The Different Approaches of Spain, Portugal, France, and England to Colonialism

          The great colonial powers all shared a common geographical advantage.  They all had easy access to the Atlantic Ocean and in addition to this geographical position, they were also helped by the fact that the winds and currents in the Atlantic run in a clockwise direction.  The European mariners learned to use this clockwise flow to their advantage.  In sailing outbound they would head in a southwestward direction into the Caribbean, while on the way home they would sail in a northeastward direction.  The fact that all the major powers were seafaring nations is what allowed them to expand while other nations, like Italy, were not able to do this.  The naval prowess of the great powers, that is, the fact that they had skilled mariners, sea worthy vessels, craftsman, shipbuilders, and ports with docking and ship building facilities gave them the ability to extend their political influence to new areas.  They also were able to establish trade routes, including routes with the Far East, and they also had the ability to plunder the trade of their rivals.  Thus they were able to engage in trade, plunder and explore, on a scale never seen prior to this period.  These and other factors enabled the five great Europeans powers of Spain, Portugal, France, England, and the Netherlands to expand beyond their borders and to become worldwide empires.

          The two powers that were best prepared to take advantage of the discovery of the New World were Spain and Portugal, and this is true for a number of reasons, most having to do with the centuries of conflict between them and the Muslim Moors.  While the other nations, which had not gone through the events of the reconquest, were restricted initially to the development of limited forms of trade and other short-term activities.  For several centuries the Spanish and the Portuguese had been at war with the Muslim Moors, a group of people who had conquered most of the Iberian peninsula beginning in the year A.D. 711.  The Christians of Iberia had slowly been pushing the Muslims back to North Africa, and this was thought of as a ‘great crusade’ on the part of the Spanish and Portuguese.  Thus when Columbus discovered the New World in A.D. 1492, it was the two Iberian powers that were best prepared to take advantage of the discovery.  Not only had they been re-colonizing the lands taken from them beginning in the 8th century, but they had also been doing this in the face of open hostility from a powerful adversary.  The fact that they had developed the caravel and other nautical instruments which allowed them to navigate in the open ocean also prepared them for their future colonial enterprise.  This meant that they knew how to establish and defend colonies in a way that the other powers did not.

          The Spanish and Portuguese had been incorporating newly conquered territories in their kingdoms for several centuries, so they merely transferred what they had learned during the reconquest of Iberia and applied it to the New World.  The Christian Kings of Iberia had allowed certain men to act as a type of militia, which they would then send out in order to plunder the Muslim communities to the south.  They did this while they simultaneously were invading and taking over the Muslims lands that bordered their kingdoms.  They had been doing this for hundreds of years, and now they were going to take what they had learned in their war with the Moors and apply it to the Americas.  Logistically this would be more difficult, but the Iberians had been developing as naval powers for some time and as mentioned above, they had developed the caravel, a ship that was able to sail in the open ocean and not just along the coast.  The caravel was the great advantage of the Iberian powers, because unlike the ships of the Mediterranean, which were based on ancient Roman vessels, they were able to sail the Atlantic. In contrast, the northern European ships were large and could carry a lot of cargo but they were not designed for long journeys.  Thus the caravel was one of the keys to the success of Spain and Portugal in their imperial expansion.

          After the expulsion of the Moors, the Portuguese, who had been establishing trade routes by exploring down the coast of Africa, simply continued their conquests in that direction, while the Castilians continued their expansion by conquering the peoples of the Canary Islands.  When the Spanish colonized the Canary Islands they enslaved and mistreated the native peoples and in response to this activity Pope Eugene IV issued the Bull Sicut Dudum on the 13th of January A.D. 1435.  In that letter he condemned the colonizers for having "deprived the natives of their property," and for "subjecting the inhabitants of said islands to perpetual slavery" [Panzer, 8]. He then commanded all Christians to "restore to their liberty all and each person of either sex who were once residents of said Canary Islands. . . . These people are to be totally and perpetually free and are to be let go without the exaction or reception of any money" [Panzer, 8].  Of course the Pope had no police force with which to enforce this Papal Bull, but he did indicate that anyone who refused to obey it was ipso facto excommunicated.

