Name: Class: Date: Exploring the Americas: Guided Reading Lesson 3: Spain in America
EXPLORING THE AMERICAS
Lesson 3 Spain in America
Guided Reading
Essential Question
What are the consequences when cultures interact?
European Explorers and Conquerors
Answering Questions As you read each section, answer the questions below to help you organize your
ideas about the changing world.
1. Identifying Who were the conquistadors, and what special favors did they receive from Spanish rulers?
What did they have to do in return?
2. Locating By conquering the Aztec Empire, Cortés provided Spain with control of land in what present-day
country?
3. Identifying Which conquistador gained control of the Inca Empire? What country is it today?
4. Listing List three reasons the conquistadors were able to conquer the Aztec and Inca Empires.
Powered by Cognero
Page 1
Name: Class: Date: Exploring the Americas: Guided Reading Lesson 3: Spain in America
Spain in North America
Categorizing Thinking from the perspective of a historian, describe the discoveries of the explorers below.
Include the dates of their explorations and one or more facts about each discovery.
5. a. Juan Ponce de León:
6. b. Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca:
7. c. Hernando de Soto:
8. d. Francisco Vásquez de Coronado:
Life Under Spanish Rule
Defining Write a sentence to define each of the following:
9. mission:
10. presidio:
Powered by Cognero
Page 2
Name: Class: Date: Exploring the Americas: Guided Reading Lesson 3: Spain in America
11. pueblo:
12. plantation:
Identifying Use your textbook to decide if a statement is true or false. Select True or False. If a statement
is false, rewrite the underlined portion to make it true.
Indicate whether the statement is true or false. If it is false, change the identified word(s) to make the statement
true.
13. The Spanish treatment of Native Americans was fair.
Indicate whether the statement is true or false.
14. People at the top of colonial society were the peninsulares, people born in Spain.
a. True
b. False
Indicate whether the statement is true or false. If it is false, change the identified word(s) to make the statement
true.
15. In the mid-1700s, Spain decided to develop California because it wanted to expand its colony farther north.
Indicate whether the statement is true or false.
16. Missions were the main type of Spanish settlement in California.
a. True
b. False
Powered by Cognero
Page 3
Name: Class: Date: Exploring the Americas: Guided Reading Lesson 3: Spain in America
Answer Key
1. Possible response: Conquistadors were Spanish explorers. They received the right to explore and establish
settlements in the Americas. In exchange the conquistadors had to give one-fifth of any gold or treasure
they discovered.
2. Mexico
3. Francisco Pizarro; Peru
4. Possible answers: The Spanish arrived with weapons such as guns and cannons. They had horses and
ferocious dogs. Some Native Americans did not like the Aztec rulers, so they helped the conquistadors
overthrow them. They had no immunity to European diseases and fell victim to terrible epidemics, which
so weakened them that they could not fight the Spanish effectively.
5. first to come ashore on Florida coast in 1513; claimed Florida for Spain; searched for fountain of youth
6. started in Florida in 1528, sailed to Texas; in 1533 traveled across the southwest; when returned to Mexico in
1536, told the story of Seven Cities of Cibola, cities of gold 7. explored what is now the southeastern United States, crossed the Mississippi in 1541, went as far west as
Oklahoma
8. searched for Seven Cities of Gold in northern Mexico and present-day Arizona and New Mexico; traveled east
as far as Kansas
9. A mission was a religious community that usually included a small town, surrounding farmland, and a church.
10. A presidio was a fort, usually built near a mission.
11. A pueblo was a town, established as a center of trade.
12. A plantation was a large farm set up to raise either tobacco or sugarcane and worked by Native Americans
or enslaved Africans.
13. False - very unfair, including forced labor and forced payment of taxes
14. True
15. False - needed colonists there to strengthen its hold on the region
16. True
Powered by Cognero
Page 4