During the 15th century, the European nations of Spain and Portugal began a series of explorations to find trade routes to the Far East. An accidental outcome of this search was the discovery by Christopher Columbus in 1492 of land in the Western Hemisphere. Although he and his immediate successors failed to recognize it, he had found another world. The New World contained all the natural wealth for which 15th-century people longed—and far more. Here were great deposits of the gold which they sought so eagerly. Here also were vast reserves of other minerals. Mile upon mile of plains, valleys, and mountains held fertile farmlands and pastures.
The New World was scantily settled by its people, the American Indians. Large areas where the Indians lived by hunting, fishing, or gathering had no permanent settlements. The tribes that lived by farming had, however, domesticated many valuable plants. Corn (maize), potatoes, pumpkins and squash, peanuts, and other new crops from America were to play a big role in nourishing mankind.
America or the Americas is the name given the two continents of the Western Hemisphere, with their adjacent islands. They lie between the Atlantic Ocean on the east and the Pacific on the west. North America and South America together contain some 16,230,000 square miles (42,040,000 square kilometers). This area is about four times as large as Europe. The two continents are about three fourths as large as Europe and Asia together.
The New World is scarcely comparable with the Old in population. The estimated total population of the Americas is about 615,000,000, compared with the 750,000,000 of Europe alone.
North and South America together have the greatest north-south extent of any landmass on Earth. With Greenland, usually considered as part of North America, the two Americas extend from 83° 39 North latitude to 55° 59′ South—or nearly 140 degrees. This is more than 9,600 miles (15,500 kilometers). North America's greatest width is some 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers); South America's, about 3,200 miles (5,150 kilometers). (See also North America; South America.)
America's Shape and Structure
The two continents are similar in physical structure. Each forms a rough triangle, with the base in the north. They are joined by the Isthmus of Panama—part of Central America, a division of North America. South America lies southeast of North America. Between them in the Caribbean Sea stretch the West Indies islands, geographically part of North America.
Near the west coast of both continents rise the Cordilleras. This is a great system of young fold mountains that in places encircles plateaus and basins. It is made up of a number of parallel ranges. They are fringed by a narrow Pacific coastal plain. Both North and South America contain broad interior plains. From them the land rises again to lower, older highlands in the east.
Rivers
These vast continents are drained by some of the world's greatest rivers. The rivers of North America fall mainly into two groups—those that drain the western mountain system and flow into the Pacific and those that drain the Interior Plains and send their waters directly or indirectly into the Atlantic. Those flowing into the Pacific include the Yukon, Fraser, Columbia, and Colorado rivers. The waters of the Great Lakes reach the Atlantic through the St. Lawrence River. The Mississippi River flows southward to the Gulf of Mexico, carrying the waters of its huge tributaries—the Missouri, Arkansas, Red, Ohio, and Tennessee rivers. East coast rivers are shorter, but they are important for the gaps they have cut through the Appalachian Highlands and for the fine harbors at the mouths of the Hudson, Delaware, and Potomac.
South America's greatest streams drain the basins that make up its central plains. They flow into the Atlantic. They are the Amazon, the Orinoco, and the Paraná-Paraguay rivers.
Climate
The continents of North and South America afford every type of climate on Earth and almost every class of vegetation. Temperature, rainfall, growing season, and wet and dry seasons are affected by the physical features of the continents as well as by the wide range of latitude.
North America is broadest in the high and middle latitudes. Three quarters of its area lies in the middle latitudes so favorable to human activity and to the growth of many of the most useful crops. Three quarters of South America lies in the tropics. Its greatest width is near the equator. Heat and humidity have delayed economic development here. South America's middle-latitude lands are in the narrower south. (See also Climate; Grassland; Rainfall.)
Natural Resources
America's great natural wealth is widely distributed. The resources of one region contribute to the development of another through trade. Bolivia's tin, Chile's copper, Argentina's wool, Brazil's manganese, Venezuela's iron, and Canada's nickel are used by industries in the United States. Canada's wood pulp and paper, grain, and fish are traded for the coffee, bananas, cacao, sugar, and cotton of the tropical and subtropical sections. Manufactured wares from the United States include machinery for the industrial development of all America.
When the Vikings Sailed to America
The first European to land in America was Leif Ericson, a Viking seaman from Greenland (see Ericson). The ancient sagas give different accounts of this voyage made in the year 1000. Leif landed on a forested shore, which he called Vinland. He did not realize he had found a new continent, and Europe heard nothing of his discovery.
In 1963 archaeologists uncovered the remains of a Viking settlement on the northern tip of Newfoundland. According to radiocarbon dating it was occupied in about AD 1000. This was the first proof that Europeans had lived in North America before Columbus. (See also Vikings.)
Most medieval Europeans were ignorant of other places in the world. Maps of the time showed only a broad strip of land and water reaching from Greenland south to the Mediterranean coasts of Europe and Africa and far eastward to China's Pacific shore.
Events and developments in the next 500 years had served to make Europeans curious about the world by the time Columbus rediscovered America in 1492. Christian knights from Europe had been fighting in wars, called Crusades, in western Asia (see Crusades). The crusaders had brought wonderful products home from Asia. There were cloves, pepper, and other spices to make food taste good and keep it from spoiling. There were sheer, colorful silken cloths, rich carpets, and sparkling jewelry. Europeans wanted these luxuries so much that Venice and Genoa, in Italy, grew rich trading in them. People were excited by the story of Marco Polo, which told of a trip to China and the greater wonders there (see Polo, Marco).
Discoveries in the science of the stars—astronomy—now helped seamen navigate their ships better. Some men believed that the Earth was round. Part of the new knowledge came from the long-forgotten writings of great thinkers of ancient Greece and Rome. This rebirth of interest in ancient learning was called the Renaissance (see Renaissance).
The magnetic compass had reached Europe in the 1100s. Within a hundred years or so sea captains learned to rely on it. Men began to make better maps. Little by little it became safer for sailors to venture into unknown seas.
