Hello everybody, welcome to lecture two. In this lecture we are going to recap some of the stuff that we covered in lecture one in terms of looking at the incentives for colonization, but we're going to add a few more factors as we really kind of narrow our focus and look at the settlement in the new world of the English, the French, and the Dutch. And then we're also going to take a look at how the Europeans differed in their interactions with the indigenous cultures that they encountered.
and how they differed in terms of control of their respective colonies. So, for example, New Spain, although it will not have a complete and total control over its colonies at all times, sometimes they kind of evaded the rules, they do have a much tighter grip and control of their colonies in comparison to, say, the English, who allow their colonies to have a large degree of autonomy, self-government, and self-control. And so... So this is going to have a long-term impact in the development of these colonies and also play a role in future events like the American Revolution.
So we're taking a look a little bit at that. And then also, as I mentioned, looking at how Europeans differed in terms of their interactions with the indigenous cultures and why did their interactions differ. So, for example, in New Spain, you see a lot more mixing of the indigenous population. with the colonizers in comparison to, say, the English, who did not completely separate themselves. I mean, there was some intermarrying and intermixing, but to a much larger degree, the Europeans pushed the indigenous peoples out and really kind of interacted more at arm's length in terms of trade and did not really intermarry and intermix and intermingle nearly as much as, say, the Spanish or French did.
And again, there are reasons for that and we'll take a look at some of those reasons in this lecture. So here we go. Okay, so I titled this slide the arrival of the English, but please keep in mind that some of these factors that we're going to talk about don't apply just to the English.
So for example, the enclosure movement will affect other European countries, but it doesn't happen all at one time and not at all at one pace. So, you know, in some areas it's going to happen at a slower rate than in others. But if we're looking at the enclosure movement, we're really looking at it. It begins in the 12th century, but it really becomes more rapid starting in about the mid-15th century, so about 1450 to about 1640. So let's talk about what is the enclosure movement. So this really takes place as we have an agricultural revolution in Europe that brings about some rapid changes that allows Europeans to produce more and then also eat more.
So, you know, obviously that's going to result in a population growth. What is... the agricultural revolution, there's a couple things going on all at one time.
One of those is that there are some new methods of farming that allow more land to be put under cultivation. And those new methods involve, for example, using some crops that were not only just high-yielding crops, but also crops that stored nitrogen and could replenish the soil. So peas, beans, turnips, potatoes, clovers, and some grasses, the farmers discovered that this would actually replenish. the soil and so whereas previously they had allowed some of their land to lie fallow meaning not farmed it to allow the soil to be replenished now they discovered they could actually through crop rotation that it actually replenished the soil and so they could put more land under the plow and produce more so this was a benefit to to them but there's also a downside and keep in mind too when we look at the enclosure movement you've got the agricultural revolution going on but also in england we have have the growth of the wool trade, which meant that there was more land, yes, being put under the plow, but there was also land that was being set aside for raising sheep and producing wool, which they would use as an export.
So that also meant more scarce land for the peasants to work. So we see a few things. We see more land being used, but we also see that the concentration of land ownership is at the top. at the top with the landed elites, right? And so what had happened was prior to this enclosure movement, the peasant class, those who didn't own land, they had traditionally enjoyed what was known as common land rights.
So this was not land that they owned, but land that they were allowed by the large land owning class to use. So the peasants would use this common land to grow some crops, the small crops, just enough to feed their families, to graze any domesticated animals that they had to To look for firewood. I mean this this was really the way that they eked out a living And as we see the growth of this agricultural revolution and the enclosure movement and the wool trade take off, we see the peasants lose this common land right.
So that means, you know, what are they going to do? They're going to have to essentially be pushed out, not be able to make a living, and they're going to end up as landless. Well, they really were landless anyways, but now really landless peasants, you know, with no opportunities. And if the... We're not quite to the Industrial Revolution yet, so while they could flock to the cities, there wasn't jobs for them in the cities.
And so we see a growth in crime and other social tensions and problems. And so what will happen is the new world will offer new opportunities to deal with this quote-unquote excess population and to kind of push that peasant population over, and they will become part of the new labor source. in the new world, right? Okay, so that population growth is a positive thing in one sense, but a negative thing in another sense if you can't find a place for them to go and for opportunities for them to make a living and the new world will provide that.
Also, we have the growth of mercantilism. This really takes off between the 16th and 18th century. Your book doesn't cover it until we get to like chapter four, but I wanted to introduce it here because it does eventually play a key role.
Now. not just in the development of the colonies, but also in the development of the relationship between the colonies and their mother country. So what is mercantilism? Mercantilism, as envisioned by the economic leaders and those pushing for colonization, including Richard Hocklett, argued that essentially you get a double bang for your buck by populating and growing colonies. The colonies.
colonies can provide the mother country with a source of raw materials. And those raw materials, once we see the growth of industrialization, can feed the industrialization machine. And so they can provide the raw materials to feed into that machine and make the mother country a lot of money. At the same time, if you limit what these colonies can produce, if you don't allow them to produce finished goods. if you allow them very limited production of finished goods, but instead their sole job is to provide the raw materials, then that also means that they're going to have to look to the mother country to buy finished goods.
And really what you get out of all of this, what is the goal here? The goal is to become the most richest, prosperous European country that you can. And the way that you do that is by accruing them.
most amassing the most wealth and so if you think about it as a country if you have to buy your raw materials if you have to import your raw materials as a result where does your you for example your gold what's going to happen if you have to import your raw materials the gold is going to leave your country right and so you want to have this good trade balance where you're exporting and bringing gold back back in and what your colonies do is provide you with that. Number one, you can make sure you get access to raw materials at the cheapest rate possible, right? So you control access to raw materials.
And then number two, you get to export finished goods. Those colonies eventually, it's going to take some time, but eventually they become a market for your finished goods. And so by doing so, you draw gold back into your country as well. And so really the ultimate end goal of mercantilism is to concentrate wealth and power back in the mother countries and your colonies.
play a role in that. So that is going to be one of the incentives eventually for the growth of colonization. And really the idea also behind mercantilism is it starts with the premise that the world's resources, including its gold and silver, but all of its resources are finite, not infinite, they're finite.
There's a limited amount. And so as a country, your goal is to try to control access to the most of the world's... finite resources that you possibly can so that you can become a rich and powerful country. So again, part of what's going on in terms of mercantilism is we're seeing the increased growth of these stronger nation states in Europe who are competing for power and control over the world's resources.
They're also competing for trade. And so as we see the growth of the merchant class, as we see the growth of trade, and we also see the monarchs of these European countries. countries playing a role in trying to facilitate that growth of trade and growth of the merchant class in some instances, you know, all of that is geared towards trying to make the nation state more powerful, richer, and as a result, more economically powerful. And so we kind of make sure that we understand that all of these kind of factors play a role together.
Now, in terms of the trade, particularly trade with East Asia, right, this gives rise to a movement. merchant class, particularly in Western Europe, which will also give a boost to the idea of corporations. Part of what's going on here is if we look at these trade ventures in East Asia, right, these are expensive oftentimes to create these trade ventures to send off a few ships.
to go and look for new sources of trade. And they're not always immediately fruitful, and sometimes they end in total and complete disaster. Ships can be wrecked. And so oftentimes people are like, we don't want to necessarily take all of my money, right?
