After Columbus found the New World, even if it was by accident, a wave of explorers went out under the Spanish flag. Off to find riches and glory, these explorers and conquistadors found and conquered much of the new world. After conquering the native people, a system had to be set up for how the land and the people would be ruled and profited off of. In this lesson, we will learn about several explorers and conquistadors, and the encomienda and hacienda system, which was employed by the Spanish in their colonies. Many conquistadors followed Columbus after his discovery of the New World. America was named after Amerigo Vespucci. The hacienda was a land grant from the Spanish crown, usually given to a conquistador. The encomienda system granted people as labor to those who were granted land in the Spanish colonies. We then discussed the Columbian Exchange. We should really ask some other important questions about his 'discovery,' such as: How do you discover a place that is already populated? How do you discover a place for Europe when other Europeans have already been there? What is the Columbian Exchange? The Columbian Exchange is the term used to describe the flow of ideas, people, plants animals, technology, and disease that took place because of Columbus' discovery of the New World. The starting point of the Columbian Exchange is 1492. For all the bad and for all of the good, the world we know today would not exist as we know it without Columbus' discovery. I'm sure someone else would have started the exchange… maybe a year later, a decade, or even a century or two, but it was Christopher Columbus who has lent his name to the Columbian Exchange, and without this exchange of agricultural goods, people, diseases, and ideas, we would have a very different world.