Spanish Colonization PDF

Spanish Colonization Christopher Columbus ​ The Portuguese expanded their exploration around Africa as the Caravel, a ship that can travel into the wind. ​ 1492- End of Reconquista ​ Spain wanted to expel Musilms ​ Spain competing with Portugal ​ Christopher Columbus was a navi...

Spanish Colonization Christopher Columbus ​ The Portuguese expanded their exploration around Africa as the Caravel, a ship that can travel into the wind. ​ 1492- End of Reconquista ​ Spain wanted to expel Musilms ​ Spain competing with Portugal ​ Christopher Columbus was a navigator, born in 1451 in Genoa, now known as Italy ​ Columbus had sailed a lot in his life and he read a lot ​ Columbus liked the book The Account of Marco Polo and his travels in China as Columbus dreamed of getting to China in order to access the riches like silk and spices. ​ Columbus also wanted to convert people living in Asia to Christianity and teaming up with them in order to expel Muslims from the Middle East. ​ Columbus was not the first European to discover the Americans ​ In 1000 CE Vikings colonized Greenland and explored what is known today as Canada However, the Vikings lasted less than a generation in the Americas and this information did not leave Norway so there was not a lot of worldwide impact. ​ Columbus was not responsible for proving that the world was round. ​ Most people had known that the World was round since the Ancient Greeks ​ Thought the world was too big. Estimated that the world was 25,000 miles ​ Columbus thought the world was only 16 to 18,000 miles ​ Columbus thought that the coast of Japan was about 3,000 miles to the west of Europe. He was wrong but 3,000 miles west of Europe he found land ​ Columbus thought that he had encountered China, so he tries to find people go with him such as the Portuguese, France and England, but they say that the idea is too risky ​ Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella, agrees to give Columbus 3 ships and a crew of 87 men and they set sail in August of 1942 ​ In October of 1492, he made landfall called San Salvador, known today as the Bahamas, and continued exploring the coast of Cuba known as Juana. Consequences of Columbu’s Voyage on the Tainos and Europe ​ In October of 1492, Columbus landed in the Caribbean where he met the Indigenous People living their known as the the Tainos ​ The Tainos were adept at fishing and probably matrilineal. Traced their families line through the women, generous people, worshipped Ancestor spirits called Zemis ​ We still use words from Tainos that were borrowed by the Spanish. Ex. Barbacoa, huracan, Ayiti ​ Columbus sailed around Caribbean and then went back to Europe leaving 39 men behind, built a fort ​ Columbus wrote a letter to the finance minister to Ferdinand and Isabella, Louis de Saint Angel. ​ Columbus named islands after their leaders, taken possession of the islands, claims this land in the name of Spain and is not opposed because the Tainos have no idea what he is saying  ​ Columbus has religious motivations ​ Cathay means China which is what Columbus named the mainland ​ Columbus is saying that they are getting along with the Natives but they are not a threat ​ Columbus says that colonizing this land will give Spain gold, spices, cotton, slaves and this convinces Isabella and Ferdinand to send Columbus on a second Voyage in 1493 ​ This time, Columbus has 1200 men and 17 ships and they bring with them livestock, horses, cattle, pig and sagar can plants so they can turn the land into a plantation. ​ Wanted to mine for gold and want to further explore this area. ​ Portuguese were so dominant in colonizing that the Spanish was nervous that they would take the new land ​ The Pope helped create a treaty called the Treaty of Tordesillas which divides the world between the Spanish and Portuguese. East of the line is Portuguese and west of the line is Spain ​ Brazil was part of the Portuguese land as it was over the line. ​ They didn’t ask the Native people, or anyone in Europe about dividing the world ​ Spain thought that this area as their sovereign territory and sent conquistadors to conquer Mexico, Florida and South America and they became very wealthy as a nation ​ Columbus was not nice to the natives and tried to send them back to Europe to be enslaved but the Natives got European diseases and quickly dies. So instead he forced the native people to do labor such as mine gold. ​ Columbus made people over 14 give him a certain amount of gold per month if they would have their hands chopped off. ​ Spanish were very mean to Natives and historians estimate that when the Spanish arrived arrived there were 1 to 3 million Tainos living in the Caribbean and 100 years later there were 200 left and this was mostly due to diseases brought over by Europeans and overwork and poor treatment ​ Natives were forced to mine when they should have been growing crops and many were murdered by the Spanish The Columbian Exchange ​ Columbus’s voyage transformed the not only the America’s, but Europe and Africa as well and this was called the Columbian exchange ​ The Columbian Exchange was a process of transferring plants, animals, microbes, and people across the Atlantic ​ Some things like plants that were suited well for a country’s climate were intentionally planted, while others like diseases that were on hitchhikers were unintentional ​ Had a tremendous environmental affect and consequences on both sides of the Atlantic, Columbus began the process of bringing things from the Old world to the new World ​ Spain wanted to use it's tropical landscape to grow cash crops, so Columbus brought with him sugar and grapes for wine and coffee and these crops would go for a lot of money in Europe ​ Imported food so they didn’t have to take away sugar growth  ​ Europeans also brought New World crops back to the Old world such as tomatoes, corn and potatoes etc. ​ These crops are calorically dense so you can feed more people with these types of crops ​ Feeding more causes increase population in Europe and Africa ​ Europeans brought lots of animals to the New world. Horses were good for travel, pigs ate the crops ​ Europeans had bad diseases that caused 90% of all people who were living in the Americas died of disease ​ Europeans did not contract as many diseases from the Native Americans because Europeans were used to living in close quarters and Europeans lived close to animals so they were used to the animal diseases ​ Since so many Natives died, Europeans could not use them as labor. Europeans went to the West Coast of Africa and brought enslaved African People against their will. Columbian Exchange Article ​ Mercantilism is an economic theory that rejected free trade and promoted government regulation of the economy for the purpose of enhancing state power. This defined the economic policy of European colonizing countries. ​ The process by which commodities, people, and diseases crossed the Atlantic is known as the Columbian Exchange ​ Mercantilism shaped the European perceptions of wealth from the 1500s to the late 1700s ​ In order to gain power, nations had to amass wealth by mining these precious raw materials from their colonial possessions. ​ Colonial mercantilism is a set of protectionist policies designed to benefit the colonizing nation. It relied on colonies, rich materials, cheap labor, colonial loyalty to the home government and control of the shipping trade. ​ The Spanish would take valuable products from the Natives ,like corn beer, and sell this product for a market gain. This process disrupted native economies and started early commercial capitalism. ​ Native Americans have been growing tobacco for medicine and ritual purposes however, Europeans believe tobacco could improve concentration and enhance wisdom. ​ Europeans originally thought that tobacco was proof of the native savagery, however, European colonists started smoking and brought it across the Atlantic. Europeans claimed that tobacco could help with headaches and skin irritations and in the 1950s it became the first true global commodity. ​ Chocolate was also introduced to Europeans by native people and chocolate contains a stimulant, which may be why people believed it brought them closer to the sacred world. ​ While the New World provided Europeans with chocolate and tobacco. The Europeans brought animals to the New World and many native Americans use horses to transform their hunting and gathering into a much more mobile process. ​ However microbes which are silent, invisible forms of life were also transferred during the Columbian Exchange and native people did not have immunity to the diseases from  the old world. Some of the diseases include chickenpox, measles, mumps, smallpox, and syphilis. Environmental and health effects on European contact with the New World ​ Overview from Article- Colonization was not good for many ecosystems as the bringing in of new organisms ultimately eliminated others. The Europeans also brought many diseases with them that decimated the native American populations. Colonists and Native Americans alike look to new plants as possible medical resources. ​ Europeans overhunted beavers in order to make hats and the native Americans used the Europeans weapons as well to overhunt the beavers. When beavers became extinct in places like New England and New York, beaver Ponds, which had served as habitats for fish as well as water sources for deer, moose, and other animals or no more. And this greatly affected the ecosystem. Also pigs ate all plants and deer food. ​ Native Americans did not believe in private ownership of land unlike colonizers. Many Native Americans who moved seasonally to take advantage of natural resources on the land now had found areas to be off-limits that were claimed by colonizers. ​ Europeans brought microbes to the North American environment and since the native Americans did not have any immunity to these diseases, 75% of native Americans were killed along the New England coast between 1616 and 1618. The very young and very old were the most susceptible to these diseases and the loss of an older generation resulted in the loss of no tradition while the deaths of children only made for more trauma. ​ Some indigenous people saw disease as the weapon used by hostile spiritual forces, and they went to war to exorcise the disease from them. These “ mourning wars” were made to gain captives to be tortured or adopted to assuage the anger and grief caused by loss. ​ as new plants were being discovered in North America, the science botany became very popular. Both tobacco and sugar were known as very valuable products from North America. ​ Native Americans, who knew the plants of the New World would’ve been very helpful and cataloging the new plants. Spanish Colonization ​ Native Americans encountered the Spanish at the end of the 1400s when Columbus arrived in the New World in 1492 and reported that there were great riches in the New World. Spain and Portugal were trying to decide how they would divide the riches of the old world and the New World between them. ​ Many Spanish conquistadors and conquistadors began exploring the Americas in order to find gold glory and God.