The phrase "Gold, Glory, and God" was used to describe the Age of Exploration, and was the 3 key things that explorers, especially the Spanish Conquistadors, tried to find. To explain:
1) Gold: Essentially, most explorations was formed and created to find natural resources (such as gold) that had large amounts of worth (gold, diamonds, silver, and others like it). In fact, many explorers were given funding to find more treasures, and were to give a certain percentage to the crown royal and investors.
2) Glory: Glory usually meant territory. To find out why, we must look back into the Age of Exploration. During this age, we see that large, powerful countries such as Portugal, France, Spain, Britain, etc, were reaching out their sphere of influence and trying to gain the upper hand on wealth and power. This led to the race for political, military, and resources across the globe.
3) God: Essentially, God was what allowed for the "exploration" to take place. At first, we see that the Conquistadors brought Roman Catholicism to the natives of the Americas. Later, we see that persecution of other branches of Christianity (by the Anglican faction) led to the Puritans moving to the America's. This led to the creation of settlements that were based around religion, as well as freedom of religion (which was later implemented into the US constitution).
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