted to fit out twelve ships, Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine who was manager of the Medici bank at Seville, assumed the contract.