Album of the American Colonies

Mitchell Kuhnert

Africans in American Colonial Society• The slave trade had been occurring in West Africa for quite a while, where war prisoners and criminals were sold to Arab traders. • This expanded greatly, however, after 1450. Around 1500 the Portuguese bought around 1,800 West African slaves annually to provide labor to their sugar raising in the Caribbean. • In North America, African slaves lived among large amounts of farm animals who carried parasites, spreading disease widely throughout the population. • In the 1780’s and 90’s, African slaves in North America were increasingly converted to Christianity, some even becoming preachers and starting Baptist churches. African traditions were mixed with Christian symbols for a unique form of Christianity. • At the height of African slavery, nearly half a million Africans were enslaved in America. • In 1774, the American Continental Congress called to abolish the African slave trade, and six Northern states did. • During the eighteenth century, the British colonies imported 1.5 million slaves. They produced sugar, tobacco and rice in these colonies. • During the eighteenth century in colonial Barbados, one third of imported slaves died within three years.

The Spanish in America• At the beginning of the sixteenth century, slaves from various places were beginning to perish from disease, leaving the Spanish desperate for slaves to work gold mines and sugar plantations. • The Spanish, led by Hernan Cortes, first entered Mexico in 1519, fighting and slaughtering the Aztecs and other groups until August 1521 when they destroyed Tenochtitlan for good. • The Spanish, especially Cortes with the Aztecs, had a tendency to act brutally toward their subjects, slaughtering them in horrid ways. • Central American natives were brought under Spanish rule largely by new diseases brought by the Spaniards. Life became so terrible under Spanish rule that they eventually acquiesced. • Spanish colonial rule was said to be , “ highly bureaucratic, inefficient, and slow.” • Religion played an extremely important role in New Spain, and those who refused to convert to Catholicism were subject to the harsh punishments of the Inquisition. • Indians were held in the lowest regard in Spanish colonial society. Hispanics living under Spanish rule hoped to improve their very modest situations by obtaining Indian slaves.

The Portuguese in America• Portuguese sailors were the first to exploit the Western coast of Africa, particularly for the slave trade. • In 1450, Portuguese sailors negotiated with the Africans to make their trade exclusive. • The Portuguese may have expanded their westward conquest, but instead they turned south and east, concluding that it was more important to find a trade route to Asia. This vastly limited Portuguese expansion in the Americas. • Like other colonial powers in the Americas, the Portuguese brought many diseases to native tribes, helping them to gain power and control much easier.

The French in Colonial America• The French were very important in the colonization of the Americas, beginning in the 16th century, especially in religious aspects. • French priests were sent on missions to the Americas, and were found throughout North America attempting to convert the Natives. • Many French settlers underestimated the harsh realities of winter in some regions of North America. At the trading outpost established in Tadoussac, what is now known as Quebec, only five out of sixteen Frenchmen survived the first winter. • One major French colony was on the island of Hispaniola. The French renamed it Saint- Domingue. St. Domingue became the wealthiest Caribbean colony before a slave revolt in 1791, that eventually led to the Haitian Revolution. • The French also attempted to establish colonies in South America. An example are the Huguenots who attempted to form France Antarctique in present day Brazil. They were repeatedly rejected and eventually gave up. • French Guiana was first settled in 1604. They first left and gave up power to other nations, but eventually regained it in the early 19th century.

• The picture at right is a French colony established by Jucherau de St. Denis in 1714 in northwest Lousiana.

The Dutch in Colonial America• Began with the Dutch East India Company searching for a passage to the Indies. They settled anywhere they could along the way. • In 1609, Harry Hudson, a hired British explorer, claimed places in North America, entering the Hudson Bay (which is now named after him). • The first Dutch settlement was in 1615, named Fort Nassau, near present-day Albany, New York. • Another Dutch company, the Dutch West India Company began to compete for land, purchasing the island of Manhattan from Natives. These settlements were usually not dominated by those of Dutch ancestry, but from various European nations. • The Dutch were relatively successful in South America. They established the colony of Suriname around 1667 and it remained under them until it gained full independence in 1975. • Around 1630, the Dutch also gained a small portion of Brazil and named it Recife. • Regions of Chile also came under Dutch control around 1600. The city of Valdivia was captured by Dutch pirates. There was another large increase in the Dutch population in Chile around 1895.