(3 G’s of Colonization) The Spanish wanted to bring Catholicism to the native Americans. ​ Spanish explorers were originally looking for a passage to Asia through the Americans, but found out that there were lots of riches in the Americas. ​ Tenochtitlan came to the attention of conquistadors as it was the capital of the Aztec Empire. ​ The Aztecs were not well loved in Mexico and they ruled over a bass territory with many smaller tribes. They required the tribes to give them tribute and even human captive for sacrifice. ​ In 1519 Hernan Cortis, who was a Spanish conquistador and a group of about 600 men had translators to help him work his way across Mexico and learned about the dislike for the Aztec empire. In the capital 20,000 native Americans, we’re ready to support him and wage war against the city. ​ At first the Emperor of the Aztec Empire, Moctezuma the Second, was very kind to the Spaniards as they looked very intimidating with their animals and weapons. However, this did not last long and by 1521 the capital had fallen and the emperor died. ​ The Spanish began to build on the ruins of Tenochtitlan, Mexico City but the Spanish turned out to be much crueler rulers than the Aztecs. diseases continued to be spread across the native American population. ​ The Spanish crown wanted to place control over this new territory and they did that through the Encomiendas System, which was a type of labor system that would grant land holders called encomenderos the right to the labor of native Americans in a village and anything those native Americans produced through their slave labor. ​ The native Americans get Christianization, which to the Catholic Spanish Crown was an important goal to convert all of the world's people to Catholicism. ​ The system was really just another way of slavery. ​ This harsh treatment from the Spanish and disease. The Europeans' spread caused the native population of this region to go from 20 million to 2 million by 1600. ​ The Spanish began to bring enslaved Africans to labor in the New World and the arrival of the Spanish was the worst outcome for the native people of Mexico. ​ In order to resist the Spanish in many ways, native people outwardly adopted Christianity while maintaining their ancestral beliefs inwardly. ​ However, the Spanish would sometimes push the native people too far as in the case of the Pueblo revolt in 1680 where after a few generations of being forced to shed all the religious beliefs in favor of Christianity or face severe punishment, the Pueblo people rose up against the Spanish and were led by a man named Pope. ​ The Pueblo people killed Spanish priests, burned down churches, and replaced them with Kivas, which is their own place of worship and eventually drove the Spanish out. However, in the next 50 years, the Spanish did reestablish control of the region and took a much more accommodating approach to Pueblo society. ​ In order to stop relationships between native Americans and Spanish men, the Spanish developed a caste system that ranked individuals by how much Spanish blood they had so that people with pure Spanish blood, known as criollos, were at the top of the hierarchy and people who had Native American heritage and European heritage or called mestizo at the time and people with European heritage, and African heritage were called mulatto. ​ As you moved up or down the scale, you had more legal rights than the groups below you and this is what is known as Casta painting, which is very carefully categorized as every person fell on his hierarchy of race.  ​ This caste system was the beginning of signing legal status to individual based on their race ​ this contrast to how the English wanted to completely eradicate Native Americans from the land while the Spanish wanted to incorporate them into Spanish beliefs The Spanish conquistadors and colonial empire ​ Overview from the article- in the European race to colonial dominance the Treaty of Tordesillas legitimize Spain’s holdings in the New World, indicating Spanish primacy over Portugal. The success of Columbus usher in an error of Spanish conquest that led to numerous other European explorers, attempting similar colonization projects. Spain gained immense wealth from expansionism which translated into an influx of Spanish art and cultural capital. ​ Conquistadors such as Hernan Cortes were inspired by Columbus' discovery of wealth. Cortes went to the city of Tenochtitlan which was the capital of the Aztec empire, and even though they were horrified by the practice of human sacrifice, they were fascinated by the Aztec wealth in gold. ​ Cortes attempted to take over however, when the Spanish murdered hundreds of high ranking Mexica during a religious festival the people retaliated and Cortes and his people fled for their lives. ​ Cortes created allies and recruited tens of thousands of native Americans who did not like Aztec rule. With this anger, Cortes was able to reclaim the capital for Spain and renamed it Mexico City. The Spanish brought smallpox which took a heavy toll on the people and illness played a much greater role in the cities downfall than violence. ​ Cortes was given a woman named Malintzin, who the natives of Tabasco gave him as tribute. Malintzin translated for Cortes and had a relationship with him. Their son Martin may have been the first mestizo person of mixed indigenous American and European descent. Malintzin is a controversial figure in the history of the Atlantic World, as some people view her as a traitor because she helped Cortes conquer the Aztecs, while others see her as a victim of European expansion. ​ Spanish conquistador, Francisco Pizarro, arrived in the Spanish Caribbean in 1509. He was drawn by the promise of wealth and titles and he participated in successful expeditions in Panama before following rumors of Inca wealth to the south. Although his first efforts against the Inca Empire in the 1520s failed, Pizarro captured the Inca emperor Atahualpa in 1532 and executed him soon thereafter. In 1533, Pizarro founded Lima, Peru. Like Cortez. Pizarro had to fight the native peoples of the lands he was conquering and also competitors from his own country. ​ Hernando de Soto had participated in Pizarro’s conquest of the Inca and from 1539 to 1542 he led his own expeditions to what is today the southeastern United States. He and his followers explored what we now know as Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Texas. They brought European diseases and violence that killed thousands of native lives. In 1542, de Soto himself died of sickness and the surviving Spaniards returned to Mexico City without finding the abundance of gold and silver they had assumed they would.  ​ Francisco Vasquez de Coronado went to Mexico, then called New Spain, in 1535 and between 1540 and 1542, Coronado led Spaniards and native allies on a large exploration of the southwestern United States. He found the Grand Canyon, Colorado River, and other natural wonders. During the winter of 1540–41 the explorers waged war against the Tiwa people in present-day New Mexico. They thought they would find gold and silver, however the expedition simply left Coronado bankrupt. ​ By 1600, Spain had lots of money from New World resources and gold and silver began to connect European nations through trade, and the Spanish money supply ballooned, which signified the beginning of the economic system known as capitalism. The new riches ultimately created mass inflation and economic distress. However, Spain gained creative capital from their new global reach. These developments catapulted Spain into the Golden Age or Siglo de Oro. ​ One of this period’s most famous works is the novel “The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha”, by Miguel de Cervantes. This two-volume book told a tale of a gentleman, who reads so many tales of chivalry and knighthood that he becomes unable to tell reality from fiction. With his faithful sidekick Sancho Panza, Don Quixote leaves reality behind and sets out to revive chivalry by doing battle with what he perceives as the enemies of Spain. Spain also produced impressive art as they were at an all-time high of control. African Societies and the beginning of the Atlantic Slave trade ​ Overview from the Article- Africans organized their societies around the family unit, and gold supply often dictated which society held the most power up until the start of the Atlantic slave trade.The beginning of the Atlantic slave trade in the late 1400s disrupted African societal structure as Europeans infiltrated the West African