Clash of Cultures: InterpretingMurder in Early MarylandNew World conquest sparked unexpected, oftenembarrassing contests over the alleged superiority ofEuropean culture. Not surprisingly, the colonizersinsisted they brought the benefits of civilization to theprimitive and savage peoples of North America. NativeAmericans never shared that perspective, voicing astrong preference for their own values and institutions.In early seventeenth-century Maryland the struggle overcultural superiority turned dramatically on how best topunish the crime of murder, an issue about which bothNative Americans and Europeans had firm opinions.

The actual events that occurred at Captain WilliamClaiborne’s trading post in 1635 may never be known.Surviving records indicate that several young NativeAmerican males identified as Wicomess Indians appar-ently traveled to Claiborne’s on business, but to theirgreat annoyance, they found the proprietor entertainingSusquehannock Indians, their most hated enemies. Thesituation deteriorated rapidly after the Susquehannockmen ridiculed the Wicomess youths. Unwilling toendure public humiliation, the Wicomess group laterambushed the Susquehannock men, killing five, andthen returned to the trading post where they murderedthree Englishmen.

Wicomess leaders realized immediately that some-thing had to be done. They dispatched a trusted mes-senger to inform the governor of Maryland that they

intended “to offer satisfaction for the harm . . . done tothe English.” The murder of the Susquehannock Indianswas another matter, best addressed by the NativeAmericans themselves. The governor praised theWicomess for coming forward, announcing that “Iexpect that those men, who have done this outrage,should be delivered unto me, to do with them as I shallthink fit.” The Wicomess spokesman was dumb-founded. The governor surely did not understand basicNative American legal procedure. “It is the matteramongst us Indians, that if any such like accident hap-pens,” he explained, “we do redeem the life of a manthat is so slain with 100 Arms length of Roanoke(which is a sort of Beads that they make, and use formoney.)” The governor’s demand for prisoners seemeddoubly impertinent, “since you [English settlers] arehere strangers, and coming into our Country, youshould rather conform your selves to the Customs of ourCountry, than impose yours upon us.” At this point thegovernor hastily ended the conversation, perhapsuncomfortably aware that if the legal tables had beenturned and the murders had been committed inEngland, he would be the one loudly defending “theCustoms of our Country.”

����

Europeans sailing in the wake of Admiral ChristopherColumbus constructed a narrative of superiority that

survived long after the Wicomess had been dispersed—afate that befell them in the late seventeenth century. Thestory recounted first in Europe and then in the United

NEW WORLD ENCOUNTERS

O U T L I N E

• Native American Histories Before Conquest • A World Transformed • West Africa: Ancient and Complex Societies • Europe

on the Eve of Conquest • Imagining a New World • French Exploration and Settlement • The English New World • An

Unpromising Beginning: Mystery at Roanoke • Conclusion: Propaganda for Empire

1

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2 CHAPTER 1 NEW WORLD ENCOUNTERS

States depicted heroic adventurers, missionaries, andsoldiers sharing Western civilization with the peoples ofthe New World and opening a vast virgin land to economicdevelopment. The familiar tale celebrated material progress,the inevitable spread of European values, and the tamingof frontiers.

That narrative of events no longer provides an ade-quate explanation for European conquest and settlement. Itis not so much wrong as partisan, incomplete, and evenoffensive. History recounted from the perspective of thevictors inevitably silences the voices of the victims, the peo-ples who, in the victors’ view, foolishly resisted economicand technological progress. Heroic tales of the advance ofWestern values only serve to deflect modern attention awayfrom the rich cultural and racial diversity that characterizedNorth American societies. More disturbing, traditional talesof European conquest also obscure the sufferings of themillions of Native Americans, as well as huge numbers ofAfricans sold as slaves in the New World.

By placing these complex, often unsettling, experienceswithin an interpretive framework of creative adaptations—rather than of exploration or settlement—progress is made inrecapturing the full human dimensions of conquest andresistance. While the New World often witnessed tragic vio-lence and systematic betrayal, it allowed ordinary people ofthree different races and many different ethnic identitiesopportunities to shape their own lives as best they couldwithin diverse, often hostile environments. It should beremembered that neither Native Americans nor Africanswere passive victims of European exploitation. Within theirown families and communities they made choices, some-times rebelling, sometimes accommodating, but always try-ing to make sense in terms of their own cultures of what theywere experiencing. Of course, that was precisely what theWicomess messenger tried to tell the governor of Maryland.

