PERIOD OF COLONIZATION

Time Period: (Early 16th to Mid-18th Centuries)

PORTUGUESE COLONIZATION
In 1493-1494, by a Line of Demarcation, drawn by the Pope, and by a subsequent Portuguese-Spanish treaty, Portugal received, title to eastern South America, or Brazil. To assure control of the territory and to cultivate the sugar crop, the Portuguese soon afterwards established settlements.

SPANISH COLONIZATION

1. Motives

Spain encouraged settlements in the New World to strengthen her claims to territory; to secure gold, silver, and valuable agricultural produce, such as sugar and indigo (a blue dye); and to convert the Indians to Catholicism. Spanish settlers were chiefly government officials, soldiers, noblemen, merchants, and missionaries.

2. Extent

The Papal decision and the subsequent treaty assigned the New World, except for Brazil, to Spain. The Spanish first settled in the islands of the West Indies: Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Hispaniola (Santo Domingo). From these bases, Spain proceeded to colonize Mexico, Central America, and most of South America.

Spain also established colonies in territory that today is part of the United States. In 1565, in Florida, the Spanish founded St. Augustine, the oldest city in the United States. In 1605, in New Mexico, they founded Santa Fe, the second oldest city in the United States. Other settlements were made throughout Florida, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and California.

In 1600, before the English had made their first settlement, Spanish colonists in the New World numbered about 200,000.

3. Life in the Spanish Colonies

a. Culture

Spain gave the New World her culture, notably her language and religion. She permitted only Catholics to settle in her colonies. In the major cities, Spain built impressive cathedrals and church-conducted universities.

Missionaries labored, with considerable success, to convert the native Indians to Christianity. Also, Spanish settlers and Indians intermarried, and their offspring, called mestizos, were raised within the Spanish culture.

b. Economy

The Spanish introduced wheat, barley, domestic animals such as horses and cattle, and trees bearing fruits and nuts. They also introduced the feudal European system of landholding, in accordance with which the king granted large estates to Spanish noblemen. These estates were first worked by the Indians, who were practically enslaved and were often cruelly treated. Later, plantation owners also used Negro slaves imported from Africa, as well as mestizos, who were virtual slaves.

Colonial merchants were permitted to trade only with the mother country, Spain. This restriction accorded with the prevailing idea that colonies exist to enrich the mother country, an idea expounded in the economic doctrine of mercantilism. From her colonies, Spain obtained a treasure of gold and silver that helped maintain her, during the 16th and most of the 17th century, as a leading world power.

c. Government

The king of Spain permitted no self-government at home and none in the colonies. He exercised strict control over the colonies by giving absolute powers to the officials whom he sent from Spain to serve as royal

governors, or viceroys.

4. Decline of the Spanish Empire

After the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 by the English, Spain slowly declined as a world power. In the 19th century, Spain lost all her American colonies, most of them by revolution during the Napoleonic Era and the rest as a result of the Spanish-American War. Although Spanish political control ended, Spain left a heritage of wide social distinctions, concentrated land ownership, Roman Catholicism, and the Spanish language.

FRENCH COLONIZATION

1. Motives

When the king of France heard the news that the New World had been apportioned between Spain and Portugal by Papal decision, he demanded to see "the clause in Adam's will" that excluded, his country. The French wanted to acquire an empire in the New World, to fish for cod on the Newfoundland banks, to trade with the Indians for furs, and to convert the Indians to Catholicism.

2. Extent

The French utilized the vast inland waterways to explore and settle in North America. In 1608 Samuel de Champlain established the first permanent French settlement, at Quebec on the St. Lawrence River. In 1673 the missionary Jacques Marquette and the fur trader Louis Joliet paddled across Lake Michigan and down most of the Mississippi River. In 1681-1682 the explorer Sieur de La Salle descended the entire length of the Mississippi. Along the St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi, the French established many fur-trading posts and settlements, notably Montreal, Detroit, St. Louis, and New Orleans.

