Christopher Columbus reached the Caribbean islands in October 1492 under Spanish sponsorship, initiating sustained European contact with the Americas. Though he believed he had reached Asia, his voyages opened the way for European colonization, exploitation, and eventual domination of the Western Hemisphere. This encounter triggered the Columbian Exchange, transferring plants, animals, diseases, and peoples between hemispheres with transformative consequences.

European encounters with indigenous Americans inspired literature ranging from colonial propaganda to critiques of imperialism, including Las Casas's accounts and Montaigne's essays on cannibals. The discovery challenged European assumptions about humanity and geography, influencing Renaissance poetry's engagement with the exotic and unknown. Indigenous oral poetic traditions faced suppression yet survived, eventually influencing contemporary Native American poetry that reclaims ancestral voices while engaging with colonial literary forms.