figured more prominently among the objectives of English promoters of westward expansion, who viewed it as a partial solution to overpopulation, poverty, crime and religious dissent at home (Mancall, pp. 2-3).
Columbus' discovery of the Americas was accidental in the sense that he and many other explorers were seeking a new route to the fabled riches of Cathay. Nevertheless, it had enormous implications and effects. According to Smallwood, the opening up of a previously unknown continent entailed "the profound upheaval in European understanding of the physical nature of the world" which "was accompanied by an equally profound transformation and
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