Trade Routes Enlarge the World
At first the wealth of the East trickled into Western Europe mainly by overland routes. Goods changed hands many times before they reached the consumer, and at each exchange the cost increased. Shipping costs were also high. Goods were transported by camel or horse caravans, each animal carrying only a comparatively small load. After 1453 the Moslem Turks controlled Constantinople, which was the crossroads of important trade routes. They permitted cargoes from the East to pass through Constantinople only on their own terms.
Western European merchants sought sea routes to the Orient to import goods directly. Soon they were prepared to outfit ships for sea captains sailing in search of new routes. Each contributed only a portion of the expense, so that no one would be completely ruined if the venture failed. They also secured the king's approval of their enterprises and his promise to defend their claims to lands discovered along the way. The king of Spain always demanded a fifth of the gold and silver found by his explorers.
The Italian port cities were satisfied with their monopoly of the old routes. The Scandinavian countries were far removed. Germany was split into many small states. Thus the work of discovery fell to Portugal, Spain, England, and France.
Portuguese Exploration Around Africa
Under the sponsorship of Prince Henry the Navigator, Portugal took the lead in the 1400s (see Henry the Navigator). Portuguese sea captains made ever-lengthening voyages along the western coast of Africa. Bartholomew Diaz first saw the cliffs of the Cape of Good Hope at Africa's southern tip in 1488 (see Diaz, Bartholomew). In 1497–98 Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape and reached India by sea. He brought back a cargo of spices that netted a huge profit (see Gama). Portugal occupied key cities on the sea lanes between China and the Red Sea. Its wealth became the envy of Western Europe.
Others before Vasco da Gama had planned new sea routes to the Orient, and some had guessed that such a route might be found by sailing west. Few men could agree on how far west Asia lay from Europe by sea, and no one dreamed that the American continents stood in the way.
Columbus Sails West
One of the most optimistic advocates of the western route was Christopher Columbus (see Columbus, Christopher). For years he begged the courts of Portugal, England, France, and Spain for a grant of ships and men to prove that Asia lay only a few thousand miles west of Europe. Finally in 1492 Queen Isabella of Castile provided the money, and Columbus sailed with three ships. Pressing onward over the growing objections of his captains and crews, he finally sighted one of the Bahamas and shortly thereafter discovered Cuba and Hispaniola.
On three later voyages he found the mainlands of Central and South America. Until his death, in 1506, Columbus never swerved from his belief that the lands he discovered were actually part of Asia.
Spain and Portugal Divide the New World
When Columbus first returned to Spain, the Portuguese claimed that he had merely visited a part of their dominion of Guinea in Africa. Spain and Portugal accordingly asked Pope Alexander VI to settle the dispute. He complied by drawing an arbitrary north-south Line of Demarcation in 1493, since he was completely ignorant of the extent of the new discoveries. If Spain discovered lands west of this line, the Spanish king was to have them if they were not already owned by a Christian ruler. In 1494 the line was drawn through a point 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands.
In 1500 a Portuguese mariner, Pedro Alvarez Cabral, sailing along Africa en route to India, was carried by a storm to Brazil. He claimed the land for Portugal since it lay east of the line. When the Portuguese king heard of Cabral's discovery, he sent out an expedition which sailed hundreds of miles along the South American coast.
New Land Named for Vespucius
An Italian merchant, Americus Vespucius, asserted he was a member of exploring parties to the New World and wrote a letter telling of what he had seen. Martin Waldseemüller, a German scholar, included the letter in a popular geography and suggested that the new land be called America. The name caught on and brought Vespucius an honor many feel he did not deserve (see Vespucius).
By 1510 men realized that the new land was not part of the Orient, but they still thought that China and India were just beyond. In 1513 Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, the Spanish adventurer, crossed the Isthmus of Darien and became the first European to see the Pacific Ocean from American shores (see Balboa).
By this time Spain claimed that the Line of Demarcation extended around the globe, but no one knew where it fell in the Eastern Hemisphere. A Portuguese captain, Ferdinand Magellan, believed there might be a water passage through the New World that would lead to the Orient. He convinced the king of Spain that the richest lands in the Far East lay in the region reserved for Spain by the papal line. The king commissioned Magellan to find a western route.
Magellan's Ship Circles the Globe
In 1519 Magellan sailed from Spain to Brazil. Then he proceeded south along the coast to the tip of the continent and passed through the strait that now bears his name. He sailed into the ocean which he named the Pacific. Magellan was killed in the Philippine Islands, but one of his ships went on to India and finally in 1522 to Spain by way of the Indian Ocean and the Cape of Good Hope (see Magellan).
The voyage established Magellan as the foremost navigator in history. For the first time the globe was circled and the vast expanse of the Pacific was revealed. No longer could America be regarded as an outlying part of Asia.
Spain and Portugal each claimed that the rich Spice Islands of the East lay within its allotted territory. Spain's westward route was so much longer than Portugal's eastern route that Spain could not profit from the trade. In 1529 Spain surrendered to Portugal its claims in Asia and received the Philippine Islands in return. Magellan's voyage thus failed to break Portugal's supremacy in the Orient.
The Spanish Penetrate America
The Spanish took the lead in exploring and colonizing the New World. The earliest settlements were in the West Indies. Hispaniola had the first towns. Santo Domingo, established in 1496, became the first capital of New Spain. Other settlements rose in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica. From island harbors sailed expeditions to explore the coasts and penetrate the continents. They found gold, silver, and precious stones and enslaved the Indians. Ambitious men became governors of conquered lands. Missionaries brought a new religion to the Indians.
One adventurer, Juan Ponce de León, sailed from Puerto Rico in 1513. He landed on a new shore that he called Florida. He was interested in exploration and slave trading. He also wanted to find a fabled fountain whose waters made men perpetually young. He returned to Florida in 1521 to build a settlement, but he was slain by Indians (see Ponce de León).