coastline, drawing people from the center of the continent to be sold into slavery. New sugar and tobacco plantations in the Americas and Caribbean heightened the demand for enslaved people, ultimately forcing a total of 12.5 million Africans across the Atlantic and into slavery. ​ West Africa includes lush rainforests along the equator, Savannah is on either side of the forest and much drier land to the north. Until about 600 CE most Africans living in this area were hunter-gatherers. ​ There were large trading centers along the rivers, such as Senegal, Gambia, Niger, Volta, and Congo, most West Africans lived in small villages and identified primarily with their extended family/clan, rather than an ethnic or national identity. Wives, children, and dependents were a sign of wealth and men frequently practiced polygyny, or the custom of having more than one wife. In times of need, West Africans relied on relatives from near and far for support. Hundreds of separate dialects emerged from different west African clans and in modern Nigeria, nearly 500 languages are still spoken. ​ African societies practiced human bondage long before the Atlantic slave trade began. Famine or fear of stronger enemies might force one tribe to ask another for help and give themselves in bondage in exchange for assistance. Similar to the European serf system, those seeking protection or relief from starvation would become the servants of those  who provided relief. Debt might also be worked off through some form of servitude. Furthermore, prisoners of war between different African societies often became enslaved. ​ Typically, these servants became a part of the extended tribal family. There is some evidence of chattel slavery, in which people were treated as personal property, in the Nile Valley. It appears there was a slave-trade route through the Sahara that brought sub-Saharan Africans to Rome, a global center of slavery. ​ Religious movement helped shape African societal structure. Following the death of the prophet Muhammad in 632 CE, Islam spread quickly across North Africa, bringing not only a unifying faith but a political and legal structure as well. Only those who had converted to Islam could rule or be engaged in trade. ​ The first major empire to emerge in West Africa was the Ghana Empire. By 750, the Soninke farmers of the region had become wealthy by taxing traders who traversed their area. For instance, the Niger River basin supplied gold to the Amazigh (Berber) and Arab traders from west of the Nile Valley, who brought cloth, weapons, and manufactured goods into the African interior. Since Ghana’s king controlled the gold supply, he was able to maintain price controls and afford a strong military. ​ Soon, however, a new kingdom emerged. By 1200 CE, under the leadership of Sundiata Keita, Mali replaced Ghana as the leading state in West Africa. After Sundiata’s rule, the court converted to Islam, and Muslim scribes played a large part in administration and government. Miners then discovered huge new deposits of gold east of the Niger River. By the 14th century, the empire was so wealthy that while on a hajj, or pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca, Mali’s ruler Mansa Musa gave away enough gold to create serious price inflation in the cities along his route. Timbuktu, the capital city, became a leading Islamic center for education, commerce, and slave trade. ​ The European slave trade began with Portugal’s exploration of the west coast of Africa in search of a sea trade route to the East. The East had bountiful new resources, like spices and silk, and the Portuguese were eager to acquire these goods without the laborious journey by land from Europe to Asia. ​ In 1482, Portuguese traders built Elmina Castle in present-day Ghana, on the west coast of Africa. Originally built as a fortified trading post, the castle had mounted cannons facing out to sea, not inland toward continental Africa. The Portuguese had greater fear of a naval attack from other Europeans than of a land attack from Africans. ​ Although the Portuguese originally used the fort for trading gold, by the 16th century they had shifted their focus to trading enslaved people, as the demand for slave labor ballooned in the New World. The dungeon of the fort morphed to serve as a holding pen for Africans from the interior of the continent. On the upper floors, Portuguese traders ate, slept, and prayed. Enslaved people lived in the dungeon for weeks or months until ships arrived to transport them to Europe or the Americas. For them, the dungeon of Elmina was their last sight of their home continent. ​ By 1444, the Portuguese brought enslaved people from Africa to work on the sugar plantations of the Madeira Islands, off the coast of modern Morocco. The slave trade then expanded across the Atlantic as European colonies demanded an ever-increasing  number of workers for the extensive plantations growing the labor-intensive crops of tobacco, sugar, and eventually rice and cotton. ​ Soon, the Spanish, Dutch, and English all followed the Portuguese in transporting enslaved people across the Atlantic. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database estimates that 12.5 million Africans were sent through the Middle Passage ,across the Atlantic, to work in the New World. Many Africans died on their way to the Americas, and those who did arrive often faced conditions worse than the slave ships. Soon, the Atlantic slave trade would contribute to enshrining a racial hierarchy into New World culture. French and Dutch Colonization ​ Three years after Cortez captured Tenochtitlan the French government sent its first explorer to North America to look for what many European explorers had been looking for since the beginning, a passage to the East, which does not exist, but found that there are lots of riches in North America ​ New France and New Netherlands are very small especially compared to new Spain. New France and new Netherlands help us see the different goals of colonial powers that led to very different types of settlement in the new world and a very different relationship between Europeans and Native Americans. ​ The two colonies are focused around the St. Lawrence river and the Hudson river. These colonies sat on the rivers as rivers are the highways of the world up until the dimension of the railroad because these colonies were primarily interested in trade. The French and Dutch explorers were particularly interested in getting valuable furs to trade from Native Americans living in the northern part of North America so they could sell them in Europe. ​ Europeans met on an equal basis with native Americans in the process of trade, so Europeans wanted to be pets and also the pelts of other animals, often fish, which was in great supply in the northern region of North America. ​ The relationships between Europeans and Native Americans were considerably friendlier and more cooperative than their relationships with the Spanish and Native Americans. Europeans quickly discovered that it made a lot more sense to just pay Native Americans to hunt the beavers for them. Consequently, there were considerably fewer French and Dutch settlers in new Netherland and new France then there was a new Spain, and this was because there were fewer of them and they generally ended up doing things more on the turn of native Americans. ​ Instead of weapons like the Spanish, the French and Dutch wanted to foster trade relationships by gift giving and intermarriage. French traders learned the language and married native women and had children with them and allied with the Native American tribes against their own enemies and went to war with them. ​ New Netherland was very focused on trade and new Amsterdam was a little bit of a company town controlled by the Dutch West India company which sought to make the most of all goodies that could be brought from North America and then ship to Europe. ​ Europeans' major concerns were which animals were located with valuable pelts, and where Native American tribes lived. The French and the Dutch learned all the names  and map of all this territory because they cooperated with the native Americans to get these pelts ​ Europeans were competing with each other for resources in the new world, hoping the day could secure the best trade deals for fur with native Americans and prevent other nations from securing those furs. The Dutch aligned with a native American tried in the New World as training partners because they had a line with any enemy Native American tribe. The Dutch were trying to block the French from getting the most valuable fur. ​ As Europeans recruited native Americans into their competitions to supply Europe with furs, Native Americans recruited Europeans into their inter-tribal feuds to supply the Americas with European goods. ​ Spain's goal was to quickly extract natural resources from the Americas and to set up plantations for tobacco and later sugar. Spain also wanted to convert as many of the native people to Catholicism by any force necessary. Consequently, most of the Spanish settlers who came to the New World were men and adventurers who treated native people with violence and enslaved them. ​ Spaniards in some cases had relationships with native women and African woman that resulted in a very complex set of racial designations that we see in the caste system. ​ Even though France and the Netherlands wanted furs and fish, they were very careful to cultivate very friendly relationships with native Americans, including by intermarrying with them in a deliberate and formal way so that they could take advantage of having natives do the hunting for them rather than doing it themselves. This was so only a few men came to new France and new Netherland, unlike the numbers of Spain. Also, unlike the Spanish, French and Dutch did not violently force Native