American History

Early Colonization of the New World (1491–1607)

American History for the Masses

Photo by Andrew James on Unsplash

Indigenous Land Management

American societies that hadn’t developed much in the way of agriculture often transformed the landscape through the strategic use of fire, which encouraged the growth of plants and attracted game animals. Many early European immigrants to North America remarked that the areas they were settling resembled parkland; this wasn’t the natural conditions of these regions, but reflected the cultivation of the local environment by the Native Americans who had preceded them.

The Early Colonial Era: Spain Colonizes the New World

Christopher Columbus arrived in the New World in 1492. He was not the first European to reach North America, the Norse had arrived in modern Canada around 1000, but his arrival marked the beginning of the Contact Period, during which Europe sustained contact with the Americas and introduced a widespread exchange of plants, animals, foods, communicable diseases, and ideas in the Columbian Exchange. Columbus arrived at a time when Europe had the resources and technology to establish colonies far from home. (A colony is a territory settled and controlled by a foreign power.) When Columbus returned to Spain and reported the existence of a rich new world with easy-to-subjugate natives, he opened the door to a long period of European expansion and colonialism.

During the next century, Spain was the colonial power in the Americas. The Spanish founded a number of coastal towns in Central and South America and in the West Indies, where the conquistadors collected and exported as much of the area’s wealth as they could. Under Spain’s encomienda system, the crown granted colonists authority over a specified number of natives; the colonist was obliged to protect those natives and convert them to Catholicism, and in exchange, the colonist was entitled to those natives’ labor for such enterprises as sugar harvesting and silver mining. If this sounds like a form of slavery, that’s because it was.

Spanish and Portuguese colonization of North America was also marked by liberal mixing of cultures, leading to a racial caste system, with Europeans at the top of the hierarchy, followed by Mestizos (those of mixed European and Native blood), Zambos (those of mixed African and Native American heritage), and full-blooded Africans at the bottom of the ladder. Meanwhile, the strength of Spain’s navy, the Spanish Armada, kept other European powers from establishing much of a foothold in the New World. In 1588, the English navy defeated the Armada, and consequently, French and English colonization of North America became much easier.

Conflict Between Native Americans and European Settlers

Much of early American history revolves around the conflict between Native Americans and European settlers. Europeans were generally victorious. Why? One seemingly obvious answer is that the Europeans had more advanced technology, but this wasn’t actually a major factor. In fact, in many ways, the Native Americans’ technology was superior; their canoes were far better at navigating North American rivers than any European ship, and their moccasins offered better footing than clumsy European boots. The most important factor, by a wide margin, was disease. Native Americans had never been exposed to European microbes and had never developed immunities to them. Epidemics, such as smallpox, devasted Native American settlements, sometimes killing 95% of the population.

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References and Further Reading

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[embed]Columbian Exchange Teach the Columbian Exchange with lessons that trace how food, animals, diseases, and ideas spread across oceans and…www.oerproject.com

**https://www.britannica.com/event/Columbian-exchange**

[embed]The Spanish Armada, 1588 The Spanish Armada set sail from Spain in July 1588, with the mission of overthrowing the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I…www.historic-uk.com

[embed]Spanish Armada - Defeat & Definition | HISTORY The Spanish Armada was a large naval fleet sent by Spain in 1588 to invade England. Outmaneuvered and outgunned, the…www.history.com