3. Few White Settlers

In 1750 New France, as the extensive French colonial territories in North America were called, held only 80,000 white settlers. The reasons for this small number were: (a) New France contained no treasure of gold and silver to lure fortune seekers, (b) France restricted immigration to Catholics, thereby excluding French Protestants, (c) French-men engaged primarily in the fur trade and were little interested in farming, (d) Like France, the colonies were under the strict rule of the king, who opposed the growth of self-government.

4. Decline

France lost her possessions in North America as a result of the French and Indian War (1754-1763). However, French influence in the New World has remained strong in the province of Quebec, with its predominantly French-Canadian population, and in the state of Louisiana.

DUTCH COLONIZATION

1. Motive and Extent

Interested in the fur trade, the Dutch West India Company in 1621 founded the colony of New Netherland. It included trading posts and settlements along the Hudson River, especially at Albany and New Amsterdam, now New York City. In 1626 Peter Minuit, the Dutch governor, gave the Indians goods reputedly worth $24 for Manhattan Island.

The Dutch also expanded into Long Island and New Jersey. In 1655 they annexed New Sweden, a Swedish settlement in Delaware.

2. Small White Population

Since Holland was prosperous and few Hollanders were willing to migrate, the Dutch West India Company tried to attract settlers by offering a patroonship, a huge tract of land, to any of its members who would transport 50 tenants to the colony. Also, the Company raised little objection to non-Dutch immigrants. By the 1660's the colony contained settlers speaking some 18 different languages. Nevertheless, the total population did not exceed 10,000.

3. Decline

Holland and England were commercial and colonial rivals, and England considered the Dutch colony an obstacle to her ambition to colonize the Atlantic seaboard, of North America. In 1664 an English naval force appeared before New Amsterdam and compelled the Dutch governor, Peter Stuyvesant, to surrender the colony.

Dutch influence remains in New York State, as evidenced by place-names and by a number of old homes and churches.

ENGLISH COLONIZATION

1. Extent

England founded ten colonies along the northern Atlantic sea-board and formed three colonies out of New Netherland, which she had seized from the Dutch. These thirteen English colonies formed the basis of our country, the United States of America.

2. Motives of the English Settlers

a. Religious

King Henry VIII broke with the Papacy and in 1534 established the independent Anglican Church, or Church of England. During the reign of Henry's daughter, Queen Elizabeth I (ruled 1558-1603), Anglicanism became firmly entrenched as the English religion. Catholics as well as dissenting Protestants, such as Puritans and Quakers, suffered discrimination and sometimes persecution. To gain religious freedom, many English-men migrated to the New World.

b. Political In the 17th century

England was torn by political strife between Parliament and the absolutist Stuart kings. In succession, England experienced civil war (1642-1645), the beheading of King Charles I (1649), a Puritan military dictatorship under Oliver Cromwell (1649-1658), the restoration of the Stuarts (1660), and the final overthrow of Stuart rule by the Glorious Revolution (1688-1689). To escape governmental tyranny and political unrest, many Englishmen migrated to the colonies.

c. Economic

In the 16th and, 17th centuries, many English lords fenced in their lands for use as sheep pastures, thus driving out their tenant farmers. The landless peasants moved to the cities, where many experienced unemployment and fell into debt. Under England's severe criminal code, debtors faced imprisonment. To start life anew, with the possibility of acquiring their own farms, many impoverished Englishmen looked to the New World.

3. Motives of the English Government

a. World Power

In striving for world leadership, England came into conflict with Spain, as shown by raids of the English sea captains Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake upon Spain's colonies in the New World and upon Spanish treasure ships. In 1588, when war broke out between England and Spain, Drake and the other sea captains annihilated the "invincible" Spanish Armada. This event marked, the emergence of England as a world power and as the "mistress of the seas." Equating a colonial empire with world power, the English government generally encouraged colonial settlement.

b. Economic Benefits

The English government, like other European governments, accepted the mercantilist doctrine that colonies serve to enrich the mother country. If regulated along mercantilist lines, colonies would assure raw materials and markets for English manufacturers, trade for English merchants, and revenues for the English treasury.