Of the People
Chapter 2:
Colonial Outposts
1550–1650
Common Threads
>> What did it mean for the English in North
America that they came late to the business of
establishing an overseas empire?
>> Chart the paths that each nation took toward
offering greater freedom for some groups and
less freedom for others.
>> Although they were all European nations, the
empires of Spain, France, Holland, and England
all developed in different ways. Why?
>> Why did each nation have a somewhat different
relationship with Native Americans?
Overview
– Pursuing Wealth and Glory Along the
North American Shore
– New France: An Outpost in the Global
Political Economy
– New Netherland: The Empire of a Trading
Nation
– England Attempts an Empire
Colonial Outposts
1550-1650
• Pursuing Wealth and Glory Along the
North American Shore
– European Objectives
– The Huge Geographical Barrier
– Spanish Outposts
Colonial Outposts
1550-1650
• New France: An Outpost in the Global
Political Economy
– The Indian Background to French Settlement
– Champlain Encounters the Hurons
– Creating a Middle Ground in New France
– An Outpost in a Global Political Economy
Colonial Outposts
1550-1650
• New Netherland: The Empire of a
Trading Nation
– Colonization by a Private Company
– Slavery and Freedom in the Dutch Political
Economy
– The Dutch-Indian Trading Partnership
– The Beaver Wars
Colonial Outposts
1550-1650
• England Attempts an Empire
– The Origins of English Nationalism
– Raiding Other Empires
– Rehearsal in Ireland
– The Roanoke Venture
– The Abandoned Colony
Colonial Outposts
1550-1650
• Conclusion
AMERICAN PORTRAIT
Don Luís de Velasco Finds His Way Home
“During this period of American history, no sharp
geographic or cultural line separated the Indians
and Europeans.”
– The transformation “Paquiquineo” into “Don Luís,”
1561-1571
• What were the geographic and cultural lines separating the
Indians and Europeans blurred in this story?
• What did the Spanish hope to accomplish with Don Luís?
– Cultural Mediators: Don Luís and Alonso
• Why was distrust an unshakeable stigma—on all fronts—of
such cultural go-betweens?
Pursuing Wealth and Glory
Along the North American Shore
“Whosoever commands the sea commands the trade;
whosoever commands the trade of the world commands
the riches of the world, and consequently the world
itself.”
» Sir Walter Raleigh
• North American colonies: outposts in the global economy
– Common features
• To generate greatest amount of revenue at the lowest cost
• Success depended on cooperation, or elimination, of local Indians
– Initial European Objectives
• Impermanent settlements: quick return on minimal investment
Pursuing Wealth and Glory
Along the North American Shore
– The Huge Geographical Barrier
• Why did England and France hire Italian mariners—John
Cabot (1497) and Giovanni da Verrazano (1524),
respectively—to explore the North Atlantic?
– Why did their respective findings about North America
represent disappointments as far as England and France were
concerned?
– Spanish Outposts
• Why did the Spanish establish outposts in Florida?
• Pedro Menéndez de Avilés takes the French Huguenot Fort
Caroline,1565
– What role did Menéndez play in transplanting the religious and
nationalist conflicts of Europe to North America?
New France: An Outpost in the
Global Political Economy
“A trade that began almost as an accident soon became the basis for
the French empire in modern-day Canada.”
– Early French enterprises in North America, 16th-17th centuries
• Fishing off of Newfoundland is supplemented and eventually eclipsed by fur
trade with Indians
– The Indian Background to French Settlement
• St. Lawrence River Valley, 16th century
– Iroquoian Groups
– Mourning wars
– Champlain Encounters the Hurons
• St. Lawrence River Valley, 17th century
– Quebec founded by Champlain, 1608
» What was the purpose of the settlement?
» Why and how did the French accommodate their Montagnais hosts?
» Why were the upstream western Indians (Algonquins and Hurons) of special
interest to Champlain?
» What role did Catholic missionary priests play in the French version of the
New World?
New France: An Outpost in the
Global Political Economy
“The French were drawing the Indians into a global economy, a
process that dramatically changed not only the political economy of
the North Americans, but that of the Europeans as well.”
