World Civilization Assignment 3
Different Patterns of Colonization
Examples of Dutch, French and English Colonies in North America.
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Economics and Type of Colonization
• The way in which European states colonized North America and the way they interacted with the native population they came in contact with seems to have been determined by the economic systems of wealth creation adopted in each colony.
• We are going to examine three examples in this lecture to try and illustrate what is meant by the argument above.
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Dutch in New Netherland
• In 1609 Dutch East India Company sent an expedition to North America to attempt to find a fabled passageway to the Pacific.
• This expedition was commanded by an English captain, John Hudson and the river he sailed came to be known as the Hudson River.
• the first Dutch settlement in the Americas was founded in 1615. This was Fort Nassau, on Castle Island along the Hudson, near present-day Albany.
• In 1621 the Dutch West India was formed and granted a monopoly over trade in the Americas. Additional fort built on the Delaware River
• 1624 a group of about 30 Dutch families arrived in the new world. Around 1626 they settled on an Island at the mouth of the Hudson river (today’s Manhattan island.) The Dutch Built Fort New Amsterdam, which eventually becomes the capital city of New Amsterdam. The settlement would eventually spread to what we know as Brooklyn, Bronx, and Long Island.
• Salves were also brought to the colony around 1625
• By 1633 the Dutch had established forts as far as what as modern day city of Hartford, on the Connecticut River
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Dutch North American Colonies Circa 1656
“1685 reprint of a 1656 map of the Dutch North American colonies showing extent of Dutch claims, from Chesapeake Bay and the Susquehanna River in the South and West, to Narragansett Bay and the Providence-Blackstone Rivers in the East, to the St. Lawrence River in the North”
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Dutch and the Natives
• No great gold and silver mines to exploit.
• No great cities to conquer.
• As a small settlement the Dutch primarily relied on fur trade with the natives.
• As a small settlement of families there was no great expansion or intermingling with natives.
• However, peaceful relations had to be maintained as there was economic reliance on the natives who brought the fur to trade with the Dutch.
• 1664 England takes over the Dutch Colony of New Amsterdam and renames in New York.
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French in the New World • Jacques Cartier in the first half of the 16th century began exploration
of the St Lawrence River.
• He and later Samuel de Champlain stumbled upon the Great Lakes.
• In 1608 the French founded colony of New France which was centered around Quebec.
• Initially most French migrants were young single men traders and adventurers or missionaries, rather than families.
• Even as late as 1666 the census of New France showed 2034 men and 1181 women*
* "Statistics for the 1666 Census." Library and Archives Canada. 2006.
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Map of New France
“A map of New France made by Samuel de Champlain in 1612” Image in the public domain
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Champlain's Habitation c. 1608
Samuel de Champlain - Numérisation d'une page du livre : The works of Samuel de Champlain in six volumes, Toronto, The Champlain Society, 1925, reprinted 1971 by University of Toronto press, volume II, p. 39. / Première version : [1] http://storage.journaldemontreal.com/v1/dynamic_resize/sws_path/jdx- prod-images/91577772-d0f9-4d54-981b- b08aa6a13e58_ORIGINAL.jpg?quality=80&size=1200x&version=0 In public Domain Found on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_France#/media/File:Champlain_Habitation_de_Q uebec.jpg
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French and Natives
• Unlike Dutch the French would fan out and thoroughly explore the interior.
• These early arrivals were also interested in trade rather than large scale farming and so were reliant on natives as trading partners (fur again.)
• The presence of these single young men lead to significant intermingling with native populations and the emergence of an entire class of mixed race or metis (French Indian) children who would further expand French presence and regulate French-Indian relationships to some extent.
• Their relative small numbers also made French look to natives as allies against the much more numerous English colonists. Hence, relatively harmonious relations developed.
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Fur Trade in Canada
William Faden - Library and Archives Canada - originally from: Cartouche from William Faden, "A map of the Inhabited Part of Canada from the French Surveys; with the Frontiers of New York and New England", 1777 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_colonization_of_the_Americas#/media/File:Fur _traders_in_canada_1777.jpg
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French Settlers
• To firmly establish the colony and assure its success between 1663-1673 the French King ,Louis XIV, would sponsor groups of single young women to travel to the New France Colony as prospective brides to the existing male settlers. Their passages were paid for by the crown, and they were also assigned small dowries.
