Transcript for:
Overview of European Colonization Strategies

well hey there welcome back to heimler's history now in this video we begin unit two of the ap u.s history curriculum and the time period we'll be considering is 1607 to 1754. and more to the point in this video we're going to be looking at how and why various european colonies developed and expanded in this time period and i know your brain cows are ready to get milked so let's get to it now in the last unit we also dealt with european colonization in the americas but we really only focused on spain because you know they were first but in this unit the tap of european colonialism gets opened all the way up and we see the french and the british and the dutch come pouring into the americas as well but first let me remind you of what we've already learned about spanish colonization so the spanish shock colonies in the americas in order to extract wealth and their primary means of doing so was agriculture and the mining of gold and silver now you didn't think the spanish got their own sweet bippies dirty doing the work did you you so crazy no they subjugated the native population under the incomienda system to do the farming and the mining for them and when this system failed them they replaced that labor with forced labor from africa additionally the spanish introduced a caste system into the americas that fundamentally reshaped the society into a series of hierarchical levels based on racial ancestry and finally the spanish were deeply concerned to convert the natives to christianity through the mission system and this attempt was met with mixed success some natives converted others converted and simultaneously maintained their indigenous religious practices and still others flat out revolted against this western intrusion in events like the pueblo revolts well that's how the spanish did it but now let's turn our attention to the french colonial efforts in america and it wasn't till 1524 that the french had any interest in sailing west and establishing a presence in the americas and even then it wasn't really the americas they were interested in mainly they were interested in finding a water route that passed through the americas which would give them access to trade in asia and part of the reason they were slow to colonize the americas is because they were distracted with their european wars and they were putting a lot of effort and resources into the systematic persecution of the protestant huguenots so you know a lot on their plate i guess we should figure out all that american colonization stuff but you know then protestants ain't gonna persecute themselves anyway not finding a suitable water-based passage through the americas the french decided that the americas might be a good place to squat after all and so in 1608 samuel de champlain established the first permanent french settlement called quebec now french colonial policies differed from the spanish the french had a much greater interest in trade than in conquest especially the fish and fur trade and compared to the spanish and the english and we'll get to them later relatively few french colonizers showed up in the americas and despite the permanent settlement in quebec mostly the french just established trading settlements all throughout north america so that's what you really need to get into your brain folds about french colonial settlements during this period it was really about trade for them and this goal even led some french traders to marry native american women so that they could have kinship ties to those vast trading networks among the various native peoples oh this is not what every little girl dreams of a dashing man i'll speak in french ask for her hand in marriage so that he can have economic ties to her people i mean it really is a fairy tale anyway an example of this kind of relationship was the french interactions with the ojibwe indians and what is today canada now the french fostered alliances with this group of natives and in doing so cultural exchanges did occur the indians benefited the french because they were skilled in the process of preparing beaver pelts for market and the french benefited the indians by introducing iron cookware and farming tools as well as manufactured cloth okay so that's a taste of french colonial settlement now let's have a look at how the dutch did it in the dutch also seeking a water-based passage through the americas sent henry hudson to find it needless to say he did not find it but sailing up the river that would later be named for him in this region right here he went ahead and claimed that portion of the country for the dutch and by 1624 that would become a colony called new amsterdam now the goals of the dutch were mainly economic and the establishment of new amsterdam facilitated these ends it became a trading hub that attracted other traders and fishermen and farmers and the dutch differed from the spanish in a significant way although the dutch were proudly protestant they really had no interest in converting the natives they encountered to their beliefs for the dutch it was all about the hooch okay now let's turn our attention to the british efforts to colonize the americas because their efforts are going to be most important for our study of u.s history let's talk first about their motivations to colonize and chief among their motivations for colonization was economics the english economy had changed drastically as a result of the colombian exchange and because of england's wars with france and the costly conquest of ireland the wealth of the nobles began to diminish so as a result they began seeking new economic opportunities elsewhere but it wasn't just the nobles whose economic lot was worsening it was the peasantry too you see they experienced hardship because their land was disappearing due to the enclosure movement which took land from everyone held in common and sold it to private parties and so their motivation was actually similar to the nobles they wanted new economic opportunities but in addition they also needed land and still other folks were motivated to leave england to pursue religious freedom and improve living conditions and we're going to talk more about them in another video and so the english colonizers set out to the americas as family groups to establish new homes which of course was far different than the french and the dutch additionally in the places where the english did land there was no large empires that could be coerced into working for them now the english did have a season where they peacefully coexisted with the natives they did encounter but that soon gave way to tension and violence as settlers further encroached on native lands and in this way the english were a lot different from the spanish whereas the spanish subjugated the native populations the english expelled them and we'll definitely be talking about that more in another video because i'm sure that's not going to cause any problems for anybody that's a joke isn't it dad afraid so but we're gonna save it for next time all right that's what you need to know about unit two topic two of ap us history if you want help getting an a in your class and a five on your exam in may then i can think of no better way to do that than for you to grab my review pack if you learned something here you want me to keep making these videos and subscribe and that's how i know you want me to keep going heimler out