colonization
Chapter 4: Discovery and Colonization of the New World/
For thousands of years the American Indians lived and labored in the Americas. These very first Americans were migrants from eastern Siberia and might belong to the Mongoloid peoples. They traveled into the New World more than 20,000 years ago, when there was a land bridge between Asia and Alaska. After entering the New World they gradually spread all over North and South America, from Alaska to Cape Horn. They were divided into a great number of tribes who spoke different languages. By the 15th century there were 15 to 20 million inhabitants in the Americas, Some of them were quite primitive, while others were among the most advanced cultures in the world. But when the Europeans arrived in great numbers in the 16th and 17th centuries, the
cultures of the American Indians began to change as they came into contact with Western culture and technology.
Now most people accept the year 1492 as the date of the discovery of America, but this is actually the date of the "rediscovery", or effective discovery, of America. If we leave the ancestors of American Indians, the real first discoverers, out of consideration, Europeans first made contact with the Americas long before Columbus. About A.
D. 1000, Norsemen from northern Europe happened on America, but their contact did not exert a tremendous influence in the world at that time. Why not? If we glance back to the years around A. D. 1000, we find Europe was then poor, politically fragmented, beset by local wars and civil disorder, and largely illiterate. In short, Europe was then
incapable of responding to the Norse discoveries.
By the end of fifteenth century, the modern European world was to be formed. Its formation was marked by growth of trade and commerce, the rise of the middle class, the evolution of national states, the reformation of the Christian Church, and the development of representative government. These changes, gradually developing over many years, led directly to the effective discovery and the settlement of the "New World.
In the mid-fifteenth century, a great number of long ocean voyages took place. There were several practical reasons for this sudden daring exploration of the unknown. For one thing, Venice had built a monopoly on the
Mediterranean trade and kept others from sharing this wealth. Eastern goods were in great demand in Europe, and Venice, being the chief source of supply, could charge high prices in this trade. As England, France, Spain, and Portugal emerged as nations, they wanted to break through Venice's hold on this profitable trade and to get their fair share of it. Their ships could not compete in the Mediterranean so they sent out explorers to seek other routes to the East.
Another reason that some sailors dared to sail beyond the sight of land into the great Atlantic Ocean was the improvements in navigation and naval architecture. Better maps and charts reduced superstitious fears of the unknown; faster, more maneuverable, and more stable ships made ocean travel far more practical; and the earlier
invention of the compass originated from China took the guess work out of sailing a ship on course.
The last reason for the many sea voyages of the era was the great spirit of adventure and enthusiasm which swept over the people of Europe. The spirit and enthusiasm were basically started by the Renaissance which secularized the way people thought and expanded the European citizen's self-knowledge and understanding of the surrounding world. By the 1400s Europeans were launched on a campaign to explore the world and make contact with other lands and peoples. One voyage led to another, and each nation was eager to send its ships to sea. In 1488 Bartholomeu Diaz, sailing under the Portuguese flag, went to the Cape of Good Hope at the southern Africa. In 1492 Christopher Columbus, encouraged and
financed by the king and queen of Spain, sailed west in search of the east Indies and discovered instead the islands of the Caribbean which he caned the West Indies. He had, however, found the New World. Following Columbus" lead, Amerigo Vespucci, also under the Spanish flag, sailed west and discovered the continent of South America. It was he who showed that the land they arrived in was a whole new continent lying between Europe and Asia. Before long it was named after him, America, the name of the southern continent, later being extended to the northern too. But Columbus, until his dying day, wrongly took it as Asia.
Not to be outdone by Spain, England sent John Cabot, an Italian explorer who had become an English citizen, across the Atlantic in 1497 and
again in 1498 to explore the coast of North America. Upon his voyages, England rested its claims to the lands which would eventually become the United States. Also in 1498, the Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama, completed the work of Diaz and sailed around the southern tip of Africa, and reached India. Then in1519, Spain sent Ferdinand Magellan with five ships to sail around the world for the first time. Magellan sailed around the tip of South America by way of the strait that today bears his name. He died in the Philippines, but his one remaining ship completed the historic voyage in 1522. Later, in 1534 the French also succeeded in planting their flag in the New World by the voyages of Jacques Cartier to Canada. In less than 50 years, from 1492 to 1534, Europeans had discovered two new continents of North and South America
and had broadened their horizons to include the whole globe.
