Making Sense of First Contact and Settlement:

The Spanish, English and French

Why Did Europeans Decide to Explore and Settle in the Americas?

• Cortes: “Gold, God and Glory”:

• or, economic power, Faith, and national aggrandizement

• How did this influence Spanish Conquest?

• How did it set a standard for subsequent colonizing efforts?

Gold, God and Glory:

• Glory: consequence of national consolidation and competition in early modern period– Re-orienting feuding aristocrats elsewhere!

• God: Reformation/Counter-reformation

• Gold: source of national power

Gold, God and Glory: Impact on Spanish Conquest

• Impact of “Glory”:• Spanish reconquista financed by warrior

aristocrats (hidalgos) with licenses to govern conquered infidel territories

• Same cast of characters produces brutal American conquest . . .By 1510s, Arawak conquered1518 Cortes encounters Aztec Empire, falls by 1521

Aided by empire’s antagonistic adversariesSmallpox kills 70%

1530s Pisarro does same in Incan Empire

Gold, God and Glory: Impact on Spanish Conquest

• Impact of “God”:• 1493: Spanish granted right

to spread the Gospel– At the point of a sword . . .

• Forced labor via encomienda labor tax system is just compensation for Salvation– 23,000 Aztecs forced to labor

for Spanish by 1520s

Impact of Spanish success in Meso-America/South America:

• A standard for other European states:

– Expectations for comparable success

– Competition . . . Other European efforts• English at Roanoke• French in Quebec

Making Sense of First North American Interactions

• Mythology of contact and conquest:• Traditional settler legend– Problems with this: 5 million people in complex

Amerindian civilizations• Research produces new myth: Arcadia– Amerindians live harmoniously with environment

in egalitarian societies– Europeans overrun with superior technology and

martial energy and pollute paradise

Re-evaluating the myths: English at Roanoke

• In context of war with Spain

• Walter Raleigh given patent to colonize

• Assumption: a base for privateering

Roanoke: How does it work out?

• Site picked for privateering base;

• Infertile land

• Look to Amerindians for supply (like Spanish)

Roanoke: How does it work out?

• Evaluating first Amerindian encounter:

• Thomas Hariot and John White record encounters with local Algonquian peoples

• A silver cup, a burned village, and Spanish desire for dominance and Indian submission

• English perceive Amerindian intent to attack, and go on offense

Roanoke: How does it work out?

• Return to England, Summer, 1586

• Hariot writes promotional piece, seeks reorganization– Organize a corporation to run

colony– Send families, not soldiers– Pick a new spot! Chesapeake

Bay?

Roanoke: Try #2:

• 1587, 3 ships under command of Simon Fernandes, a privateer– Too much time privateering; drops them back off

at Roanoke• Amerindians hostile; John White approaches

Croatoan as intermediaries– English mistakenly burn the wrong village

• Fernandes returns to England with John White – rest stay behind

What happened to Roanoke settlers?

• Cannot return: war vs Spanish intervenes• White returns, finally, in 1591:• Finds no settlers, only “Croatan” carved on tree

• John White: Having done all he could, he left “the reliefe of my discomfortable company, the planters in Virginia, to the merciful help of the Almighty, whom I most humbly beseech to helpe & comfort them.”

What about the French?

• Initial efforts to extract wealth modest in 16th century:

• Fishermen on Grand Banks since 15th century (earlier?)

• Search for Northwest Passage– Jacques Cartier on St. Lawrence

River, 1534-1541

Cartier’s encounters in North America

• Second voyage: 3 ships, 110 men into Iroquois country – looking for NW Passage

• Encounter Stadacona village, and chief Donnaconna – anger Donnaconna because they want to move on to trade elsewhere– First winter: ¼ Cartier’s men die while Stadacona

look on• In spring: intervene in Iroquois dispute, take

Donnaconna and sons as captives back to France

Cartier’s next voyage up St. Lawrence, 1541:

• Now looking to create a settlement– Brings 1500 people and 2 year food supply

• Builds fortification in same spot

• Stadacona attack; survivors hang on a year and return to France . . . No further efforts for 60 years

Making a go of it: Champlain’s fur-trading colony, 1608

• Returns to Stadacona; Iroquois have disappeared

• Champlain agrees to ally with local nomadic Indians vs Iroquois in return for pelts

• 1609, with 300 Huron and Algonquians at Lake Champlain defeat Mohawk Iroquois

• Muskets decisive for first time

• Yet, 5 weeks later Mohawk Iroquois begin trading with Henry Hudson (Dutch) for guns

French Amerindian alliances and colonial “success”

• Huron and Algonquians, with access to French trade goods, build alliances of 5-7000 warriors by 1615

• Creates a precarious balance: need Indian alliances for stable presence, but then can’t drive hard trade bargain

• New France seems less interesting: only 70 people by 1628, and little land under cultivation

French Amerindian alliances and colonial “success”

• Colony becomes financially viable when Catholic charitable corporation begins to supply colony

• Goal is missionization; settlers are Jesuit priests and handful of fur traders

Conclusions?• North American Amerindians clearly have martial

prowess!

• Seem fairly evenly matched with erstwhile European conquerors

• North American colonies not readily profitable, so:

• Self-financing by colonists won’t work – need corporate backing; greater imperial involvement

• Amerindian alliances essential to success