UNIT TEN

NEW WORLD EXPLORATION AND

SETTLEMENT

The Spanish explore and settle in the Americas

At first, the discovery of the fact that what Colunbus found was not India disappointed everyone. They wanted to go to the Far East, and all this discovery did was put a new obstacle in their way. They would spend some little time now looking for easy ways through it! before they give up. They were quite sure the Far East was close by. They did not find what they were looking for; there's no natural way through the Americas except the Strait of Magellan; however, in the process of looking for the passage, they were able to claim land for their respective nations. They also decided, in the meantime, until the passage was found, that they'd have a look around in the Americas to see if they could find anything of value.

The Spanish were the first to take advantage of the discovery that the new land was not India. In 1496, they made their first colony on what is today the island of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. They called this colony Hispaniola. From there Spanish explorers went out looking around. When they found something, they'd make a trading post. Later settlers would go there and seize land. After there were quite a few Spanish people there, Spain would send over a governor. The governor and the settlers recreated the feudal system. Since they really had no one to freely play peasant, they enslaved the natives. In the case of the Spanish and the Indians, this didn't work out very well. The Indians died of European diseases, notably , smallpox, to which they were not immune. The Indians didn't have the skills the Spanish wanted them to have, and the Indians ran away. They weren't used to the concept of slavery. This is why. as early as 1503, African slaves were brought over to the Americas to work for the Spaniards.

In 1511, an explorer named Ponce de Leon traveled through Florida. He went there because the Indians told him there was a 'fountain of youth' there. He later made a colony there. From his trip, the Spanish claimed Florida and the east coast of North America.

In 1513, Balboa, another Spanish explorer, traveled in modern day Panama and found the isthmus of Panama. An isthmus is a narrow strip of land that connects two larger landmasses. From the isthmus, Balboa saw the Pacific Ocean. From his trip, the Spanish claimed Central America.

In 1519, Hernando Cortes sailed from Cuba to Mexico. He marched with his men to Tenochtitlan, the center of the powerful Aztec Empire which was ruled by Montezuma. The Aztecs were a military people who had conquered the previous civilized people of the area and had copied many things from those civilized people. They organized agriculture. They built great cities and temples. They governed their empire with grim efficiency. Their religion involved human sacrifice on a daily basis. The Aztecs' conquered enemies provided the victims. This made war a necessity, because there always had to be conquered enemies to sacrifice. The constant war also meant that the surrounding neighbors of the Aztecs hated them, a fact which we will be important in our story later. The Aztecs knew some things Europeans didn't. For example, they knew exactly how many days in the year there were, right down to the fraction! They had to, because they believed history repeated itself every 52 years, so they had to have an accurate count of time. They had something like pipes that they brought water to the cities in; and they had the good sense not to throw their garbage in the street like the Europeans still did. They had homes for the old and the sick. However, they had only primitive knowledge of metal; they used things like gold and silver as decoration only, and they had a lack of labor saving animals or inventions. And they lacked firearms!

Before we go on with the story of Cortes, you need to know a little about the religion of the Aztecs. They worshipped the sun. They built grand and glorious temples to the sun. Because they thought it was pretty, the Aztecs lined the walls of the temples with gold. They had no idea of the monetary value of gold - it was just pretty when the sun shone on it and it reflected the sunlight. They believed that every night the god of the sun fought with the powers of darkness and in order to have the strength to win over the powers of darkness, he needed seven fresh human hearts every day. They believed four suns had died already so they certainly didn't want the fifth one to die. They just had to have those hearts. This meant that the Aztecs sacrificed seven people every day; the victims, as noted above, were the Aztecs’ captured enemies. There was also a legend in the religion that said that once upon a time, a white god called Quetzalcoatl had visited the people, and that he had promised to return. The year he was supposed to return was 1519.

When Cortes landed in Mexico and marched to Tenochtitlan, the Aztecs were confused. They'd never seen white people before. The Spanish wore strange clothes and the Aztecs didn't know what to make of the Spaniards' armor. They didn't know what the guns were. They only knew they made a big noise and people died. They were also puzzled by the horses. All this strangeness made them think maybe this white person might be Quetzalcoatl. The Aztecs decided to give him gifts, and maybe he'd go away. They gave him huge amounts of gold and silver. Well, you can guess how Cortes reacted when he saw that! It was a small fortune. Scholars think that Cortes and his men received six million dollars. Cortes decided he wasn't leaving until he found the rest of it. If they had that much to give away, there must be lots more somewhere!