The English in Colonial America• Began in the late 16th century and it’s peak was ended with the loss of its American colonies in the Revolutionary War. • Along with its well known North American colonies, Great Britain also obtained many Caribbean nations like the Turks and Caicos, Barbados, Antigua, the Bahamas, etc. Some gained their independence but many still remain under British control to this day. • Britain’s South American and Caribbean colonies are not comparable to the amount of its North American colonies. The British colonized much of Americas eastern coast, beginning in Jamestown , stretching from Georgia to Massachusetts. • Thirteen of these colonies rebelled in 1775, starting the Revolutionary War which eventually led to the recognizing of the United States of America as a country in 1783. • The British took over the Dutch colon of New Netherland in 1664, renaming it the Province of New York. They also conquered New Sweden from the Dutch, in what is now Delaware.

The British in Colonial America• Many British colonies were founded with independent Proprietary Governors, usually under mercantile charter companies like the Virginia Company, who settled at Jamestown.

• Around 1763, the British acquired Canada and Florida. Former French Canada was divided into Lower Canada and Upper Canada.

• While the British colonization of North America’s eastern coast is well known, the British also colonized it’s western coast. The Hudson Bay Company gained control of land west of the Rocky Mountains, until the signing of the Oregon Treaty of 1846.

• After the Revolutionary War was lost, the Brit’s most powerful colonies became their many islands in the Caribbean. Much trading was done from these islands, also strategically located for their powerful Navy.

Native Americans under Colonization • Native Americans lived under constant oppression by the colonizing powers. They were deceived and slaughtered countless times in order to gain control over new territories previously held by the Natives.

• There were many revolts by Native Americans, especially by the Iroquois. The colonizing powers were generally severely reactionary, and one of these slaughters was the Sullivan Expedition of 1779. During the Sullivan Expedition American colonial troops destroyed more than 40 Iroquois villages.

• Native Americans obviously suffered greatly from America’s theory of Manifest Destiny, which would eventually decimate their entire way of life, leaving them with nothing but reservations.

• When European colonies became more prevalent in North America, many Natives became slaves on sugar and cotton plantations. Some tribes even sold war captives to the Europeans.

Native American Decimation Under Colonial Rule • Native Americans suffered greatly due to epidemics brought by European colonists. A general consensus of historians claim that this is the largest source of Native decimation. They simply did not have immunities to the new European diseases.

• These deadly diseases were headed by smallpox and measles.

• A large portion of the Native population was also lost in war’s between conquering colonists, such as the French-Indian War. While Natives fought on both sides, they were more prevalent with the French, hoping it would stop British expansion.

• The signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 robbed Natives of much of their land without informing them, leading to the Northwest Indian War. They eventually lost much of their land during this period; the Iroquois lost nearly five million acres.

• With the Indian Appropriations Act of 1871, the Natives were no longer legally seen as a viable nation or tribe, but under American rule.

Native American Relocation Under Colonial Powers • Beginning in 1830 with the Indian Removal Act, Native Americans were systematically relocated to off of their lands to reservations.

• The Indian Removal Act stated that all Native tribes living east of the Mississippi River were to be moved onto reservations west of the river.

• The government was often deceitful in their dealings with the Natives, as in the Treaty of New Echota, which was signed by a small amount of Cherokee tribal members. The treaty resulted in an 1838 forced relocation in which an estimated 4,000 Cherokee Indians died, on what is now known as the Trail of Tears.

• The government often stated that the affairs with Natives were peaceful, and that they had been content with the situation at hand. For example, in his 1871 State of the Union Address, President Ulysses S. Grant stated “the policy pursued toward the Indians has resulted favorably… many tribes of Indians have been induced to settle upon reservations…” One is temped to ask; favorable for whom?

Album of the Colonies Sources• Wood, Gordon. The American Revolution: A History. New York,NY: The Modern Library, 2003. 114-134. Print.

• Greer, Allan. The Jesuit Relations: Natives and Missionaries in Seventeenth-Century North America. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins, 2000. Various (mainly around 10). Print.

• Taylor, Alan. American Colonies: The Settling of North America. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2001. 246-257, 320-329, 417-419, 92-113, 62-65. Print.

(I used this book quite a bit, and there are probably many more pages forgotten.)

• "British Colonization of the Americas." The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume I. London, England: Web. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_colonization_of_the_Americas>.

• "French Colonization of the Americas." Web. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_colonization_of_the_Americas>.

• "Americanization(of Native Americans)." A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians. 1984. Web. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americanization_%28of_Native_Americans%29>.

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