The 1497 English expedition led by Italian Venetian John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) was the first of a series of French and English missions exploring North America. Spain put limited efforts into exploring the northern part of the Americas, as its resources were concentrated in Central and South America where more wealth had been found. These expeditions were hoping to find an oceanic Northwest Passage to Asian trade. This was never discovered, but other possibilities were found, and in the early 17th century colonists from a number of Northern European states began to settle on the east coast of North America. In 1520–1521 the Portuguese João Álvares Fagundes, accompanied by couples of mainland Portugal and the Azores, explored Newfoundland and Nova Scotia (possibly reaching the Bay of Fundy on the Minas Basin), and established a fishing colony on the Cape Breton Island, that would last until at least the 1570s or near the end of the century.