Montezuma received Cortes in friendly fashion at Tenochtitlan. Cortes, however, turned on him and kept Montezuma under guard. At this point, the Spanish governor of the Caribbean sent another army to overthrow Cortes, but Cortes persuaded them to join him. He had had to leave Tenochtitlan to meet this other army, and while he was gone, the Aztecs revolted against the Spanish army Cortes left there. Cortes returned with his new army. He lay siege to Tenochtitlan and captured it. At this point Cortes had the opportunity to learn from these Aztecs what they knew. But all Cortes saw was the human sacrifice. He was so repulsed by that, that he couldn't see past it. He determined that Tenochtitlan should be destroyed and the Aztecs put to work mining gold and silver for the Spaniards. Cortes was rewarded by the king for his work; the king made him governor and captain-general of New Spain. The conquest of Mexico led Spain to claim Mexico, which at that time included the United States' states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, parts of Nevada and Colorado.

There are several reasons why Cortes was so successful. One was that he had firearms, which the Aztecs did not. Another was that the Aztecs’ enemies were willing to help Cortes because they hated the Aztecs. A third reason was that Cortes and his men brought to the New World an invisible weapon against the Aztecs and all Native Americans. That weapon was disease. The Native American population was not immune to European disease; in particular, things like influenza and smallpox, which had been unknown in this hemisphere until the Europeans came here. Cortes and his men carried these diseases without knowing it; they were not sick themselves so had no idea they were communicating disease to anyone. However, the Aztecs soon began to fall ill and epidemics of disease began. The fact that wherever Cortes and his men seemed to go, disease followed, and the fact that Cortes and his men weren’t sick, lent credence to the belief that Cortes might indeed be a god, and made the Aztecs more afraid of him. Disease also weakened the Aztecs and reduced their numbers.

Hearing about the success of Cortes, lots of Spaniards came to the New World. They came for adventure and for plunder; some also came to convert the Native Americans. Between 1531-1535, the Spaniards under Francisco Pizarro conquered another Indian civilization, this time in Peru. The Incas had more gold than in all of Mexico. Pizarro's conquest and other explorations led Spain to claim South America, all except Brazil which was explored by Portugal and became Portugal's property. Hernando de Soto left Cuba to explore Florida; he traveled on and covered the United States' states of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and he saw the Mississippi River. This led Spain to claim southeastern United States and the Mississippi River. Coronado, having been told by Indians that if he traveled in the direction of our states of New Mexico, Kansas, Texas and Arizona he would find seven cities of gold, explored the area. He found no gold but did give Spain more claims to land. The Spanish also explored and claimed California. Soon Spain had the largest New World empire.

There are some things we can say about Spanish colonies in general. First, Spain, for the most part, destroyed the Native American cultures she found. She enforced acceptance of her culture and her language, which is why South and Central America speak Spanish today. Second, she converted the Native Americans, whether they wanted to be converted or not, to Christianity. She, as Portugal had done earlier, recreated the feudal system. The Spaniards took or were given large areas of land. They were given Native Americans to help them grow food. They were supposed to treat the Native Americans well, but often did not. The Native Americans did what peasants did in Europe. When the Native Americans began to die out and run away, Africans, shipped from Africa as slaves, took their place. Third, some Native Americans were used to work the gold and silver mines; the 'take' from these mines was shipped back to Spain, who, for awhile was a rich nation. Fourth, the Spanish built missions to be the places that Native Americans were taught and converted. For the Native American, to be on the mission was the best possible experience out of the ones that might happen to him. Fifth, the Spanish sent few women over to the New World. This meant that the Spaniards married Native Americans sometimes, so that the population of the Spanish colonies was often referred to as 'mestizo' - persons of mixed racial background. Sixth, all Spanish colonies belonged to the king of Spain directly.