If I'm a... a wealthier person, I don't want to invest all my money in just one of these trade ventures. Instead, I want to diversify, if you will, my portfolio. I want to bring, I want to invest a little bit over here, a little bit over there, and so on and so forth.
And so what the corporations do is they allow for these joint stock companies to grow. And the joint stock companies allow the merchants to essentially invest in multiple overseas ventures so they can diversify and They can ensure that, you know, if one of them goes belly up, that's okay. I've got money invested over here in this one and that one.
And as a result, my exposure, my risk, if you will, is spread out. And I can have a hope that at least a few of these will, you know, generate great wealth for me. So the growth of these joint stock companies, again, was a way to spread out risk and also get more people to invest. in overseas trade and eventually overseas colonization, as well as if we look, for example, at the Virginia Company in the beginning of Jamestown.
So all of these factors are going to play a role. Make sure you understand them. Make sure you can discuss them in a possible essay question on a quiz.
Hint, hint. All right, moving on. So next we want to look at the religious motivations for colonizations, and I think, for colonization I should say rather, and I think I want to mention really quickly that this oftentimes gets a lot of play in the discussion of American history, right? I'm sure we've all heard the story of the pilgrims, the Puritans, trying to escape religious persecution. And that, you know, America was birthed on this idea of escaping religious persecution.
and establishing a society based on religious toleration. Hopefully you're saying, no, no, no, Ms. Gardner, that is not right. And you are right.
It's not right. That's not what the Puritans were interested in. They certainly were looking to escape religious persecution back in England, but they weren't necessarily interested in creating a society built on religious toleration in the quote-unquote new world.
So let's dispel with the limit a little bit, and let's also remember that religion was not the only motivation, right? That, in fact, the interest in new economic opportunities, the desire to grow the country's wealth and to prosper, these were huge incentives as well. If we look at the development, for example, of Virginia, its religion really does not play a key factor. It's instead human desire for wealth and power that instead plays a key role. But we also cannot ignore the religious motivations for colonization.
And we need to understand the difference, the way, a different way that religion plays a role in, say, the Spanish in comparison to the English. And then also how this impacts in part the relationship between the Europeans and the indigenous population. So, for example, the Spanish, after the Protestant Reformation kicks off, the Spanish are going to be deeply interested in finding new Catholic converts. And they're going to build missions. systems and in some cases force the indigenous population to convert to Catholicism.
And so this is actually born out of this in part out of this Protestant Reformation, this great desire and this great competition as we see this schism in Christendom between the Protestants and the Catholics, each looking to expand their power influence and the number of converts to their particular religion. Now, when we look at the Protestant Reformation, usually we look first at Martin Luther and kind of label him as the father of the Protestant Reformation. I want to just note that there were many that came before Martin Luther and many of those had been deeply, um, and in some cases, horrifically, uh, prosecuted and persecuted for, uh, their, um, their, their, uh, criticisms of the Catholic church, but Martin Luther, uh, will have a huge influence.
over this emerging Protestant Reformation. So let's talk a little bit about who was Martin Luther and what is the background because you know when we look at movements usually there is a convergence of factors that play a role in this. is true when we look at the story of Martin Luther as well.
So the, I love the story parts of history because that's what makes you fall in love with history, right? It's the story of these key figures. So Martin Luther was actually a law student.
who was completing a master's degree. And in 1505, he was on his way back to the University of Erfurt after visiting home. And on his way back to the university, he got caught, the story goes, in this terrible storm. And lightning struck the ground near him and caused the resulting impact on the air pressure actually threw him to the ground.
And as we often do. in a time of crisis, well, if you believe in God, in a time of crisis, you might, you know, start making promises. And that's essentially what Martin Luther did.
He called out at this moment to St. Anne and said, you know, I will become a monk if you just get me home safely, right? How many of you have ever made a deal? God, if you just get me out of this, I'll promise to do X, Y, and Z. I'll be a better Christian, whatever. And so he makes this promise.
And then he, you know, he He does make it through the storm safely. And he essentially announces to his friends and families, I'm going to enter the monastery in Erfurt. And his family's like, what are you talking about? You know, you're an intellectual.
You're on your way to becoming, you know, to have a prosperous career. But he says, I'm sticking to it. Now, in the background to this, remember, I noted that there already had been many deep criticisms of the Catholic Church, right?
Right. And one of those criticisms had centered around the church's selling of indulgences. Selling of indulgences really became prominent in the early 1200s.
But by 1505, it had taken on a new role in the Catholic Church. So what is selling of indulgences? This is essentially a way for Catholics to buy forgiveness.
And in 1505, Pope Julius II had began a project of... of creating St. Peter's Church, St. Peter's Basilica, and commissioning Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. All of this, you know, these big projects cost a lot of money, and the projects were still underway when Pope Leo X became Pope in 1513. So the church was hard up for some more cash.
So the answer was to promote even more the sale of indulgences. But there was a figure who had a problem. problem with that and his name was none other than Martin Luther.
Who really is, you know, he's an intellectual, he's a professor of theology, you know, he, this is not unusual for intellectuals to debate, to debate theology. So the concept here that Martin Luther just, you know, in 1517 thought that his particular debate on this question of sale of indulgences was going to birth this entire Protestant Reformation. That's a little bit blown out of proportion, but he did, the story goes, you know, he, in 1517, he developed what becomes known as his 95 Theses and supposedly put it on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg. Now, some researchers chalk this up to myth and legend, but whatever the case is, his 95 Theses comes out as a criticism of the Catholic Church.
sale of indulgences, particularly to do projects like rebuilding St. Peter's. And that he also goes on and really suggests that, you know, the church shouldn't have sole control over reading and understanding the Bible, right? That the Bible should be readily available and read by people themselves. And that it's only through God's grace as well that people can gain salvation. They can't buy salvation.
And so what we get is this culmination of different factors. Number one, we have a new printing press that means that these critics. of the church can be printed and widely distributed.
It also means that the Bible itself, which is being translated into, you know, languages that people could understand, that the Bible can be printed and and distributed so you've got these convergence of factors that make uh martin luther's criticism of the catholic church um uh more these criticisms more readily accessible by uh the um by the people and and and allows it to take root um and again remember he's not the first but he just comes in at the right time uh in terms of this convergence of these different factors factors uh and really what's going to happen is the protestant reformation is going to unleash a century of religious and political strife throughout europe um it will also result in spain as i mentioned redoubling its efforts to catholicize the indigenous peoples of new spain it will open up this deep schism within uh the within christendom um so it has a huge huge impact and and it will inspire for example the french huguenots which is essentially the french huguenots or the french calvinists as well as the Puritans in England. Now, we cannot also forget to talk a little bit about John Calvin and Calvinism. So John Calvin comes after Martin Luther.
He is a French-born Swiss theologian who comes up with this idea of predestination. Essentially, he was born into a Catholic family, but he broke with the Catholic Church around 1530. And he is in... said that the world is divided between the elect and the damned, those who are headed for heaven, if you will, for salvation, and those who are headed for hell.
And this division of the world is a predetermined division that essentially God knows already which path you are headed to. Now, the question is, if God already preordains you to be part of the elect or part of the damned, how do you... know as an individual which group you're part of and so he talks about things like you know worldly success you know is it maybe an indication of God's grace and an indication of God's will which direction you're going on leading a good life a prosperous life but also a a a a life in which you devote yourself to if if you we talk about times the narrow path right that a a life built upon following God's law and so living a very pious, upstanding, righteous life, that's a sign perhaps that God has elected you to be part of the elect, part of the saved. And so Martin Luther's Calvinism sometimes is broken down into an acronym called TULIP.
