PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF ALGERIA

MINISTRY OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

UNIVERSITY OF GHARDAIA
FACULTY OF LETTERS AND LANGUAGES
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

Course: Culture & Civilization Academic Year: 2022/2023

Instructor: Ms. ALLAOUI Level: 3rd Year L (5th Semester)

Lecture (1): Discovery and Settlement in the New World:

II/ European Colonization of the Americas

 Introduction:
The first known Europeans to reach the Americas are believed to have been the Vikings (Norse) during
the eleventh century, who established several colonies in Greenland and one short-lived settlement at
L'Anse aux Meadows in an area they called Vinland, present day Newfoundland. Settlements in
Greenland survived for several centuries, during which time the Greenland Norse and the Inuit people
experienced mostly hostile contact. By the end of the fifteenth century, the Norse Greenland settlements
had collapsed.
In 1492, a Spanish expedition headed by Christopher Columbus reached the Americas, after which
European exploration and colonization rapidly expanded, first through much of the Caribbean region
(including the islands of Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Cuba) and, early in the sixteenth century, parts of
the mainlands of North and South America.
Eventually, the entire Western Hemisphere would come under the domination of European nations,
leading to profound changes to its landscape, population, and plant and animal life. The post-1492 era is
known as the period of the Columbian Exchange. The potato, the pineapple, the turkey, dahlias,
sunflowers, magnolias, maize, chilies, and chocolate went East across the Atlantic Ocean. Smallpox and
measles but also horses and guns traveled West.

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 This European expansion into the Western Hemisphere, in fact, had caused intense social, religious,
political and economic competition in Europe. European nations, such as Portugal, Spain, France, Britain,
the Netherlands and Sweden, were all interested in obtaining their own valuable colonies and this
eventually led to "empire building" and unlimited efferts to conquer as much land as they could possibly
obtain. This European exploration and conquest were fueled by a desire for: (i) new sources of wealth, (ii)
increased power and status, and (iii) converts to Christianity.

The first conquests were made by the Spanish and the Portuguese. In the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas,
these two kingdoms divided the entire non-European world between themselves, with a line drawn
through South America.

1) The Main European Powers in the Americas:

1.1) Purtugal:
Portugal led the others into exploration. Encouraged
by Prince Henry the Navigator, Portuguese seamen
sailed southward along the African coast seeking a
water route to the East. After Henry’s death,
Portuguese interest in long-distance trade and
expansion waned until King John II commissioned
Bartolomeu Dias to find a water route to India in
1487. Dias sailed around the tip of Africa and into the
Indian Ocean before his frightened crew forced him to
give up the quest. A year later, Vasco da Gama
succeeded in reaching India and returned to Portugal
laden with jewels and spices. In 1500, Pedro Álvares
Cabral discovered and conquered much of eastern
South America, naming it Brazil.

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1.2) Spain:
In August 1492, Columbus sailed west with his ships, and after ten weeks, he reached an island in the
Bahamas, which he named San Salvador. Thinking he had found islands near Japan, he sailed on until he
reached Cuba (which he thought was mainland China) and later Haiti.

Columbus returned to Spain with many products unknown to Europe–coconuts, tobacco, sweet corn–and
with tales of dark-skinned native peoples whom he called “Indians” because he assumed he had been
sailing in the Indian Ocean.

Between 1494 and 1502, he made three more voyages to America during which he explored Puerto Rico,
the Virgin Islands, Jamaica, and Trinidad. Each time he returned more certain that he had reached the
East. Subsequent explorations by others, however, persuaded most Europeans that Columbus had
discovered a “New World.” Ironically, that New World was named for someone else. The Italian Amerigo
Vespucci claimed that he had landed on the American mainland before Columbus. In 1507
Waldseemüller, a German geographer, published a book in which he named the new land “America.”

More Spanish expeditions followed. Juan Ponce de León explored the coasts of Florida in 1513. Vasco
Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and discovered the Pacific Ocean in the same year.
Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition sailed around the tip of South America, across the Pacific to the
Philippines, through the Indian Ocean and back to Europe around the southern tip of Africa between 1519
and 1522.

