Religious Wars and Exploration

We have been told multiple times since Freshman year that the three main reasons for exploration were Gold, God and Glory. What we neglected to realize was that many religious wars began for the same reasons.  The Thirty Years war began over a conflict between the Catholics and Protestants. It was in essence a fight over who had the best religion. Most religious wars are started on that premise. Which religion reigns supreme? Every religion wanted land because land = influence = power = money.  The churched benefited from influence, because when you are influential you can charge $120 for a t-shirt...

AND IT SOLD OUT.

Now with exploration, the countries set out for gold, god and glory... in that order. Christopher Columbus set out in search of the West Indies. He was oblivious to the fact that he was actually in the Caribbean. Nonetheless, he enslaved the natives and was overall a bad guy. Today he is blamed for taking the credit away from the explorers before him, but we are the ones giving him credit. Anyway, Columbus was nasty, in essence he was the father of the Atlantic Slave Trade.  This trade route benefited the Europe, not the New World. Europeans got money (and syphilis) and the natives got smallpox and were forced into slavery.

Also, Maria mentioned llamas... I'm still not 100% sure how this ties in, but I couldn't resist.