http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/alexander-mackenzie-reaches-the-pacific-ocean
This is 300 years after Christopher Columbus (re-)discovered America. Vasco Núñez de Balboa reached the Pacific Ocean in Panama in 1513.
Granted, the place is really huge, but why did it take so long before the first European crossed the continent and reached the Pacific coast of North America (which is defined in this context as: north of Mexico)?
In normal contexts, Mexico is defined as part of North America, but, otherwise, I think you have answered your own question.
Europeans had reached California centuries earlier - they had simply come either by ship or up from Mexico. Crossing all of North America was the slow route; it remained the slow route until the transcontinental railroad.
That’s true. Another thing I don’t understand why the Spanish didn’t try to aggressively explore and settle California and the Pacific Northwest from the get go. This was more or less in their backyard, a short trip by ship from Acapulco to San Diego or Seattle.
I think Alessan has it: why come the hard way when a much easier one (ship) is available?
Having said that, it’s worth noting that the Pacific was quite poorly mapped until Captain Cook showed up. His 3 voyages spanned 1768-1779.
That is absolutely correct. I’m not suggesting that schlepping through the Great Plains and over the Rocky Mountains would ever have been considered the preferable way of getting to California. I just find it remarkable that it obviously took such a long time until at least someone tried it.
Certainly it’s possible that someone tried it earlier, but either died in the process or turned back. Besides, why would you want to cross the continent? There was plenty of open land on the eastern side.
To do it safely you need a large traveling party to dissuade attacks from the natives and to pool resources and handle trouble along the way. It’s no small thing in the 18th or even 19th centuries to traverse the continent by foot or horse. You need a lot of funding to get enough provisions and equipment, and you need enough compatriots that you can handle any trouble that might come up. Sure, one guy could do the trip and might not even run into a native the whole way, but that’s a gamble. If you were to accidentally run into a war party or just a large group of armed natives you’d be at the mercy of their mood as to whether or not your trip continues past that point.
Plus, what’s the point? Settled areas on shipping lanes lead to commerce with the Old World. European colonization of the Americas was very “Eurocentric” with the governments back in Europe being primarily concerned with their colonies sending valuable resources back home. Why would the British or even the Spanish want to put a lot of effort into expeditions deep into an untamed wilderness? This isn’t the 20th century we’re talking about. There are serious infrastructure and population limits at work here.
From the perspective of a European ruler what’s the point in really exploring the interior and trying to walk to the Pacific Ocean just to say you did it? Whatever you found in the middle of the country, it’d be very hard to exploit. There was no highway infrastructure or anything. Even the coastal regions were not fully tamed.
To really exploit those resources you’d find along the way you’d need settlement in the interior, which involved lots of fighting with the natives and required more population willing to move out there.
And if you’re just wanting to travel to the Pacific, again, what is the point of a land route? No government of that time had the capacity to maintain an actual transcontinental transit route, so it’s not like you’d be establishing a trade route that would be used heavily in trade.
That’s why for a long time the people in that part of the world who were European were fur traders and trappers, that is the sort of activity that worked there at that time, and it was still years before that would change.
No earlier white guy had a reason to go there. Lewis & Clark made their trip because President Jefferson hired them to check out the new territory. Mostly, people need a motive for such a long trip–even today, people don’t just buy a cross-country plane ticket for no reason. Why risk all the mountains, deserts, grizzlies & possibly unwelcoming inhabitants?
Of course, slightly more southerly portions of North America were explored by Europeans earlier. Eusebio Kino, Jesuit missionary & scholar, traveled throuoghout northwestern Mexico, Arizona & California from 1687 to 1711; he discovered that Baja California was not an island but a peninsula.
The more northern Europeans got a later start and moved slower…
It wasn’t until Livingstone’s 5 year journey ending in 1856 that a European crossed southern Africa, a considerably shorter distance. It isn’t easy to travel across the wilderness with no roads or grocery stores.
Add to which the rather large number of intervening, often hostile inhabitants.
So, in sum, you have
a) very inhospitable land,
b) inhospitable inhabitants,
c) no particular reason to accomplish the trip, other than curiousity,
d) a significant distance (from populated parts of the Eastern Seaboard to the West Coast is a 2500 mile schlepp, at a minimum),
e) no population pressure, yet, forcing expansion westward,
f) an unlikely economic outlook even if someone had tried to settle it.
and other reasons could be raised as well…