Native American HistoriesBefore ConquestThe peopling of North America did not begin withColumbus’s arrival in 1492. Although Spanish invaders pro-claimed the discovery of a “New World,” they really broughtinto contact three worlds—Europe, Africa, and America—that in the fifteenth century were already old. Indeed, thefirst migrants reached the North American continent somefifteen to twenty thousand years ago.

Environmental conditions played a major role in thisstory. Twenty thousand years ago, the earth’s climate wasconsiderably colder than it is today. Huge glaciers, oftenmore than a mile thick, extended as far south as the presentstates of Illinois and Ohio and covered broad sections ofwestern Canada. Much of the world’s moisture was trans-formed into ice, and the oceans dropped hundreds of feetbelow their current levels. The receding waters created aland bridge connecting Asia and North America, a region

now submerged beneath the Bering Sea that modernarchaeologists have named Beringia.

Even at the height of the last ice age, much of the farNorth remained free of glaciers. Small bands of spear-throwing Paleo-Indians pursued giant mammals—woollymammoths and mastodons, for example—across Beringia.Because these migrations took place over a long period oftime and involved small, independent bands of highlynomadic people, the Paleo-Indians never developed a com-mon identity. Each group focused on its own immediatesurvival, adjusting to the opportunities presented by vari-ous microenvironments.

The Environmental Challenge: Food, Climate,and CultureSome twelve thousand years ago global warming substan-tially reduced the glaciers, allowing nomadic hunters topour into the heart of North America. Within just a fewthousand years, Native Americans had reached the south-ern tip of South America. Blessed with a seemingly inex-haustible supply of meat, the early migrants experiencedrapid population growth. Archaeologists have discoveredthat this sudden expansion of human population coin-cided with the loss of scores of large mammals. Somearchaeologists have suggested that the Paleo-Indianhunters bear responsibility for the mass extinction of somany animals. It is more probable that climatic warmingput the large animals under severe stress, and the earlyhumans simply contributed to an ecological process overwhich they had little control.

The Indian peoples adjusted to the changing environ-mental conditions. Dispersing across the North Americancontinent, they found new food sources, such as smallermammals, fish, nuts, and berries. About five thousandyears ago, they discovered how to cultivate certain plants.The peoples living in the Southwest acquired cultivationskills long before the bands living along the Atlantic coastas knowledge of maize (corn), squash, and beans spreadnorth from central Mexico. The shift to basic crops—atransformation that is sometimes termed the AgriculturalRevolution—profoundly altered Native American soci-eties. Freed from the insecurity of an existence basedsolely on hunting and gathering, Native Americans begansettling in permanent villages. They also began to pro-duce ceramics, a valuable technology for the storage ofgrain. As the food supply increased, the Native Americanpopulation greatly expanded, especially in the Southwestand in the Mississippi Valley.

Mysterious DisappearancesSeveral magnificent sites in North America provide pow-erful testimony to the cultural and social achievements ofnative peoples before European conquest. One of themore impressive is Chaco Canyon on the San Juan Riverin present-day New Mexico. The massive pueblo was the

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Native American Histories Before Conquest 3

center of Anasazi culture, serving both political and reli-gious functions, and it is estimated that its complex struc-tures may have housed as many as fifteen thousandpeople. The Anasazi sustained their agriculture through ahuge, technologically sophisticated network of irrigationcanals that carried water long distances. They also con-structed a transportation system connecting Chaco Canyonby road to more than seventy outlying villages.

Equally impressive urban centers developed throughoutthe Ohio and Mississippi Valleys. In present-day Ohio, theAdena and Hopewell peoples—names assigned by archaeol-ogists to distinguish differences in material culture—builtlarge ceremonial mounds, where they buried the families oflocal elites. Around A.D. 1000, the groups gave way to theMississippian culture, a loose collection of communitiesalong the Mississippi River from Louisiana to Illinois thatshared similar technologies and beliefs. Cahokia, a huge for-tification and ceremonial site in Illinois that originally rosehigh above the river and supported a population of almosttwenty thousand, represented the greatest achievement ofthe Mississippian peoples.

