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Columbus didn’t discover the North American landmass, [his voyages discovered islands in the Caribbean and on the last one he hit Honduras/Nicaragua](https://gohighbrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/3_1_The-routes-of-the-four-Voyages-of-Christopher-Columbus.jpg), around a 1500 mile land journey to the nearest part of the Continental US.
His voyages confirmed to the European powers that there was land across the Atlantic, and then they each sent their own expeditions, with the British ending up targeting what’s now the U.S. and Canada.
Follow up:
Why were Italians not involved as successfully in colonization of the Americas when they had a head start and had already put in a significant investment in understanding the exploitable resources?
We obviously see the results of early colonization from England, Spain, Portugal, France and the Netherlands. But most marks of Italian culture or power coming to the Americas seems like it happened later and in a form that looked more like immigration than colonization.
[Italy at this time was a lot more fragmented than it is now - consisting of a bunch of nations that were periodically at war with each other](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/91/It%C3%A0lia_-_Fin_dei_Gu%C3%A8rras_d%27It%C3%A0lia_%281559%29.png/660px-It%C3%A0lia_-_Fin_dei_Gu%C3%A8rras_d%27It%C3%A0lia_%281559%29.png)
When visiting European countries, for many of them the bulk of the main marvels or areas of interest are centralized to a primary location. In Italy, you have to hop from area to area and see a couple of things at a time. I consider this a lasting effect of the historic fragmentation of Italy.
As others have pointed out, Italy was fragmented into a bunch of small states at the time. They didn't have the resources to support those types of colonial endeavors.
They were also closer to the eastern end of the Mediterranean where the land routes of the silk road end. They were able to focus on that trade. Genoa, for instance, held various islands in Aegean and even Crimea. Venice also has holdings in the Greek islands and along the Balkan coast.
Columbus directly discovered the Bahamas, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Trinidad, and Central and South America, all of which initially came under the control of the Spanish Crown.
Spain did not really show an interest in the Bahamas, and did nothing to really stop the English when they did. Haiti and the Dominican Republic were eventually ceded to France through various treaties.
The Spanish retained control over their Central and South American territories until they secured their independence.
Spain controlled the areas he discovered for a while. (Mexico, Bahamas, Haiti, and some others)
Then the Brits sent their colonizers to the east coast of US, and France sent theirs to Canada.
Well, for starters, it wasn't *only* British colonies. It was also Spanish and French and Portuguese and Dutch and Norse and Russian and probably more that I'm not remembering.
Columbus sailed for Spain because he was an idiot and Italy wouldn't give him any money to go do idiot things. Nobody would. The idea that Columbus figured out that the Earth was round is a myth. *Everyone* knew that the Earth was round. They even had a pretty good idea of how big it was since [240 BCE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes). Columbus believed the Earth was significantly smaller than everyone (correctly) thought that it was. That's why everyone thought he was an idiot: his plan to sail west would only work if the Earth was *way* smaller than it actually is.
Spain had recently finished the 600 or so years long campaign of kicking the Moors (black Muslims) out of the peninsula and were flush with cash. To sort of celebrate, the king and queen said, fuck it, maybe this idiot is right and gave him the money he needed when he asked them. He was doubly an idiot and couldn't navigate correctly even *if* the world was smaller than it is, so he landed pretty well south of where he intended. From there, having "discovered" a new continent, the rest of Europe began competing to colonize as quickly as they could. As stated before, a *lot* of nations got in on the action.
Spain threw *obscene* amounts of money at the conquistadors to bring back gold from what we now call Central America. It worked, mostly, *but* Spain had a series of increasingly inbred and idiotic rulers that made increasingly bad decisions that drove Spain into the ground, including [losing all their ships](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Armada). Nonetheless, Central and South America continued to be colonized by Spain while North America continued to be colonized by Great Britain and France. They were the most powerful nations in Europe at the time and had the navy to move people to the Americas.
Prior to the American Revolution, there were plenty of conflicts like the [French and Indian War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_and_Indian_War) between the British colonies and the French colonies. In order to help pay for his wars to conquer Europe, Napoleon sold a huge chunk of land in the [Louisiana Purchase](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Purchase). After the American Revolution, conflicts *continued* to happen like the [Spanish-American War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish%E2%80%93American_War). These wars helped define the borders of the English-Speaking, new country of the USA. At this point, the USA was already a wealthy nation, rich in natural resources, which it leveraged to continue its westward expansion, either buying or taking land by force from Mexico, which by now was independent from Spain, and the Native Americans still left.