The New World was a great and rich land. North and South America together made up an area almost as large as Africa and Europe combined. In the New World there were all those resources necessary for agricultural and industrial development, fertile land, seas full of fish, great forests, all the essential metals and minerals, huge coal and oil supplies, and rivers rich in water power.
The ruling class of Europe fell upon this rich world greedily. Only
fifty years after Columbus" first voyage, the Spanish and Portuguese had overrun the vast land of what is now called Latin America. The settling of present-day United States and Canada by the English and French went more slowly, though just
as cruelly. But during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603), the English in growing numbers realized that the New World was their best place to make their fortunes. To the rising merchant class, overseas colonies offered vast economic opportunities. Trading companies were beginning to carry on a worldwide trade. These companies were granted a trade monopoly from the king or queen for trading in a particular region. America seemed to fit well into the plans of these merchant-capitalists. Goods could be sold to the settlers for the New World, and in return natural resources could be sold in England and Europe.
Some people left Britain for religious reasons. To zealous English protestants, a colony in America would offer a bulwark against Catholic Spain and France; to the English dissenters,
it would offer a bulwark against English Protestants. All the religious groups considered the New World an ideal place to worship and live according to their beliefs.
The Enclosure Movement of the 1500s also stimulated English colonization. This is a movement by large landowners to turn agricultural fields into sheep pastures, for sheep raising was more profitable then growing staple products. This agricultural shift led to thousands of farm workers losing their jobs and to an increase in the urban population. The cities, in particular London, become overcrowded. Where would be a good place to send this excess population? Why, to America. Others wanted to come to America to leave oppressive political institutions, to escape burdensome church duties, to acquire large
landholdings, or merely to change their general pattern of living. Of course, material gain was a common factor.
Mary of the people who wanted to migrate to America could not pay for their trip from England. So they came as indentured servants. They signed a contract, or indenture, with a company or a wealthy person. The servant agreed to work without pay for a set time, usually about seven years. In return, the company or master paid for the voyage and provided food and shelter for the servant.
At the end of the seven years, the servant was free.
In April 1607 three vessels with 104 settlers arrived off the Virginia coast. Soon afterwards, and amid much
hardship, they managed to build a settlement called Jamestown, which became the first successful English colony in North America. Jamestown did not begin well. The location of the settlement itself led to much hardship and disease, and within the first 6 months, the population of 104 was cut in half. Despite the fact that many of them died, the settlement survived.
In 1620, a tiny ship called the "Mayflower" sailed from England for the New World. Crowded together in the small ship were 102 passengers. Half of them were pilgrims who were the first group of Puritans to settle in North America. During the trip, the Mayflower was blown off course and they finally landed, far to the north of Virginia, in what is now Massachusetts. Being far from Virginia, the Pilgrims decided to set up their own
government. They wrote a now famous agreement called the Mayflower Compact which was a plan for a democratic society on Calvinist fines, and was a model for later colonies. During the first icy winter in Plymouth, the Pilgrims suffered much hardship and half of them died. When spring came, the Indians began to help the Pilgrims. They showed the Pilgrims how to hunt wild turkey and deer. They showed them where to fish. They taught them how to plant corn and barley and how to get sap from the maple tree. The Pilgrims had a fine harvest of corn in the fall. They were thankful. They made a feast and invited the Native Americans who had helped them. This was the first Thanksgiving.
Later more puritans arrived and by 1679, they set up four New England colonies -- Massachusetts, Rhode Island,
Connecticut, and New Hampshire.
