Conquest of America The arrival of the Spanish in the Caribbean in 1492, opened the way for some European powers conquered vast territories in the Americas. The conquest of America was named exploration, invasion, military occupation, genocide and colonization of the Americas by some European powers, of which the principal were Spain, Portugal, England, France and Holland, from the arrival of Columbus America on 12 October 1492 and which remained mainly during the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, although some remaining colonial enclaves in the present. These actions had continuity in the nineteenth century by American national states, among them are Argentina and the United States who held ethnic cleansing policies to the detriment of Native Americans. Edit