TULIP starts with T. T stands for total depravity. Human beings are totally depraved, starting with Adam and Eve. uh sin in the their sin in the garden people are prone to sin and they have a sinful nature um people can be good they can do good things but they can never be perfect enough to gain god's favor so it's that idea of total depravity is part of calvinism uh the u in tulip stands for unconditional election meaning god has elected some for glory and others for damnation uh and that no action done by humans has impacted this decision it's already preordained God. We can maybe do or maybe we can see signs in our lives and the way that we live and signs of God's grace that maybe give us a hint on whether or not we've been elected by God to be part of the saved, but there's nothing we can absolutely do here to change our status.
The L stands for limited atonement. Limited atonement. This is the idea that yes, Christ died on the cross, but he didn't die for everybody. He died only for some.
He died for the elect. He died for that segment of the population that God has preordained for salvation. The I stands for irresistible grace.
Those who God elects, says Calvinism, will be pulled by the Holy Spirit to God's grace and to his word. So that essentially, if you're part of the elect, there is this inward pull towards God's grace, driven by the Holy Spirit. You're pulled back towards God's grace and towards his word.
And then the last one, P, perseverance of the saints. This essentially is the argument that the elect... will not only be, will not, excuse me, will not be forgotten by God. They will be glorified in the last days. So they may undergo persecution at times, but God never forgets his elect, his people.
people. So that's what TULIP stands for and it becomes a major part of Calvinism. And what we need to remember in terms of predestination is that it really, that the ideas behind it will shape the type of society that those who adhere to Calvinism want to create here on earth. So if you look at, for example, the Puritans, their birth of their culture and their society in Massachusetts, it's a reflection in their deep beliefs in the Calvinists. theology and the idea of predestination.
Okay, so we've got the Protestant Reformation, which starts off in Germany, but then spreads with the help of Gutenberg's printing press, right? Remember that helps the criticisms of the Catholic Church, like Martin Luther. 95 thesis be printed and spread as well as copies of the Bible and so this Protestant Reformation will spread into the Baltic states, Switzerland, Hungary, France, the Netherlands, and Scotland. and then also into England. But in England it's got a political story as well.
Obviously when you look at the English Reformation from the commoners perspective, from the people who decide to break with the Catholic Church, for them this is a religious question. But for King Henry this is really a political question. So we're gonna get into the story here just a little bit. I think the book does a pretty decent job of covering this topic as well.
So if I confuse you hopefully... I don't. Hopefully I add to the story, but make sure you review the book first.
That might help set the scene. Now, I think what gets confusing in here is you've got lots of different figures playing a role in this. You've got multiple Marys.
You've got Bloody Mary, who is the daughter of Catherine of Aragon. Then you've got Mary, Queen of Scots. And oh, it's kind of hard to keep all in line in your head.
But let's get down to the base of the story, and hopefully this will start to make a little... little bit of sense so um King Henry married uh Catherine of Aragon and his actually he married his brother's widow Catherine of Aragon had originally been married to King Henry's brother who had died but this is a marriage of political alliance right and so he ends up marrying Catherine of Aragon now she bores him some children um including a couple of sons but they all die except for one Bloody Mary they all die in infancy see um and so she she's by this point she's in her 40s uh she hasn't you know provided uh king henry with the male heir that he needs uh enter anne boleyn who is a young woman um on his court and he's interested in her but she wants it to be official she wants to you know be married uh and so he needs an annulment if he's going to make this work Now, background. Catherine of Aragon, her nephew, is Emperor Charles V. So he's emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and he's also king of Spain. And the king of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire emperor is not interested in allowing Henry to get an annulment from Catherine of Aragon.
This is seen as, you know, a break in the alliance between England and Spain. So there's geopolitical... stuff going on here in the background just keep that in mind so when Henry approaches the Pope for an annulment the Pope is under duress from the emperor to say no and by the way too in 1527 Charles V's army ran roughshod over Rome so the Pope is you know not looking to tick Charles V off so he denies Henry's request.
And this actually, this is kind of a long drawn-out story but I'm doing it in a shorter version here. But eventually Henry's solution to all of this is to reach out to Parliament in England and with the help of Parliament create A new church in England deny the pope's authority over england um create a new church and then put himself as head of that new church and that new church is going to be called the church of england also referred to as the anglican church so the church of england and the anglican church those are the same thing right now not only does he create a new church and cut alliance with the with the pope and with the with the catholic church he then goes and dissolves england's 400 monasteries and nunneries seizes the the Catholic Church's land and then redistributes a lot of it to these wealthy, powerful landowners so he can make sure that they all will back him and his political move in creating this new church and making himself the head of this church, right? And of course, he's going to get his annulment that he wants.
And so this is a big move. It's going to cause a serious split between not just the Catholic Church in England, but also England and Spain. now Henry is going to marry obviously Mary and Boleyn she is going to bore him children including Queen Elizabeth uh now when Boleyn comes to power Boleyn and Boleyn fears that uh that Mary which was the you know the daughter of Catherine of Aragon poses a challenge to her children's her future children's claim on the throne so she uh pushes Henry in parliament to to declare Mary illegitimate. But then later on, Boleyn ends up being executed for treason. And then King Henry will remarry again and he'll have a son by the name of Edward.
And Edward will be on the throne for a short period of time, but he dies at age 16. And it's in this in-between time period that King Henry and Parliament decide to reinstate state the legitimacy of Mary, that was the daughter of Catherine of Aragon, but only if Mary acknowledges that King Henry is the head of the Church of England. And so Mary agrees. She gets reinstated.
Her legitimacy gets reinstated. Edward, that son that he had with the other marriage, is in rule for a short period of time, but then dies at a very young age. And then Mary, as a result of regaining her legitimacy, gain in her legitimacy comes to the throne after Edward and she will rule between 1553 and 1558 and this is known as the bloody rule of Mary. Remember she is a little bit ticked right?
I mean this break with the Catholic church has resulted in her mother being you know divorced or the marriage being annulled, her claim of illegitimacy for a while, she's raised a good Catholic. So when she She comes to the throne. Now she marries eventually also Philip II of Spain.
They never had a really close relationship. Philip actually was more interested in her half-sister, Queen Elizabeth, than he was in Mary. They don't end up having any children. She was really hoping for a child to be an heir to the throne.
But also during her reign between 1553 and 1558, she executes some 300 subjects. She goes on this bloody rampage. She tries to re-institute the Catholic Church in England.
And her marriage also to King Philip of Spain creates this public outcry, which she then tries to repress with these really horrific measures. And also her alliance drags England into a war with France on behalf of Spain. um it just doesn't work out well for for Mary finally uh she dies and after her bloody reign we get Queen Elizabeth so Queen Elizabeth is uh not going to marry she ends up being known as the virgin queen she's not a virgin but she does she's really great she loves being queen she's a great politician and she's not interested in sharing her power uh and so she comes to the throne after Bloody Mary and she understands that she's got this deep schism within her within England between the Catholics you know who didn't want to see this break with the Catholic Church and the Protestants who are interested in some massive reforms of the Church of England and so she tries to kind of heal all these political and religious wounds by firmly reestablishing the Church of England and keeping some of the Catholics happy by retaining some of the Catholic rituals and practices, as well as incorporating some of the Calvinist beliefs. She also essentially says, hey, this compromise that I'm creating in this Church of England, you're all just going to have to be satisfied with it.