– Creating a Middle Ground in New France
• What was this “middle ground”?
– Why did the fur trade encourage (require?) both Indians and Frenchmen to relax
their respective cultural norms in the space of exchange?
– How did this mutual accommodation impact each side?
» How did both Indian and French fur traders—in terms of appearance,
lifestyle, language, etc.—come to embody the middle ground?
» Consider: the “Métis” offspring of the middle ground
– An Outpost in a Global Political Economy
• What were the world market forces that shaped and expanded the French
fur trade enterprise?
– What were the negative consequences of this expansion on Indian groups, such
as the Huron, who had grown increasingly dependent on trade?
» Epidemics
» Depletion of natural resources
» Intertribal competition and warfare
New Netherland: The Empire of a
Trading Nation
• Even more than the French and Spanish colonies…New Netherland
was shaped by the forces of commerce.”
– Two Qualities that Distinguished the Dutch Outpost:
• Private and non-missionary venture
– Colonization by a Private Company
• What political factors made Amsterdam a thriving economic metropolis—the
center of the world’s economy?
• Why did the Dutch East India Company commission Henry Hudson to
explore North America?
– In what ways was his river “discovery” a disappointment?
• How was the Hudson River Valley reconsidered and transformed by the
Dutch West India Company, beginning in 1624?
» Fort Orange (present-day Albany)
» New Amsterdam (present-day New York City)
– How did the company merchants attract colonists to its new settlement
enterprises?
» Patroons
– Considering the ethnic and economic character of the colony, what unique
challenges did the governors of New Netherland face?
New Netherland: The Empire of a
Trading Nation
“In the context of the Netherlands’ lucrative trade in sugar
and slaves, the colony at New Netherland was only a
sideshow.”
– Slavery and Freedom in the Dutch Political Economy
• The policies of the Dutch West India Company were driven by profit
through trade, rather than principles of toleration and freedom.
– How did Indians, Jews, and Africans factor differently in this equation?
– The Dutch-Indian Trading Partnership
• How did the Mohawks outmaneuver the Mahicans in the economic
sweepstakes of the Hudson River Valley?
• How did the English eventually outmaneuver the Dutch?
– The Beaver Wars
• The economic downturn of New Netherland precipitated a longlasting bloody regional war, which pitted English-allied Indians
against French-allied Indians.
England Attempts an Empire
“England came late to the business of empire building, but by the
time the process was completed, that nation dominated not only
North America but also much of the world.”
– The Origins of English Nationalism
• Monarchial consolidation and stability
– The rise of the Protestant Queen: Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603)
• Richard Hakluyt x 2 (cousins: older and younger)
– What rhetoric did the Hakluyts employ to promote an English New World venture?
» What were the nationalist, mercantilist, and militant Protestant elements
united in this vision?
– Raiding Other Empires
• English Privateering
– Why did Elizabeth prefer piracy over colonization?
• Sir Francis Drake
– In what ways did Drake come to represent “the English version of the
conquistador”?
– Rehearsal in Ireland
• What model of colonization emerged from the English conquest of Ireland,
1565-1576?
England Attempts an Empire
– The 1st Roanoke Venture, 1585
• Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Richard Grenville, and the colonists
– How did Raleigh’s plan for the Roanoke colony fit into
Elizabeth’s privateering strategy?
» What kinds of people would outfit this military outpost?
– What practical realities of Roanoke—environmental and
political—stood in the way of this vision?
» In what ways were these problems exacerbated by Sir
Richard Grenville’s military style of command?
– The 2nd Roanoke Venture, 1587
• How did Raleigh modify his plans for his second attempt to
establish a permanent colony at Roanoke?
– In what ways was it already doomed in the wake of the
previous venture?
– What was the fate of the Abandoned Colony?
Colonial Outposts
1550-1650
• Revisiting the Common Threads:
>> What did it mean for the English in North America that
they came late to the business of establishing an
overseas empire?
>> Chart the path that each nation took toward offering
greater freedom for some groups and less freedom for
others.
>> Although they were all European nations, the empires of
Spain, France, Holland, and England all developed in
different ways. Why?
>> Why did each nation have a somewhat different
relationship with Native Americans?