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Chapter three gives readers an understanding of what occurred when the Europeans from the Iberian Peninsula and the locals in the Caribbean and the Americas saw one another for the first time. While Spanish exploration was the main topic in the chapter, the chapter also dives into the Portuguese and their travels around the southern tip of Africa and Brazil. The author talks about the different models used by the Portuguese and the Spanish in terms of how they interacted and settled. For example, early Portuguese and early Spanish explorers used a form of trade model to interact in Africa and the Caribbean, where they constructed factories along the coast and traded with the locals (Egerton, 82). However, this form of interaction with the locals changed over time. The author gives us an interesting view of how Spanish interaction in the Caribbean changed. When Columbus sailed to the Caribbean in 1492, the trade model that closely resembled the model Portugal used in Africa was implemented, but only a year later when Columbus returned to the Caribbean, territorial gain and religious conversion that was used to unify a Catholic Spain was now the priority (Egerton, 84). What the Spanish saw as a “blessing from God” after defeating the Muslims, they took that religious motivation and aggression from fighting and applied it to their “discoveries” across the Atlantic (Egerton, 84). While religious conversion was on the minds of the Spaniards, their main goal was finding gold and becoming wealthy. Interestingly enough, they used that ambition of finding gold and believed that they would be doing God’s work at the same time. For example, Columbus believed that gold found in the Caribbean would be sent back to Spain to further extend Christianity into Jerusalem (Egerton, 84). The author lastly covers the transition of Spanish interaction to Spanish takeover in the Caribbean and the Americas. From diseases to battles and eventually Spanish settlement, the Spanish found themselves establishing rule in the Americas that pushed for conversion to Christianity and placed themselves in power following the existing structures of power and using that to their advantage.
Egerton, Douglas R. The Atlantic World: A History, 1400-1888. The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell, 2007.