Recent research reveals that Native American peo-ples did not isolate themselves in their own communi-ties. Over the millennia they developed different cultural

and social practices, and more than three hundred sepa-rate languages had evolved in North America beforeEuropean conquest. Members of different groups tradedgoods over extremely long distances. Burial mounds inthe Ohio Valley, for example, have yielded obsidian fromwestern Wyoming, shells from Florida, mica quarried inNorth Carolina and Tennessee, and copper from nearLake Superior.

Yet however advanced the Native American cultures ofthe southwest and Mississippi Valley may have been, bothcultures disappeared rather mysteriously just before thearrival of the Europeans. No one knows what caused thedisappearances. Some scholars have suggested that climaticchanges and continuing population growth affected foodsupplies; others insist that chronic warfare destabilized thesocial order. Still others argue that diseases carried to theNew World by the first European adventurers ravagedthe cultures. No matter what the explanation, modern com-mentators agree that the breakdown of Mississippian cul-ture caused smaller bands to disperse, construct newidentities, and establish different political structures. Thesewere the peoples who encountered the first Europeanarrivals along the Atlantic Coast.

Aztec DominanceThe stability resulting from the Agricultural Revolutionallowed the Indians of Mexico and Central America tostructure their societies in more complex ways. Like theIncas who lived in what is now Peru, the Mayan and Toltecpeoples of Central Mexico built vast cities, formed govern-ment bureaucracies that dominated large tributary popula-tions, and developed hieroglyphic writing as well as anaccurate solar calendar.

Not long before Columbus began his voyage acrossthe Atlantic, the Aztec, an aggressive, warlike people, sweptthrough the Valley of Mexico, conquering the great citiesof their enemies. Aztec warriors ruled by force, reducingdefeated rivals to tributary status. In 1519, the Aztec’smain ceremonial center, Tenochtitlán, contained as manyas two hundred fifty thousand people as compared withonly fifty thousand in Seville, the port from which theearly Spaniards had sailed. Elaborate human sacrificeassociated with Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec sun god, horri-fied Europeans, who apparently did not find the savageryof their own civilization so objectionable. The Aztec ritualkillings were connected to the agricultural cycle, and theIndians believed the blood of their victims possessedextraordinary fertility powers.

Eastern Woodland CulturesIndians living in the northeast region along the Atlanticcoast, who numbered less than a million at the time of con-quest, generally supplemented farming with seasonal hunt-ing and gathering. Most belonged to what ethnographersterm the Eastern Woodland cultures. Small bands formed

A LOOK AT THE PAST

Effigy JarClay effigy jars reveal the complexity of Mississippianculture. Members of the culture built large earthentemple mounds, practiced elaborate burials, andmade clay jars depicting the faces of respected deadmembers. ✱ What do these customs, particularly theeffigy jars, reveal about the Mississippian attitudetoward death?

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4 CHAPTER 1 NEW WORLD ENCOUNTERS

villages during the warm summer months. The womencultivated maize and other crops while the men huntedand fished. During the winter, difficulties associated withfeeding so many people forced the communities to disperse.Each family lived off the land as best it could.

Seventeenth-century English settlers were most likelyto have encountered the Algonquian-speaking peoples whooccupied much of the territory along the Atlantic Coastfrom North Carolina to Maine. Included in this large lin-guistic group were the Powhatan of Tidewater Virginia, theNarragansett of Rhode Island, and the Abenaki of northernNew England.

Despite common linguistic roots, the scatteredAlgonquian communities would have found communica-tion extremely difficult because they had developed verydifferent dialects. Furthermore, linguistic ties had littleeffect on Indian politics. Algonquian groups who lived indifferent regions, exploited different resources, and spokedifferent dialects did not develop strong ties of mutualidentity. When their own interests were involved, they weremore than willing to ally themselves with Europeans againstother Algonquian speakers. Divisions among Indian groupswould in time facilitate European conquest.