So she passes some laws that requires church attendance, outlaws, unauthorized religious meetings. levies a tax to support the church. And so the Puritans are going to take some deep issue, particularly believing that the reforms in the Church of England didn't go far enough, that this maintaining of some of these Catholic religious rituals, you know, didn't jive well with them with scripture. They also wanted to reduce the power of bishops who were appointed by the crown and sometimes openly corrupt. They wanted to reform the local clergy.
Oftentimes the local clergy were composed of these greedy, uneducated men with little training or education in theology and the Puritans were oftentimes looking for deeper, more meaningful sermons and they want to get rid of the corruption and greed they see in the church. And they want the church to concentrate more on a spiritual role and less on these worldly ambitions. And so the Puritans began to look to separate.
So the Puritan separatists will become become those who are known who don't want to become part of the church of england don't think the church can be reformed enough uh and they will eventually uh become known as the uh the the uh the pilgrims if you will right um which we'll come back to now um um Now a couple of just really quick notes. After Elizabeth dies, she doesn't leave any heirs to the throne. And so we get James I, who was the first in the line of what becomes known as the Stuarts, will become king. of England.
He's also king of Scotland and for a time also king of Ireland and France. And James is one of those kings that believes in the idea of kings having a divine right to rule. no obligation really to compromise with his opponents or compromise at times with parliament so he's going to cause some political upheaval in in england um and most of the rising businessmen in england at this time were um were puritans and james the first tended to favor the english catholics when granting charters and supporting and he also supported a lot of uh of uh more what we call high church forms of ceremony in the in the church of england so things that are a little bit more like Catholicism. And so by the early 1600s, we have these religious nonconformists, these Puritan separatists who are looking for places of refuge to escape England.
Now, just a little reminder here, James is the son of Mary, Queen of Scots. And Mary, Queen of Scots was the closest living relative at the time of Queen Elizabeth. It's her cousin, actually. Now, this is not the same. Mary as Bloody Mary, right?
So this is not Mary Tudor. We're talking about a different Mary here. We're talking about the Stuarts.
And one other quick note, this is the first time also that this same monarch will rule over Scotland and England. And so when we look at the history of England, in 1603, Scotland and England share a monarch after Elizabeth dies. By 1707, we get the creation of Great Britain, which includes Scotland, Wales, and England. And in 1801, Ireland's parliament agrees to join and Great Britain becomes the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Now we oftentimes refer to it as the UK, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Ireland. So that's a little bit confusing there, just a quick little side trip into the history of the development of the UK. Okay, and so James I will play a role in that in the lead up to the creation of a unified Scotland and England under one monarch. All right. Okay, now we're going to shift gears a little bit, folks, and we're going to talk about the arrival of the French on the scene of the quote-unquote new world, a phrase I've never been really happy with since it's not really new.
It's just new to the Europeans, but, you know, whatever. 1522 the French managed to capture a ship that had been spent sent by Cortez to Charles V and of course we know what's on that ship yeah that's right lots of goodies uh so France is eager to find their own Aztec Empire to conquer. They're also hoping to find the famous Northwest Passage, a water passageway to the Orient by sailing west.
And so in 1524 Francis I of France sends Verrazzano out to explore off the coast of what is today North America. And he brings along his brother, a map maker. Now, they originally land on the border between what is today North and South Carolina.
And it doesn't look very promising. They don't see any clear water routes. So they begin poking up along the northeast coast, you know, moving north into North Carolina. And as they do, they come along.
and find what is known as Pomlico Sound, which is the largest lagoon on the east coast. You can see a picture of it there. And they poke along this narrow barrier of islands right out. the coast of North Carolina, what is known as the Outer Banks. And they can see on the other side of it, right, they can see this large body of water.
And he writes, Verrazano writes, where was found an isthmus a mile in width, about 200 long, in which from the ship we seen the oriental sea between the west and the north, which is the one without doubt which goes about the extremity of India, China, and Cathay. If he's referring there to Japan, by the way, that's when he says Cathay. We navigated along the said isthmus with the continual hope of finding some straight or true promontory at which the land would end. in towards the north in order to be able to penetrate to those blessed shores of Cathay of Japan right he's he thinks that there's not in it he doesn't realize there's an entire uh uh North America standing in his way that he in fact has not found a passageway to the orient he's just found a lagoon off the east coast but for literally for years afterwards uh you know maps would show Verrazano's sea uh until if Eventually, of course, the Europeans figured out they'd made a slight mistake, right? So, you know, that's his big find.
And after kidnapping a young child off the coast of North Carolina, he travels even further north to New York Harbor and Narragansett Bay. He even visited the Wampanoags, which we will talk about later in this class, and stays with them for a couple of weeks and then eventually takes his brother, the mapmaker, in his new found Verrazano Sea map and heads down. back to France.
Okay, next up we have Cartier. Okay, Cartier, what is he after? He's looking for gold, spices, and of course a northwest route to trade in Asia.
Cartier is going to be given credit for naming Canada. The name actually originates from a Huron Iroquois term called Canada, which means village, but he gets some credit. And some of that he does. does deserve. He does really help France stick a claim in the northern part of North America.
So Cartier makes a couple voyages. He travels along the west coast, including in Newfoundland, explores the Gulf of the St. Lawrence in 1534. And then in 1535, he comes back. He sails up the St. Lawrence River and turns back at the site of what is today Montreal. He even spends the winter with the Hurons.
Now, while wintering with the Hurons, he is being told these tall tales of a kingdom of Saguenay that has gold, silver, and rubies. Tales that I think the Native Americans were having just a little bit of fun with the French, excuse me, who are always talking about, hey, where do we find the shiny stuff? They're hoping to find their own version of like an Aztec empire.
And... And one of the Huron chiefs, Donnacona, keeps adding to the story. He says essentially that in this lost kingdom of Saguenay, there's men that live with only one leg and fly like bats and never eat.
And then he starts talking about how some of them were blonde men, which is kind of puzzling. Some historians argue that perhaps he's talking about an old Norse settlement. But anyways, are these tall tales or an actual lost pre-Columbian kingdom?
Who knows? It was this kingdom of Saginaw is part of a larger Iroquois legend. But eventually Cartier captures some of the Hurons, including Donnacona, and takes him back to France where he continues to tell these tall tales to the king of France.
And so... in in there's a third voyage in um in 1541 which is financed by some French Huguenots who are interested in finding this lost lost kingdom and when Cartier goes back and he he's again you know sailing inland he does find iron pyrites it's just a common mineral that's kind of shiny like gold and quartz crystals and he hauls these quartz crystals and iron pyrites back to France where they become this running joke they become known as these canadian diamonds um it's worthless fool's gold and there's also in a failed attempt to establish a colony uh and uh in what is it's near what is today modern day quebec uh he tries to establish a base near some friendly iroquois villages village um and um it eventually will fail so after cartier you know Cartier will definitely do a lot of mapping and his you know his expeditions will bring a lot of knowledge back to France of this area but when the when when it fails to really bring back any wealth fails to you know fulfill this idea of finding a Northwest route to to trade in Asia and the colony fails as well then we'll get a half a century before France is again interested in trying to establish a colony in the quote-unquote New World, okay? Okay, just to recap again really quickly, France was really a latecomer in the New World. They had been preoccupied with war with the Holy Roman Empire in 1494. The Holy Roman Empire had invaded France, but in the 1520s with news of Cortes'exploits in Mexico, when they reached King... Francis.
