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 conquered
1518 Cortes encounters Aztec Empire, falls by 1521
Aided by empire’s antagonistic adversaries
Smallpox 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 MesoAmerica/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 furtrading 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