However, two expeditions led directly to Spain’s emergence as sixteenth-century Europe’s wealthiest and
most powerful nation. The first was headed by Hernán Cortés, a conquistador, who in 1519 led a small
army of Spanish and Native Americans against the Aztec Empire of Mexico. Completing the conquest in
1521, Cortés took control of the Aztecs’ fabulous gold and silver mines. Ten years later, an expedition
under another conquistador, Francisco Pizarro, overwhelmed the Inca Empire of Peru, securing for the
Spaniards the great Inca silver mines.

Years later (1539-1542), Francisco Vásquez de Coronado discovered the Grand Canyon and journeyed
through much of the Southwest looking for gold and the legendary Seven Cities of Cíbola. About the same
time, Hernando de Soto explored southeastern North America from Florida to the Mississippi River. By
1650, Spain’s empire was complete and fleets of ships were carrying the plunder back to Spain.

Both expeditions relied upon large complements of native laborers, who were forcibly impressed into
service. Coronado, de Soto, and their troops destroyed communities that resisted their demands for tribute,
women, supplies, and obeisance. Although its explorers sighted the coast of California in 1542, Spain did
not colonize that area above Florida until the second part of the 18th century.

Marriage between Spanish men and native women was acceptable. After a few generations, a complex
social order based on ancestry, land ownership, wealth, and noble titles had become entrenched in the
Spanish colonies.

Spain’s successful colonization efforts in the Americas did not go unnoticed. The other remaining
European countries (England, France, and the Netherlands) soon became interested in obtaining their own
valuable colonies. They ignored the Treaty of Tordesillas and set out to build their own empires in the
Americas. This resulted in a struggle for North America.

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 1.3) France:
France was almost constantly at war during the 15th
and 16th centuries, a situation that spurred an overseas
agenda focused on income generation, although territorial
expansion and religious conversion were important
secondary goals.

The early French explorers sailed west with dreams of

reaching the East Indies. One explorer was Giovanni da
Verrazzano, an Italian in the service of France. In 1524,
he sailed to North America in search of a sea route to the
Pacific. While he did not find the route, Verrazzano did
discover what is today New York harbor.

Ten years later, the Frenchman Jacques Cartier reached

a gulf off the eastern coast of Canada that led to a broad
river. Cartier named it the St. Lawrence. He followed it
inward until he reached a large island dominated by a
mountain. He named the island Mont Real (Mount Royal),
which later became known as Montreal. His expeditions,
though failed to find a northern sea passage to Asia, laid
the foundations for the French claims to North America,
which were to last until 1763.

Following the collapse of their first colony in 1541, French Huguenots (Protestants) attempted to settle
the northern coast of Florida two decades later (1564). The Spanish, viewing the French as a threat to their
trade route along the Gulf Stream, destroyed the colony in 1565. Thereafter, the French directed their
efforts north and west.

In 1608, another French explorer, Samuel de Champlain, sailed up the St. Lawrence with about 32
colonists. They founded Quebec, which became the base of France’s colonial empire in North America,
known as New France. Then the French penetrated the North American continent. In 1673, French Jesuit
priest Jacques Marquette and trader Louis Joliet explored the Great Lakes and the upper Mississippi
River.
Nearly 10 years later, Sieur de La Salle explored the lower Mississippi. He claimed the entire river valley
for France. He named it Louisiana in honor of the French king, Louis XIV. By the early 1700s, New France
covered much of what is now the midwestern United States and eastern Canada.

France’s North American empire was immense. But it was sparsely populated. By 1760, the European
population of New France had grown to only about 65,000. A large number of French colonists had no
desire to build towns or raise families. These settlers included Catholic priests who sought to convert
Native Americans. They also included young, single men engaged in what had become New France’s main
economic activity, the fur trade. Unlike the English, the French were less interested in occupying
territories than they were in making money off the land.

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 In fact, most of the northern locales where the French founded settlements were already occupied by
various Algonquin groups or members of the Iroquoian-speaking Huron confederacy. These peoples
quickly partnered with the French—first as fur trappers, later as middlemen in the trade, and always as a
source of staples such as maize. As a result, unions between native women and French men quickly became
common because the Algonquin, Huron, and French were all accustomed to using marriage as a means of
joining extended families and because indigenous warfare caused a demographic imbalance that favored
women. In addition, few women were eager to leave France for the rough life of the colonies.