French explorers explore and settle New France

In 1524, Giovanni de Verrazzano explored the northeast coast of North America for France, which gave France a claim to the eastern coast of North America. We now have three claims to this same area: Spain's, England's and now France's. None of these nations knew about the other's claims yet. The next French explorer was Jacques Cartier, who came to the New World in 1534. He came looking for a river that flowed east to west and that would take him across North America. When he found the Saint Lawrence River, in today's Canada, he thought he'd found the river. He sailed up the river and eventually came to some rapids, which, since he thought he was somewhere near China, he named Lachine Rapids. He explored the area around the St. Lawrence. When the fall came, he had to go home as he didn't want to spend a winter in the area. His trip gave France a claim to southeastern Canada. The next French explorer to come was Samuel de Champlain, who picked up where Cartier had left off. He went further than Cartier, finding the Great Lakes, which naturally, he claimed for France. Champlain made settlements at Quebec and Montreal. Robert La Salle found and sailed on the Mississippi, giving France claim to that and the land on both sides of it. La Salle's claim was the area eventually named 'Louisiana'. The French built a trading port at the mouth of the Mississippi River, and named it New Orleans. Father Marquette and a fur trader, Joliet, explored the Ohio Valley area and their trip prompted France to claim the Ohio Valley. As the French spread through the Ohio Valley region and up around the Great Lakes, they built forts and trading posts. The American cities of Detroit, Chicago and Pittsburgh were once French settlements.

Like Spanish colonies, French colonies belonged to the king directly. Also the French colonists did not bring women over, so the French also married Native Americans sometimes. Other than that, French colonies were different from Spanish ones. The French never found any gold and silver as the Spanish did. They originally had thought they might find this east to west river that would be a short way to the Far East and that would put them out front in the spice trade, but they never found the river. They found that they could make money on the fur trade. So they went out and learned how to hunt and trap fur-bearing animals from the Native Americans. This had the consequence of the French and the Native Americans getting along much better than either the Spanish or the English did with them. The other consequence it had was that the French didn't make as many permanent settlements as the Spanish and the English. They tended to build forts and trading posts instead. The other reason the French did not make permanent settlements was that the king found it hard to get people to go to New France. They had no particular reason to go there. You had to be Catholic to live in New France so there wasn't even a place for people of different religions to go.

THE ENGLISH CLAIM AND COLONIZE THE EAST COAST OF NORTH AMERICA

As early as 1497, the English sent explorers to look over the new land. Their names were John and Sebastian Cabot, Italians working in the service of England. They sailed along the east coast of North America and around the area of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Their voyages gave England a claim to the east coast of North America, to Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and parts of present day Canada.

The English did not follow up the Cabots’ trip and discovery with colonization right away, as you might expect. There were two reasons for this. One was that in the 1500’s, England had political troubles and religious troubles brought on in part by the succession of Henry VIII to the throne. After years of civil and dynastic wars(known as The Wars of the Roses from the color of rose each warring family wore on their shields) and the marriage of his father to a girl from the opposing family so that there would be peace, Henry VIII was very concerned that he have a son who would be a clear successor to the throne. He wanted this so that there would not be another dynastic struggle after he died. In his determination to have this son, Henry VIII married six times. This was, of course, unacceptable to the Church so Henry, when the Church would not cooperate and give him a divorce from his first wife, separated the English Roman Catholic Church from the rest of the church and made himself the head of it. He made himself a sort of "English Pope" and granted himself a divorce. In the process of doing this Henry alienated (turned them against him) many God-fearing English Catholics. Henry finally got his son, but the child was sickly, and died at the age of 16. What Henry sought so hard to prevent happened anyway-after he died, there was dynastic struggle as Henry’s three children each claimed to be the rightful ruler of England. Edward, the boy, ruled for a short while; then Mary, who was Henry’s first child, ruled, and then Elizabeth, Henry’s second child, ruled. Mary attempted to return the English Church to the Pope in Rome but was unsuccessful; she made herself and the Catholic Church extremely unpopular in England. Elizabeth was very popular with the English and she ruled for a long time, the so-called "Elizabethan Age". It was during Elizabeth’s reign that the English first tried to set up a colony on their land claim in the New World.

