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A: God and gold explain a lot of it. In simplistic terms, the Spanish were the jihadists of this era. They were infused with this belief that with the sword and the cross they would bring about worldwide conversion to Christianity. Also, the vast riches that Cortez and Pizarro had found in Mexico and Peru convinced them that North America would offer the next great strike. Mythic places -- the Seven Cities of Gold, the Isle of the Amazons, El Dorado -- weren't wild fantasies to the Spanish, they were realities just waiting to be found.

Q: These pie-eyed dreamers were also brutal killers, weren't they?

A: The body count was very high -- massacres, beheadings and torture. They killed and enslaved thousands of Indians. De Soto created the first chain gang in the South. Disease was even more damaging because the natives didn't have immunity to many the Europeans brought over. ... Later arrivals described America as a virgin wilderness but that wasn't exactly accurate. It had partly become a wilderness because of depopulation due to earlier European contact.

Q: The Spanish created the first permanent European settlement at St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565. But it wasn't until Jamestown in 1607 and Plymouth Colony in 1620 that firm roots were planted. What happened?

A: These English settlers were latecomers who benefited from the fact that others had charted much of the coast, had written accounts. Also earlier Europeans had cleared the way. The Pilgrims settled in a ghost Indian village vacated by disease -- as a result they have fresh water, good place to settle, no one to oppose them. John Smith was also crucial. At Jamestown, he was the first to recognize that the true bounty of America was not gold or silver but the land itself. Soon after he left, the tide really turned when they started growing tobacco. This led to the introduction of slaves in 1619. Really it was tobacco and slavery that ensured survival.

Q: What have you learned about history -- and our memory of history -- through your work?

A: Americans are not famed for their historical memory. We are a forward-looking country. In some ways this is healthy but it also makes us ignore the way that history still haunts -- like the critical role of tobacco and slavery. What was also striking to me was how recognizably American the earliest explorers were. They came here for a better life, to get rich quick, to flee destitution and persecution. And they were infused with something akin to manifest destiny -- the idea that this land was waiting for them to conquer and civilize it. That's as much our story as the Pilgrims.

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