The Age of Discovery (Age of Exploration) was the era when Europeans began to explore outside of Europe, seeking new lands, resources, and wealth. Europeans came into contact with many civilizations, mapped vast amounts of the world, and began a large global exchange of plants, animals, disease, culture, and people.
In the Americas, the Spanish were the first of the Europeans to land and establish missions and presidios (forts). The first European, Christopher Columbus, landed in the Bahamas in 1492. He was sailing for the Spanish when he his crew became the first Europeans to make contact with Native Americans.
Missions were built as part of a Spanish goal to spread their religion of Catholicism and European values. The missions were also trade centers. Presidios were often built near missions to protect the missions from Native Americans who resisted the Spanish militarily. The first presidio established in the modern-day mainland United States was the Presidio San Augustin (1565), in what is today the city of St. Augustine, Florida. In Texas, the Spanish built missions mostly in areas with farming tribes and semi-nomadic tribes along the Texas river ways, in order to reach the Native Americans to convert them. The first Texan missions were established in 1716. The Alamo (Misión San Antonio de Valero) and the Presidio de Béxar (1718) were built in present-day San Antonio.
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