          Both of these nations had completely geared themselves to the acquisition and assimilation of new territories, and so once their Muslim enemy was defeated it was only natural that they would proceed on in their conquests by expanding into new areas.  The discovery of the New World by Columbus indicated the direction that Spanish expansion would take, and the Portuguese would follow them, but Portugal already had been expanding in a southward direction.  The Portuguese were trying to find a trade route to the Far East by going around Africa, but this did not stop them from taking advantage of Africa itself as an area of expansion.

          When the Spanish government began establishing colonies in the Americas it followed the same pattern it had been successfully using in its reconquest of Iberia.  In A.D. 1502 the Spanish established their first real colony of Santo Domingo.  They sent a fleet of 30 ships and about 2,500 men under the leadership of a royal governor.  By sending a royal official to rule the new settlement, the Spanish crown was moving beyond simply exploring the area for gold and other raw materials, and was establishing a presence in the newly discovered areas in order to claim and rule them.  The Spanish established several towns and military outposts in the area.  In doing this they were transplanting the entire system of conquest and control that they had developed during the centuries of the 'reconquista.'

          The Spanish initially establish themselves in the Caribbean Islands, much as they had in the Canary Islands, but with the intention of eventually expanding further.  Like the natives of the Canary Islands the natives in the Caribbean were not as advanced as the Spanish, and they treated them in much the same way as they had the peoples of the Canary Islands.  By A.D. 1519 the Spanish headed to the mainland of Central America and conquered the Aztec Empire, an empire that in some ways mirrored the Moors.  One of the unforeseen consequences of the arrival of the Europeans was the death of millions of people caused by diseases that the native populations had no natural immunities against.  With the conquest of Mesoamerica the Spanish continued their system of town building, which was central to their method of colonization.

          One of the goals of the Spanish was to bring Catholic Christianity to the native populations, and so the Spanish and the Portuguese both established missions, but this is another area where the Spanish dominated, at least in the New World.  Religion was a major motivating factor for all the participants in the empire building game.  The Spanish, Portuguese and the French were all Catholics, although France had a sizable Protestant minority, and these powers as Catholic nations were in conflict with the Dutch and the English.  The Dutch and the English also had an interest in bringing their version of Christianity to the New World, but among the English missionary activity never played as important a role as it would among the Spanish.  The English were less concerned with converting the Indians, and were more interested in removing them from their lands in order to expand English settlements.

          The Portuguese operated on a different premise, they concentrated on the development of a trade network along the coasts of Africa.  So, rather than establishing colonies on the mainland, the Portuguese tended to establish colonies on the islands just off the coast.  Their colonies became much more important once the Portuguese finally go around the southern tip of Africa and establish a trade route with the Far East.  They also developed plantations on the islands that eventually served as archetypes for plantations in the Americas.  The Portuguese would bring the plantation system to Brazil, which was its territory in the Americas, but the plantation system would eventually be established in the Caribbean and then in the southern colonies of British North America.  It should be noted that the success of the plantation system was based on the institution of slavery, particularly African slavery.  The colonial powers found the native peoples of the Americas to be inefficient as compulsory labor, and so African slaves were brought in to work instead.  Portugal would control the slave trade throughout the 16th century, and would only be displaced by the Dutch in the 17th century.  The Portuguese Empire in spite of its vast trading network was never able to establish the degree of power that Spain achieved in the New World.

          The Dutch and the English entered the imperial colonization game later than the other powers, because neither of them had been prepared to establish overseas empires in the 16th century.  In fact the Dutch were a part of the Spanish Hapsburg Empire and it was only in the late 16th century that the Protestants in the Netherlands gained their independence from Spain. The Protestant northern portion of the Netherlands was able to establish its independence, but the Spanish reconquered the southern Catholic portions that eventually became Belgium.