However divided the Indians of eastern NorthAmerica may have been, they shared many cultural valuesand assumptions. Most Native Americans, for example,

defined their place in society through kinship. Suchpersonal bonds determined the character of economic andpolitical relations. The farming bands living in areas even-tually claimed by England were often matrilineal, whichmeant in effect that women owned the planting fields andhouses, maintained tribal customs, and had a role in tribalgovernment. The native communities of Canada and thenorthern Great Lakes were more likely to be patrilineal. Inthese groups, men owned the hunting grounds that thefamily needed to survive.

Eastern Woodland communities organized diplo-macy, trade, and war around reciprocal relationships thatimpressed Europeans as being remarkably democratic.Chains of native authority were loosely structured. Nativeleaders were accomplished public speakers because persua-sive rhetoric was often their only effective source of power.It required considerable oratorical skill for an Indian leaderto persuade independent-minded warriors to support a cer-tain policy.

Before the arrival of the Europeans, Indian wars wereseldom very lethal. Fatalities, when they did occur, sparkedcycles of revenge. Young warriors attacked neighboringbands largely to exact revenge for a previous insult or thedeath of a relative, or to secure captives. Some captives weretortured to death; others were adopted into the communityas replacements for fallen relatives.

PACIFICOCEAN

ATLANTICOCEAN

Gulf of Mexico

Ohio R.Colorado R

.

Col

umbi

a R

.

Rio Grande

Missouri R. G r e a t L a k e s

Mississippi R

.

St. L

awre

nce

R.

NORTHWESTCOAST

CALIFORNIA

NORTHERNMEXICO

SOUTHWEST

GREAT BASIN

PLATEAU

GREAT PLAINS

SOUTHEAST

SUB-ARCTIC

EASTERNWOODLAND

ChinookChehalisQuinault

Makah

YakimaSpokane

Colville

OkanaganKutenai

TillamookUmpqua

YurokCayuse

Klamath

ModocShastaMaidu

Hupa

Pomo

MiwokCostanoan

Yokuts

NorthernPaiute

NezPerce

Flathead

Shoshoni

Bannock

Goshute

SouthernPaiute

ChumashSerrano

Cahuilla

Ute

Hopi

YumaPapago

Mohave

PimaMaricopa

CochimiOpata

Seri

Cahita

Yaqui

Tarahumara

Concho

LipanApache

MescaleroApacheWestern

Apache

ZuñiPueblo

Navajo JicarillaApache

Wichita

Karankawa

Tonkawa

Caddo

Illinois

Miami Erie

Pawnee

Comanche

Kiowa

Iowa

Arapaho

Kansa

Sioux

Chippewa(Ojibwa)

Chippewa(Ojibwa)

Menominee

SaukFox

WinnebagoKickapoo

Potawatomi

Shawnee

TuteloPowhatan

Lenni-Lenape(Delaware)

Cherokee

ChickasawQuapaw

CreekChoctaw

Natchez ApalacheeBiloxiAtakapa

Calusa

Yamasee

Timucua

Tuscarora

Catawba

Huron

Ottawa

Algonquin

Susquehannock

Iroquois

WampanoagMassachusetts

Narragansett

Pennacook

Abenaki

Mahican

Malecite

Micmac

Mohaw

k

Oneida

Onondaga

Cayuga

Seneca

Blackfoot

Gros Ventre

MandanArikara

Hidatsa

Assiniboin

CheyennePonca

Omaha

Osage

Missouri

Kiowa

Yavapi

Equator

PACIFICOCEAN

Aztec

NORTHAMERICA

SOUTHAMERICA

Maya

Inca

0 150 300 kilometers

0 150 300 miles

THE FIRST AMERICANS: LOCATION OF MAJOR INDIAN GROUPS AND CULTUREAREAS IN THE 1600s Native Americans had complex social structures and religious sys-tems and a well-developed agricultural technology when they came into initial contactwith Europeans.

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A World Transformed 5

A World TransformedThe arrival of Europeans on the NorthAmerican continent profoundly alteredNative American cultures. Indian villageslocated on the Atlantic Coast came undersevere pressure almost immediately;inland groups had more time to adjust.Wherever they lived, however, Indiansdiscovered that conquest strained tradi-tional ways of life, and as daily patterns ofexperience changed almost beyondrecognition, native peoples had to devisenew ways to survive in physical and socialenvironments that eroded tradition.

