Colonial Americas & Negotiated Spaces, to 1754

By the 16th century, Spain, Portugal, England, France and the Netherlands had undertaken colonial ventures (with varying success) in the Americas. Central and South America had largely been claimed by the Spanish and Portuguese, leaving the French, English and Dutch to focus on eastern North America and parts of the Caribbean. Colonization patterns took different forms. All were in some way tied to material gain. But they were also accompanied by well meaning (and sometimes not so well meaning) missionaries or marginalized religious groups (like the Puritans and Pilgrims). England's first two permanent settlements provided a stark contrast: the Jamestown Colony of men in search of "gold, gold, gold," and the Massachusetts Bay Colony intent on being a "city on a hill." In New Spain, labor intensive mining and plantation agriculture created economies based on enslaved labor that would be duplicated in North American colonies. There was also far more inter-ethnic mixing in New Spain, as evidenced in the casta paintings. New France also saw inter-ethnic mixing, as fewer French women migrated to the French colonies, which were mostly structured around trading posts and Jesuit missions. The English colonies, particularly New England, were far more conducive to families.

When we think about the "colonial period," we tend to just think of one chunk of time in which we envision colonial style houses, Puritans and Pilgrims, and the "triangular trade." But the time between the founding of Jamestown and the start of the American Revolution is roughly the same amount of time as the years between the American Revolution and WWII. There's an incredible amount of change and development in that time, and we must keep that in mind when studying the "colonial era" and its people. The Pilgrims who arrived in 1620 did not have the same experiences as the colonists arriving in 1720. And by the time of the Revolution, most people were in fact born in the colonies, not in Europe.

Finally, there was constant interplay in the colonies: between one another, between colonies and natives, and between colonies and mother countries. There were shifting alliances and enemies and periods of peace and conflict. The settlement and development of the Americas is a constant story of encounters.