          Amsterdam was made the capital of the Free Netherlands and the area developed rapidly as a commercial center, and this commercial growth accelerated with the arrival of more Protestant refugees.  New commercial enterprises began in the 1580s and 90s and a central bank was established as well, and with all this activity the wealth of the region greatly expanded.  In A.D. 1602 the Dutch East India Company was established with the central purpose of trading with the Far East.  The Dutch also began to take an interest in North America.  The Dutch West India Company had been set up and was active in the Caribbean, but in A.D. 1613 it established Fort Nassau in order to trade with the natives in the Hudson River area.  This eventually led to the establishment of the Dutch colony of New Netherlands on the Hudson River, and in A.D. 1625 they established the city of New Amsterdam, which eventually would become New York City.  The Dutch, like the English, were slowly learning how to create an empire, they did not have the experience of the Spanish and the Portuguese, but they were learning by trial and error.  The Dutch colonies on the North American mainland would eventually come under English control.

          By the middle of the 16th century the English knew that they needed to get involved in the colonization of the New World, but they still did not have the ability to do so.  In A.D. 1497 John Cabot had sailed from Bristol England heading west, and he determined that he had not found a series of islands, but had found a new mainland, but the English did nothing with this knowledge for about 80 years.  If the English were to establish colonies they first needed to gain experience, and they did this by getting involved in privateering, that is, by plundering the trade of other nations.  This kind of activity was normally done with the approval of the government.  The English also established trading companies in order to build a trade system that would benefit the country.  The English did this for about 40 years before they finally attempted to set up a colony in the New World.  Their first attempt at a colony failed in the 1580s, but the desire for empire by that time was firmly entrenched, and the English were set on expansion.

          The English had been gaining experience on how to colonize a land through their actions in Ireland.  In a sense the English attitude toward colonization and their views on to treat the native peoples they came in contact with, were inculcated into the English character by their activities in Ireland.  The English saw the Irish as savages and additionally the English connected legal rights to nationality.  Thus in their view the Irish had no rights because they were not Englishmen, and this attitude would be transferred to the British colonies in the New World.  The American colonists would see the Indians as savages and as having no real rights because they were not Englishmen.  This attitude also influenced English views of Africans and helped the English to justify their enslavement.  English experience in Ireland was educational, it helped them to understand what colonization of a new territory involved, and thus it prepared them for the establishment of the American colonies.

          Unlike the Spanish, the English had no organized policy on how to set up their colonial empire; instead, they had a diversity of methods, based on both economic and religious principles.  The New England area was established as a religious enclave for the Puritans, while many of the other colonies were set up under land grants for economic reasons.  The British colonies developed along regional lines, and as I already indicated the New England area was set up as a Puritan area, and the Middle Colonies were set up on a mixed religious and economic basis.  Pennsylvania was established as a Quaker colony, but was open to peoples of other faiths. Maryland was established as a Catholic colony under a grant to the Calvert family.  The Chesapeake area and the colonies to the south were dominated by the Anglican Church, but were mainly established for economic reasons.  In each of these areas the colonists had to determine what crops would grow in the region, and what commodity would become the source of income for the area.  Even though British became dominant power in the North American sector, they had no unified policy, and no real system established for the control of their colonies.  Sometimes the English colonies had contradictory and overlapping borders, and the larger colonies had no western boundary.  The British authorities never set western boundaries on the larger colonies, and this eventually caused conflicts among the colonies.

          The Spanish used a unified system to set up their colonies and this meant that they had greater control over their colonies.  The British colonies were established piecemeal. Some of them, like Massachusetts Bay were private companies, while others, like Pennsylvania and Maryland were granted to individuals for religious reasons.

          Basically there were two maim models for establishing colonial empires: (1) the Iberian model, in which the government actively supported colonization; and (2) the northern European model, in which the government played a minor role, letting private interests do most of the work.  When the Spanish entered an area they brought with them various institutions from their society in order to take control of an area and to govern it.  The English method was less organized and thus a regional pattern developed within their colonies, each area having somewhat different interests.  Both systems worked, but the Spanish system was probably more efficient.

