AS405 History Of Western Civilization

Bachelor of History and Civilization 1
Bachelor of History and Civilization
Name
Institution

Bachelor of History and Civilization 2
The History of American Exploration
The history of American expedition dates back to around 1000 C.E when the first
Europeans known as the Viking from Scandinavia led by Leif Eriksson set their foot on Canada
in the province of Newfoundland and established a temporary settlement (Kendall,2018).
Though it is believed that Christopher Columbus was the first European explorer to set his foot
in America, there had been previous explorers in the likes of Vikings who had traveled before.
This paper intends to discuss the biography of Europeans explorers to America the focus being
on the economic, environmental, social, and political that influenced the explorer to look for new
land and reason to why the expedition took place.
The Vikings of Scandinavia were the first European to set foot on North America as
discussed earlier, they came 500 years earlier before Christopher Columbus did his expedition.
Led by Leif Eriksson the Vikings first settle in the Greenland but due to the harsh climate of
Greenland and lack of woods (Turner, 2018). Leif Eriksson and the team decided to venture
westwards in search of woods. Leif and his crew first set foot at a place they called flat stone
land which was desolated land of mountain and glaciers. From there the crew sailed towards the
south and after two days sailing they reached the present day Newfoundland a province in
Canada.
The motivation for Viking exploration was essentially due influence of social factors.
Since most of the Vikings were pagans basically non-Christians the other Europeans countries
such as England invaded the Vikings lands almost kill everyone who refused to be baptized to
convert to Christianity (Booth, 2018). Due to fear of their life, it basically drove them away to
look for a new land. Another idea that leads the Viking to explore for new land is due to the
increase in population; it resulted in an increase in pressure to search for more lands. This made