Americans to convert to Catholicism. French and Dutch Exploration in the New World ​ Overview from Article- gold, silver, and furs attracted European exploration colonization and competition in the New World. Rivalries between European nations were often rooted and religious or political feuds took place in Europe yet these tensions played out in the theater of the New World. The Spanish lost a strong hole in North America as the French Dutch and British began to explore and colonize the northeast. ​ France was a Catholic nation like Spain that was committed to expanding Catholicism around the globe. Jacques Cartier Claimed Northern North America for France naming the area around the St. Lawrence river new France. However, Cartier made exaggerated claims about the areas, mineral wealth and was unable to send riches back to France or establish a permanent colony. ​ Sam de Champlain founded Quebec and made numerous Atlantic crossings as he worked tirelessly to promote New France. Champlain had a different approach than the other imperial powers where he fostered a good relationship with the native people as they expanded Westward. He learned that becoming friendly with the native people was essential to successful trade. Champlain explored the Great Lakes Hudson Bay, and  eventually made it to the Mississippi river. Champlain even agreed to fight with a native American tribe against their enemy. ​ The French were primarily interested in establishing commercially viable colonial outposts so they created extensive trading networks throughout new France. They relied on native hunters to harvest for especially beaver pets and to exchange these items for French goods. Different also wanted to colonize tropical zones in order to replicate the wealth of Spain. The French colonies, Guadalupe and Martinique in order to boost its economy with lucrative plantation sites and Africans slave labor. ​ Dutch entrance into the Atlantic World is part of the larger story of religious and imperial conflict in the early modern era. In the 1500s, Calvinism, one of the major Protestant reform movements, began to take root in the Spanish Netherlands and the new sect desired its own state. Holland was established in 1588 as a Protestant nation, but would not be recognized by Spain until 1648. ​ In an effort to stop Protestantism, King Philip of Spain assembled a massive force of over thirty thousand men and 130 ships, and sent this giant navy, known as the Spanish Armada, towards England and Holland, but the skilled English navy and a maritime storm destroyed the fleet. The defeat of the Spanish Armada was only one part of a larger but undeclared war between Protestantism and Catholicism. ​ Quickly, the Dutch inserted themselves into the Atlantic colonial race. They distinguished themselves as commercial leaders in the seventeenth century, as their mode of colonization relied on powerful corporations: the Dutch East India Company, chartered in 1602 to trade in Asia, and the Dutch West India Company, established in 1621 to colonize and trade in the Americas. ​ While employed by the Dutch East India Company in 1609, the English sea captain Henry Hudson explored New York Harbor and the river that now bears his name. Like many explorers of the time, Hudson was actually seeking a northwest passage to Asia and its wealth (that's why he was employed by the Dutch East India Company instead of the Dutch West India Company), but the wealth of coveted beaver pelts alone provided a reason to claim it for the Netherlands. ​ The Dutch named their colony New Netherlands, and it served as a fur-trading outpost for the expanding and powerful Dutch West India Company. They expanded in the area to create other trading posts, where their exchange with local Algonquian and Iroquois peoples brought the Dutch and native peoples into alliance. The Dutch became a commercially powerful rival to Spain--Amsterdam soon became trade hub for all the Atlantic World. ​ The religious competition between Catholicism and Protestantism fueled English colonization, even though England lacked the financial resources to participate in such experiences. England devoted its energy to colonization of Ireland and Queen Elizabeth. The first was preoccupied with blocking Spain’s efforts to eliminate protestantism. However, Elizabeth encouraged English privateers to sync Spanish ships whenever they could and each year the English took more than $100,000 from Spain. ​ Queen Elizabeth did not sanction an early attempt at colonization in 1584 when Sir Walter Raleigh attempted to establish a colony at Roanoke, which is an island off the coast of present-day North Carolina. Roanoke is still called the lost colony as what  happened to. The colonist is a mystery. However, English promoters of colonization will continue to explore the new world in the years to come despite the curious failure. England in the Age of Exploration ​ England did not have a successful colonial venture in the New World until 1607 with Jamestown. This is more than 100 years later than Spain’s first colonial adventures. England had an ongoing conflict between Catholics and protestants and this started when Henry the eighth broke away from the Catholic Church in Rome to start his own church. He named it the church of England and this was a protestant religion. ​ Henry had two daughters, one who was a protestant like him and one who was Catholic. The Catholic one occupied the throne for many years, but the other one man to wrestle it away from her. Once the protestant was on the throne, England became a protestant nation. Because of all the issues going on in England, they were quite late to the colonizing game. ​ England also has colonial problems closer to home in Ireland. England is trying to succeed at subduing Ireland as one of its colonies and they are undertaking a bloody and costly war and they think of this Catholic Irish population almost as savages who don’t know what’s good for them. And the opinion of English, what’s good for the English rule and prostatism, is what’s good for the Irish. ​ England is also dealing with economic depression and the crown doesn’t have a lot of money and there is great crime and poverty throughout the nation. The Crown can’t actually afford to sponsor colonial exploits the way that Spain sponsors Columbus; however they still manage to get some riches out of the New World by giving ship captains license to plunder Spanish ships coming back with New World riches. Instead of doing all the work of apologizing, England would use their very talented navy to steal the riches from the ships. Motivations for English Colonization ​ When England has sorted out the internal religious conflict, they feel they have to compete with Spain, which is a Catholic nation for riches and for souls. Spain has already been reaping great riches from the new world in the form of gold down in Mexico and Central America. ​ England also feels that it has to compete with the Catholic nation of France, which has been making excellent profit by trading furs with Native Americans in New York and Canada. ​ England also wanted to join the game of colonization in the New World because of the invention of the joint stock company. The joint stock companies were the precursor to the modern day corporation and like modern day corporations what they did was spread both the riches and also the risk of any kind of entrepreneur undertaking, meaning that people could buy shares in a joint stock company, and those shares were divested from  your personal wealth. This meant that adventurers, people seeking wealth, could go to the New World and safely try to make a profit further investors ​ since Spain is making a lot from gold and sugar, maybe private individuals with the blessing can start extracting some of these resources and start creating wealth for their investors. ​ England was having a serious economic depression and a lot of poverty, and England was known as a high class society and these rules were inherited so there was no way to rise up among the ranks. About 95% of the population didn’t belong to either of these groups and a strong majority of those were in poverty in the 1500s and early 1600s. ​ The rate of poverty was because the market for bull had collapsed so many people who worked in wool production or not receiving income. Next was the enclosure movement, and this means that early English towns and manor houses were set up to have some forest filled with nice deer to hunt. At this time the English Lords started to close off these common lands and now the very poor people did not have a place to raise their livestock. They also did not have a source of hunting or protein. ​ The parliament thinks there are too many people in England and this is untrue as we know there are many more people living in London today. However, the English parliament had a very big influence over England and their solution was to send people to the colonies so that they could buy more goods, produce more raw materials and find a different place in the social structure and the economy of England. Early English Settlements- Jamestown ​ As late as 1585, England had not successfully established a New World colony. In 1607 when the Virginia company ,which was a joint stock company, spread out both the shares, the wealth and the risk of expeditions. They received a charter for New World exploration from King James the first and he had similar goals to Queen Elizabeth. They both wanted to find gold, a passage to the Indies and one up the Spanish. ​ No one who went to Virginia expected to set up a colony there. Instead, they expected to go for a couple years, mine tremendous amounts of gold and become very wealthy and live life very well in Europe. The Virginia company expedition was intended to be short term, but that was not the case. ​ They sailed in 1607 into the Chesapeake Bay, and