• These single young women were referred to as “les filles du rois” or the kings daughters. About 800 of them travelled to New France in that time period. They mostly came from poorer common families with no great prospects back in France. So this was a chance to improve their lot.
• The new young couples were encouraged to have large families. From 3,200 in 1663, The population of New France reached 6,700, in 1672.
• The French also continued to encourage intermarriage with the native populations in a bid to increase their numbers and further secure the colony. Compared to the English colonies however their populations remained small.
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Les Filles Du Rois (1667)
Image in the public Domain Charles William Jefferys - http://www.classomption.qc.ca/labergef/synth03/404- 7/Filles%20du%20Roy.jpg Found on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_France#/media/File:The_Arrival_of_the_French_ Girls_at_Quebec,_1667_-_C.W._Jefferys.jpg
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English
• Initial English colonies in Massachusetts and Virginia appeared ideal for farming.
• Virginia Company Establishes Jamestown 1607. This evolves into Virginia Colony by 1624.
• Plymouth Colony was established by Puritan Settlers in 1620. It was the first permanent settlement in New England. Initial number of settlers were around 100.
• Different crops were suitable for different areas depending on soil and climate but the English colonies were mostly farming colonies.
• relatively large numbers of settlers that began arriving from the British Isles. They came for economic reason, for religious reasons, for legal reasons… In the end England was relatively small and population growing.
• The new settlers came in large part as family units and established agrarian societies.
• By 1680, the New England colony alone, had a population of around 60,000. Some estimates put the total English population of the N. America colonies at 150,000 around that time.
Note that these English colonies were mostly private enterprises not funded directly by the crown, but by various companies and enterprises. For example the Puritan colonists who established the Plymouth colony, were English colonists who had escaped from England to the Netherlands around 1601 due to religious persecution. They then decided to migrate to the New World to seek land and to preserve their identity. They purchased the land from the London Company (also known as Virginia Colony) which held the charter. To do so, they borrowed money from a private lending group. The English crown was not directly involved in funding any of this. Why is this important, because settlers did not have to wait on state financing and state finances to allow them to migrate, rather they raised money from various private sources and made their own way to the New World.
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Colonies of N. America
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English and Natives
• The arrival of large numbers of families engaged in farming had consequences.
• Farming families tended to be large. There was also little intermingling with native populations. Intermingling was actively discouraged and censured.
• necessitated even more expansion and control over more land. This meant clearing it and fencing it, game animals shot not just for food but as pests who ate crops.
• The British were introducing a whole new way of life, that not only precluded the Indians, but adversely effected them by transforming their traditional hunting grounds and destroying a major food source (wild game.)
• There was little chance of cordial coexistence. No interdependency and no intermingling.
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New England
• In New England constant demands for new lands from the settlers resulted in a series of ferocious wars with native populations in the 1630’s and 1670’s.
• Invariably the natives lost ground to the settlers.
• The same dynamics that aided the Spanish were also at play in North America as disease and technology helped carry the day for the Europeans.
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Virginia
• The dynamic was no different in Virginia after the founding of Jamestown in 1607.
• The crop of choice in Virginia however was Tobacco.
• A boom in Tobacco prices in 1620 as it became popular was a blessing to the colonists and an absolute curse for the Indians.
• Land cleared, animals shot, land planted with the poisonous, nutritionally useless weed.
• Situation made even worse in Virginia as the Tobacco boom led to land speculation and the influx of capital investment. A craze.
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Relations with Native Populations Appears to be Consistently Determined by Economic Models
• Treatment of native population was not determined by “good colonists” or “bad colonists” characterizations.
• The same brutality exhibited by the British in dealing with the natives was on display when the French colonize Louisiana.
• As in British Virginia, French Louisiana became home to plantations engaged in producing tobacco starting around 1719. The French planters arrived oftentimes with families.
• Hence land for planting this weed becomes valuable, and as a consequence the native populations are excluded, driven out or exterminated.
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Population Growth
• The European/white population of the British colonies in N America had swelled to as many as 250 thousand by 1700.
• An additional 33 thousand in the Caribbean.
• Beside white population you had 150 thousand African slaves.
• At this point in time the vast majority of those (about 120 thousand or ¾) were tied to Sugar plantations in the Caribbean.
• Another economic system for wealth creation which for some time was of greater value and of greater importance than all these others, was the slave planation system of the Caribbean.
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