Riches for Spain from Mexico and Peru
The Spanish dream of finding great riches in America was realized when Hernando Cortez conquered the empire of the Aztecs in Mexico in 1519–21 (see Cortez). A few years later Francisco Pizarro with a small force vanquished the Inca empire and seized the treasure of Peru in South America (see Pizarro). Gold and silver from these lands poured into the Spanish king's treasury, rousing the envy of other rulers. The treasure ships attracted bloodthirsty pirates and privateers (see Pirates and Piracy).
Spanish and Portuguese in North America
Other Spanish conquerors (called in Spanish conquistadores) turned north to the lands now forming the southern part of the United States. In 1539 Hernando de Soto came from Spain by way of Cuba to the east coast of Florida. From there he trekked overland to the Mississippi. He wandered into what is now Arkansas and Oklahoma and later floated down the Arkansas River to its mouth. In 1542 he died and was buried in the Mississippi (see De Soto).
Indian traditions and stories of Spanish wanderers told that somewhere north of Mexico the golden towers of the Seven Cities of Cibola gleamed in the sun. Francisco de Coronado, governor of a province in western Mexico, set out in 1540 to find them. He crossed the deserts and plains between what is now western New Mexico and central Kansas, but he found only poor Indian towns, which have become known as pueblos. Coronado returned to Mexico without gold and jewels. Although Coronado had traveled well into the heart of North America, the Spaniards did not care to explore further the disappointing lands he had seen (see Coronado).
Earlier, in 1524–25, a Portuguese sea captain, Estevan Gómez, serving the king of Spain, explored the coast of North America from Maine to New Jersey. His descriptions suggested there was little mineral wealth there and thus led the Spaniards to consider this region far less valuable than the lands they had in the south. Thus they ignored the greater part of the East coast of North America.
The Portuguese made one important discovery in this northern region. In 1501 Gaspar Côrte-Real reached Newfoundland. His voyages were not repeated, for Portugal soon needed all of its resources to develop its East India empire and its colony in Brazil.
English Seamen
England's first port for mariners sailing west was the city of Bristol. Bristol merchants hoped that if a new route to the Orient lay directly west across the Atlantic, their city would become the principal trade center. In 1497 they sent John Cabot, a Genoese sea captain, in search of this new passage. Cabot touched land between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia and returned believing that he had visited the outlying parts of Asia. His voyage gave England its later claim to North America (see Cabot, John and Sebastian).
After realizing that Cabot had not reached Asia, England tried to open a route to the Orient around Northern Europe—the Northeast Passage. In 1566 Sir Humphrey Gilbert wrote his ‘Discourse of a Northwest Passage', in which he reasoned that a water route led around North America to Asia. In 1578 Gilbert sailed to establish a base in Newfoundland but died on the way home in 1583. Two other captains, Martin Frobisher and John Davis, each made three voyages between 1575 and 1589 to the network of straits and inlets north of the St. Lawrence River, but neither could find a way to the Pacific.
Search for Northwest Passage
To give England a foothold in the Far East, Queen Elizabeth I chartered the East India Company in 1600. In 1602 the company sent George Weymouth to find a passage through the continent to the Pacific Ocean, but he did not sail beyond Labrador. Another expedition the same year, under Bartholomew Gosnold, explored the New England coast. When the Virginia Colony was founded in 1607, John Smith and other settlers hoped to find a waterway across the country that would lead them to the Pacific. (See also East India Company; Smith, John.)
England also wanted to weaken Spain as a European power. In the 1500s England had established a national Protestant church. Spain wished to restore the pope's authority over England. The Spanish military was largely supported by the gold and silver from Mexico and Peru. Another source of revenue was the high duty levied on the Spanish traders, who held a monopoly on bringing black slaves into Spanish colonies. John Hawkins, an English sea rover, began smuggling blacks from Africa into the Spanish West Indies. He made three such voyages and reaped huge profits. On his third voyage he was attacked by a Spanish fleet and lost all but two ships.
Adventures of Drake
Hawkins escaped the Spaniards, taking with him his partner and cousin, Francis Drake (see Drake, Francis). Drake realized that England could gain more by seizing Spanish treasure in the West Indies than by smuggling slaves. He sailed to the Caribbean Sea on a raiding expedition, but he won little spoil. Knowing that the Spanish ships and ports on the Pacific were unprotected, he sailed from England, passed through the Strait of Magellan, and fell upon the Spaniards off Chile and Peru. He took so much plunder that he used silver for ballast. He sailed across the Pacific and followed the route of Magellan's party back to Europe. The English raids on the Spaniards in America helped plunge the two nations into open war. In 1588 the great Spanish Armada preparing to invade England was completely crushed (see Armada, Spanish).
Englishmen began to search for gold in their own holdings in North America. In 1576 Martin Frobisher found samples of a “black earth” that he thought was a gold ore. He was wrong, but for a time England thought it was on the track of great wealth. Walter Raleigh sent out parties between 1584 and 1587 to explore and colonize the area named Virginia, but his ventures failed (see Raleigh, Walter).
The French in Canada
While the conquistadores were busy in Central America, Spain and France were at war at home. Francis I, king of France, wanted a share of the Oriental trade to finance his armies. Hoping to accomplish this, he commissioned a Florentine navigator, Giovanni da Verrazano, to find a passage to Asia. In 1524 Verrazano touched the American coast at North Carolina and then sailed north to Newfoundland. His report to the king contained the first description of the northeastern coast of North America and gave France its claim to American lands.