Cultural change was not the onlyeffect of Native Americans’ contact withEuropeans. The ecological transforma-tion, known as the Columbian Exchange,profoundly affected both groups of peo-ple. Some aspects of the exchange werebeneficial. Europeans introduced into theAmericas new plants—bananas, oranges,and sugar, for example—and animals—pigs, sheep, cattle, and especially horses—that altered thediet, economy, and way of life for the native peoples. NativeAmerican plants and foods, such as maize, squash, toma-toes, and potatoes, proved equally transforming in Europe.

Other aspects of the Columbian Exchange were far moredestructive, especially for Native Americans. The most imme-diate biological consequence of contact between Europeansand Indians was the transfer of disease. Native Americanslacked natural immunity to many common European dis-eases and when exposed to influenza, typhus, measles, andespecially smallpox, they died by the millions.

Cultural NegotiationsNative Americans were not passive victims of forces beyondtheir control. So long as they remained healthy, they heldtheir own in the early exchanges, and although they eagerlyaccepted certain trade goods, they generally resisted otheraspects of European cultures. The earliest recorded contactsbetween Indians and explorers suggest curiosity and sur-prise rather than hostility. A Southeastern Indian whoencountered Hernando de Soto in 1540 expressed awe (atleast that is what a Spanish witness recorded): “The thingsthat seldom happen bring astonishment. Think, then, whatmust be the effect on me and mine, the sight of you andyour people, whom we have at no time seen . . . things soaltogether new, as to strike awe and terror to our hearts.”

What Indians desired most was peaceful trade. The ear-liest French explorers reported that natives waved fromshore, urging the Europeans to exchange metal items forbeaver skins. In fact, the Indians did not perceive themselvesat a disadvantage in these dealings. They could readily see the

technological advantage of guns over bows and arrows.Metal knives made daily tasks much easier. To acquire suchgoods they traded pelts, which to them seemed in abundantsupply. “The English have no sense,” one Indian informed aFrench priest. “They give us twenty knives like this for oneBeaver skin.”

Trading sessions along the eastern frontier were actuallycultural seminars. The Europeans tried to make sense out ofIndian cultures, and although they may have called the natives“savages,” they quickly discovered that the Indians drove hardbargains. They demanded gifts; they set the time and place oftrade. Indians used the occasions to study the newcomers.They formed opinions about the Europeans, some flattering,some less so, but they never concluded from their observa-tions that Indian culture was inferior to that of the colonizers.

For Europeans, communicating with the Indians wasalways an ordeal. The invaders reported having gaineddeep insight into Native American cultures through signlanguages. How much accurate information explorers andtraders took from these crude improvised exchanges is amatter of conjecture. In the absence of meaningful con-versation, Europeans often concluded that the Indiansheld them in high regard, perhaps seeing the newcomersas gods. Sometimes the adventurers did not even try tocommunicate, assuming from superficial observation—asdid the sixteenth-century explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano—“that they have no religion, and that they live in absolute free-dom, and that everything they do proceeds from Ignorance.”

Ethnocentric Europeans tried repeatedly to “civilize” theIndians. In practice that meant persuading natives to dresslike the colonists, attend white schools, live in permanent

As Native Americans were exposed to common Old World diseases, particularly smallpox,they died by the millions.

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6 CHAPTER 1 NEW WORLD ENCOUNTERS

structures, and, most important, accept Christianity. TheIndians listened more or less patiently, but in the end theyusually rejected European values. Although some Indiansaccepted Christianity, most paid it lip service or found itirrelevant to their needs. As one Huron told a French priest,“It would be useless for me to repent having sinned, seeingthat I never have sinned.”