He wants a piece of the New World and he wants to build his own French empire there. 1524, of course, as I mentioned already, he supports Verrazano's exploration of the coast of North America from South Carolina all the way to Maine. In the 1530s and 40s, we get Cartier's Three Voyages in Search of Riches and a Northwest Passage. Obviously, Cartier explores the St. Lawrence River up to Montreal in search of that water route to Asia and claims the land bordering the Gulf of St. Lawrence for France. France will then attempt to create some settlements, but they will fail.
Their first attempt took conflicts under the leadership of a French leader by the name of Roe Veral, who did a rather poor job of organizing a settlement in Canada. He mistreated the... the convicts who were under his rule.
And to top it off, the Iroquois began to become suspicious of French in the area and refused to help them when they ran into problems. The settlers ended up returning to France, and the French then abandoned most efforts when it was discovered, of course, that the gold and diamonds that had been brought back by these previous voyages to Canada were nothing but Foles gold and quartz crystals. Then in the 1560s, there was a couple additional... brief attempts to create some new settlements, including one in South Carolina where the settlers ended up starving and had to resort to cannibalism.
And then there was another one in 1564 in Florida, but that French outpost was captured eventually by the Spanish. And so by the time we get to the 1560s, there was not only these failed attempts, but France is also undergoing a prolonged civil war that was unleashed as a result in part of the Protestant Reformation where we have the Protestants. fighting against the Catholics. And so they kind of abandoned their attempts due to these failures into this conflict at home at settling the new world.
But that will eventually change. Okay, as I mentioned before, after these early failed attempts at colonization and finding Northwest Passage and finding wealth in the New World, the French have a few decades before... they have renewed interest.
It's really under Louis XIV. And Louis, remember, he becomes known as, you know, an absolutist ruler. He centralizes control over France. He puts down by through repressive measures, the religious wars that existed in France, and he also helps forward French mercantilist policies.
And really the goal of Louis is to restore France's place in a global market and win in this competition between France and Spain for the riches of the New World, particularly the Caribbean. So actually the French is going to work work. The French will work on staking a claim in what is known as the West Indies where they will establish tobacco and sugar plantation.
of course aided by African slave labor that the Dutch will help bring in. So we'll have a fringe stake in the West Indies but also there'll be renewed interest in North America and that renewed interest will come in the form of the fur trade. French kings had sold exclusive trade rights to merchants to make money and solidify their claims in Canada. And these merchants will use the fur trade as a way to make money. Now, eventually, they will also try to set up permanent French settlements, these agricultural estates that were supposed to serve as trade and military outposts in Canada.
in Quebec and Montreal. Leading the way will be Samuel de Champlain, who organized the first permanent French settlement in Quebec, 130 miles up the St. Lawrence, as a fur trading post. The colony initially will fail to grow, but, well, first off, why?
You know, there was a lot of difficulties in terms of settling in what is today Canada. Canada had a reputation for a very harsh climate. climate, as well as there were conditions such as French laws that required settlers to be Catholic. So French-controlled Canada couldn't be a safe haven for French Huguenots, otherwise known as French Protestants.
They could go visit, but they couldn't stay permanently. So whereas the English colonies will be a place for the Puritans to escape and resettle, French-controlled Canada will not. Plus it's harsh climate. The fur trading business is...
not really made for families or the elderly. It's really a young man's game. And so they'll have some really difficulties getting people to move and settle into the region. Now, under Louis, France will attempt to subsidize these colonies by subsidizing migration of indentured servants who were sent for terms of 36 months. were actually paid a yearly salary and eventually allowed to lease land.
But despite these pretty good terms for indentured servants, New France still failed to really initially grow because of the harsh climates. And also the French peasant villagers actually had strong rights and the villages were under their control. But in New France, in the New World, these... French estates were controlled by these aristocratic feudal-based systems, and so the peasants really weren't all that interested in settling there as well as a result of that. So really, in the early 1700s, the settlers in New France were predominantly male, with only about one out of every three settlers being female.
This meant that a lot of the young men sought out indigenous peoples to intermarry and intermingle with in part because it was a way to establish trade relationships with the native tribes. Now eventually the French kings will support this as well as a way to try to quote-unquote civilize the savages by intermarrying and intermingling with them. Also there were eventually some attempts to to get what they called the King's Girls. These were oftentimes French orphans or Protestants or poor women that the French sent off to Canada to marry these young settlers and these young fur traders.
Now the French settlements, even the agricultural estates, were never really that large, but they were extremely profitable. The furs were a hot commodity that required really pretty little work on behalf of the French traders. The Native Americans did most of the actual initial work, including the trapping. And the furs themselves were pretty light, easy to transport, and they made them a really good profit. So really, fur trading is going to be the main profit coming out of New France.
Now, also, there was an attempt at... you know, Catholicizing the indigenous populations. The French Jesuits will be sent over between 1625 and 1763 and they will play a pretty significant role in terms of converting the the native population. They kind of have an interesting story.
I don't really want to go too much into it because this lecture is already getting a little long. But in a short note here, one of the things I would note is the French Jesuits are known in part for... their toleration and their willingness to learn new languages and cultures in order to try to understand and to appreciate those cultures as a way to kind of work their way in and then introduce the Catholic religion to them eventually. So they will initially be welcomed by some of the tribes, but unfortunately...
they will also bring and help to bring in diseases and cause the death of a lot of Native Americans. And then also, when they first came in in the 1630s, they established a base in St. Marie with the Hurons. They created actually a fortified...
town which included mills a chapel stables um and then their goal was to kind of branch out from saint marie and create new smaller uh bases uh from which to to work to uh to convert the native americans not just convert them but to civilize them to teach them how to live like europeans uh the town at saint marie was to serve as an example of a european way of life for native americans to emulate um and And the Jesuits taught the Hurons important trade skills such as how to be a blacksmith. But again, as I noted, one of the problems is they also introduced disease, which weakened the Hurons. And as a result, in part of this weakened state, they were then opened to attack by their enemies, the Iroquois. And eventually the Hurons will be absorbed by the Iroquois.
And the Jesuits... fort at Sainte-Marie will eventually be destroyed by the Iroquois in 1648 and the Jesuits will be forced to return back to Quebec. They will, however, continue to work at expanding their missionary efforts further and further west and will play a significant role in the establishment of a French presence in French-controlled Canada. One of the things I want to quickly mention is the negative impact of the French and the Dutch presence in North America on the indigenous peoples. And I want to compare and contrast this for just a moment with what is known as the Spanish Black Legend.
And now the term Black Legend was coined by a Spanish writer by the name of Julian Judarius, who actually wrote a book that translates in English. English to the black legend. And in this book, he really portrayed the Spanish as intolerant and cruel and lazy.
And this portrayal of the Spanish was used by other Europeans in order to portray the Spanish in a negative light and suggest that, you know, they being maybe the French or the English were the more tolerant of the colonizing European powers in comparison. But one should not forget that the French, the Dutch, and the English all have their examples of intolerance and cruelty as well in the history of colonization. So for one thing, if we look at the French and the Dutch, just as we see in the example, and the English, by the way, just as we see in the example of the Spanish, one of the negative impacts they have is they introduce diseases into the indigenous population that caused extremely high casualty rates anywhere from 20 to 30 percent.
