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Finally the queen of Spain Isabella ofCastile sponsored Columbus to sail westward with the fleet of threesmall ships. A navigational genius, Columbus made four successfulvoyages from Spain to the islands now called West Indies andclaimed the land in the New World for Spain. The continent America however was named foranother Italian explorer – Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512) who completed many voyages toSouth America and was the first to understand that he had reached India but a new continent –the New World. After Vespucci’s accounts, published in Europe, geographer MartinWaldseemuller produced a world map (kept in the Library of Congress) on which he depicted thenew continent and named it America after Vespucci’s first name.After Columbus’ voyages, Italian, Spanish, French and English explorers continuedEuropean expansion of the continent looking for riches and land to claim for their countries.Italian explorer John Cabot commanded the first European ship to reach the shores of NorthAmerica.
Like Columbus, Cabot hoped to reach Asia by sailing west. Like Columbus, Cabot hadunsuccessfully offered his service to several countries before finding financial support fromEngland’s port Bristol and formal authorization of King Henry Y11. In May 1497 Cabot sailedfrom Bristol with two small ships and made a remarkably quick journey to the coast ofNewfoundland. He spent a month there exploring American waters.Driven by a search for personal glory as much as by a desire for wealth, a lot of brave andskilled adventurers repeated the initial contacts with the New World. Cabot’s attempt wasfollowed in 1524 by another Italian seaman Giovanni Verrazzano who sailed in the service ofthe king of France and reached the eastern coast of North America..
In 1528 five Spanish ships under the command of Panfilo Narvaez reached the westcoast of Florida, staying on the continent in search of gold for several years.In 1539 Spanish legendary explorer Fray Marcos de Niza was sent to America anddescribed a “very beautiful city” as one of the “Seven cities”. His report stimulated furtherexplorations into the area.In all areas of Spanish exploration, settlement and colonization soon followed andbefore long the Spanish Empire was far-flung-from Florida to California to Central and SouthAmerica.
It was an Empire based on Spanish culture, the Catholic Church and exploration of thenative tribes, but eventually Spain found the task of mastering and controlling two continents toomuch for her resources. After the defeat of the Spanish Armada by England in 1588, Spain’spower started declining.PART 2 The First Wave of North America ImmigrationThe English did not attempt to “share the American pie” and inhabit North America until the17 th century settlements in North America. English first colonization steps were stimulated byPPtheir hostility to Spain.
The accession to the throne in 1558 of a protestant, Elizabeth 1, turnedEnglish and Spanish nations into real enemies. Queen Elizabeth’s advisers Sir H. Gilbert, WalterRaleigh and Francis Drake proposed a more aggressive policy toward Catholic Spain andpersuaded the Queen that New World colonies would serve as bases for attacks on Spain, whichhad already founded its colonies in the New World. The first English attempts at colonization inNewfoundland and North Carolina however failed. Sir H. Gilbert’s expedition in 1583 wasdestroyed by a storm. It was bound to be unsuccessful from the start as the boats were too lightfor the trans-Atlantic passage.
Walter Raleigh’s first expedition to America in 1587 brought backglorious reports of the coast of Virginia, but the. outbreak of war between England and Spain in1588 postponed the mission of England’s transatlantic ventures.Only two decades later King James I authorized the chartering of a joint stock company tocolonize Virginia. In 1607 Virginia Company landed 144 men near the mouth of the James Riveras a site for permanent settlement.
The Virginia Company resembled English joint-stockcompanies of Africa and Asia, but the small Jamestown colony proved to be economic “whiteelephant” for investors and a nightmare for many of its earliest inhabitants. The location waslow, swampy, covered with trees full of malaria-carrying mosquitoes. During the first six monthsfever and disease killed approximately half the settlers.The English pictured the new land of America as New England – a region notnoticeably different from old England.
In 1609 the reorganized Virginia Company petitioned fora charter, fixing the limits of the colony at two hundred miles north and south and including allislands within one hundred miles of the coast.Over the years, the company established more liberal land grants, encouragedimmigration of men and women, and slowly but steadily built strong political and economicinstitutions. Finally the Crown recognized Virginia’s elective assembly, and as the populationincreased the planter class created effective units of local government.
Tobacco eventually gaveVirginia colony a valuable export crop. Maryland, Virginia’s neighbor to the north, became thefirst private estate of a single family – the Calverts who became the owners of a vast New Worldestate by charter of 1632.The next group of the immigrants to the New World consisted of the English whodisagreed with the teaching of the Church of England and fled from persecution at home toHolland .Later in July 1620 a group of 102 so-called pilgrims sailed on the ship “Mayflower” toNorth America with the hope to set up a colony and find there civil and religious freedom.
Aftera long trans - Antlantic crossing the pilgrims landed in a place now called Province Town andstarted building one of the first permanent Massachusetts’s villages called New Plymouth. Thegroup was ill prepared for the rugged existence of the New World. Although only a few peopleperished in the trans-Atlantic crossing, many of them were weakened by the journey, had littleskill in hunting and fishing and survived through the following winter only thanks to the help ofthe neighboring Indians.The first religious group was followed by a thousand so-called English Puritans whocame to Massachusetts Bay and founded in 1630 some communities in Boston.
Like thePilgrims, the Puritans had been distressed by the policies of the English crown, alarmed overgrowing immorality in English society and beset by economic anxiety. But unlike the Pilgrims,the Puritans claimed not separating from the English church, but establishing a purer version ofit. Puritans built the first small towns centered around a church and a meeting house. Thecolony’s political leaders were also church leaders who tried to create the orders based upon trueand strict Christian rules and the family as the basic unit of society. Good harbors, especially atthe new town Boston, provided the foundation for a thriving commerce. The growth of trade andthe development of shipping industry assisted the colony’s prosperity.While the English settlers were adjusting to the new region, France and the Netherlands alsotried to acquire the territories in America.
In 1609 an English adventurer Henry Hudsonemployed by Dutch East India Company in his small vessel the “Half Moon” sailed up the riverin North America, which now bears his name. He changed little trifles and some firearms for thebeautiful furs, given by Indians. In 1624 the Dutch ship “New Netherlands” brought thirtyfamilies to the mouth of the Hudson River. In 1626 the governor of the Dutch Colony boughtfrom Indians Manhattan Island for the trinkets valued approximately $24, built a trading fort anda town, which he called New Amsterdam. The defenses of New Amsterdam were poor and laterwhen English warships appeared in the bay the Dutch had to surrender the fort and the town tothe English.
In 1664 King Charles II gave a large area of Manhattan Island to his brother Duke ofYork and New Amsterdam was turned into New York in honor of the duke. As English settlements spread to the north, west, and south, they grew into thirteen colonies,populating the gap between New England and other British settlements.In 1681 William Penn, a son of the famous admiral of the English Navy, and a follower ofreligious group called Quakers made an agreement with the King, about the land in America. Hecalled this land Pennsylvania (“Penn’s woods”). W.
Penn did very much to build upPennsylvania, writing advertisements, telling people in Europe about the beauty of his colony,promising that it would be a place open to settlers of all faiths.One of the most striking characteristics of the mainland colonies in the 18th century wastheir rapid population growth. European immigrants flooded New England attracted by beautifulstories about America.
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