The second reason England did not make colonies right away was Spain. Spain was powerful and rich from all the gold she was extracting from the mines in her colonies in South America and in the 1500’s her ships ruled the waves. All the English could do was to set pirates on the Spanish ships as they crossed the ocean laden with treasure which they were taking back to Spain. Piracy was sort of cool and fun, but it did not mean that England felt strong enough to send a fleet of ships with colonists to the New World. The piracy eventually, along with some other issues such as England’s refusal to become Roman Catholic again, caused the Spanish to go to war with the English in 1587. The Spanish king, Philip II, built an enormous navy. He planned to sail this enormous fleet of ships, which he called the "Invincible Armada" to Holland, which he owned, pick up an army there, and then sail to England’s west side and invade it. Philip did not plan well. He found that he could not get his enormous armada through the English Channel except one at a time and the English sank the ships as they came through! Storms in the North Sea destroyed a number of the ships. The remainder sailed around the northern tip of the British Isles, and arrived on the western side of England as planned. In a great sea battle, the English destroyed many Spanish ships with "hellburners". A "hellburner" was an old ship which would be filled with gunpowder and tar. Then the old ship was set on fire and pushed in the direction of the enemy. In those days of wooden ships, fire was a real threat and when the Spanish saw the "hellburners" they tried to get away; in doing that, they were so panicked they ran into each other!! and ended up sinking their own ships. The defeat of the Spanish Armada by the English in 1588 was a turning point. From that point on Spanish power would decline and she no longer ruled the waves. The English now felt safe enough to build colonies in the New World.

English colonies from the start were different from the colonies of Spain and France. First, the king of England did not start them himself and did not own all of them directly. Some colonies were begun by trading companies to be markets for those campanies’ goods; some colonies were started by religious groups who wished to escape harassment and persecution in England; some were gifts to the king’s friends and some were begun by individuals. For this reason, the English government did not have as tight control on their colonies as did the French and Spanish. In some cases, it was unclear exactly what the relationship was with the English government. Second, the English intended to build communities in the New World and for the most part, took their whole families to the colony instead of just the men. Therefore there was not the amount of intermingling with the Native Americans as there was with the French and Spanish. Third, all kind of people came to the English colonies; it wasn’t just the king’s favorite nobles or people sent by the king to colonize. Last, many of the people who came to the English colonies came because they could not get along in England with the English government for one reason or another; usually these reasons had to do with religion, bu that was not always the case. These people from the beginning were opposed to too much central government.

The first English attempt at colonization was made in 1587 by a friend of Queen Elizabeth’s. His name was Sir Walter Raleigh. He built a colony on Roanoke Island, North Carolina. At that time this area was part of a huge tract of land that the English had claimed and named "Virginia" after Queen Elizabeth who was unmarried. After he made the colony, Raleigh returned to England for supplies. His returned was delayed by the Spanish Armada event, and when he did come back to the colony, it was gone. It is thought that the local Native Americans absorbed it. Whatever happened to it, the English learned form the experience that one person could not do this colonization thing alone.

The second English attempt at colonization was made by trading company who wanted to use the colony as a market for their goods. The colony was built, again in the land tract called Virginia, at a place the colonists named Jamestown, in 1607. Jamestown almost failed. It was saved by the hard work of John Smith and the fact that the colonists found something which would sell well in England and which put them on their feet financially. That product was tobacco. Unfortunately the cultivation of tobacco eventually led to the use of African slaves and to the English colonies’ becoming involved with the Great Atlantic Slave Trade.

The third English attempt at colonization was made in what is today Massachusetts by a group of people who had gotten a charter from the same trading company that built Jamestown. The group of people were called "Pilgrims". They were members of the Calvinist religion and they refused to attend the Anglican Church, which meant that they broke the law in England. They came to America to build a colony where they could be their religion without interference. They were supposed to land in Virginia but through the errors that were bound to be made at that time in navigation and because they were in a storm, they missed Virginia by about 500 miles! They built a colony which they called Plymouth in 1621. Plymouth, too, almost went under, and without the help of local Native Americans, and the hard work of the colonists, probably would have. Eventually Plymouth found success financially in fur trading and cod fishing.

The fourth colony was founded in 1634 by an individual named Lord Baltimore for Catholics who also were breaking the law in England by not attending the Anglican Church. The first settlement was named St. Mary’s and the colony was called Maryland by the colonists. By 1634, colonies had a better chance of survival because by then, the colonists coming over could profit from what colonists already here had learned the hard way. Colonists already here wrote home about conditions here so people could come better prepared. Maryland, therefore, had no "starving time" as Jamestown and Plymouth had had.

