A huge website that provides a virtual field trip exploring the Spanish adventurers who quested for gold and land in the New World. The site has information on Pizarro, Orellana, Cabeza de Vaca, Cortes as well as extensive information...

A learning module that begins with "Clash of Cultures: Indigenous America and the Conquistadores" by USHistory.org, accompanied by guided reading questions, assessment questions, and discussion questions. The text can be printed as a PDF...

Find out about the incredible and widespread Inca Empire. You can read about the geography of the empire, the religion, governmental structure, record-keeping system, and diet. Be sure to click on the hyperlinks or pictures to get even...

Read about what life was like for the Aztecs before the Spanish Conquest. This is part of a larger PBS site about the conquistadors.

Read about the development of the Aztec Empire and its status just before the Spanish Conquest. Click on the hyperlinks or pictures for more information. From part of an extensive PBS website about the Conquistadors.

A well known historian tells the story of the early Spanish explorers known as "conquistadors". He discusses their motivation, what effect they had on the native American societies and much more. Archived.

A look at the Inca Empire as rumors began to fly about pale strangers arriving on the coast. Read about the illnesses and civil wars that weakened the empire just in time for the appearance of the conquistadors. Be sure to click on the...

Immerse in the campfire stories of the people who defined Texas. Read about the Spanish soldier-explorers who came to Texas in search of gold and glory.

Information about the way the Spanish conquistadors were able to conquer the indigenous people they met.

Two maps and four accounts of the Spanish exploration of North America that reflect the goals of the conquistadors and fascination with the land they examined-and the brutality of their treatment of native peoples.

This PBS site recounts the efforts of Spanish explorers to find the fabled gold of the New World.

A scholarly article seeking to determine whether the man who discovered San Diego Bay, and who explored much of the coast of California for the Spanish, was Spanish - Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, or Portuguese - Joao Rodrigues Cabrilho.

Read this fascinating account by Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, one of four survivors who traversed Florida and the Southwest for eight years, from 1529-1537.Read the preface which gives a background to this narrative before delving into...

The history of Spanish territorial conquest in the New World is the history of the succession of conquistadors who often overwhelmed native empires, but were sometimes overwhelmed themselves. Read about the conquistadors who came to the...

Use the navigation at the left to click into more information on the Incas and the Spanish conquest by Francisco Pizarro.

Click on "The Marvelous Adventure" to follow Cabeza de Vaca's several year journey through the Southeast and Texas. Part of a larger site on the Spanish conquest of the Western world, these pages focus on Cabeza de Vaca. Includes de...

This site has information on the search for El Dorado and the exploration of Amazonia by Francisco de Orellana. He travelled to the mouth of the Amazon River. The site has plenty of images, maps and video too.

This is the original report Coronado sent to the viceroy describing his journey from Mexico to what he hoped were the Seven Cities of Gold. He describes the land, people, climate, food, animals.

The Spanish gained an early foothold in the colonies, quickly becoming the most powerful European power in the New World.

Ewandro Magalhaes shares the story of Magellan's journey.

The Europeans tried to convert Native Americans to Christianity in a variety of ways ranging from the brutal force methods of the conquistadors to acceptance of the other's spirituality and way of life.

The first Europeans to arrive in North America -- at least the first for whom there is solid evidence -- were Norse, traveling west from Greenland, where Erik the Red had founded a settlement around the year 985. In 1001 his son Leif is...

Map showing the routes taken by fourteen Spanish explorers in the Americas between 1509 and 1543.

Read an article from the Arkansas Archaeology Survey that traces a probable route of Hernando de Soto in what is now Arkansas. Evidence has been found especially in the Parkin site in northeast Arkansas.