The Atlantic World in 1607

Hi, My name is Peter Michael,

and I'm a professor of history and

anthropology at the University of Southern California.

And I'm gonna start this course with a lecture

that examines the Atlantic world in 16 oh,

seven, the beginning of this period, 16 oh, 7 to 17.

54 which is the topic of this unit on the European colonisation of North America.

I think it's very important for us,

as we get started to sort of think about what

the world looked like to the English in 16.

Oh, seven,

since most of what I'm going to be talking

about deals with English colonisation of Eastern North America.

During this time period,

the English had known about North America since the end of the 15th century.

All Europeans had known about North America after Columbus's expeditions.

But the English also had more specific knowledge because the Cabot voyages,

which begin at the very end of the 14 nineties.

But even though they had knowledge about North America

and even though they saw the resources being extracted,

the English were very slow to get involved in the colonisation business.

So over the course of the 16th century,

when we talk about European colonisation of North America.

We're really talking primarily about Spanish colonisation.

And then farther south in Brazil about Portuguese colonisation

the Spanish who, uh,

colonised the Americas had certain specific ideas in

mind when they set up their colonies.

They did so in a series of waves.

The first wave with Columbus's first voyage in 14 92 and

the voyages that followed a second wave that took Conquistadors,

uh, to Mexico, culminating,

uh in Cortez's conquest up to North Taiwan from 15 19 to 15 21 and the third wave,

which the Spanish moved into South America

down to the Andes,

where Pizarro led a conquest of the Incan Empire by the early 15 thirties.

This moment this this, uh, this colonial moment was dominated really by men,

by soldiers on the one hand and by priests missionaries.

On the other hand, and in their separate ways,

they each tried to sort of reduced to use the word they would use

native Americans to to their vision of what the Spanish colonies should look like.

Soldiers through military force and the missionaries they

hoped through persuasion to bring people into Christendom.

The amount of wealth that the Spanish extracted from the

Americas is almost impossible for us to imagine today.

But there's account after account,

which talks about the way that they

pillaged temples melted down gold ransom Atahualpa,

the last emperor of the ink ins for just a vast treasure,

perhaps the greatest ransom ever paid.

And they transported this wealth back to Europe. Even today,

you can go, uh,

to Rome and go into the basilica in seminary of Santa Maria Majora and look up at

the at the gilded paint that paint purportedly comes

from gold leaf that once came from Columbus.

So the amount of wealth that came over from the Spanish really got other

Europeans thinking about the possibility and the

power and the prospects for colonising North America

in the middle of the 16th century.

One of the missionaries who was in Spanish America,

named about Dominican named Bartolome de las Casas,

got very upset at the way the soldiers were operating.

And he wrote a book which is known to us

as a short account of the destruction of the Indies,

in which he described, in graphic and lurid terms,

terrible things that Spanish soldiers were doing to native peoples.

I mean, it's almost impossible

to read this text. I mean, it's, you know, you can't imagine some of things.

He talks about soldiers capturing families,

separating infants from their parents, throwing infants to be eaten by dogs,

soldiers chopping off hands and feet

and decapitating people burning people alive.

He talks about soldiers grilling people over open flames.

I mean, it's it's said, really, It's catastrophic thing.

Las Casas had in mind writing a text that he hoped

would reform the way Spanish soldiers operated in the Americas.

That is, he was not opposed to Spanish colonisation.

He just thought it was an imperfect way to bring souls into Christendom.

And so he looked for something different.

But in the middle of the 16th century,

books weren't just didn't just remain in one country

unless Casas brief account of the destruction

of the Indies circulated around the continent.

And it reached England in a translation in 15 83 which was called the Spanish colony.

And rather than it being a critique aimed at the aimed internally

within the Spanish empire to have kinky stories modify what they're doing,

it instead became an English critique of Spanish colonialism,

Spanish imperialism.

Specifically, What had been going on is that during the 16th century Europe,

the English had embraced the Protestant caused as a result of the Reformation.

And so,

by the time was Kostas wrote his book in 15 52

and then it was published in England in 15 83.

By then, the English had really embraced the idea of a Protestant need, uh,

to go out and not only bring more heathens

as they might have used the word into Christendom,

but also to battle what they saw as the dangers and the menace of Catholicism.

So in the hands of English promoters,

after 15 83 a critique of Spain was embedded

into English plans for how to establish colonies.

And we know this because we have a

lot of documents from promoters of colonisation from

the 15 eighties and 15 nineties from the period literally going to 16 oh seven.

And in these various documents, promoters of colonisation,

the most famous one of whom was named Richard Hack with the younger these

people articulate a specific series of arguments

for why the English colonised North America.

One promoter listed something like 31 different reasons why the English should go.

But if you boil it down to the major reasons there maybe half a dozen first,

the English had to get to the Americas so they could spread

spread the proper kind of practise

of Christianity to them Protestant Christianity.

Second, they were going to discover the Northwest Passage,

which they were convinced,

ran over the top of modern day Canada and was a quick way to get to the South Sea

what we call the Pacific Ocean and would be a

way to get spices more quickly into northwest Europe.

Third, by discovering as they sought North America,

they would bring great glory to Queen Elizabeth,

the first expand her realm and make her

an even more important figure in world history.

Fourth, they believed that England was overcrowded,

and they were especially concerned about underemployed and

unemployed young men because they thought that underemployed,

healthy young men who weren't working

were dangerous. We would see them as perhaps victims of a Modernising economy.

They saw them as potential tools of evil.

And so one of the things that North America

offered was a chance to send these unemployed,

underemployed young men mostly men across the Atlantic Ocean.

Finally, of these major motivations for the English

by sending colonists over to North America And, they hoped,

converting native peoples to their way of living,

to create markets for English goods.

And those markets would then boost domestic domestic economy of Britain itself.

And then finally, and perhaps not surprising

they would get rich. They saw the Spanish get rich.

They heard about the Portuguese getting rich, and they wanted in on the action, too.

And so they put out long lists of commodities they could get gold, silver but lumber,

tall trees for mass furs from fur bearing animals very popular at

the time and in short supply in Europe and various other commodities,

they thought they would logically extract from American forests.

The English. At this moment, their goals differed a bit from other Europeans.

The French and the Dutch would eventually also look to colonisation.

But unlike the English,

the French and the Dutch did not believe that the North America

would be an ideal place to transplant a super abundant population.

They instead, as I'll talk about in later lectures here,

they instead had a much more limited vision in mind

and the colonies that they created in North America,

which much more limited as a result.

The English plans for colonisation came together in

the early years of the 17th century.

They had actually come together earlier with the attempt to settle the Outer

Banks of Carolina at the place that we called Roanoke a lost colony.

The English tried to colonise the coast of Maine in 16, 5, 16, 6.

It was too cold, and they couldn't survive.

But by 16 oh, seven,

they thought they finally had enough understanding of the American climate.

Uh, and they believe that they had to write a legal right to what we would think.

It was the mid Atlantic part of the country to establish a colony.

And in 16 oh, seven,

they sent a group of men and boys up the Chesapeake

Bay and finally at the James River to establish Virginia.

The topic I'll turn to in my next lecture