Britain's Unique Experience with its Colonies in North America

          As I have already briefly stated in the answer to the previous question, the British system of colonization, was unlike the Spanish method, because it was less organized and thus led to a variety of regional societies in British North America.  Instead of the Spanish model, which transplanted in a unified manner Iberian culture into the New World, the British system produced colonies that differed from each other at the cultural level.  Six distinct regions developed in British North America: (1) the New England area, dominated by the Puritans; (2) the Chesapeake (Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina), in which a plantation system developed over time; (3) the Mid-Atlantic Colonies; (4) South Carolina and Georgia; (5) the Caribbean Islands; and (6) what is called 'the back country", the piedmont region which was also known as the 'new west' and which beginning in the 1730s was different culturally from the coastal regions.

          The different regions had different economic and social conditions, and they also had different life expectancies.  Related to this, they also had different family structures, often times the family structure was disrupted by early deaths and the impact of this varied from region to region.  The area with the strongest family structure was Puritan dominated New England, while in the Chesapeake region children were often being raised by someone other than their parents. For permanent stability it was necessary to have farm families, and the New England region led in this area.  In fact most of the people coming into New England arrived with their families, and this distinguished New England from the other regions as well.

          The Plymouth colony had been established as a religious utopian enterprise.  The idea that New England was to be, as John Winthrop called it, "a City upon a hill" [Allit, 61], it was to be an example to the peoples of the Old World, and of Old England in particular, of how a Christian civilization could be built and maintained.  A civilization founded on Calvinist principles.  The people arriving in New England were coming on a errand, an errand which was meant to establish a divinely ordered society while at the same time being a shining example to the rest of the world of how a society should be ordered.  Sadly for the colonists in New England, events in the mother country had preoccupied the people there, so much so, that they forgot about the great experiment going on in British North America.  This caused confusion and a sense of dismay among the second generation of colonists in New England, and they wondered if their efforts had been in vain.

          The Puritans had an interest in converting the native peoples to the Christian faith, but they also wanted their land, and this caused a tension even within the European settlements.  It also led to the Indians appealing to the Crown over the heads of the colonists for protection against the colonists.  A case in point being the 'Act of Submission' of the Narragansett Indians in 1644. This was actually a political move on the part of the Indians that showed they knew quite a bit about diplomacy and that they could at least for a while delay the colonists in their attempts at expansion by appealing over their heads to the British government [see Galloway, 81-83].

          The people arriving in the Chesapeake region were more concerned with establishing an economically viable colony.  To this end they had large numbers of indentured servants coming into their region in order to work on the plantations that were being established in the coastal areas and along other waterways.  Instead of the New England idea of building a utopian society, the Chesapeake region was built on the idea that profit and personal growth would be primary. The tobacco economy is soil depleting so people in this region rarely built substantial homes. Thus there was a sense of impermanence to the entire region, and the nature of these communities can best be described as exploitative.

          The Mid-Atlantic colonies were more tolerant than the New England region.  The Dutch colonists and the Quakers were more welcoming of strangers, especially in comparison with the Puritans in New England who did not want anyone in their colony who did not share their religious beliefs.  But Pennsylvania did share with New England the fact that it had been established for the advancement and protection of certain religious principles, and the same can be said of Maryland in the Chesapeake region, which had been founded as a Catholic enclave in a very Protestant British North America.  The Catholics in Maryland were never all that powerful and as early as 1649 the Protestant Governor of Maryland, William Stone, presented the assembly with ‘An Act Concerning Religion’ which was basically a bill meant to establish religious toleration in the colony.  This bill can be seen "as the first attempt to protect a minority group [i.e., the Catholics], an unusual phenomenon in the seventeenth century, when the reverse was usually the motivation behind religious legislation" [Middleton, 110].  As Middleton points out, the bill was probably introduced in order to get the Protestant controlled assembly to recognize the proprietary authority, and thus was not motivated by a desire for meaningful religious tolerance, but merely to reinforce the ruling authorities.  By this time, the Catholics had become a minority in the colony that had been established for them.