Within the next hundred years, nine more colonies were founded, so that by 1763, the English had thirteen thriving colonies lined up along the east coast of North America. They were like thirteen separate little countries. They thought of each other as "foreigners" and if asked where they came from, they would say their colony of origin. For example, if I had lived then, rather than say, "I’m an American" I’d have said "I’m a Virginian". It would take a lot of time and experiences together before the colonists would think of themselves as a unit, as Americans, like we do today.

It is important in view of what happened later with these colonies to realize that they brought English institutions with them; that is particularly true of political institutions. The colonists expected to have the rights of English citizens-those rights which had been long established by documents such as the Magna Carta: the right to vote on taxes which they would be expected to pay; the right to jury trial; the right to own property and so on. The colonists took this for granted. In the colonies, they built the same kind of government as England had. There was governor, who represented the king, and there was a "mini-Parliament" which made laws, in each colony. Some colonies had constitutions. There were courts just as there were in England. The English government never made clear what the rights and responsibilities of the colonial mini-Parliaments were or how far their authority extended. This is important as the argument over this issue was one of the reasons for the American Revolution.

Religion was an important issue in the founding of almost half of the English colonies. Among the colonies begun for religious groups were Massachusetts, Maryland, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. The 16 and 1700’s were not a tolerant age. It was thought then that in order for a person to be loyal to his government, he had to practice the religion that his government said he should practice. The idea that a person’s religion had nothing whatsoever to do with his loyalty to his government was a radical and new idea in those times. Most of the colonies had a religion that the colonists who lived there were supposed to practice. Three colonies, however, were different in that they allowed a person to practice the religion of his choice. Those colonies were Maryland, which had the first written guarantee of religious freedom; Pennsylvania, which had been founded for a religious group known as Quakers, but extended religious freedom to all, and Rhode Island, which was the first colony to extend religious freedom in 1636.

What the colonists did for a living depended on the region the colony was in. The southern colonies of Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia and Maryland developed the cash crop plantation economy. A cash crop is a crop that is grown solely to sell. In Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina, the cash crop was tobacco. In South Carolina and Georgia, the cash crop was rice and indigo. Later, when it became profitable to grow cotton, cotton became the cash crop. The New England colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire found that agriculture wasn’t going to be their bag; the soil was too thin and rocky and the growing season (that time between the last frost of spring and the first frost of fall) was too short. Instead they fished the Grand Banks, traded the fish, built ships to go fishing and trading in, and manufactured items for sale. The middle colonies of Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey had a mixture of things going on. There was some agriculture, but it was not the plantation economy of the southern colonies. There was also some commerce. The colonies were supposed to trade only with England, but the colonists soon found there was no particular profit in that. They began to smuggle and trade with other countries behind the English government’s back. They found this very profitable and the colonies as a whole did very well economically. When the English government found out what was happening and tried to crack down on the smuggling and illegal trading the colonists became angry and this was another reason for the American Revolution.

Henry Hudson explores for the Dutch

Henry Hudson explored the area around Newfoundland, the Chesapeake Bay, and the Hudson River. He claimed these areas for the Netherlands. In 1624, the Dutch made a settlement where New York City is today. They bought the land from the Native Americans for $24.00; this was because the Native American culture did not know what land ownership meant. Native Americans didn't believe people could own land any more than they can own air or water. They often got cheated like this in deals with the Europeans. The Dutch settled the areas of New York City known today as Manhattan, Harlem, and Brooklyn, which are all Anglicized versions of their Dutch names.

Bering explores Alaska for Russia

Peter the Great, a Russian tsar who was anxious to have Russia keep up with the Western nations of Britain, France and Spain in the exploration and colonization department, sent an explorer named Vitus Bering across the expanse of Russia to the strait that now bears his name, Bering Strait, across the strait and into North America to explore and claim land for Russia. Bering explored and claimed for Russia Alaska and the northwestern coast of North America down to the present American state of Oregon. The United States bought Alaska from the Russians in 1861 for seven million dollars.

CHAPTER QUESTIONS AND OUTLINE

New World Exploration and Settlement

(title of outline)

I>The Spanish explore and settle in the Americas

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