The next French explorer was Jacques Cartier. He made three voyages between 1534 and 1541 in quest of the Asia route. He ascended the St. Lawrence as far as the site of Montreal (see Cartier). After Cartier's voyages, a series of religious wars at home stopped France from sending out other parties. France made attempts, however, to establish two colonies as refuges for the Huguenots (French Protestants). One colony, in Brazil (1555–58), was destroyed by the Portuguese. The other, in Florida (1562–65), was wiped out by the Spaniards. Starting about 1540, French fishermen annually fished off the Newfoundland coast and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Under the vigorous rule of Henry IV (1589–1610) France was again united and at peace with the rest of the world. Once more French explorers began to seek a strait to the Pacific.
The Dutch Come Last
The Netherlands was the last to begin exploration in the New World. For years the Dutch struggled to win their independence from Spain. During this struggle, Spain in 1580 annexed Portugal and gained control of the Oriental trade. The Dutch realized that Spain might be weakened by striking at its trade. They formed the Dutch East India Company and dispatched Henry Hudson, an English sea captain, to find a shortcut to the Orient. Hudson entered the Hudson River in 1609 and ascended it to the site of Albany (see Hudson, Henry).
THE ERA OF COLONIZATION
The period of exploration and discovery that began with Columbus in 1492 soon became an international race to plant colonies around the world. The major European states—England, France, Spain, Portugal, and Holland—vied with one another for nearly four centuries to gain economic advantages in overseas territories. Colonies were founded in Africa, India, the Far East, Oceania, and in the Western Hemisphere.
The New World, consisting of North and South America and the islands of the Caribbean Sea, was viewed as an enormous wilderness area with great economic potential. The native Americans, called Indians, were not considered to be owners of the new lands; they were looked upon, rather, as primitives or savages who could benefit from the introduction of European civilization and religion.
Spain and Portugal were the first to enter the New World competition. Spain claimed and settled most of Central and South America, Florida, the Southwestern region of the present United States, and several islands in the Caribbean. France colonized Canada; the valleys of the St. Lawrence, Ohio, Mississippi, and Alabama rivers; French Guiana (now part of Guyana) on the northeast coast of South America; and a few Caribbean islands. Portugal gained control of Brazil.
The Dutch settled in the Hudson Valley of North America and in Guiana, as well as in some island territories in the Caribbean. Sweden laid claim to the Delaware River valley in North America. England eventually planted 13 colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America, settled British Honduras (now Belize) in Central America, and took possession of several Caribbean islands.
Many of these colonies were financed by European-based trading companies. These companies sought riches in the crops, furs, and minerals of the New World. Trading groups were granted large areas of land by European governments, which expected in return some of the riches of the Americas, as well as secure settlements to uphold their territorial claims. The managers of the colonies worked their lands with servants, slaves, or tenant farmers.
Colonizing nations fought among themselves and against native Indian peoples for control of the land and its trading possibilities. Wars in Europe had their counterparts in nationalistic rivalries among American colonists. Cutthroat pirates and buccaneers hid out in the Caribbean, threatening shipments of gold and other riches from the New World to the Old. It was not until the 19th century that most colonial disputes were ended either by treaty or by national independence movements.
The European colonists developed untamed wilderness lands into farms, villages, and cities. They established governments, legislatures, schools, colleges, churches, and businesses. Above all, they braved a hostile environment to lay the foundations of the many nations of the Western Hemisphere.
Spain's American Empire
In land area, Spain's was the largest of the colonial empires in the New World. It comprised the largest of the Caribbean islands—Cuba, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico—as well as The Bahamas and other smaller islands; all of Mexico and most of Central America; large sections of east-coastal South America except for Brazil; Florida; and the Southwestern quarter of what is now the United States.
Spain was the first of the European nations to colonize the New World. People from France, England, Holland, and Sweden did not settle in the Americas until after 1600. Spain had the advantage of nearly a full century to stake its claims. By 1512 the larger Caribbean islands had been occupied. The rich finds of gold and silver Cortez found in Mexico prompted expeditions north and south of the region. Five years after Pizarro set out to conquer the Inca kingdom of Peru, in 1531, the conquest of the Chibcha Indians of Colombia was undertaken.
In 1562 a group of French Protestants settled in northern Florida. This seeming threat to Spanish interests prompted an expedition led by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés to get rid of the intruders. His expedition arrived in Florida in 1565, destroyed the French settlement, and built a fort on the site of what is now St. Augustine (see Saint Augustine).
Colonization of the region north of Mexico did not begin until very late in the 16th century. In 1598 a group of settlers arrived in the New Mexico–Arizona area. Most of them, finding the climate and Indians inhospitable, returned to Mexico by 1605; but at least a small start had been made in the colonization of New Mexico. The city of Santa Fe was founded in 1610 (see Santa Fe).
Spain's other outposts in North America, Texas and California, were not colonized until the 1700s. By 1800 Texas was little more than a collection of small missions and the towns of San Antonio and Nacogdoches. The settlement of California was more successful. More than 20 missions were founded between 1769 and 1800, augmented by a number of presidios, or army posts.
To regulate its American empire, Spain created two organizations, the House of Trade to deal with commerce and the Council of the Indies to make laws. The system of colonization was called the viceroyalty, a system begun in 1535 when Antonio de Mendoza was sent to govern Mexico. The viceroys, responsible to the king, were the chief colonial officials. Under them were the proprietors, charged with the direct administration of the colonies.
There were four major viceroyalties. New Spain, including all of Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean islands, had been set up as an administrative region in 1518. New Castile, established in 1542, comprised the west coast of South America (except for the southernmost section) and much of present-day Argentina. New Granada, the northern area of South America, was organized in 1739. The last vice- royalty, Río de la Plata (present-day Paraguay), was not organized until 1776.
A controversial aspect of Spanish colonialism was the encomienda system, an arrangement under which the Spanish landholders had “commended” to them the care of the Indians on their lands. It was in fact a system for enslaving the Indians. Indians were regarded as subject to the proprietors of New Spain, who, theoretically at least, cared for their physical and spiritual needs in return for the right to their labor. In practice, Indians were often abused and exploited. While some Spanish friars and priests condemned such slavery as early as 1515, landowners resisted the movement to abolish the encomienda.
