Compare and contrast the settlement patterns of the European powers (England, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Sweden) in the Americas.
Answers
Early Spanish, French, & English permanent settlements tried to transplant European forms into the "new world" environment, in the effort to make the new world environment look like the old one.
Spanish: Following Columbus voyages to W. Indies, Spanish established sugar plantations; when Natives died imported African slave labor remaking population of Caribbean; in Mexico used Native Population to mine gold; when this population died, Spanish in SW turned to ranching and farming.� Law of the Indies (1573) royal ordinances dictated that settlements be like a Spanish village, a grid of streets around a central plaza of approx 5 1/2 acres, w/ church at one end and govt/military building at other.� Houses joined together w/common walls on plaza side.� Beyond houses were common pastures, woodlots, and private holdings assigned to each family based on military rank: 106 acres for common folk, 2200 for officers; nobility even higher.� Settlers received water for irrigation in proportion to their acreage (which was in proportion to rank).� Gates on common "acequia madre" w/ time you were allowed to open them to your fields strictly regulated (2-4 hours flow).� [interestingly,, Native Americans had also irrigated to grow corn, beans, and squash and Spanish followed and incorporated Native American networks into their own.] Traditions of government regulating land and water use brought from Spain; if you wanted to settle in New Spainyou had to abide by its strict rules.� Irrigation needs kept Spanish SW settlements clustered; Spanish towns such as Santa Fe well established long before Quebec or Jamestown.
French: hoped to find gold down St. Lawrence river and along Great Lakes, but developed fishing and fur trading posts instead,� trading w/Micmacs.� By 1663 there were approximately 2500 French in Canada, mostly in Quebec, Trois-Rivieres, and Montreal.� French pattern of living in cities along St. Lawrence River trade route w/ very little permanent settlement elsewhere.
NOTE: one major way that these Spanish and French settlements differed from those in Europe is sex ratio--they were approx 90% male.� Both Spanish and French had considerable trade with Native population and contacts resulted in substantial metis and mestizo populations.�
English: followed two different patterns of settlement: plantations in Chesapeake and Carolinas and family farms in New Englandand Middle Colonies.
��������� Chesapeake: Virginia Company of London established 1606 to extract gold from Virginia, created outpost in Jamestown in 1607.� Unable to find gold, but in 1612 English began planting tobacco.� By 1617 70,000 lbs/yr.; 1638 3,000,000 lbs; by 1700 30,000,000 lbs; by 1775 100,000,000 lbs. (accounted for 27% of total value of American exports on eve of Revolution).� Tobacco very labor and soil intensive: cultivation required 9 months of labor/yr, and soils would only produce tobacco for about 5 years before exhausting.� As in Caribbean, scarcity of labor led to importation of African slave population, as well as to use of indentured labor and headright system (to encourage population growth).� Indentures: company paid for passage in return for 7 years labor.� headrights: anyone who arrived granted 100 acres, anyone who sent someone over granted 50 acres.� Thus: poor could indenture themselves and get 100 acres at end of 7 years (betting that they would live--btw 1607-24, 80% of Virginia colonists died (1/3 Jamestown killed in Powhattan raid of 1622)., At same time, wealthy in england could send four people over and get 200 acre plantation.� RESULT of these land systems combined with demands of tobacco agriculture and geography of Chesapeakeregion (wide, navigable rivers) to create very dispersed population in contrast to Spanish or French.
NOTE: while Chesapeake offered economic opportunity to landless in early modern England displaced by commercial revolution, huge differences in extent of land holdings from outset between those who labored and those who could afford to purchase labor.� By 1700 the top 10% of Chesapeakepopulation owned over 1/2 acreage and 2/3 total wealth.
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Gold, silver, and furs attracted European exploration, colonization, and competition in the New World.
Rivalries between European nations were often rooted in religious or political feuds taking place in Europe, yet these tensions played out in the theater of the New World.
The Spanish lost their stronghold in North America as the French, Dutch, and British began to explore and colonize the Northeast.
French exploration
Spanish successes in the Caribbean attracted the attention of other European nations. Like Spain, France was a Catholic nation and committed to expanding Catholicism around the globe. In the early sixteenth century, it joined the race to explore the New World and exploit the resources of the Western Hemisphere. In 1534, navigator Jacques Cartier claimed northern North America for France, naming the area around the St. Lawrence River New France. Like many other explorers, Cartier made exaggerated claims about the area’s mineral wealth and was unable to send great riches back to France or establish a permanent colony.
Map of the area explored by Cartier.
Map of the area explored by Cartier.
Map of the region explored by Jacques Cartier. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
Samuel de Champlain made great strides for French exploration of the New World. He explored the Caribbean in 1601 and the coast of New England in 1603 before traveling farther north. In 1608 he founded Quebec, and he made numerous Atlantic crossings as he worked tirelessly to promote New France. Unlike other imperial powers, France—through Champlain’s efforts—fostered especially good relationships with native peoples as they expanded westward. He learned that becoming friendly with the native people was essential to successful trade. Champlain explored the Great Lakes, Hudson Bay, and eventually made it to the Mississippi River. The French made an alliance with the Hurons and Algonquians; Champlain even agreed to fight for them against their enemy, the Iroquois.
Engraving showing a battle between the Algonquians, the French, and the Iroquois.
Engraving showing a battle between the Algonquians, the French, and the Iroquois.
Samuel de Champlain, engraving depicting French soldiers fighting with the Algonquians and Hurons against the Iroquois, c. 1609. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
The French were primarily interested in establishing commercially viable colonial outposts, so they created extensive trading networks throughout New France. They relied on native hunters to harvest furs, especially beaver pelts, and to exchange these items for French goods, like glass beads. The French also dreamed of replicating the wealth of Spain by colonizing the tropical zones. After Spanish control of the Caribbean began to weaken, the French turned their attention to small islands in the West Indies; by 1635 they had colonized two, Guadeloupe and Martinique. Though it still lagged far behind Spain, France now boasted its own West Indian colonies with lucrative sugar plantation sites and African slave labor.
Dutch colonization
Dutch entrance into the Atlantic World is part of the larger story of religious and imperial conflict in the early modern era. In the 1500s, Calvinism, one of the major Protestant reform movements, began to take root in the Spanish Netherlands and the new sect desired its own state. Holland was established in 1588 as a Protestant nation, but would not be recognized by Spain until 1648. Determined to imperil Protestantism, King Philip of Spain assembled a massive force of over thirty thousand men and 130 ships, and sent this giant navy, known as the Spanish Armada, towards England and Holland. But the skilled English navy and a maritime storm destroyed the fleet in 1588. The defeat of the Spanish Armada was only one part of a larger but undeclared war between Protestantism and Catholicism.