Why was Europe setting up colonies? (Read by Sept. 22,25)

Why was Europe setting up colonies? First of all, in order to truly answer that question, we must define a few terms. When talking about European colonization, typically, we are actually referring specifically to Iberian (Spanish and Portuguese), Dutch, French, and English colonization. While other countries set up colonies, especially later in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, these five countries were, by far, the most successful and prolific.

Very roughly speaking, we can divided colonization into two categories, or styles. The first, practiced especially by the Iberians, evolved from the earliest voyages of the explorers. These Iberian explorers sought to discover raw materials and export them to their home countries. During the first years of colonization, this practice involved sending precious metals from the new world to the old. This practice resulted from the European use of precious metals not as decorations, but as a store of value. Gold and silver to an Aztec were like a beautiful flower or a lovely sunset, to a 15^th century European they were portable power that allowed them to buy whatever they liked, be it land, houses, clothing or employees.  

Watch: From Bullion to Bubbles

The Iberian's quest for gold and silver, at a practical level, involved small groups of heavily armed Spanish and Portuguese settlers who forced large groups of Native American boys and men to mine for these precious metals. These mines, lacking modern safety precautions were dangerous places to work for the young Native American men, and many were maimed and killed. This tendency began to expand as time went by, and similar slave plantations were set up to raise the latest trendy product in Europe: sugar.

Over the years, the loneliness of Iberian settlers and the absence of Native men killed in the mines and plantations led to the large scale intermarriage between Iberian men and Native women. Today the populations of the former Iberian colonies of Central and South America are largely made up of the descendants of this intermarriage.      

On the other half of the Americas a different system was at work. From Henry VIII’s conversion to Protestantism in 1534, England had experienced low grade conflict with another great seafaring nation on the Atlantic: Spain. In 1588 this relationship reached its most tense moment, when an invasion fleet, the Armada, nearly brought England back into the fold of Catholic nations. Beaten by British privateers such as Francis Drake, as well as a well-timed storm, the Armada was destroyed and England was saved.

Watch: Spanish Armada Documentary   (Optional)

Increasingly wealthy, and temporarily safe from Spanish invasion, England set to work expanding her control of the British Isles, as many regions such as Ireland had not converted to Protestantism en masse. One of the most important aspects of this effort was the creation of the Plantation of Ulster, which was set up in northern Ireland in 1609.

The Plantation of Ulster was an ingenious plan devised to stabilize Catholic Ireland’s most rebellious territory by moving thousands of Protestant settlers, mostly from nearby Scotland, into the most anti-English, pro-Catholic province: Ulster. These settlers, happy to claim free or very cheap lands, even if they were technically owned by others, fought with and eventually displaced the Catholic inhabitants, transforming the region into one of the most loyal parts of Ireland.

Over the following century, English settlers in America, similarly lured by free or very cheap land, settled on lands claimed by Native Americans rather than Catholics. Unlike the mostly male Iberian settlers searching for gold, silver, and sugar, the English colonists came as families searching for farm lands. These English settlers, as well as the Dutch and French, established small versions of their home societies in the new world. Many of them named towns and districts after familiar locations, and imported familiar fruits, vegetables, and livestock to the new world. Rather than rapidly exploiting the land, they sought to create a long term recreation of their homelands.

In Britain, with populations booming, America became an outlet for minorities such as Catholics and Quakers, as well as a means of exporting the impoverished. Far from the disease ridden cities of England, Americans often from impoverished backgrounds were able to start again in a relatively safe, healthy environment with all the benefits of British technological innovation. Within a few decades, Americans were noticeably healthier and even taller than their British compatriots.  

Meanwhile, Spain and Portugal, having grown rich off of South American gold faced a surprising problem. Wealthy from their colonial enterprises, the Iberian states could simply purchase goods and services from their poorer European neighbors. As a result, industries increasingly booming in England failed to develop in Spain and Portugal. As industrialization increased in the late 17th and 18th centuries, the Iberians and their colonies were surpassed by the technological innovations of England. Increasingly impoverished, the Spanish colonies in North America weakened and over time largely fell into the orbit of the English.

Thus we can see in the cases of both the Iberian powers and England, the purposes and methodologies of colonization had long-term impacts on the cultures of the new world.


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