25 to 90 percent of the population was wiped out and in some cases that disease allowed rival tribes to take control like we see with the example of the Hurons being essentially wiped out and incorporated by the Iroquois. Also the French and the Dutch and then the English later as well oftentimes played the indigenous people off one another, made alliances, made war on rival tribes and ordered. to increase their control or to gain a foothold in building alliances and gaining a foothold in, say, the fur trade, for example. And so they actually increased, you know, the introduction of the Europeans in some ways increased warfare in the region. and also brought new means of making war by the introduction of European guns.
So in the case of the Hurons, they traded fur pelts for guns from the French, and this helped them to make war on their enemy, the Iroquois, who traded... for pelts for guns from the Dutch. So we see an increase in warfare, particularly between the Hurons and the Aries against the Iroquois Five Nations. which actually ended up being an organized confederation of five tribes, including the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawks, that will really emerge as the most powerful Indian confederation in what is today the state of New York.
The introduction of guns, increased warfare, and the introduction of disease helped them to wipe out some of their enemies and emerge as an extremely powerful... tribal confederation. Oftentimes too, the French and the Dutch were known for cruelty.
For example, the French led an attack on the Mohawks in 1609 led by Samuel de Champlain at the request of his Algonquin trading partners and just brutally helped to wipe out part of the Mohawk tribe. And so again, a lot Lots of examples of other Europeans acting and using brutal tactics in their quest to control regions and to control trade in North America. Okay, so next we're taking a look at the Dutch, who after winning their independence from Spain after the revolt in 1609, will emerge as a financial and commercial powerhouse in the early 17th century.
will control parts of trade in northwest europe they will dominate the banking industry and textile industry they will also be a a powerful um um part of the trade and will have a very large merchant fleet that was larger actually than the combined fleets of England France and Spain at least for a time and eventually they will seize from the Portuguese key forts in Brazil Africa and Indonesia and even gained control of the Atlantic slave trade so remember the Portuguese had that Empire that was knitted together by these key forts and the Dutch go in and see several of those ports from them And then in 1609, they will send an explorer, it was actually an English explorer that they hired by the name of Henry Hudson, to sail up what is now known as the Hudson River into New York. At first, he thought he had found the famous Northwest Passage, the passage to the Orient. But of course, he was wrong.
Hudson River does not, you know, dump out into Asia. But his... exploration did increase interest by the Dutch in the region and lead to further exploration and eventually a Dutch colony in the New World. In 1621, the Dutch West India Company was given a charter to establish permanent trading posts along the Hudson, Delaware, and Connecticut rivers, and in 1624, they began building these trading posts. Eventually, with active recruitment of more settlers, a permanent...
colony called New Netherlands right named you know if you think about how it's been going so far you got New Spain, New France and now here we're talking about the Netherlands so you get the New Netherlands was established uh in uh in the present-day state of what is New York what is called today New York um with the principal city being New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island which was uh purchased by direct uh by uh General Peter Minuit for a legendary price of 60 guilders or so the story went. We don't actually know for sure but that is the story that was told. Now at first the colony doesn't thrive but fur trade with the Iroquois does and the company tries to encourage settlement by giving away large and small chunks of land along the Hudson but there is a few problems and obstacles they run into. One, as they give away this land they're really seizing it from the rounding tribes, Algonquin tribes.
and they get a little unhappy with this and eventually seek war. The Dutch retaliate by killing hundreds and burning villages. They are helped in part by an alliance with the Mohawks.
and is in this fashion both by buying and seizing land by force that the Dutch build their colony. Now, interesting elements of the Dutch New Netherlands. One is that, you know, a lot of the settlers... were not in fact Dutch.
The Dutch New Netherlands was a mixed colony that included half the population was German, either German, Scandinavian, some Lutherans from Scandinavia, Swiss, Finns, some English. even some African slaves, many of them had half-free status, which we'll go into that when you guys watch a video on the birth of slavery. It'll go into what that means by half-free status, as well as Jews from Brazil after Portugal took over. And so you get this very mixed colony of different nationalities and religions, and as a result, a need for toleration.
Now, New Netherland... ends up being extremely profitable, so in step the British. The British are going to claim, or I should say the English are going to claim the right to control the area due to Cabot's voyages in 1498 when he had come in around the region.
The British and the Dutch were competitors by this time. There had been several Anglo-Dutch wars during this period. These are their trading rivals.
In 1660, when Charles II comes to the throne after the English Civil War, this is known as the Restoration Period, the Dutch are fearful that an attack on the New Netherlands is imminent, so they form an alliance with France. In 1664, in response, Charles II annexes New Netherlands and gives it to his brother, James, the Duke of York. And so in 1664, England will invade. New Netherlands and sees it as an English colony and will rename it New York.
And we'll come back to this later on. So let's press on here and talk a little bit more about the English. Before we do, though, there's just a quick picture there of the famous buying of Manhattan for supposedly 60 guilders.
trade goods in 1626 and this establishes the Dutch colonial city of New Amsterdam. There's really there's only one document from 1626 that notes the settlers purchased the island of Manhattan for a value says the primary source document of 60 guilders of trade goods so we don't really it's not actually 60 guilders per se but 60 guilders worth of trade goods is what they gave. say who they bought it from but historians assume it was from the local Lenape tribe but anyways that's how they gained claim to Manhattan And here is a picture of the Dutch New Netherlands, what it looked like before it was seized by the English. So it becomes eventually the state of New York.
But you can see here that English colonization was already creeping in around in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire. So they're already pressing in on the Dutch section of the New World. And here is what North America looks like by 1700s with the Dutch firmly pushed out, the 13 original English colonies established, then you have New France, which creeps down into the Louisiana territory, and then here's a picture of New Spain.
And then you see too that the West Indies was divided between the Spanish, the French, and the British. Okay, so now we're pressing on. We're looking at the arrival of the English and talking about some major differences. One of those is that unlike the Spanish and the French, the English founded largely settler colonies. Although there are some exceptions, notably Jamestown.
If you look at the overall view of the English colonization and settlement, you notice that it involves a lot of families moving in and creating permanent settlements. you know result on the colonization will look a lot different as well as the relationship between the English and the local tribes so there will not be that they need as much for this intermingling intermixing with the Native American population because whole families English families will resettle in permanent and permanent settlements in the new world now originally a settlement was not part of the plan investors originally like the French and the Spanish were looking for trade goods, you know, as like the Dutch and the French before them, they were looking for fur trade. They were hoping, like the Spanish had found, you know, large wealth of gold and silver.
They were hoping to find, you know, that kind of wealth in the New World. But when that didn't pan out, although one should note the English did get involved in the fur trade, but when they didn't find their own version, of the Aztec Empire, they had to find a plan B. So what was the plan B?
Well, particularly in a state like Virginia, the plan B ends up being growing tobacco. And then if we look at like New England and we get a little bit more of a mixed economy. Now also one of the other big differences is that the English, the way that they finance and settle in the English colonies is much different than the French and the Spanish.
So the Spanish, yes, there was. was some investment by Spanish merchants and other investors, but also the king and queen directly invested in exploration and settlement. And so if you look at like New Spain, there's a lot of direct control by the Spanish crown, in part, I would argue, because of the amount of wealth that's coming out of the new world that the crown wants to make sure it controls where that gold and silver of the English colonies, you know, there's not a massive amount of wealth that's originally found.