they decided to settle near what they call the James river and named the town Jamestown for King James. However, this land was terrible because the soil was not good, and there were tons of mosquitoes that carry yellow fever and malaria, which led to a huge death toll for the early settlers at Jamestown. ​ The colonists were also incredibly unprepared and unsuited. Most of the men were investors and they usually do not work with their hands. Instead of planting crops for the winner, these gentlemen were busy looking for gold. Jamestown- John Smith and Pocahontas  ​ England’s main goal was to be like Spain by bringing back ships full of gold and silver. The gentleman they sent to Virginia did not find any gold and many were killed by starvation if not already by mosquito borne illnesses. ​ The English settlers who were all men were adventurers and did not want to start families. The settlers ran into a tribe of native Americans and rated the food supplies of them. The tribe kidnapped John Smith, and the leader of the tribe planned to execute John Smith. However, his daughter Matoaka (Pocahontas) convinced him not to. However, the leader was most likely not going to and just wanted to show his leadership. ​ The first year in Jamestown was very rough. In the winter of 1609 to 1610 colonists were so hungry that they resorted to eating vermin and each other. They decided to give up and head back to England, and they were met with new supply ships that continued the Virginia experiment, which will become much more successful after the discovery of tobacco. Jamestown- The Impact of Tobacco ​ When the English settlers were leaving, they were met with reinforcement ships that made them go back to Jamestown. New orders from Lord De la Warr said to get rid of the Native Americans. De la Warr was a veteran of the Irish campaign and he brought his tactics of complete brutality and submission to the native people of the New World. ​ De la Warr raided Native American villages, burned their crops and promoted the idea that there is no such thing as a coexistence between settlers and Native Americans. These conflicts are known as the Anglo-Powhatan wars and they ended first in 1614 when John Rolfe married Pocahontas. By the time the second war was over in 1625 most of the native tribe had been killed or driven away from the area and the English war of extinction against Native Americans had succeeded. ​ John Rolfe also discovered that tobacco was the perfect crop for the marshy Virginia soil, and that tobacco was a commodity that was popular in Europe so they could grow as much tobacco as possible and Europe would buy a lot of tobacco. ​ Settlers found that cultivating tobacco was another way to get rich. This was going to have enormous consequences for the development of Virginia as a colony in terms of its geographic development and its labor force. Tobacco is an incredibly labor-intensive crop so these planters will look for ways to staff a labor force in the New World through the importation of African slaves. The first slave ship arrived in Jamestown in 1619. Jamestown- Life and Labor in the Chesapeake ​ 12 years after Jamestown was founded Africans have been brought to the area. Enslaved Africans were some of the first people who weren’t of native origin in the New World and would help shape the English colonies pretty much from the very start. The system abroad race based slavery did not get started right away. This is because it was  not particularly healthy to live in this area as it’s all a giant swamp. This means there are lots of mosquito borne diseases which kill many settlers and slaves. ​ The two options for help on tobacco was to pay hundreds of dollars for a slave that would probably die very soon because of the conditions or to bring over white laborers from England called indentured servants. Indentured servants are usually men who are not going to inherit anything and choose to go to the New World as the planter would pay the passage on a ship across the Atlantic in exchange for a period of work. At the end of the period you will be given land of your own as well as tools and clothes to be your own planter. However, the endangered servants are still very likely to die. ​ The planters took advantage of something called the headright system. This meant they got 50 acres of land in Virginia and this was just native Americans land that they were appropriating for themselves. Every time you brought one person over from England, you got an additional 50 acres. In the early days, very few servants actually lived to finish their indenture and to make good on the promise for land themselves. ​ In Virginia, there are a few planters who are extremely wealthy and own a lot of land. Then there’s everybody else and then there is a large number of indentured servants who had not been there for long and could die at any moment. The indentured servants who did live through their period of adventure are a small handful of farmers part of the large lower class. There are just a few slaves throughout Virginia. Jamestown- Bacon Rebellion ​ Slavery was not the dominant form of labor in Virginia until much later in the 1600s. The turning point in American slavery was the rebellion led by Nathaniel Bacon and 1676. We have to understand the development of political power and tobacco in Virginia. ​ In 1619, the Virginia company established the first government in Virginia called the House of Burgesses. This is really important because it is the first at least semi Democratic form of government in the New World and this kind of like a parliament that was set up for Virginia so they could debate local issues. Tobacco planters had a lot of stay in the house so the government of Virginia has still got the most power at the very top. ​ White indentured servants, black slaves, and black free people did not have that much difference when it came to political rights. Indentured servants were less of an investment than slaves. Since tobacco is a labor-intensive crop it is extremely hard on the soil and depletes it fast. This means there is a constant need for new soil. There is a constant pressure to add more and more land so you can farm more and more tobacco. This means bringing more indentured servants over. ​ Land became relatively scarce very fast, and it also meant that white settlers continued to move west towards the Appalachian mountains. The end entered servants are running into conflict with the native Americans who are living between the coast and the Appalachian mountains. This catches the attention of the House, as they are trying to make sure there is as little conflict with Native Americans as possible.  ​ In the late 1600s more and more of the indentured servants are living to finish out their terms of denture and have built up immediately to diseases. They are still finding it hard to make a living because the planters don’t want to give up their land or any of their rights because land is always scarce. ​ Nathaniel Bacon wanted to take a harsher stance against the Native Americans on the west where all the white farmers wanted to settle. He gathers a militia full of young white men and also African-American men to actually go after the Native Americans. They raid Native American villages and kill Native Americans living in the area. The governor wants to stop them, but instead of stopping, they marched to Jamestown, which is the capital of Virginia and set it on fire. These acts run the governor out of town and Nathaniel Bacon died of illness. ​ The rebellion continued without his leadership, and the House was very scared for the leaders and planters in Virginia. The house began to think that servitude was not working out. It just happened. There were many such laborers for sale on the coast of West Africa. Puritan New England: Plymouth ​ Overview from article- Puritans were English Protestants who were committed to "purifying" the Church of England by eliminating all aspects of Catholicism from religious practices. English Puritans founded the colony of Plymouth to practice their own brand of Protestantism without interference. New England society was characterized by equality under the law for white male citizens (as demonstrated by the Mayflower Compact), a disciplined work ethic, and a strong maritime economy. ​ New England was marked differently by its founding principles from the commercially oriented Chesapeake tobacco colonies. Puritan families settled in the 1630s, so New England had a religious orientation from the start. England consisted of many men and women who wanted to change the English National Church since the 1580s and they followed the teachings of John Calvin and they were called Puritans because of their insistence on purifying the Church of England. ​ Many leaders in early New England were ministers who studied at Cambridge or Oxford but questioned some of the teaching of the Church of England. They were not allowed to have a career because of this. More Puritans and thousands of people left England to practice their own religion without persecution. Puritan New England offered them the opportunity to live as they believed the Bible demanded. They wanted to create a model of reformed Protestantism, a new English Israel. ​ There was conflict with England and New England because the Puritans wanted to reform anything that undermined the traditional festive culture. They banned bear baiting and theater. Bible was a point of conflict between King James and Puritans. King James had a new Bible printed in order to stop the Puritan’s viewpoints from taking over. The state church prohibited Puritan preachers from preaching because the church believed that the Puritans represented a national threat as their demands did not fall in line with the King’s demands. Many Puritans found refuge in the new world and there were still  differences inside of New England