What is one piece of evidence that capitalism motivated exploration to and statement in the New World?

It would be naïve and narrow-minded for any student of
history to believe that any one factor motivated the exploration and settlement of the
New World by southern Europeans. The stated purpose of the first exploratory voyage by
Christopher Columbus was to evangelize the sub-continent of India. The Spanish royalty
had just concluded a worrisome war with the Moors--Muslims from North Africa--and were
concerned that Islam would spread through India. Columbus, href="http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/columbus1.html">in his journal,
notes about the King and Queen of Spain that,

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"Your Highnesses, as Catholic Christians, and
princes who love and promote the holy Christian faith, and are enemies of the doctrine
of Mahomet, and of all idolatry and heresy, determined to send me, Christopher Columbus,
to the above-mentioned countries of India, to see the said princes, people, and
territories, and to learn their disposition and the proper method of converting them to
our holy faith;"

Since this
was the reason given, and there being no evidence to the contrary, one would indeed be a
historical revisionist to say that missionary activity was not a--if not the--prime
motivating factor in the discovery of the New
World.

That being said, though, it is often instructive to
pay attention to what people do rather than what they say. At least as far as the
settlement of the New World is concerned. In an undated letter, but
probably from two years after his discovery of several islands in the carribian,
Christopher Columbus noted that around 2,000 potential colonists were ready to set up
house on the island of Española (La Isla Española--modern day Haiti). He then made
certain recommendations to their royal hignesses about what kind of laws should govern
this new colony.

The first section is to allow the
establishmnent of three separate towns or cities and the division of colonists to each.
The third section deals with establishing civil authorities after the Spanish pattern
and the fourth section deals with the establishment of a church in each town. The other
ten sections deal with gold--who can look for it, what a person has to do should he find
some, where he can take it, how he can transport it and to where and the penalties for
not doing so properly. The final section deals with taxes, as in making it easier for
people to establish new colonies in order to look for more
gold.

So, while I do not doubt that Christopher Columbus
and the King and Queen of Spain had other issues in mind when they went about
discovering and overseeing settlement of the New World, in the first recorded
communication after its discovery, a good eighty percent of the letter has to do with
gold.

So, whether you want to call it capitalism or just
plain greed, Christopher Columbus' href="http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/D/1400-1500/columbus/brf94.htm">Letter to the King
and Queen of Spain (circa 1494) is a good document to help prove that this was
the reason for the settlement of the New World, and where the 13th
section states "In regard to the discovery of new countries, I think permission should
be granted to all that wish to go, and more liberality used in the matter of the fifth,
making the tax easier, in some fair way, in order that many may be disposed to go on
voyages." I think we can include most, if not all, of the lands later discovered under
this materialistic umbrella.