          The Mid-Atlantic region also shared a common agricultural basis with the Chesapeake area, and all three of the main regions, New England, the Chesapeake, and the Mid-Atlantic area, shared a common interest in establishing a strong connection to the growing international trade network. New England had the advantage of a lower death rate, which as I indicated above helped keep the family structure strong in that region.  The colonies had different interests and developed different cultures, but they also shared many things in common.

          These common interests are what united the British Colonies in North America, and which would eventually help them to establish a unified government when independence was achieved.  The fact is that all of these colonies were new societies, and although they were developing in distinctive ways, they were all trying to recreate the best elements of English society transplanting it in the New World.  The colonists in each of the different regions were trying to gain wealth and if possible own land.  This helped to develop a spirit of individualism among the colonists.  The three largest regions were all trying to develop economically, and were thus trying to find a commodity to sell on the world markets.  In the Mid-Atlantic and Chesapeake regions this tended to be agricultural products, while in the New England region timber was one of the main exports.  All the colonies shared the exploitative nature of the British imperial policy. They were also united by a common Protestant religious ideology, and this is true even though Maryland was established as a Catholic colony.  Very early on, as indicated above, Maryland's Catholic population became a minority in the colony.  Probably as many as 95% of all the colonists in British North America were Protestants of one form or another and the vast majority of them were probably Calvinists.

          This common Protestant heritage meant that the colonists shared in an anti-Catholic bias. There was a fear and hatred of Catholicism, and the colonists in some ways felt surrounded by hostile forces.  The Indians were seen as an enemy, but the colonists also saw themselves as being in some sense surrounded by Catholic foes on all sides.  Spain and France both had colonies in North America and this made the American colonists uneasy.  In a sense, with all the wars of religion going on in Europe, there was a kind of religious cold war in effect in North America.  This religious bias would be with America for a long time to come.  Along with a common Protestant background, it should be noted that the vast majority of the colonists were from England and Wales, probably 90% or more of them, and this meant that most of them thought of themselves as 'Englishmen.'

          All of the colonies came under the common imperial policies of the government in London, and this also unified them in a political way.  Initially the colonies had been left to themselves, and they basically governed themselves.  As time went on the government in England began to assert more and more control over the colonies, but by this time a kind of parochialism had developed in the American colonies.  The colonists liked the idea of local control and resented what they saw as outside interference.  This was a unifying principle for all the colonies, in that they each experienced a sense of unfair control by the royal government at various times and in varying degrees.  Since local traditions of autonomy had developed in the colonies, they tended to resist the imperial government's attempts to subordinate them to the overall interests of the empire.  In addition the colonies were all growing economically and this meant that social class was less important, because the disparity between the rich and the poor was not as great as it had been in the old country.  Thus a more egalitarian view of society developed and became ingrained in the American psyche.

          The colonists were also united in their common defense, though this was hard to work out in actual fact, because of petty squabbling among the colonies.  But they did have common enemies, and this worked to create a sense of unity that was lacking at the social level.  The colonists were also united in their desire for continued expansion into new areas, and this was something the government in London eventually wanted to prevent.  The fact that the royal government closed off certain lands to colonization did not sit well with the colonists and this along with other factors helped to unite the colonies against England.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Patrick Allitt.  Major Problems in American Religious History.  (New York:  Houghton Mifflin, 1999).

Colin G. Galloway.  The World Turned Upside Down.  (New York:  Bedford / St. Martin’s, 1994).

Richard Middleton.  Colonial America.  (Oxford:  Blackwell Publishers, 2001).

Joel S. Panzer.  The Popes and Slavery.  (New York:  Alba House, 1996).

A Brief Overview of European Imperialism from the 15th to the 17th Century

by Steven Todd Kaster

San Francisco State University

History 420:  American Colonial History

Dr. Paul Longmore

18 March 2002

Copyright © 2002-2025 Steven Todd Kaster