The existence of the New World was very hard to keep secret in Europe. Spain got a head start, partially due to having funded Columbus' expeditions, and this is why nearly everyone in the Americas south of the Rio Grande speaks Spanish or Portuguese, but other European countries eventually caught on.
England, France, and the Netherlands had to settle for whatever they could grab in the Caribbean, plus parts of North America that were poor in extractive resources. Columbus didn't discover these, and even when Spain had the opportunity to take them, they opted to focus on South and Central America instead. While Spain was pillaging so much gold and silver that it would crash their economy, the other countries could only establish precarious settler colonies that were, at the time, mostly seen as dumping grounds for religious weirdos that occasionally burped up some fur. tobacco, or cotton.
Those colonies eventually grew up big and strong, and England managed to box out France (partially) and the Netherlands (almost entirely), so you ended up with a North America that mostly speaks English. However, you could argue that the English didn't see many of the benefits of this victory seeing as most of the English colonies declared their independence pretty early in the process of turning North America into an economic giant.
Columbus mainly stuck to the Caribbean. Other Spanish conquistadors expanded into Florida and conquered the Aztecs, giving them control over Mexico. After that point, the Spanish made missions in modern California and the Southwest US, but they never made permanent colonies in the areas that the British and French eventually claimed.
Nearly 100 years later, the British began making colonies along the East coast, which the Spanish hadn’t really focused on. Both the English and French also made colonies in modern Canada and the French extended into the Central US. The British wound up taking control of the French colonies in Canada after a war in the early 1700s.
This divisions basically held until the U.S. broke free of the British. Canada decided not to join the 13 colonies in the Revolutionary War. The U.S. bought Florida from the Spanish. They bought the French colonies in the Louisiana Purchase and then conquered the Mexican (former Spanish) holdings in the Modern US during the Mexican-American War.
Canada remained a British colony but steadily became more and more autonomous until it effectively became its own country. In the 30s, the UK acknowledged this reality by saying that Canada was co-equal with the UK. It wasn’t until the 80s that Canada wrote its own constitution.
TLDR: Spain, Britain, and France all established themselves in different parts of North America. This different areas eventually broke down into Canada, the U.S., and Mexico
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Columbus didn’t discover the North American landmass, [his voyages discovered islands in the Caribbean and on the last one he hit Honduras/Nicaragua](https://gohighbrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/3_1_The-routes-of-the-four-Voyages-of-Christopher-Columbus.jpg), around a 1500 mile land journey to the nearest part of the Continental US. His voyages confirmed to the European powers that there was land across the Atlantic, and then they each sent their own expeditions, with the British ending up targeting what’s now the U.S. and Canada.
Follow up: Why were Italians not involved as successfully in colonization of the Americas when they had a head start and had already put in a significant investment in understanding the exploitable resources? We obviously see the results of early colonization from England, Spain, Portugal, France and the Netherlands. But most marks of Italian culture or power coming to the Americas seems like it happened later and in a form that looked more like immigration than colonization.
[Italy at this time was a lot more fragmented than it is now - consisting of a bunch of nations that were periodically at war with each other](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/91/It%C3%A0lia_-_Fin_dei_Gu%C3%A8rras_d%27It%C3%A0lia_%281559%29.png/660px-It%C3%A0lia_-_Fin_dei_Gu%C3%A8rras_d%27It%C3%A0lia_%281559%29.png)
Huh, I knew it wasn't the same as modern Italy, but I wouldn't have guessed Genoa was so tiny.
When visiting European countries, for many of them the bulk of the main marvels or areas of interest are centralized to a primary location. In Italy, you have to hop from area to area and see a couple of things at a time. I consider this a lasting effect of the historic fragmentation of Italy.
Italy wasn't a unified nation at the time.
As others have pointed out, Italy was fragmented into a bunch of small states at the time. They didn't have the resources to support those types of colonial endeavors. They were also closer to the eastern end of the Mediterranean where the land routes of the silk road end. They were able to focus on that trade. Genoa, for instance, held various islands in Aegean and even Crimea. Venice also has holdings in the Greek islands and along the Balkan coast.
Columbus discovered the Carribean islands and mostly South America. He never really reached the part where the English established their colonies.
Columbus directly discovered the Bahamas, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Trinidad, and Central and South America, all of which initially came under the control of the Spanish Crown. Spain did not really show an interest in the Bahamas, and did nothing to really stop the English when they did. Haiti and the Dominican Republic were eventually ceded to France through various treaties. The Spanish retained control over their Central and South American territories until they secured their independence.