as some people wanted to completely break away from the Church while others just wanted to reform. ​ Pilgrims were the first group of Puritans and they wanted complete separation from the church. They first went to Dutch Colonies to worship freely, however the pilgrims were worried about their children becoming too Dutch and that there was an impending attack on the Dutch Republic by Catholic Spain. So, they left and went to Plymouth Colony in what we know as Massachusetts. William Bradford was the Governor of Plymouth and he was a separatist. Bradford and the other Pilgrim Separatists represented a major challenge to the vision of a unified English national church and empire. On board the Mayflower, which was bound for Virginia but landed on the tip of Cape Cod, Bradford and 40 other adult men signed the Mayflower Compact, which presented a religious, not economic, rationale for colonization. The compact expressed a community ideal of working together. ​ A large portion was established in Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630s, so the Pilgrims at Plymouth combined with them. There were different labor systems between early Puritan New England, as Puritans expected young people to work diligently at their calling, and all members of their large families ,including children, did the bulk of the work necessary to run homes, farms, and businesses. Unlike the indentured servants in Virginia, not that many migrants came to New England to do labor. This was good because New England wanted steady work for their sons and daughters. Puritan New England: Massachusetts Bay ​ Overview from the article- After the arrival of the original Separatist "pilgrims" in 1620, a second, larger group of English Puritans emigrated to New England. The second wave of English Puritans established the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the New Haven Colony, and Rhode Island. These Puritans, unlike the Separatists, hoped to serve as a "city upon a hill" that would bring about the reform of Protestantism throughout the English Empire. ​ A much larger group of English Puritans left England and established the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the New Haven Colony, the Connecticut Colony and Rhode Island. The Families wanted to create a reformed model of Protestantism, “a city upon a hill”. This made the religious orientation of the New England settlement very clear.Like their Spanish and French Catholic rivals, English Puritans in America tried to convert native peoples to their version of Christianity. John Eliot, the leading Puritan missionary in New England, urged Native Americans in Massachusetts to live in “praying towns” established by English authorities for converted Native Americans and to adopt the Puritan emphasis on the centrality of the Bible. In keeping with the Protestant emphasis on reading scripture, he translated the Bible into the local Algonquian language and published his work in 1663. Eliot hoped that as a result of his efforts, some of New England’s native inhabitants would become preachers. ​ Protestants emphasized literacy so that everyone could read the Bible. Which contrasted to that of Catholics, who refused to tolerate private ownership of Bibles in the vernacular  language. The Puritans placed a special emphasis on reading scripture, and their commitment to literacy led to the establishment of the first printing press in English America in 1636. Four years later, in 1640, they published the first book in North America, the Bay Psalm Book. ​ As Calvinists, Puritans believed in the doctrine of predestination, where a few elect would be saved and all others damned. No one could be sure whether they were predestined for salvation, but through introspection, guided by scripture, Puritans hoped to find a glimmer of redemptive grace. Church membership was restricted to those Puritans who were willing to provide a conversion narrative telling how they came to understand their spiritual estate by hearing sermons and studying the Bible. ​ Every supernatural event appeared to be a sign of God’s mercy or judgment, and people believed that witches allied themselves with the Devil to carry out evil deeds and deliberate harm such as the sickness or death of children, the loss of cattle, and other catastrophes. Hundreds were accused of witchcraft in Puritan New England, including townspeople whose habits or appearance bothered their neighbors or who appeared threatening for any reason. Women, seen as more susceptible to the Devil because of their supposedly weaker constitutions, made up the vast majority of suspects and those who were executed. ​ The most famous witchcraft cases occurred in Salem Village in 1692. Many of the accusers who prosecuted the suspected witches had been traumatized by the Indian wars on the frontier and by unprecedented political and cultural changes in New England. Relying on their belief in witchcraft to help make sense of their changing world, Puritan authorities executed 19 people and caused the deaths of several others. ​ Puritans were still mean like England. Roger Williams questioned the Puritans’ theft of Native American land and also argued for a complete separation from the Church of England, a position other Puritans in Massachusetts rejected, as well as the idea that the state could not punish individuals for their beliefs. Williams did accept that nonbelievers were destined for eternal damnation. Puritan authorities found Williams guilty of spreading dangerous ideas, but he went on to found Rhode Island as a colony that sheltered dissenting Puritans from their brethren in Massachusetts. In Rhode Island, Williams wrote favorably about native peoples, contrasting their virtues with Puritan New England’s intolerance. ​ Anne Hutchinson was also kicked out because of the Puritan authorities for her criticism of the evolving religious practices in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In particular, she held that Puritan ministers in New England taught a shallow version of Protestantism emphasizing hierarchy and actions—a “covenant of works” rather than a “covenant of grace.” Literate Puritan women like Hutchinson presented a challenge to the male ministers’ authority. Indeed, her major offense was her claim of direct religious revelation (that she spoke directly with God), a type of spiritual experience that negated the role of ministers. ​ Because of Hutchinson’s beliefs and her defiance of authority in the colony, especially that of Governor Winthrop, Puritan authorities tried and convicted her of holding false beliefs. In 1638, she was excommunicated and banished from the colony. She went to Rhode Island and later, in 1642, sought safety among the Dutch in New Netherland. The  following year, Algonquians killed Hutchinson and her family. In Massachusetts, Governor Winthrop noted her death as the righteous judgment of God against a heretic. ​ Relationships with the native Americans deteriorated as the Puritans continued to expand their settlements aggressively and as European ways increasingly disrupted native life. These strains led to King Philip’s War ,from 1675 to 1676, a massive regional conflict that was nearly successful in pushing the English out of New England. When the Puritans first arrived in the 1620s and 1630s, local Algonquian peoples viewed them as potential allies in the conflicts already simmering between rival native groups. In 1621, the Wampanoag, led by Massasoit, concluded a peace treaty with the Pilgrims at Plymouth. In the 1630s, the Puritans in Massachusetts and Plymouth allied themselves with the Narragansett and Mohegan people against the Pequot, who had recently expanded their claims into southern New England. In May 1637, the Puritans attacked a large group of several hundred Pequot along the Mystic River in Connecticut. To the horror of their Native American allies, the Puritans massacred all but a handful of the men, women, and children they found. ​ By the mid-17th century, the Puritans had pushed their way farther into the interior of New England, establishing outposts along the Connecticut River Valley. There seemed no end to their expansion. Wampanoag leader Metacom or Metacomet, also known as King Philip among the English, was determined to stop the encroachment. The Wampanoag—along with the Nipmuck, Pocumtuck, and Narragansett—went to war to drive the English from the land. ​ In the ensuing conflict, called King Philip’s War, native forces succeeded in destroying half of the frontier Puritan towns; however, in the end, the English—aided by Mohegans and Christian Native Americans—prevailed and sold many captives into slavery in the West Indies. The severed head of King Philip was publicly displayed in Plymouth. ​ The war also forever changed the English perception of native peoples; after King Philip's War, Puritan writers took great pains to vilify Native Americans as bloodthirsty savages. A new type of racial hatred became a defining feature of Native American-English relationships in the Northeast. Society and Religion in the New England Colonies ​ Jamestown was founded in 1607 while the pilgrims landed at Plymouth rock in 1620 and they were followed by a much larger group of Puritans who landed at Boston and founded Massachusetts Bay in 1630. Puritans started in England and their main concern was that they believed the church of England was too much like the Catholic Church and this is true as in many ways the churches were similar. The Puritans hope that they could purify the church of England from its Catholic influences. Puritans wanted to strip away a lot of the fanciness of the church of England. In the 1620s the Puritans began to face  more persecution in England. There is no separation of church and state and so as the king was ahead of the church, this caused conflict between the king and the Puritans. ​ The Puritans said they