1.4) The Netherlands and Sweden:

The colonial efforts of the Netherlands and Sweden were motivated primarily by commerce. Dutch
businessmen formed several colonial monopolies soon after their country gained independence from Spain
in the late 16th century.
In 1609, Henry Hudson, an Englishman in the service of the Netherlands, sailed west. He was searching
for a northwest sea route to Asia. Hudson did not find a route. He did, however, explore three waterways
that were later named for him—the Hudson River, Hudson Bay, and Hudson Strait. The Dutch claimed
the region along these waterways and Dutch merchants formed the Dutch West India Company.

In 1621, the Dutch government granted the company permission to colonize the region and expand the
fur trade. It took control of the New Netherland colony (comprising parts of the present-day states of
Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware) in 1623. In 1624 the company founded Fort Orange
(present-day Albany, New York) on the Hudson River; New Amsterdam was founded on the island of
Manhattan soon after. The Dutch holdings in North America became known as New Netherland.

The Ductch company established a fur trade with the Iroquois Indians. Although it profited from its fur
trade, it was slow to attract Dutch colonists. To encourage settlers, the colony opened its doors to a variety
of peoples. Gradually more Dutch, as well as Germans, French, Scandinavians, and other Europeans,
settled the area.
In 1637 a group of individuals formed the New Sweden Company. They hired Peter Minuit, a former
governor of New Amsterdam, to found a new colony to the south (in what is now Delaware). In 1655 New
Sweden fell to the Dutch.
Despite some local successes, the Dutch ceded their North American holdings to the English after just 40
years, preferring to turn their attention to the lucrative East Indies trade rather than defend the colony.
The English renamed the area New York and allowed the Dutch and Swedish colonists to maintain title to
the land they had settled.

1.5) England:
In 1497 Henry VII of England sponsored an expedition to
the New World headed by John Cabot, an Italian who
explored the North Atlantic coast. But until Queen
Elizabeth’s reign, the English showed little interest in
exploration, being preoccupied with their European trade
and establishing control over the British Isles.
In 1578 Humphrey Gilbert received a patent from
Queen Elizabeth to colonize the "heathen and barbarous
landes" in the New World which other European nations
had not yet claimed. When he was lost at sea, his half-

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brother, Walter Raleigh, took up the mission. In 1585 Raleigh established the first British colony in North
America, on Roanoke Island off the coast of North Carolina, he named Virginia after Queen Elizabeth.
Later it was abandoned and came to be known the "Lost Colony." In 1587, he sponsored a second voyage,
this time to explore the Chesapeake Bay region, but proved a failure.

It would be 20 years before the British would try again. This time -- at Jamestown in 1607 -- the colony
would succeed, and North America would enter a new era.

2) Indigenous Peoples of the Americas and European Imperialism:

With little experience dealing with people who were different from themselves, European explorers
poorly understood the native peoples they encountered in the Americas, leading to debates over how
American Indians should be treated and how "civilized" these groups were compared to European
standards. Many Europeans developed a belief in White Superiority to justify their subjugation of
American Indians (and Africans as well), using several different rationales.

Native people in the Americas stove to maintain their political and cultural autonomy in the face of
European challenges to their independence and core beliefs. European attempts to change American Indian
beliefs and worldviews on basic social issues such as religion, gender roles and the family, and the
relationship of people with the natural environment led to American Indian resistance and conflict.

2.1) The Spanish:

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 The indigenous peoples had never before experienced occupation by a conquering army, though warfare
was not unknown in the region. As an occupying force, the Spanish troops were brutal. In an attempt to
exploit Native Americans, the Spanish created a labor system, known as the encomienda system, based on
captured Natives as slaves to work as laborers.

Spanish colonizers attempted to integrate Native Americans into Spanish culture by marrying them and
converting them to Catholicism. The Roman Catholic missionaries that accompanied Coronado and de Soto
worked assiduously to Christianize the native population. Many of the priests were hearty supporters of
the Spanish Inquisition (which was a brutal judicial institution ostensibly established to combat heresy in
Spain that targeted the Protestants, the Jews and the Muslim Moriscos) and their pastoral forays were
often violent; beatings, dismemberment, torture, and execution were all common punishments for the
supposed heresies committed by Native Americans.