The English monarchs are not directly investing heavily in exploration and settlement. Instead, it is merchants through these joint stock companies who are investing in exploration and settlement. And of course, they are aided by the English monarchs who are giving out charters and authorizations to explore and to claim land in the name of the English government. Um, But those charters also grant to those companies a large degree of authority to establish new systems of government and to set up systems of law.
Now, theoretically, they are under English law, right? They still have to follow and abide by English law, but they're also given a large degree of self-government through these charters. And so what you're going to end up with is literally decades upon decades of self-government. government and autonomy by these English colonies, which really builds the foundation for the later break with the English government and the American Revolution. Now also keep in mind too that that large degree of autonomy will eventually rub up against the English mercantile policies, which will try to exert control over the English colonies in terms of trade regulations, regulations geared towards limiting the amount of manufactured goods that can can be produced by the colonies, regulations concerning how trade was to be conducted, it having to be on English-controlled ships, having to stop by English ports and pay taxes.
And so eventually when the English tried to exert control back over their colonies that have enjoyed a large degree of autonomy and self-government for decades upon decades, it's not going to end up working out well. It's going to cause a serious rift, eventually building up and culminating in the American Revolution. Revolution.
So again, I think when we look at the birth of the colonies, be they English, French, or Spanish, we need to connect that to the later development. And of... not just what those colonies look like, but also the history and the story of how those colonies eventually emerge as independent nations.
And all of this, you know, goes back to the roots and the birth of these colonies. So for example, in the English colonies, you have this long history of self-government and practice in creating stable governments that really helps the the colonists trans, you know, transfer from being a colony to being an independent nation state with some political stability. In the case of, for example, the Spanish, because they didn't have that long history of self-government and autonomy and practicing and creating their own institutions of government, they struggle more after they break away from the Spanish government and creating a stable system.
So again, all of this has deep... consequences for the future of these colonies as they create their own independent nations. Also, the way that the colonies are created has an impact on how they interact with the indigenous tribes. So again, in the case of, say, the French, there's a lot of intermixing and intermingling with the Native American population because, one, it's mostly young French fur traders that are coming over.
It's not a lot of families reestablishing themselves. And so they look for females, you know, in the indigenous population to intermarry with. On top of it, that intermarriage allows them to make alliances and build alliances that are good for trade.
And then also those alliances sometimes get them involved in conflicts, like we see in the case of the Dutch and the French making. war on various indigenous tribes as a result of their alliances. In the case of the Spanish, again, you have a lot of intermixing and intermingling between the Spanish and the indigenous peoples, as well as the African slaves that are brought over.
And so you get this very heterogeneous society with, you know, a very mixed population. And that is in part because, you know, a lot of the original Spanish settlers were young men. In the case of the English, I'm not saying there was no intermingling.
There certainly was. We can find examples of that, say, in the story of Pocahontas and John Rolfe. But to a large degree, to a much larger degree than we see with the French or the Spanish, the English tended to separate themselves from the indigenous peoples. Now, that doesn't mean they don't trade with them.
That doesn't mean they never, you know, live side by side. There's certainly some... examples of Native Americans living within English villages and helping to teach the English how to survive but to a very large extent they also separate themselves from the Native American peoples and and tend to push them further and further west as they encroach more and more upon their land and so this becomes a key theme that we see not just in English colonies but later on too in the story of the birth and the spread of the United States westward as well.
And then one quick note too, if we look at the history of the English and their interaction with the indigenous peoples of North America, we see a lot of similarities in how the English treated the Irish after they invaded and took control of Ireland. They tended to push the Irish off their land, take their land, seize their land, and we see a lot of similarities. see that similar type of response to the indigenous peoples of North America as well.
So if we look at the patterns of settlement as well, in the case of the English, settlements were first organized, again, by private ventures. These are joint stock companies. Look, for example, at the Virginia company.
In some cases, particularly in the case of Virginia, A lot of the early settlers were minor nobles. These were the sons of nobility who did not have as many economic opportunities back in England because of the rules that essentially said that... that when the father died, all of the land went to the firstborn son. This was done to protect the family's land holdings, but it also meant that the younger sons had less land holdings of their own. So they were looking for new economic opportunities in the new world.
But after Jamestown, we also, and actually within the settlement of Jamestown, we also see some peasants, some laborers, uh and then also if you look at the uh the the puritans in um in massachusetts a large degree of those were merchants as well as religious dissidents coming over to the new world to establish a community uh in which their religious uh preferences could be uh practiced and again remember they're not interested in religious toleration in the case of the puritans they're interested in creating what winthrop called a city upon a hill um and then also we need to note the role that the monarchy plays in the establishment of these English settlements by approving the charters, which granted not only the authority to explore and to settle, but also to create new systems or systems of government, right? And so one of the results of this is because you have these individual charters given to these individual companies, and what ends up happening is that these colonies develop in strikingly different ways. So, you know, part of this is not just tied to the charters. Part of it also is tied to the economies that are birthed.
You know, for example, New England is not really suited for large plantation-based economy like Virginia or the Carolinas was. And so we see different economies emerge, but we also see that there's different religions and different even slightly different systems of government emerge from these colonies as a result of these different peoples who settled and their authority being granted by these charters that are handed out by the monarchy. So again, part of the long-term impact of this is that when you finally get to the American Revolution and you look at these 13 original colonies, they really did consider themselves to be 13 separate, independent, and... unique societies that oftentimes they felt they had little in common with one another. So there was no real true sense of an American identity per se.
New Englanders thought of themselves as New Englanders with a rich history of a mixed economy, of a merchant economy, and one based also on the Congregationalist church and the Puritan beliefs. Whereas, you know, this was very different from, say, the colony. of Virginia, which was based on more of an aristocratic system with tobacco economy being the mainstay of the economy and the Anglican church being firmly established. So again, these economies and these cultures in these 13 independent colonies are going to be strikingly different by the time we get to the American Revolution.
Okay, one of the things we need to look at that helped pave the way for English colonization of the new world is the destruction of the Spanish Armada in 1588. So let's start with some background. England and Spain had actually been allies in the 1500s, but by the time we get to 1580s, they are increasingly hostile towards one another. Remember that Spain under Philip II will emerge as the champion of Catholicism and an extremely powerful state, thanks in part to all of the gold and silver being siphoned into Spain by the development of New Spain and the destruction of the Aztec and Inca Empire.
Now, as champions of Catholicism and as a powerful state, Spain had an interest not just in spreading Catholicism, but also maintaining its control over the Netherlands. The Netherlands emerged as a Protestant state. And they wage an action 80 plus year war for independence And they are going to be helped out by the English a fellow Protestant country now part of it has to do with You know, they're there They're then both being Protestant nations, but part of it also has to do with Elizabeth simply making Elizabeth Queen of England making a geopolitical decision because You know, they don't like the idea of Spain controlling the Netherlands, which is really just a hop, skip, and jump away from England.