Indians living in areas controlled by the Spanish died in great numbers from exploitation and diseases, such as smallpox, from which they had no immunity. The Indians of the Caribbean virtually disappeared; the estimated 50 million aborigines living in mainland New Spain at the time of its colonization had dwindled by the 17th century to only 4 million.
Another feature of Spanish colonialism was the influence of the “black robes”—as the Jesuit priests were called among the native peoples they hoped to convert to Christianity. These priests often led the movement into frontier areas. There they established educational institutions and religious missions while bringing the culture of European Spain into the wilds of California, Florida, and Mexico. In Florida alone, some 38 missions were founded by 1655.
Spain's colonies north of the Rio Grande were lost to the United States in the 19th century. Florida was given up in 1819, and war with Mexico brought the Southwest territories into the hands of the United States government in 1848 (see Mexican War).
Spain's holdings in Mexico, Central America, and South America were lost between 1810 and 1825 through a series of revolutionary movements. Only the islands of Puerto Rico and Cuba remained as colonies, and these were lost in the Spanish-American War in 1898 (see Spanish-American War).
The end to colonialism was prompted by a variety of factors. The American and French revolutions in the late 18th century inspired other peoples to strive for self-determination. The immediate impetus to decolonization came in the Napoleonic Wars in Europe between 1803 and 1814. French occupation of Spain and Portugal in 1807 served to isolate the American colonies from the mother countries. This isolation, coupled with long-smoldering discontent in Latin America, led to the formation of nationalist and revolutionary movements. Spain and Portugal, on the other hand, were too weakened by war at home to respond forcefully to troubles in the Americas. They could not count on help from Great Britain in retaining their colonies. British merchants were eager to trade with the newly independent nations of Latin America, which would not have colonial trade restrictions.
In 1823, during the presidency of James Monroe, the United States promulgated the Monroe Doctrine declaring against any further colonization or interference by Europe in the affairs of the Americas. With the help of the British navy, this doctrine forestalled any new colonial enterprises for several decades (see Monroe Doctrine).
Portugal in America
Although the Portuguese were among the earliest and most prominent world explorers, their efforts in the New World centered entirely on Brazil. After the first discoveries of Spain and Portugal of the Western Hemisphere, a conflict arose between the two countries concerning colonization rights to the New World. In 1494 a north-south Line of Demarcation was established at 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands: all territory east of the line fell to Portugal, all territory west of it went to Spain. This agreement was called the Treaty of Tordesillas. Although the signers of the pact were not yet aware of the extent of the Western Hemisphere, by chance it happened that the region of coastal Brazil in South America became the possession of Portugal.
Brazil was discovered by Pedro Alvarez Cabral in 1500. The new land was of little interest to Portugal until 1530 when the threat of a French or Spanish incursion prompted King John III to order the surveying and settling of the Brazilian coastal region.
Brazil was divided into capitanias, strips of land individually colonized by a proprietor called a donatario. He, in turn, granted land to farmers. In 1549 these capitanias were united into one colony under a governor-general at Bahia (now Salvador).
The Portuguese farmers grew sugarcane for export to Europe. Sugar was first cultivated in Brazil in 1620, using Indian slave labor. This practice continued until 1755, when the Indians began to be replaced by African slaves.
In 1580 Philip II of Spain seized the throne of Portugal. Brazil came under the control of Spain until 1640, when Portugal's independence was restored. Brazil remained a colony until 1822, when a bloodless revolution set up an independent monarchy.
New Netherland
The settlement of the Dutch in the New World was led by commercial traders under the sponsorship of the Dutch West India Company, a joint stock company founded in 1621. Three years later New Netherland was founded in what is now New York State.
The city of New Amsterdam was founded on Manhattan Island in 1625. The following year, Peter Minuit of the Dutch West India Company purchased the island from local Indians with trinkets worth 60 guilders (24 dollars). The Dutch built 30 houses on Manhattan that same year.
The first colonists from the Netherlands were either free citizens who could own their own homesteads and receive two years of free provisions, or they were indentured husbandmen (bouwlieden), who had to work under contract for a term of service on Dutch West India Company farms.
In 1629 the Dutch established the patroon system. Patroons were colonists given large grants of land by the Dutch government; they held such rights as the privilege of holding court hearings in their areas. There were five large patroon land grants settled along the Hudson River from New Amsterdam to Fort Orange (present-day Albany, N.Y.). The Dutch government hoped that this arrangement would promote self-sufficient and profitable settlement of their part of the New World.
Dutch colonists faced violent conflict with local Indians. In 1644 the Dutch built a wall across lower Manhattan Island to defend their city. This is the wall for which Wall Street—the financial center of New York City—is named. Even more devastating were their conflicts with the English. In 1664, English military forces captured New Amsterdam, renaming it New York in honor of the Duke of York. Although temporarily retaken by the Dutch, New York became permanently English under the terms of the Treaty of Westminster in 1674.
The Dutch tried and failed to colonize Brazil between 1624 and 1654. They did succeed in planting colonies in the Caribbean. They settled six islands there: the Leeward Islands of Curaçao (taken from Spain in 1634), Aruba, and Bonaire; and the Windward Islands of Sint Eustatius, Sint Maarten, and Saba. The Netherlands Antilles are presently self-governing territories of The Netherlands.
England's Colonies
Although the English colonized areas throughout the New World, their most significant establishment proved to be the 13 colonies along North America's Atlantic coastline. These communities, weak and struggling at first, grew and developed to become the 13 original states of the United States of America.
An earlier British colony had been established at Roanoke Island, presently part of North Carolina, in 1584 by Sir Walter Raleigh. This colony of over 100 people mysteriously disappeared by 1591, leaving behind only the word “Croatoan” (the name of a nearby island) carved on a tree.
