AP U.S. History Question of the Day

In 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created (published in 2011), the historian Charles H. Mann describes the effects of the Columbian exchange: the unwitting transfer of plants, animals, and microbes between the New World and the Old which transformed life on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

According to Mann, among the living things exchanged were tomatoes, potatoes, sugarcane, horses, corn, smallpox, measles, cacao, vanilla, tobacco, rice, onions, and bananas.

Which of the following statements best describes the goals of Europeans traveling to the New World in the 1400s and 1500s?