What are the main reasons for European settlement? The first one is the Europeans were not looking for a trade rout to India. So in a way they were not ever looking for North and South America. But one they realized they were no where near India they decided to set up colones. These colones allowed for the French,Spanish and English to expand and grow their nation. This also allowed them to gather spices,gold and other valuable material and send it back to their nation.They settled to grow their egos and fame. What i mean by this if a explorer settled a settlement this would create nationalism and pride for his nation.One key thing the Spanish colonized was setting up Spanish missions. Theses missions attempted to convert native to Christianity. What i mean by attempting was they could not communicate well because both parties spoke different language. And the finally reason is for gold. As soon as the early settlers got to Georgia they stated looking for gold. But when they went looking they found none. Thats why a large percentage of natives died because they were killed because they were suspected to have gold.