Of the 17th-century colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America, England founded all but two. The first settlement was established at Jamestown in 1607 (see Jamestown). The second settlement was at Plymouth in 1620; the colony was absorbed by Massachusetts in 1691 (see Plymouth, Mass.). The British colonies, in order of their founding, were Virginia (1607); Massachusetts (1630); Maryland (1634); Connecticut (1635); Rhode Island (1636); the Carolinas (1663); New Hampshire (1679); Pennsylvania (1682); New Jersey (1702); and Georgia (1732). North and South Carolina became separate colonies in 1730. The four most northerly English colonies—Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire—received the collective name New England, after the name Capt. John Smith had given the region when he first explored it in 1614. Today New England also includes Maine and Vermont.
New York (1624) was originally settled by the Dutch as New Netherland. The Swedes established Delaware as a colony (1638). These areas were eventually taken over by the English. All of the 13 colonies thus became English in speech and customs within a couple of generations.
English reign over the colonies barely served to conceal the great ethnic diversity of the settlers. The 17th century saw the arrival of Germans, Bohemians, Irish, Poles, Scots, Jews, Dutch, French, Finns, Italians, Swedes, Danes, south Slavs, and other nationalities. Slave ships brought blacks from the west coast of Africa. Of the non-British colonists, the Germans who settled heavily in Pennsylvania and Georgia were probably the most numerous.
Economic opportunity drew settlers from the Old World to the New. The sparsely populated colonies, not burdened with European traditions and class systems, were a wilderness waiting to be developed.
Throughout the whole colonial era there was a persistent labor shortage. The need for an adequate work force led to the development of the systems of indentured, redemptioner, and slave labor. Indentured servents were immigrants too poor to come to America on their own. They sold themselves under contract into specific periods of servitude, usually from three to seven years. After the time was up, a servant was freed from his obligation, given whatever money was due to him, and invested with the rights of citizenship.
Redemptioners were also immigrants too poor to get to the colonies on their own, but they arrived without labor contracts. If no relative or friend paid for their passage, the ship's captain sold them to the highest bidders for unspecified periods of service. If they managed to earn enough money, in a few years they could “redeem” themselves and be free. Otherwise they were likely to become and remain slaves.
The indenture and redemptioner systems were legally sanctioned arrangements that slowly disappeared because of disuse and public disapproval. The slave system was to persist in the Americas until the 19th century. The development of the slave trade from Africa and the exploration of the New World were almost simultaneous events. The Portuguese introduced slaves from Africa into Europe in the 15th century. After the Americas were discovered and settlements had begun, the Spaniards introduced slave labor into their colonies.
Before long the great ship companies of Europe were competing for this very profitable trade. The English, in the 18th century, became the chief suppliers of African slaves to the New World. Most of the slaves went to the Caribbean islands at first, but after the economies of the English colonies of North America began to prosper, slaves were introduced there. The first slaves were brought to Virginia in 1619. (See also Slavery and Serfdom.)
The earliest English colonies—Virginia, Plymouth, and Massachusetts—were founded by joint stock companies. The other New England colonies were offshoots of Massachusetts Bay. Maryland and Pennsylvania were founded as proprietary colonies: grants of land were given by the king of England to individual entrepreneurs to start a colony. Maryland was founded by Cecilius Calvert (Lord Baltimore), and Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn. Settlers of these colonies were tenants of the proprietor, rather than landowners. Eventually all of the other colonies except Rhode Island and Connecticut came under the jurisdiction of the English crown. (See also Baltimore, Lords; Penn.)
The Carolinas were founded as a proprietary colony, but later came under the king's control. Georgia was started as a philanthropic enterprise, a haven for debtors and other underprivileged Englishmen. It too became part of the king's domain.
Whether royal or proprietary, all of the 13 colonies eventually had their own representative assemblies and local institutions of government. Self-rule flourished in the Atlantic colonies for a variety of reasons: they were remote from England and communication was slow; they were not so highly valued for their economic potential as were colonies in the Caribbean, India, and the Far East; the English Civil War and other troubles in Europe kept the mother country too occupied to bother with the distant colonies for long periods of time.
Theoretically, the only bond of union common to the colonies was their loyalty to the king. It was the king who appointed colonial governors, and these officials were expected to carry out royal policy. As the decades passed, however, the colonies found themselves drawn together by stronger ties than the monarchy. Their representative assemblies were quite similar in character. All of the colonies had similar agricultural economies, hence similar problems. Improved roads and shipping made communication easier. To the west, all the colonies faced the common enemy of New France and its Indian allies.
This variety of common interests eventually provided the basis of common action when English policies became oppressive. Until the end of the Seven Years' War, settled by the Treaty of Paris in 1763, England had not overly interfered in colonial life. After 1763 it began enforcing restrictions on manufacturing and trade. Parliament levied direct taxes on the colonies to help it pay its military budget. These new policies led to revolution in 1775 and to independence in 1776 (see Revolution, American).
Besides the 13 colonies of North America, England settled other parts of the New World. In the Caribbean, the Leeward Islands of Antigua, St. Kitts, Nevis, and Barbados were colonized between 1609 and 1632. Jamaica was seized from the Spanish in 1655. Belize was settled in 1638. Scattered settlements on the north coast of South America were united into the colony of British Guiana in 1831.
Of all the settlements in the Caribbean basin, Barbados was most successful commercially. By 1651 it was a leading producer of sugar. This commodity, much in demand by Europeans, was introduced into the island about 1637. By 1676 the sugar trade had promoted Barbados to a first-rank colony in the eyes of England. Its population was larger than that of New England, and it was far more prosperous.
Barbados was typical of the colonized Caribbean because it was not so much settled entirely by Europeans as captured by them and settled with slaves and servants to work the fields. Millions of slaves were forced into labor on the islands during the three centuries from 1500 to 1800. The first English slave-trading voyage was made by John Hawkins in 1562. After the British slave trade ended in 1807, plantation owners imported coolie (unskilled) labor from China, India, and Java. (See also Barbados.)