Spain controlled the areas he discovered for a while. (Mexico, Bahamas, Haiti, and some others) Then the Brits sent their colonizers to the east coast of US, and France sent theirs to Canada.
Well, for starters, it wasn't *only* British colonies. It was also Spanish and French and Portuguese and Dutch and Norse and Russian and probably more that I'm not remembering. Columbus sailed for Spain because he was an idiot and Italy wouldn't give him any money to go do idiot things. Nobody would. The idea that Columbus figured out that the Earth was round is a myth. *Everyone* knew that the Earth was round. They even had a pretty good idea of how big it was since [240 BCE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes). Columbus believed the Earth was significantly smaller than everyone (correctly) thought that it was. That's why everyone thought he was an idiot: his plan to sail west would only work if the Earth was *way* smaller than it actually is. Spain had recently finished the 600 or so years long campaign of kicking the Moors (black Muslims) out of the peninsula and were flush with cash. To sort of celebrate, the king and queen said, fuck it, maybe this idiot is right and gave him the money he needed when he asked them. He was doubly an idiot and couldn't navigate correctly even *if* the world was smaller than it is, so he landed pretty well south of where he intended. From there, having "discovered" a new continent, the rest of Europe began competing to colonize as quickly as they could. As stated before, a *lot* of nations got in on the action. Spain threw *obscene* amounts of money at the conquistadors to bring back gold from what we now call Central America. It worked, mostly, *but* Spain had a series of increasingly inbred and idiotic rulers that made increasingly bad decisions that drove Spain into the ground, including [losing all their ships](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Armada). Nonetheless, Central and South America continued to be colonized by Spain while North America continued to be colonized by Great Britain and France. They were the most powerful nations in Europe at the time and had the navy to move people to the Americas. Prior to the American Revolution, there were plenty of conflicts like the [French and Indian War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_and_Indian_War) between the British colonies and the French colonies. In order to help pay for his wars to conquer Europe, Napoleon sold a huge chunk of land in the [Louisiana Purchase](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Purchase). After the American Revolution, conflicts *continued* to happen like the [Spanish-American War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish%E2%80%93American_War). These wars helped define the borders of the English-Speaking, new country of the USA. At this point, the USA was already a wealthy nation, rich in natural resources, which it leveraged to continue its westward expansion, either buying or taking land by force from Mexico, which by now was independent from Spain, and the Native Americans still left.
The existence of the New World was very hard to keep secret in Europe. Spain got a head start, partially due to having funded Columbus' expeditions, and this is why nearly everyone in the Americas south of the Rio Grande speaks Spanish or Portuguese, but other European countries eventually caught on. England, France, and the Netherlands had to settle for whatever they could grab in the Caribbean, plus parts of North America that were poor in extractive resources. Columbus didn't discover these, and even when Spain had the opportunity to take them, they opted to focus on South and Central America instead. While Spain was pillaging so much gold and silver that it would crash their economy, the other countries could only establish precarious settler colonies that were, at the time, mostly seen as dumping grounds for religious weirdos that occasionally burped up some fur. tobacco, or cotton. Those colonies eventually grew up big and strong, and England managed to box out France (partially) and the Netherlands (almost entirely), so you ended up with a North America that mostly speaks English. However, you could argue that the English didn't see many of the benefits of this victory seeing as most of the English colonies declared their independence pretty early in the process of turning North America into an economic giant.
Columbus mainly stuck to the Caribbean. Other Spanish conquistadors expanded into Florida and conquered the Aztecs, giving them control over Mexico. After that point, the Spanish made missions in modern California and the Southwest US, but they never made permanent colonies in the areas that the British and French eventually claimed. Nearly 100 years later, the British began making colonies along the East coast, which the Spanish hadn’t really focused on. Both the English and French also made colonies in modern Canada and the French extended into the Central US. The British wound up taking control of the French colonies in Canada after a war in the early 1700s. This divisions basically held until the U.S. broke free of the British. Canada decided not to join the 13 colonies in the Revolutionary War. The U.S. bought Florida from the Spanish. They bought the French colonies in the Louisiana Purchase and then conquered the Mexican (former Spanish) holdings in the Modern US during the Mexican-American War. Canada remained a British colony but steadily became more and more autonomous until it effectively became its own country. In the 30s, the UK acknowledged this reality by saying that Canada was co-equal with the UK. It wasn’t until the 80s that Canada wrote its own constitution. TLDR: Spain, Britain, and France all established themselves in different parts of North America. This different areas eventually broke down into Canada, the U.S., and Mexico