Among some Indian groups, gender figured promi-nently in a person’s willingness to convert to Christianity.Native men who traded pelts for European goods had morefrequent contact with Europeans, and they proved morereceptive to the arguments of missionaries. But nativewomen jealously guarded traditional culture, a system thatoften sanctioned polygamy—a husband having severalwives—and gave women substantial authority over the dis-tribution of food within the village. French Jesuit missionar-ies insisted on monogamous marriages, an institution basedon Christian values but that made little sense in Indian soci-eties where constant warfare against the Europeans killed offlarge numbers of young males and increasingly left nativewomen without sufficient marriage partners.

Even matrimony seldom eroded the Indians’ attach-ment to their own customs. When Native Americans andEuropeans married, the European partner usually chose tolive among the Indians. Impatient settlers who regarded theIndians simply as an obstruction to progress sometimesdeveloped more coercive methods, such as enslavement, toachieve cultural conversion. Again, from the European per-spective, the results were disappointing. Indian slaves ranaway or died. In either case, they did not become European.

Threats to Survival: Trade and DiseaseOver time, cooperative encounters between NativeAmericans and Europeans became less frequent. TheEuropeans found it almost impossible to understand theIndians’ relation to the land and other natural resources.English planters cleared the forests and fenced the fieldsand, in the process, radically altered the ecological systemson which the Indians depended. The European system ofland use inevitably reduced the supply of deer and otheranimals essential to traditional native cultures.

Trade, too, came to threaten Native Americans’ survival.The Indians welcomed European commerce, but like somany consumers throughout recorded history, they discov-ered that the objects they most desired led them into debt. Topay for the goods, the Indians hunted more aggressively andso further reduced the population of fur-bearing animals.

Commerce affected Indian survival in other ways.After several disastrous wars—the Yamasee War in SouthCarolina in 1715, for example—the natives learned thatdemonstrations of force usually resulted in the suspensionof normal trade, on which the Indians had grown quitedependent for guns and ammunition, among other things.

It was disease, however, that ultimately brought disasterto many North American tribes. European adventurers

exposed Indians to bacteria and viruses to which they hadno natural immunity. Smallpox, measles, and influenza dec-imated the Native American population. Other diseasessuch as alcoholism took a terrible toll.

Within a generation of initial contact with Europeans,the Carib, who gave the Caribbean its name, were virtuallyextinct. The Algonquian communities of New Englandexperienced appalling rates of death. Historical demogra-phers now estimate that some tribes suffered a 90 to 95 per-cent population loss within the first century of Europeancontact. The population of the Arawak of Santo Domingo,for example, dropped from about 3,770,000 in 1496 to only125 in 1570. The death of so many Indians decreased thesupply of indigenous laborers, whom the Europeans neededto work the mines and cultivate staple crops such as sugarand tobacco. The decimation of native populations mayhave persuaded colonists throughout the New World to seeka substitute labor force in Africa. Indeed, the enslavement ofblacks has been described as an effort by Europeans to“repopulate” the New World.

Some native peoples, such as the Iroquois, who lived along way from the coast and thus had more time to adjust tothe challenge, withstood the crisis better than those whoimmediately confronted the Europeans. Refugee Indiansfrom the hardest hit eastern communities were absorbed intohealthier western groups. However horrific the crisis mayhave been, it demonstrated how much the environment—asource of opportunity as well as devastation—shapedhuman encounters throughout the New World.

West Africa: Ancient andComplex SocietiesDuring the era of the European slave trade, a number ofmyths about sub-Saharan Africa were propagated.Europeans maintained that the sub-Saharan Africans livedsimple, isolated lives. Indeed, some scholars still depict thevast region stretching from the Senegal River south to mod-ern Angola as a single cultural unit, as if at one time all themen and women living there had shared a common set ofpolitical, religious, and social values.

Such was not the case. Sub-Saharan West Africa wasrich in political, religious, and cultural diversity. Centuriesearlier, the Muslim religion had slowly spread into blackAfrica, and although many West Africans resisted theIslamic faith, it was widely accepted in the Senegal Valley.The Muslim traders from North Africa and the Middle Eastwho introduced their religion to West Africans also estab-lished sophisticated trade networks that linked the villagersof Senegambia with the urban centers of northwesternAfrica—Tangier, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. Great camelcaravans regularly crossed the Sahara carrying trade goods,which were exchanged for gold and slaves.