The French Colonies
The French colonized vast areas of the New World. They tried and failed to settle Brazil, the Carolinas, and Florida. They had greater success in the Caribbean and Canada.
By 1664 France controlled 14 islands in the Caribbean basin. The principal possessions were St-Domingue (now Haiti), Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Dominica. The economies were based largely on sugar. The labor system was African slavery. The island societies had a rigid class structure headed by white officials and planters (gros blancs) who governed the merchants, buccaneers, and small farmers, white laborers (engagés), and the slaves.
On the northeast coast of South America, the colony of French Guiana was founded about 1637. One hundred years later it was still a struggling, commercially unsuccessful colony, with a population of only about 600 whites. Not until the 19th century did the colony achieve any real prosperity. French Guiana is probably best known for Devil's Island, the former penal colony off the coast. (See also French Guiana.)
The largest French colony in the New World was New France. This region comprised most of eastern Canada and the portion of the present United States from the Appalachians in the east to the Missouri River in the west and from the Great Lakes in the north to the Gulf of Mexico in the south. To the north of New France was the large territory controlled by the Hudson's Bay Company, an English trading association (see Hudson's Bay Company).
The first colonization efforts were led by Samuel de Champlain, the “Father of New France.” His first expedition sailed for America in 1603. Port Royal, Acadia (now Annapolis, N. S.), was established in 1605 as a fur trading post and fishing village. Champlain founded Quebec in 1608 and explored as far west as Lake Huron by 1615 (see Champlain).
For all the vast area the French laid claim to in North America, New France was never effectively colonized. Many permanent communities were founded, but the main interest of the mother country was commercial exploitation. The fur trade, far more lucrative than farming or fishing, became the basis of the economy. This led the French to explore widely in the region, to forge strong alliances with the native Indians, and to set up forts and trading posts. But the population of New France never grew to the same extent as that of the English colonies. By 1754, on the eve of the French and Indian War, the population of New France was only about 55,000.
During the 17th century a vast number of Frenchmen—traders, missionaries, and soldiers—traversed the wilderness from eastern Canada to New Orleans. They ventured throughout the whole Great Lakes region and the Mississippi Valley, claiming the territory for the king of France. Some of the most notable explorers were Père Jacques Marquette, Jean Nicolet, Pierre Radisson, Louis Jolliet, Père Louis Hennepin, and Daniel Greysolon, sieur du Lhut. The most famous of all the explorers was René-Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle. In 1682 his expedition made the first descent of the Mississippi, from the Illinois Territory to the Gulf of Mexico. (See also La Salle; Marquette.)
Within this vast midsection of North America, many permanent settlements were founded, including Detroit, St. Louis, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans. Under French rule all of these settlements remained frontier outposts. Only after 1800, when citizens of the United States began trekking westward in search of plentiful, inexpensive land, did they really grow.
In a vain attempt to encourage emigration to North America, France instituted a colonization policy based on seigneuries, grants of land that were to be parceled out to farmers or other inhabitants. In Canada there was some increase in immigration during the second half of the 17th century, but after 1700 most French Canadians were native-born. Since the seigneurial estates could not compete with the allure of the fur trade, particularly for young men, agriculture was crippled in the French colony.
During the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries, France and England were frequently at war. The wars they fought in Europe generally had counterparts in the colonies—King William's War (1689–97), Queen Anne's War (1702–13), King George's War (1740–48), and the French and Indian War, a phase of Europe's Seven Years' War (1754–63).
* In 1759, during the French and Indian War, British troops landed upstream from Quebec and defeated …
These wars were generally detrimental to France's colonial holdings. After Queen Anne's War, the British acquired French Acadia, renaming it Nova Scotia. The French and Indian War was the most costly for France. By 1760 the British had conquered all of Canada and the French settlements on the Great Lakes. The Treaty of Paris, which ended the conflict, ceded all of New France east of the Mississippi River, except for New Orleans, to England. New France ceased to exist in 1803 when the United States purchased the territories west of the Mississippi from France (see Louisiana Purchase).
New Sweden
Sweden entered the race for the colonization of the New World in 1637 with the formation of the New Sweden Company. Peter Minuit, who had switched his loyalties from the Dutch to the Swedes, helped this trading organization to found Fort Christina (now Wilmington, Del.) on the Delaware River in 1638. In 1643 the Swedes expanded to a settlement of log cabins at Tinicum Island, also on the Delaware River. They also established Fort Krisholm in 1647 and captured Fort Casimir (now New Castle, Del.) from the Dutch in 1651. Fort Casimir was especially critical because it protected the route to the rest of the Swedish colonies. In 1655 the governor of New Netherland, Peter Stuyvesant, seized Fort Christina and recaptured Fort Casimir, making New Sweden a part of New Netherland (see Stuyvesant, Peter).
Russia in North America
The expansion of Russia into North America began during the reign of Peter the Great, the czar who ruled from 1689 to 1725. He was determined to compete with other European nations in getting a foothold in the New World. The expansion of the Siberian fur trade motivated the explorations that eventually resulted in the discovery of Alaska.
Shortly before his death, Peter commissioned Capt. Vitus Bering, a Dane serving in the Russian navy, to investigate a possible land connection between Siberia and North America. Bering's first voyage, in 1728, did not succeed in locating one. On his voyage of 1741 he did arrive at the southern coast of Alaska; but his ship was wrecked, and he died there. Survivors returned to Russia with sea-otter pelts. For the next several decades the Russians exploited the fur trade of the region.
Communities and fur-trading posts were established at Captain's Harbor on Unalaska Island in 1773, Kodiak in 1792, and New Archangel (now Sitka) in 1799. As the Russians moved into Alaska, other European trading groups and colonial powers began to converge on the area. To fend off competition, a trading monopoly, the Russian-American Company, was formed in 1799. New Archangel became the center of all commercial activity. Besides the Russian trading post, there were a shipbuilding industry, a foundry, a sawmill, and a machine shop.
