The colonial holdings
of each European country developed in a distinct way. The Spanish established
an authoritarian regime in Mesoamerica and imposed strict controls over the
native peoples. The French and the Dutch in North America created fur-trading
empires in which the native peoples retained their lands a
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nd their political
autonomy. The English created settler-colonies, which were populated primarily
by migrants from Europe and by slaves from Africa. British colonists excluded
Native American peoples and pushed them ever further to the west.
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A
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Spain and Portugal
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Until 1600 Spain and Portugal
were the only European powers with colonies in the New World, the term used by
Christopher Columbus to describe previously unexplored lands in North and South
America. In the 1520s Spanish conquistadors
(conquerors) subdued the wealthy Aztec empire that ruled much of what is now
Mexico. Over the next decade, they began to expand Spain’s control over the
Inca empire in Peru and over the Maya civilization of Mesoamerica. During and
after these conquests, millions of native peoples died because they lacked
immunity to European diseases such as measles and smallpox. Thousands of
Spanish migrants settled on Native American lands and used local people as
laborers to raise wheat and livestock and to mine gold and silver. All of these
products were sent back to Europe or sold to enrich Spain. The Spanish also
forced native peoples to convert to Catholicism.
Portugal focused on Brazil
as its main colony in the New World. In the 1550s the Portuguese established a
plantation economy in Brazil; they raised livestock and grew sugar and other
agricultural products for export to Europe. The Portuguese tried to force
indigenous peoples to work on these plantations, but the people resisted.
European diseases devastated the native population. The Portuguese eventually
met their labor needs by importing tens of thousands of enslaved African
workers.
Spain and Portugal ruled
their American domains in a relatively strict or authoritarian fashion. Their
kings dispatched administrators and other official representatives, called
viceroys by the Spanish, to rule the colonists. Settlers in Spanish and
Portuguese colonies had few opportunities to determine public policy or to
develop institutions of representative government.
In 1565 Spain established
a fort in Florida to protect its fleets from attack by other European nations.
The fort, called Saint Augustine, became the first permanent European
settlement in the future United States. The Spanish also founded a dozen other
military outposts and religious missions along the Atlantic coast, including
one as far north as present-day Virginia. Native Americans soon attacked and
destroyed most of these sites. Spanish adventurers searched for gold in large
areas of the southern and western United States, but they had little success
and so developed few Spanish settlements north of the Rio Grande River.
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B
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France
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France claimed the northeastern
region of North America in the 1530s based on the explorations of Jacques
Cartier in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The first permanent French settlement did
not begin until 1608 when explorer Samuel de Champlain founded a trading post
at the narrows of the St. Lawrence River. The site later became the city of
Québec.
In 1628 the Company of
One Hundred Associates, a joint-stock enterprise run by merchants and court
officials, took control of Québec and the surrounding region. Armand Jean du
Plessis, Duc de Richelieu, a French cardinal and statesman, founded the
company. He was a strong advocate of colonization, and with his associates, he
hoped to bring settlers to the area. The colony was known as New France, and
eventually encompassed Acadia, the island of Newfoundland, Canada (the area
drained by the St. Lawrence River), as well as French claims along the
Mississippi River valley that were collectively known as Louisiana. Company
members also wanted to exploit the rich resources of the region, and the king
of France gave them exclusive rights to develop a trade in furs (see Fur Trade in North America).
However, few French men
and women made permanent homes in the new colony. The climate was harsh, and
the French government discouraged the migration of Huguenots (French
Protestants) and of young men who were potential military recruits in France.
As a result, New France never developed as a colony for settlers. In 1698 its
European population was only 15,200, whereas the population in the neighboring
English colonies had already risen to 250,000.
Despite the lack of settlement,
New France prospered as a vast fur-trading enterprise. French explorers
traveled deep into the North American continent seeking new supplies of
deerskins and beaver pelts. In 1673 French missionary Jacques Marquette reached
the Mississippi River in present-day Wisconsin. In 1681 explorer René-Robert
Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, traveled down the majestic Mississippi to the Gulf
of Mexico. He honored the reign of King Louis XIV (1643-1715) by creating the
new colony of Louisiana and opening up a vast new region for French fur traders.
Military and civilian
officials sent from France governed the colonies of Louisiana and New France in
an authoritarian but effective manner. They maintained order among the white
population and assisted them in building churches and obtaining Catholic priests
from France.
Like the Spanish, the
French had a disastrous impact on Native Americans. By introducing European
diseases, French traders unwittingly triggered massive epidemics, and by
creating a market for furs, they sparked wars among native peoples.
The Iroquois, who occupied
what later became New York state, profited from the fur trade more than other
native peoples in the region. The Iroquois were numerous and lived in large
towns of 500 to 2,000 people. Politically, they were united in a great confederation,
known as the Five Nations or League of Five Nations, which included the Mohawk,
Onondaga, Cayuga, Oneida, and Seneca peoples. In the 1640s the Five Nations
went to war to control the fur trade between the French and the various native
peoples who lived in the region.
To win command of this
trade, the Five Nations formed an alliance with the English colonies. They then
forced the Iroquoian-speaking Huron people to move north of the Great Lakes,
pushed a dozen Algonquian peoples westward into present-day Wisconsin, and made
other tribes supply them with furs. In the 1670s the Algonquian tribes allied
themselves with the French and attacked the Five Nations. After years of
conflict, the Five Nations in 1701 agreed to a compromise settlement. Under
this agreement, the Iroquois retained their primary role in the fur trade, but
they abandoned efforts to dominate the native peoples of the West and promised
neutrality in French conflicts with England.
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C
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The Netherlands
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The Netherlands (known
from 1648 to 1795 as the Dutch Republic) founded the American colony of New
Netherland in 1609 on land that is part of present-day New York. Its early
settlers were primarily interested in developing the region’s resources for
trade. The Dutch government gave a commercial monopoly to the Dutch West India
Company, which set up fur-trading posts at New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island
and at Fort Orange (present-day Albany). The company also granted huge manors
or estates along the Hudson River to wealthy Dutchmen, hoping they would
populate the land with Dutch tenant farmers and thus encourage increased
immigration. But the mother country was prosperous, so few permanent settlers
came to New Netherland. Only 1,500 Europeans lived in the colony by 1664,
making it the smallest of all the European colonies in North America.
Dutch officials in New
Amsterdam ruled with absolute power. The colonial governor, Peter Stuyvesant,
conquered the small Swedish colony of New Sweden and rejected the demands of
English settlers on Long Island for a representative system of government. He
also alienated the colony's small but increasingly diverse population of Dutch,
English, and Swedish settlers with other unpopular policies, including high
taxes. Consequently, in 1664, when English troops invaded the island, residents
of the colony did not resist and subsequently accepted English rule. However,
the influence of Dutch architectural styles and the Dutch language remained
strong until 1720, when rapid growth of the English population changed the
cultural character of New York.
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