Making Sense of First Contact and Settlement: The Spanish, English and French.
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Transcript of Making Sense of First Contact and Settlement: The Spanish, English and French.
Making Sense of First Contact and Settlement:
The Spanish, English and French
Why Did Europeans Decide to Explore and Settle in the Americas?
• Cortes: “Gold, God and Glory”:
• or, economic power, Faith, and national aggrandizement
• How did this influence Spanish Conquest?
• How did it set a standard for subsequent colonizing efforts?
Gold, God and Glory:
• Glory: consequence of national consolidation and competition in early modern period– Re-orienting feuding aristocrats elsewhere!
• God: Reformation/Counter-reformation
• Gold: source of national power
Gold, God and Glory: Impact on Spanish Conquest
• Impact of “Glory”:• Spanish reconquista financed by warrior
aristocrats (hidalgos) with licenses to govern conquered infidel territories
• Same cast of characters produces brutal American conquest . . .By 1510s, Arawak conquered1518 Cortes encounters Aztec Empire, falls by 1521
Aided by empire’s antagonistic adversariesSmallpox kills 70%
1530s Pisarro does same in Incan Empire
Gold, God and Glory: Impact on Spanish Conquest
• Impact of “God”:• 1493: Spanish granted right
to spread the Gospel– At the point of a sword . . .
• Forced labor via encomienda labor tax system is just compensation for Salvation– 23,000 Aztecs forced to labor
for Spanish by 1520s
Impact of Spanish success in Meso-America/South America:
• A standard for other European states:
– Expectations for comparable success
– Competition . . . Other European efforts• English at Roanoke• French in Quebec
Making Sense of First North American Interactions
• Mythology of contact and conquest:• Traditional settler legend– Problems with this: 5 million people in complex
Amerindian civilizations• Research produces new myth: Arcadia– Amerindians live harmoniously with environment
in egalitarian societies– Europeans overrun with superior technology and
martial energy and pollute paradise
Re-evaluating the myths: English at Roanoke
• In context of war with Spain
• Walter Raleigh given patent to colonize
• Assumption: a base for privateering
Roanoke: How does it work out?
• Site picked for privateering base;
• Infertile land
• Look to Amerindians for supply (like Spanish)
Roanoke: How does it work out?
• Evaluating first Amerindian encounter:
• Thomas Hariot and John White record encounters with local Algonquian peoples
• A silver cup, a burned village, and Spanish desire for dominance and Indian submission
• English perceive Amerindian intent to attack, and go on offense
Roanoke: How does it work out?
• Return to England, Summer, 1586
• Hariot writes promotional piece, seeks reorganization– Organize a corporation to run
colony– Send families, not soldiers– Pick a new spot! Chesapeake
Bay?
Roanoke: Try #2:
• 1587, 3 ships under command of Simon Fernandes, a privateer– Too much time privateering; drops them back off
at Roanoke• Amerindians hostile; John White approaches
Croatoan as intermediaries– English mistakenly burn the wrong village
• Fernandes returns to England with John White – rest stay behind
What happened to Roanoke settlers?
• Cannot return: war vs Spanish intervenes• White returns, finally, in 1591:• Finds no settlers, only “Croatan” carved on tree
• John White: Having done all he could, he left “the reliefe of my discomfortable company, the planters in Virginia, to the merciful help of the Almighty, whom I most humbly beseech to helpe & comfort them.”
What about the French?
• Initial efforts to extract wealth modest in 16th century:
• Fishermen on Grand Banks since 15th century (earlier?)
• Search for Northwest Passage– Jacques Cartier on St. Lawrence
River, 1534-1541
Cartier’s encounters in North America
• Second voyage: 3 ships, 110 men into Iroquois country – looking for NW Passage
• Encounter Stadacona village, and chief Donnaconna – anger Donnaconna because they want to move on to trade elsewhere– First winter: ¼ Cartier’s men die while Stadacona
look on• In spring: intervene in Iroquois dispute, take
Donnaconna and sons as captives back to France
Cartier’s next voyage up St. Lawrence, 1541:
• Now looking to create a settlement– Brings 1500 people and 2 year food supply
• Builds fortification in same spot
• Stadacona attack; survivors hang on a year and return to France . . . No further efforts for 60 years
Making a go of it: Champlain’s fur-trading colony, 1608
• Returns to Stadacona; Iroquois have disappeared
• Champlain agrees to ally with local nomadic Indians vs Iroquois in return for pelts
• 1609, with 300 Huron and Algonquians at Lake Champlain defeat Mohawk Iroquois
• Muskets decisive for first time
• Yet, 5 weeks later Mohawk Iroquois begin trading with Henry Hudson (Dutch) for guns
French Amerindian alliances and colonial “success”
• Huron and Algonquians, with access to French trade goods, build alliances of 5-7000 warriors by 1615
• Creates a precarious balance: need Indian alliances for stable presence, but then can’t drive hard trade bargain
• New France seems less interesting: only 70 people by 1628, and little land under cultivation
French Amerindian alliances and colonial “success”
• Colony becomes financially viable when Catholic charitable corporation begins to supply colony
• Goal is missionization; settlers are Jesuit priests and handful of fur traders
Conclusions?• North American Amerindians clearly have martial
prowess!
• Seem fairly evenly matched with erstwhile European conquerors
• North American colonies not readily profitable, so:
• Self-financing by colonists won’t work – need corporate backing; greater imperial involvement
• Amerindian alliances essential to success