Because the Russians in Alaska were unable to make themselves self-sufficient in agriculture, they founded a new colony, Fort Ross, in northern California in 1811–12. It was hoped that the farms in this area would be able to supply enough food for the residents of Alaska. This venture never became profitable, and Fort Ross was abandoned in 1841.
In spite of repeated attempts by the Russian government to maintain a fur monopoly in Alaska and to control the waters surrounding the colony, Europeans and Americans began to move into the region during the first half of the 19th century. By 1850 hundreds of non-Russian whaling vessels were operating near Alaska. The great distance of Alaska from the Russian capital at St. Petersburg made it virtually impossible for the czar to enforce any regulations or prohibitions.
With the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854, Russian forces had to be concentrated in Europe. This meant that Alaska, so far away, could not be securely held and defended. In 1857 the Russian minister to the United States suggested that Alaska might be for sale. The American Civil War prevented any transaction from taking place immediately. Finally, in 1867, a treaty was negotiated by Secretary of State William H. Seward by which the United States purchased Alaska for 7.2 million dollars.
The End of Colonialism
For the most part, the nations of the Western Hemisphere became independent from Europe in the 50-year period from 1775 to 1825. Some vestiges of colonialism remained in the Caribbean Sea; for example, Cuba and Puerto Rico did not become free of Spain until 1898, and Barbados did not gain independence from Great Britain until 1966. After World War II there was a general movement throughout the world to decolonize overseas possessions. Most of the European colonial powers lost their remaining holdings after 1945. Martinique, Réunion, and Guadeloupe remained departments of France, as did French Guiana. Curaçao and Bonaire remained part of The Netherlands Antilles. Great Britain and the United States divided control of the Virgin Islands. Although a self-governing commonwealth, Puerto Rico was a territory of the United States. (See also West Indies.)
Canada became a self-governing dominion within the British Empire in 1867 under the terms of the British North America Act. In 1926 Canada, along with the other nations of the imperial Commonwealth, was recognized as an autonomous community within the empire. Not until 1982 did Canada promulgate its own constitution, thus freeing it to implement its own laws without the supervision of the British Parliament. Canada remained a member of the Commonwealth. (For more information on the colonial era see histories of Canada; Mexico; United States; South America.) (For the colonial wars see French and Indian War; King George's War; King William's War; Queen Anne's War.)
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The first congress met at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia on Sept. 5, 1774, with 44 delegates in attendance. Latecomers brought the total to 56. Peyton Randolph of Virginia was unanimously chosen president. (The use of that term for the presiding officer, as well as the use of the word congress, carried over into the formation of the new government under the Constitution of 1787.) At the insistence of the smaller colonies, each colony was given one vote regardless of its population.
Among the membership of the first congress were such notables as George Washington, Patrick Henry, John Jay, John Adams, and Samuel Adams. The membership of the 1775 congress was much the same, with the addition of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.
Meeting in secret session, the first congress rejected a plan by Joseph Galloway of Pennsylvania to somehow blend British authority with colonial freedom. Members voted instead for a declaration of rights, including those of life, liberty, property, assembly, and trial by jury. They also demanded amends for grievances that had been accumulating since 1763.
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Madison spent the next 19 years managing his 5,000-acre (2,000-hectare) farm at Montpelier. He incorporated innovative cultivating techniques that paved the way for future farming methods. As president of the Albemarle Agricultural Society he warned that human life depended upon preserving the balance of nature.
Madison contributed funds to help Thomas Jefferson build the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville, which received its charter in 1819 and opened in 1825. It was a self-governing institution where students had a certain degree of autonomy concerning the curriculum and school policies, all of which reflected the principles of government that both men advocated. Madison served on the university's Board of Visitors and became rector in 1826, the year Jefferson died. As rector of the University of Virginia until 1834, Madison maintained Jefferson's organizational structure. Before Madison died, he donated most of his personal library to the university, which he called “a temple dedicated to science and liberty.”
Although a slave owner, Madison worked to abolish slavery by supporting the American Colonization Society. Its plan was for the government to purchase slaves and resettle them in the colony of Liberia on the west coast of Africa starting in 1822. The United States would finance this operation through the sale of public lands. He was elected president of the organization in 1833 and served until his death. The organization did not achieve its goal of eliminating slavery in the United States because Southern landowners were reluctant to support such a radical movement. His fair and ethical treatment of his own slaves and his proactive opposition to slavery was evidence of his sincerity toward valuing human rights.
Madison's final public position was in 1829, when he took part in the Virginia constitutional convention in Richmond as an Orange County representative. Delegates strove to reform the original constitution on issues such as voting rights and slavery in the state. He contested the nullification and secession articles that would allow Southern states like Virginia to declare federal laws unconstitutional that they deemed unfit to the structure of their respective states. He had little impact on the outcome of the convention but was satisfied that some agreements were reached in the legislature. Upon his departure, Madison hoped that the leaders of Virginia would uphold the state constitution and work to preserve the political and economic growth of the country.
Montpelier attracted many guests who sought to visit with Madison and draw insights on his political views and spectacular career. Dolley Madison employed her skills as a gracious hostess to entertain these visitors. She had experience from hosting banquets and receptions in Washington, D.C., during the presidencies of both Jefferson and her husband. She had the ability to alleviate the awkwardness of the social interactions between political rivals, foreign diplomats, and ordinary citizens.
In James Madison's final few months, Dolley remained by his side and nursed him until his final day. He died on June 28, 1836, in his home and was buried in the family cemetery on the grounds of Montpelier.
Madison, the Sage of Montpelier, left behind a legacy as one of the most influential founding fathers of the United States. Among his papers was a message entitled “Advice to My Country,” which asked that “the Union of the States be cherished and perpetuated.”