were not very popular in England so they began to immigrate to the New World. They thought that if they went to Virginia that they could set a good example of what a righteous church and a righteous society would look like. One group of Puritans Set out for the New World and landed at Plymouth Rock and we called them the pilgrims. In 1630 a second group set out and they were just Puritans more broadly. Over the course of the 1630s about 14,000 Puritans emigrated from England to New England, Massachusetts Bay, and this is called the great migration. ​ The difference between pilgrims and Puritans. Starting with the pilgrims, they arrived in 1620 and they were separationist and this means that they thought the church of England was so corrupt. There was no chance to save it. They wanted a completely separate life at Plymouth. However, the Puritans did not want to separate from the church of England all together. Instead, they wanted to purify it by setting a righteous example that would actually convince people back in England to adopt their way and invite them back. ​ The England Puritans did not get their wish to be invited back to England however, they did become the model of society in Massachusetts Bay and New England. In comparison of life and New England to living in Virginia, the environment of New England was colder and the land was rockier. However, it was a healthier place to live then Virginia. But they could not grow the kind of crops that Virginia grew as they had an unsuitable place. ​ Most of the industry and New England consisted of family farming, fishing and also trading. Most Puritans came over to help build the city upon a hill and they came in family units unlike Virginia. The families that came over were well off and could pay their own passage across the Atlantic. New England did not have a lot of indentured servants that Virginia had or enslaved Africans as laborers. This is because most New Englanders were farmers and they relied on their own family as labor. ​ There were very few wealthy landowners in New England similar to Virginia. They were people on the bottom like servants, enslaved people. The church in New England was very strict, and the Puritans even canceled Christmas. Anyone who disagreed with Puritan theology was given the option to go somewhere else or be executed. The Middle Colonies ​ The middle colonies were the kind on the center of the eastern seaboard south of Massachusetts and north of the southern colonies of Virginia, particularly Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Delaware. What is unique about the middle colonies compared to the northern or southern colonies is that they were proprietary colonies, which means that they were the property of individual owners. Unlike Jamestown, for example, which is founded by a company, the colony of Pennsylvania was founded by one man named William Penn.  ​ The people who owned them could set their own rules for the most part, and that freedom resulted in colonies that were more ethically, diverse and more religiously tolerant than their neighbors to the north or south. Quakers was the religious society of friends. Like Puritans, Quakers faced religious persecution in England because they did not follow the church of England, which is a form of rebellion against the king. The Quakers had strange ideas about religion and they also had some strange ideas for the time period about social status. Quakers believe that all people had the light of God in them, and therefore were more or less equal in stature. For example women could preach in the church. ​ William Penn decided to extend his religious tolerance not just as a quaker, but really to all people. All Protestants, Catholics and even Jews were welcome in Pennsylvania although they did not have the right to vote or hold office. This was incredibly radical for the time. Penn hoped that industrious people with skills like carpeting or blacksmithing would come to Pennsylvania to make it a prosperous colony, and this did happen. With the ease of getting citizenship, the religious tolerance, and the plentiful planet of Pennsylvania, caused settlers to come to the colony and settled in the principal city of Philadelphia. ​ The Quakers were pacifist, and this means they did not believe in violence or war so they lived peacefully with native Americans in the early years of Pennsylvania settlement. However, as more immigrants of different faith came to Pennsylvania and began pushing West. The Quakers did not believe in Slavery. ​ The environment in the middle colonies was not as cold as it is in the north and not as hot as it is in the south. This made it a good place for farming for things like wood and wheat. Philadelphia had ports and New York City was an excellent place for trade. The middle colonies got the nickname of the breadbasket colonies and the patterns of land ownership reflexes. ​ Since the soil was good, your farmer owned more land than a New England farmer, however not as much as a Virginia farmer. In the middle colonies, there were plenty of middle farmers, mini and serpent, and a handful of people who became quite wealthy. The middle colonies were extraordinarily radical for the time unlike other places. Another extraordinary aspect was the sheer amount of ethnic diversity that there was. By the time of the American Revolution less than half of the inhabitants were from England or had an English background. The West Indies and the Southern Colonies ​ The tiny little islands in the Caribbean were incredibly profitable for English investors because sugar was a commodity that that’s very high prices and the colonial area. What united the southern colonies and the British colonies in the Caribbean is that there were plantation colonies. They were in southern or tropical regions, which meant that they had a long growing season that made them ideal for planting cash crops. ​ Sugar was known to be grown in the Caribbean and rice was grown in the Carolinas. Growing these cash crops for export was the main focus of these colonies and their  social structures were organized around producing those cash crops. Sugar was an Incredible luxury colonial era and one of the reasons for this was because sugar wasn’t extremely labor-intensive to make. The sugarcane plant is actually indigenous to Asia, but Europeans brought it to the New World in hopes of turning it into a cash crop. I’d like tobacco to be very wealthy to grow sugar because it required a huge investment upfront. A lot of land was involved to grow sugar. a handful of very wealthy plantation owners who mostly stayed in England because of the tropical diseases of the Caribbean or too likely to kill them off. These sugar beans had unimaginable wealth, and the tobacco plan of Virginia were compared to them. ​ Growing sugar was so profitable that the Caribbean islands couldn’t even spare room to grow food. The sugar bears imported all their food from elsewhere so that every square inch of our bowl land in the Caribbean could be used to grow sugar. With so many enslaved people coming into the Caribbean in the mid-1600s enslaved Africans in the Caribbean far outnumbered white people. Consequently the white owners became increasingly fearful of slave uprising so plantation owners who were in control of the colonial government began to crack down on flag of people by qualifying the racial status of enslaved Africans. Although we tend to think of plantation, savory, generally looking like the flavor that we would see later in Georgia or South Carolina on large cotton plantations, the vast majority of enslaved Africans had an experience much more like what we saw in the Caribbean. ​ Carolina was founded as one big colony in 1670 but by 1712 it was separated into two colonies, North Carolina and South Carolina. The Carolinas Rice cultivation took the place of sugar cultivation as the main cash crop. Plantation owners quickly discovered that many west Africans had worked on their own rice farms before enslavement. This meant they particularly wanted to purchase West Africans to work on rice plantations. ​ The colonies of Maryland and Georgia were also plantation colonies. They were both founded for all true reasons and they were propriety colonies originally like Pennsylvania. Marilyn was founded in 1632 an English Catholic named Baltimore who wanted to create a Haven of religious freedom for Catholics in North America. And 1649 Maryland passed the law concerning religion Known as the Maryland act of toleration. This act extended religious toleration to everyone who believed in Jesus. This included protestant all Catholics but prescribed death for anyone who did not believe in Jesus like Jew or atheists. A century in 1732 by an English humanitarian named James Oglethorpe. Oglethorpe was trying to perform prison because people in England, who couldn’t pay their debts were thrown into prison, so Oglethorpe founded the colony of Georgia with the idea that people who are suffering from debt go to this new colony and work it off. For this reason, he outlawed slavery in early years of George’s existence, but by 1750 he was pressured to include slaves in the Georgia economy, so it could keep up With South Carolina. ​ Although the colonies of West Indies and the southern part of Northern America were in different places and sometimes down at for different reasons, they all relied on slavery and had much larger cases of enslaved. African population, the white population. They focus their economies on plantation agriculture. Transatlantic Trade ​ Overview from Article- During the colonial era, Britain and its colonies engaged in a “triangular trade,” shipping natural resources, goods, and people across the Atlantic Ocean in an effort to enrich the mother country. Trade with Europeans led to far-reaching consequences among Native American communities, including warfare, cultural