Although some Native Americans adopted aspects of Spanish culture, others decided to rebel. The
Pueblo Revolt (1680) was one example of a successful Native American effort to reclaim their religious
practices, culture, and land. But the Spanish response was very brutal and eventually tens of thousands of
Native Americans died from disease, wars, and forced labor.

2.2) The French and the Dutch:

The attitudes of missionaries in New France varied: Some simply promoted the adoption of Roman
Catholic beliefs and practices, while others actively discouraged and even used force in order to end the
practice of indigenous religions.
Still, French and Dutch settlers developed a mostly cooperative relationship with the Native Americans.
This was due mainly to the mutual benefits of the fur trade. Native Americans did most of the trapping and
then traded the furs to the French for such items as guns, hatchets, mirrors, and beads. The Dutch also
cooperated with Native Americans in an effort to establish a fur-trading enterprise.
The groups did not live together in complete harmony. Dutch settlers fought with various Native
American groups over land claims and trading rights. For the most part, however, the French and Dutch
colonists lived together peacefully with their North American hosts.

2.3) The English:

The same could not be said of the English. Early relations between English settlers and Native Americans
were cooperative. However, they quickly worsened over the issues of land and religion. Unlike the French
and Dutch, the English sought to populate their colonies in North America. This meant pushing the natives
off their land. The English colonists seized more land for their population—and for tobacco to grow.

Religious differences also heightened tensions. The English settlers considered Native Americans
heathens; people without a faith. Over time, many Puritans viewed Native Americans as agents of the devil
and as a threat to their godly society. Native Americans developed a similarly harsh view of the European
invaders.

The hostility between the English settlers and Native Americans led to warfare. As early as 1622, the
Powhatan tribe attacked colonial villages around Jamestown and killed about 350 settlers. During the
next few years, the colonists struck back and massacred hundreds of Powhatans. One of the bloodiest
conflicts between colonists and Native Americans was known as King Philip’s War. It began in 1675 when
the Native American ruler Metacom (also known as King Philip) led an attack on colonial villages

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throughout Massachusetts. In the months that followed, both sides massacred hundreds of victims. After a
year of fierce fighting, the colonists defeated the natives. During the 17th century, many skirmishes
erupted throughout North America.

 Conclusion:
More destructive than the Europeans’ weapons were their diseases. Like the Spanish in Central and South
America, the Europeans who settled North America brought with them several diseases. The diseases
devastated the native population in North America. In 1616, for example, an epidemic of smallpox ravaged
Native Americans living along the New England coast. The population of one tribe, the Massachusett,
dropped from 24,000 to 750 by 1631. From South Carolina to Missouri, nearly whole tribes fell to smallpox,
measles, and other diseases. One of the effects of this loss was a severe shortage of labor in the colonies.

During the 1600s, the nations of Europe also colonized the Caribbean. The French seized control of
present-day Haiti, Guadeloupe, and Martinique. The English settled Barbados and Jamaica. In 1634, the
Dutch captured what is now the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba from Spain. On these islands, the
Europeans built huge cotton and sugar plantations. These products, although profitable, demanded a large
and steady supply of labor. In order to meet their growing labor needs in both areas, European colonists
soon turned to another group: Africans, whom they would enslave for centuries.

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"European Colonization of the Americas." New World Encyclopedia. 26 Dec 2020. Web. 11 Apr
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“The First Europeans.” The First Europeans < Early America < History 1994 < American History
From Revolution To Reconstruction and Beyond, Web. 11 Apr 2022.

Colonial America (1492-1763), Web. 11 April 2022.

DiNome, William G, et al. “American Indians.” Encyclopedia of North Carolina, University of North
Carolina Press. 1 Jan 2006. Web. 11 Apr 2022.

---. “Precolonial period (pre-1600).” Encyclopedia of North Carolina, University of North Carolina
Press. 1 Jan 2006. Web. 11 Apr 2022.

History.com Editors. “Exploration of North America.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 29 Oct.
2009. Web. 12 Apr 2022.

---. “Native American Cultures.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 4 Dec, 2009. Web. 11 Apr
2022.

Pauls, Elizabeth Prine. "Native American". Encyclopedia Britannica, 17 Aug. 2021. Web. 11 Apr
2022.