Germans

At the time of Columbus' first voyage, Germany consisted of four hundred separate entities, including cities, principalities, and feudal states. Though nominally part of the Holy Roman Empire, they were in fact beyond the control of the Holy Roman Emperor in Spain. There was no central government that dictated policy, collected taxes, or marshaled armies. In 1517 a German monk, Martin Luther, protested against a variety of practices of the Catholic Church by nailing his arguments to a church door in Wittenberg. This was a traditional way of opening a debate at the university there, but he started something larger than a scholarly debate. His act set off the Protestant Reformation, as copies of his theses, translated from Latin into German and other languages, spread throughout Germany and the rest of Europe. The Reformation in turn brought about the Counter-Reformation as the Catholic Church reordered itself. The struggle between the two religious views broke out into the Thirty Years' War, which was particularly brutal and devastating in Germany. German provinces ended up choosing to be either Catholic (primarily in the south) or Protestant (primarily in the north). The small Baltic duchy of Prussia gradually began expanding in the sixteenth century thanks to good leadership and a growing military tradition. It repulsed Swedish encroachments in the seventeenth century and rose to real prominence under Frederick the Great in the eighteenth century. The Prussians were particularly noted for their disciplined infantry, elite Grenadiers, and cavalry. They fought a series of wars with the much larger Austrian Empire to the south, usually with great success, up to the Napoleonic Era. Germans briefly attempted to colonize Venezuela in the sixteenth century. Augsburg banking families obtained the rights to the country in 1526 and began exploring the land in 1529, mainly looking for El Dorado, the famed city of gold. Approximately two hundred settlers landed at Coro. They continued to search for gold and established some sugar plantations worked by African slaves. The colony reverted to Spanish control in 1556. Most of the German colonists had died from disease or native attacks, especially during their treks into the interior searching for gold.

From the game's History encyclopedia.