Christopher Columbus sailed to America in 1492 for Spain. He called the native people Indians and suggested that Spain could easily subjugate and enslave them with just 50 men. Spain's power expanded across Mexico and Peru through conquistadors like Hernan Cortes, who defeated the Aztec Empire in 1519. The Spanish established large farms that used native peoples as slave labor and intermarried with them. European colonization of the Americas led to the widespread transatlantic slave trade that brought over 9.5 million Africans to the region as slaves between 1500-1870. The forced migration of Africans and global exchange of goods, plants, and animals transformed societies around the world in what became known as the Columbian