change, and disease. Although the British government attempted to control colonial trade through measures like the Navigation Acts, it only sporadically enforced trade laws. ​ In the colonial era, the Atlantic Ocean served as a highway between Europe, Africa, and the Americas, tying together a network of people, raw materials, finished goods, merchants, and sailors that brought wealth to colonial empires. ​ Generating wealth for the mother country was first and foremost among the reasons for European colonization in the Americas. During this era, the economic theory of mercantilism suggested that a nation’s power relied on a favorable balance of trade: that is, exporting more than it imported. ​ Establishing colonies promoted mercantilist goals by making sure the colonies ensured the mother country had a cheap supply of raw materials (timber, sugar, tobacco, furs, just to name a few), and second, the colonies served as a captive market for finished goods (furniture, guns, metal implements). In other words, colonies existed to sell things to the mother country and to buy things from it, and the government made its profit by taxing and imposing customs duties on trade. ​ Mercantilism led to the emergence of what’s been called the “triangular trade” which is a system of exchange in which Europe supplied Africa and the Americas with finished goods, the Americas supplied Europe and Africa with raw materials, and Africa supplied the Americas with enslaved laborers. ​ In theory, a ship could make its way from one continent to another laden with cargo that would be prized in the next port: buying enslaved laborers on the coast of Africa, sailing to Barbados to sell enslaved people and buy sugar, sailing to England to sell sugar and buy guns, and then sailing to the coast of Africa to sell guns and buy more enslaved people. ​ Although this generalization demonstrates how each continent supplied the others with the goods or labor they lacked, the reality was a bit more complex: few ships would have completed the full triangle, and ships might also make more than one stop in the colonies—to exchange food from New England and enslaved people from the sugar islands, for instance. ​ The British colonies in North America specialized in producing or obtaining commodities that Europeans valued: the islands of the Caribbean produced sugar, Carolina produced rice and indigo, the Chesapeake produced tobacco, and the Middle colonies produced foodstuffs like grain. With shorter growing seasons, the New England colonies could not produce cash crops, but instead chopped down their abundant forests to build ships for fishing and for carrying cargo across the Atlantic. The northern forests were also home to beavers, whose furs were prized in Europe to make hats and fancy clothing. ​ This entire Atlantic economy depended on the unpaid toil and unparalleled human misery of enslaved laborers, who worked on plantations growing cash crops. Unable to  compel a sufficient number of Europeans (who refused to accept brutal working conditions) or Native Americans (who escaped captivity or died from European-borne diseases) to work on New World plantations, Europeans purchased enslaved laborers from slave traders on the coast of Africa. ​ After a grueling Middle Passage by boat in which about one-third of captives died, most enslaved laborers arrived in the Caribbean to work on the sugar islands, like Barbados and Jamaica. Some of those who survived the harsh conditions growing and processing sugar would be sold north to Virginia or Carolina, where they worked growing tobacco or rice. Although few enslaved people worked in the New England colonies, those colonies propped up the colonial system of slavery by sailing Middle Passage ships and selling provisions to enslavers. ​ Native Americans prized the guns and metal tools (knives, hoes, and kettles) that Europeans provided, as well as alcohol and glass beads that served in religious ceremonies. European traders prized the animal skins that Native American hunters provided: beaver furs in the North and deerskins in the South. Furs were especially convenient New World commodities because native communities did all the work of hunting and processing the pelts. ​ Native Americans groups competed with each other for access to European trading partners, seeking to block their enemies from obtaining guns and other valuable commodities from the English, French, or Dutch. But European colonists discovered that they, too, had to pick a side: trading with the Hurons, for example, instantly made them the enemies of the powerful Iroquois, and Native Americans demanded military assistance from their trading partners. ​ The bottomless European demand for beaver furs drove Native Americans to hunt them near to extinction; conflict between native groups increased as they encroached on each others’ hunting territories. But the most destructive force of all was European disease, which devastated Native American communities and fueled a never-ending cycle of mourning wars, raids aimed at taking captives who would replace members of tribes who had died. ​ In the 1700s, as warfare became more brutal, both Europeans and Native Americans enriched themselves by capturing and selling their native enemies as slaves bound for the West Indies. ​ To benefit from the mercantilist system, Britain had to ensure that the spoils of the empire came to its own coffers. In 1651, Parliament passed the first of the Navigation Acts, which aimed to control the terms of trade between Britain and its colonies. Among other limitations on colonial trade and manufacturing, the Navigation Acts specified that “enumerated” goods (the most valuable colonial commodities, like sugar and tobacco) had to be transported on British ships and sold in British ports. That way, the British crown could reap the customs duties on the imported goods, and British merchants and shipbuilders could profit from the business. As British subjects, American merchants and shipbuilders benefited from these laws too. ​ The Navigation Acts, however, were only sporadically enforced. At times, the British government attempted to institute tighter control over its North American colonies. King James II, for example, converted proprietary colonies into royal colonies,  increased duties on enumerated goods, and established a vice-admiralty court in Boston to enforce the Navigation Acts. But frequent changes in the British government led to changes in the colonial relationship. When the Catholic King James II was overthrown in 1689 in favor of Protestant monarchs William and Mary, the new king and queen relaxed or eliminated many of James’s coercive measures. ​ Throughout the 1600s and 1700s, trade laws—and the extent to which they were enforced—fluctuated as new kings and new prime ministers took power in the British government. Between the 1720s and the 1760s, there was an extended period of “salutary neglect,” in which British officials overlooked colonists’ violations of the Navigation Acts. But that came to an end in the 1760s, when King George III attempted to reassert control over colonial trade. The colonists rebelled, ultimately starting the American Revolution. The Navigation Acts ​ Overview from Article- the navigation acts where a series of laws passed by the British parliament that imposed restrictions on colonial trade. British economic policy was based on mercantilism, which aimed to use the American colonies to bolster British state power and finances. The navigation acts inflamed the hostilities of American colonists and proved a significant contributing event leading up to the revolution. ​ Mercantilism was an economic theory that encouraged government regulation of the economy for the purpose of enhancing state power, and the primary goal was to run trade surplus and thereby fill the states coffers with silver and gold. Mercantilism rejected free trade and fueled European imperialism. ​ Mercantilism led to wars between European powers for control of maritime trade routes. It also created the triangular trade in the north Atlantic which involved the export of raw materials from the colonies to Britain, the transportation of enslaved Africans to the Americas, and the subsequent import of manufactured goods from Britain to the colonies. ​ British economic policy was mercantilistic in nature and the British parliament enacted such mechanisms as protectionist trade barriers, governmental regulations, and subsidies to domestic industries for the purpose of argument, finances at the expense of colonial territories, and other European imperial powers. ​ England also sought to rent its colonies in North America from trading with other European countries and from developing a robust manufacturing industry. The British parliament adopted a series of legislation known as the Navigation Acts. ​ With the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642 the North American colonies’ supply lines to metropolitan Britain were disrupted, and this led the colonies to establish trade relations with the Dutch and the French in order to encourage the flow of manufactured goods into North America.  ​ The British parliament declared the only English ships would be allowed to bring goods into England, and that the North American colonies could only export its commodities such as tobacco and sugar to England. This prevented the colonies from trading with other European countries, and this act was followed by several others that imposed additional limitations on colonial trade and increased custom duties. ​ Although they’re overall economic impact was minimal the acts imposed burdens on those segments of American colonial society. Best position to format rebellion. The groups most affected by the ax were colonial manufactures and merchants, tobacco rice, and sugar, planters, and artisans and mechanics. QUIZZES AND PRACTICE PHOTOS