Now, a couple of little background notes as well. Remember, Philip II had been co-monarch of England until the death of his wife, Queen Mary I. They had no children when she died. They actually never spent a ton amount of time together. But he really wanted to find a way to maintain an alliance and some control over England. So when Mary died and Elizabeth...
took the throne Philip declared that Elizabeth was a heretic and an illegitimate ruler and even went so far as to try to have her assassinated and to return her cousin Mary Queen of Scots now remember these are two different Marys Queen Mary the first is the daughter of Catherine of Aragon and Mary Queen of Scots is a cousin of Elizabeth but two different families here but Philip tried to have Elizabeth's cousin excuse me, put on the throne. Mary, Queen of Scots, is actually imprisoned and executed in 1587 by Elizabeth. And so that, you know, doesn't make Philip very happy.
But on top of it, he's unhappy with Elizabeth's support of Netherlands'fight for independence and the fact that the English are not only supporting Dutch independence, but they're also harassing Spanish ships in the Atlantic, particularly in the Caribbean. So, you know, you have the famous story of like Sir Francis Drake and his sea dogs, either really just privateers that are harassing and challenging Spanish dominance and raiding Spanish merchant ships, and Elizabeth's kind of giving the wink wink nod, go ahead. Now eventually Philip decides he's had enough and he amasses one of the largest fleets ever known.
Huge, huge swath, 151 ships, 18,000 soldiers to They're supposed to set sail from Lisbon. Well, they do set sail from Lisbon in May of 1588 to try to invade England. I'm not going to go into the details of this, but in short, it doesn't go well for Spain.
And a large amount of their ships are destroyed. England wins a big victory that helps pave the way for their emergence in the New World by helping to invade England. Spain's dominance of the Atlantic. It also of course helps other rival European powers who are also interested in ending Spanish dominance in the region. Okay so I want to just talk briefly about the first English settlement, the lost colony of Roanoke.
Okay so a little bit of background here. The English had periodic contact with Native Americans. off the coast of North America, but really didn't create any permanent settlements until the mid-16th century. Mostly these are just English fishermen off the coast of Newfoundland and some explorers.
This was in part because they were undergoing religious strife. home. Remember between 1534 and 1558 England changed its official religion several times.
You had the reign of Bloody Mary then Queen Elizabeth coming back on the throne and trying to re-establish the Church of England but after the religious strife settled down England's first target for settlement was not the New World but instead Ireland. Ireland was a threat to England because it could become a base for Spain or another Catholic power to invade England and so eventually England decides to do a rather brutal invasion of Ireland and that this brutal invasion and then repression of the Irish became some similar tactics that we see that the English used then on the indigenous peoples in the New World and so after the destruction of the Spanish Armada we have two veterans of well a veteran I should say the cruel Irish campaigns come up with an idea to create a settlement in the New World. Gilbert was that veteran and he convinced Elizabeth to authorize several voyages in search of the Northwest Passage to Asia.
Three voyages were attempted between 1576 and 78. He also arrived for the creation of a settlement which was uh which we was given permission to set up in 1578. He believed that the New World settlements would provide a place for the nations unemployed, that surplus population. You can go back and connect it to the first slide. slide in this lecture and look at the enclosure movement, right?
So he thought this was a place for the unemployed surplus population to go. It would also provide new markets, new land for farmers, and also new land to be put not just under cultivation to produce crops, but also to raise sheep to add to the profitable wool trade. Gilbert also argued that some free land should be given away from two English immigrants to entice people to sell.
settle in the New World. And he did travel to the Americas to pick out a suitable spot, but his ship was lost at sea on its trip home, and his initial attempt collapsed. Finally, in 1585, Raleigh, his half-brother, took up the cause and sent a ship of mostly veteran soldiers from Ireland to set up a settlement on Roanoke Island. Once there, the colonists refused to grow their own food and expected the Native Americans to provide it for them.
This is a similar story we'll see in Jamestown when the local chiefs organized resistance and had several men killed. Eventually, the colonists, disappointed that they did not find gold or precious stones, and exhausted from a rather harsh winter, returned home in 1586. So that was the first attempt, but eventually there's another attempt in 1587 with another voyage. This group arrives pretty late in the summer.
winter is coming pretty quickly. It's also an extremely dry year. It was one of the worst droughts in like 800 years in the region.
And they arrive with rather few provisions. And so when they get there in August of 1587, the governor of the exploration, Governor White, was forced to return to England to try to gather provisions. And he leaves behind his daughter and his newest granddaughter. the first English to be born in the New World, which they named Virginia after Queen Elizabeth. And his plan is to go back, get provisions, and come right back, but unfortunately he does not return for three years.
Remember what I said, he arrived in 1587. What happens in 1588? Oh yeah, that's right, the Spanish Armada. So when he gets back, all hands on deck for the invasion of England, he's not, he can't find a ship to get himself back to...
the Roanoke settlement. And so three years goes by. He doesn't return until August of 1590. And then when he returns, there is no life to be cited in the Roanoke colony that he left. So the big question becomes, what happens to this lost colony, right? Okay, so we still are unsure of what happened to the lost colony of Roanoke.
There are several theories being floated out there. This is probably not an exhaustive list. list of theories but one of them is that perhaps the settlers after running out of food created rafts or boats made from their homes and sailed out into Chesapeake Bay where they were perhaps either intermixed or killed by local Native Americans.
Theory two is that they left Roanoke and went to live with the natives on Crotone Island. Governor White when he was there had met with the Crotone Indians and had established an alliance of sorts an agreement that they they would help supply them. The problem with this theory is that the island itself was not really big enough to support both the Native American population and the settlers, although there was some evidence found, a ring of one of the settlers was found on the island later on, but Governor White himself was not able, when he came back in 1690, to explore the Crotone Island because his ship was pushed.
back out into the Atlantic by a storm so he never was able to go back and search for his lost daughter and granddaughter um so we don't know for sure and then the last theory is that perhaps they were killed by some Native Americans while living in Roanoke and the problem with that was that their bodies were never found and then also there was some evidence gathered by Jamestown's residents 20 years later who were sent to explore the region and try to find out what happened to the settlers they received some reports By Native Americans of some light skinned people in the area and some people who were quote unquote clothed, which suggests they were Europeans. And so there is some evidence to suggest that maybe some of them survived. So perhaps they moved further inland and were incorporated into other Native American tribes.
Lots of theories out there, nothing that we know for absolute certain. But one thing we do know is that the story of Roanoke is part of a larger theme. that we see in these early English settlements of colonies being unprepared, not enough provisions, you know, unprepared and not quite ready to create permanent settlements in the New World. And we see similar, you know, similar themes in the creation of Jamestown.
You know, 20 years later, then it seemed like they learned a whole lot. They still came with not enough provisions. expecting that the Native Americans would supply them with food through trade and as a result had a pretty rough going. Also the Jamestown residents actually picked the side of Jamestown in part because they were looking for a spot that was easily defensible against Native American attacks as they were afraid that is what happened to these first settlers on the Lost Colony and while Jamestown might have been defensible it was also not very hospitable you know it was in a very low tide region, which meant at high tide, the water was really salty.
And at low tide, the water was really filthy and caused outbreaks of sickness. Uh, and, uh, just, you know, Jamestown went through several periods of starving times and sickness before it eventually, uh, took off and became sustainable. Um, all right, so I'm going to end it there.
There's one more slide. I'll just show you where Roanoke, uh, originally was. And other than that, uh, we're done with lecture two.
So here we see the lost colony of Roanoke on Roanoke Island and its proximity to the Jamestown colony. Just to kind of give you a sense of where it was located. All right.
See you again in lecture three.