The colonies of New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware were called the Middle Colonies. Some of them were not started by the English colonists. New York and New Jersey were first colonized by the Dutch, while Delaware was first colonized by the Swedish. But the English would never tolerate any intruder at their door, and then they started a contest of strength and defeated their enemy. As a result all these 3 colonies were given to the English colonists by 1664. The Middle Colonies were much more mixed than the Southern or New England Colonies. They had many different kinds of people. They had some of the richest farm- lands. Several of their towns became important centers of business and trade.
By the mid-18th century practically the whole of North America had been divided out among the European colonialists. Most of the east coast south of the St. Lawrence River, north of Florida and stretching inland as far as the Appalachians in the west was in the hands of the British. Along this stretch of coast were 13 British colonies, each with a governor, under British rule.
The thirteen colonial governments presented a varied structure. By 1775, eight of the colonies had royal governors, who were appointed by the king. Three (Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware) were under proprietors who themselves chose the governors. And two (Connecticut and Rhode Island) elected their own governors under
self-governing charters. Practically
every colony utilized a two-house legislative body. The upper house, or council, was normally appointed by the Crown in the royal colonies, and by the proprietor in the proprietary colonies. It was chosen by the voters in the
self-governing colonies. The lower house, as the popular branch, was elected by the people, or rather by those persons who owned enough property to qualify as voters. In several of the colonies, the back-country elements were seriously underrepresented, and they hated the ruling clique perhaps more than they did kingly authority.
Due to geographical, economic and social factors, these colonies developed in different directions. The New England colonies, where the soil was thin and poor, was difficult of farming. And the long winters and short summers
made plantation agriculture there unthinkable. The New England Yankee farmer was forced to become a
jack-of-all-trade. The New England colonies soon became a center for fishing and ship-building, and the successful merchants and prosperous ship-builders laid the foundation for the later appearance of the American big bourgeoisie. The Middle Colonies known as the breadbasket has a more favourable climate and soil and thus became the most productive area for general farming. This colonial breadbasked produce wheat and potatoes as the major staple. The Southern Colonies developed a plantation system, with the exploitation of slave labour. Tobacco was the main crop in the South. Other crops were rice and indigo, a blue dye taken from various plants. Much later, cotton became important. In the
beginning, Plantation workers were indentured servants, white as well as black. Later planters stopped using indentured workers. It became cheaper to use the Africans who were being brought to the colonies as slaves. By the 1700s, most black in the Southern colonies were slaves. They did most of the work on the plantations.
Society in these thirteen colonies was like a pyramid. The top was made up of merchants and landlords. The base was made up of refugees from Europe, black slaves from Africa, and native Indians. Many of the European settlers had left Europe to escape war, poverty, religious and political persecution and had come as indentured labourers. For the Africans, things were even worse. They were out-and-out slaves. The slave-owners, who bought them, drove
them like cattle and could sell them at will, separating husbands and wives, parents and children. They could even kill them. As for Indians, they could not put up with slavery. If an Indian was enslaved, his fellow tribe members would fight to free him. So the colonialist soon gave up the attempt to use them as slave labour. Instead they seized the land of the Indians and drove them away or killed them.
The wealth that came from the robbing of the Indians, from the buying and selling of the black salves, and from ruthlessly exploiting black and white labouring people, poured into Europe, and especially Britain. It poured into the hands of the rising bourgeoisie. It became "capital" with which they built capitalism.
The people in the colonies who provided this capital for the building of capitalism did not passively put up with exploitation and oppression. They resisted in various ways. Sometimes there were uprisings. One rebellion of small farmers took place in Virginia in1676 against the oppressive royal government of the colony. This was the first open revolt against the Crown in the American colonies. It was led by Nathanial Bacon. It was suppressed only after a long struggle and desperate measures on the part of the governor. In 1689 there was a people's uprising in New York. The rebels seized power and held it for two years. Although the various uprisings were defeated, they dealt a blow to British colonial rule, and shook the British control over North America. Then the history of the colonial people had been pushed into another stage.