European Discovery and Conquest

The first European known to have reached South America was Christopher Columbus, in 1498, during his third voyage from Spain to the New World. Several years earlier, rivalry between Spain and Portugal to colonize new lands caused Pope Alexander VI to draw the Line of Demarcation, which excluded Spain from Africa and Portugal from the known areas of the New World. Spanish conquistadors soon followed Columbus to establish colonies and to search for silver and gold.

In the 1530's, Francisco Pizarro sailed south from Panama to conquer the Incas of Peru. From here, the Spaniards explored the surrounding territory. An expedition under Sebastián de Belalcázar moved north and subdued the Inca kingdom at Quito (now Ecuador). His forces then pushed into southwest Colombia. Expeditions were also sent south into Chile and east, across the Andes, into Brazil. During the expedition to Brazil, Francisco de Orellana made his way to the mouth of the Amazon River.

Conquest of the northern coastal region known as the Spanish Main was hindered by hostile Indians and forbidding jungles. A few coastal settlements were established in the early 1500's, but the interior was not penetrated until the 1530's. Spanish exploration in eastern South America was concentrated in the region of the Río de la Plata, discovered in 1516, and its tributary rivers.

Meanwhile, in 1500 the Portuguese explorer Pedro Alvares Cabral had discovered that part of the continent (eastern Brazil) was on the Portuguese side of the Line of Demarcation. Few attempts were made to explore the interior, however.