West Africans spoke many languages and organizedthemselves into diverse political systems. As in Europe,

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Europe on the Eve of Conquest 7

Artists in West Africa depicted the European traders whoarrived in search of gold and slaves. This sixteenth-centuryBenin bronze relief sculpture portrays two Portuguese men.

Local African rulers allowed European traders to build com-pounds along the West African coast. Constructed to expedite theslave trade, each of these so-called slave factories served a differ-ent European interest. Cape Coast Castle, which changed handsseveral times as rival nations fought for its control, became one ofthe largest slave-trading posts in the world after the British cap-tured and reinforced it in 1665.

kingdoms rose and fell, and when the first European tradersarrived, Mali, Benin, and Kongo were among the majorstates. Other Africans lived in stateless societies organizedalong lineage structures. But whatever the form of govern-ment, men and women found their primary social identitywithin well-defined lineage groups, which consisted of per-sons claiming descent from a common ancestor. In theselineage groups, the clan elders made the important eco-nomic and social decisions, from who should receive land towho might take a wife. These communities were usuallyself-sufficient, producing both food and trade goods.

The first Europeans to reach the West African coast bysail were the Portuguese. In the fifteenth century, they jour-neyed to Africa in search of gold and slaves. Africans werewilling partners in the commerce but insisted thatEuropeans respect their trade regulations. They requiredthe Europeans to pay tolls and other fees and restricted the

foreign traders to conducting their business in small fortsor castles located at the mouths of the major rivers. Localmerchants acquired slaves and gold in the interior andtransported them to the coast, where they were exchangedfor European goods. Strong African armies and deadly dis-eases prevented Europeans from moving into the interiorregions of Africa.

Even before Europeans colonized the New World, thePortuguese were purchasing almost a thousand slaves a yearon the West African coast and sending them to Portugueseand Spanish island plantations across the Atlantic. Currentestimates are that approximately 10.7 million Africans weretaken to the New World as slaves. The slave trade was soextensive that during every year between 1650 and 1831,more Africans than Europeans relocated to the Americas. Asone historian noted, “In terms of immigration alone . . .America was an extension of Africa rather than Europeuntil late in the nineteenth century.”

Europe on the Eve of ConquestIn ancient times, points west had an almost mythical appealamong people living along the shores of the MediterraneanSea. Classical writers speculated about the fate of the leg-endary Atlantis, a great civilization that had mysteriouslysunk beneath the ocean waves. In the fifth century A.D., anintrepid Irish monk, Saint Brendan, reported findingenchanted islands far out in the Atlantic where he also met atalking whale. Such stories aroused curiosity but proved dif-ficult to verify.

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8 CHAPTER 1 NEW WORLD ENCOUNTERS

About A.D. 1000, Scandinavian seafarers known asNorsemen or Vikings actually established settlements in theNew World. In the year 984, a band of Vikings led by Ericthe Red sailed west from Iceland to a large island in theNorth Atlantic, which Eric inappropriately named Greenlandin an effort to attract colonists to the icebound region. Afew years later, Eric’s son, Leif, pushed even farther west tonorthern Newfoundland. Poor communications, hostilenatives, and political upheavals at home, however, mademaintenance of these distant outposts impossible. TheVikings’ adventures were not widely known; whenColumbus set out on his great voyage in 1492, he was mostlikely unaware of these earlier exploits.

Building New Nation-StatesThe Viking achievement went unnoticed partly becauseother Europeans were not prepared to sponsor transat-lantic exploration and settlement. Medieval kingdomswere loosely organized, and for several centuries, fierceprovincial loyalties, widespread ignorance of classicallearning, and dreadful plagues such as the Black Death dis-couraged people from thinking about the world beyondtheir villages.

In the fifteenth century, these conditions began tochange. The expansion of commerce, a more imaginativeoutlook fostered by the European cultural awakening andhumanistic movement known as the Renaissance, and pop-ulation growth after 1450 contributed to the explorationimpulse. Land became more expensive, and landownersprospered. Demands from wealthy landlords for such lux-ury goods as spices and jewels, obtainable only in distantports, introduced powerful new incentives for explorationand trade.

This period also witnessed the victory of the “newmonarchs” over feudal nobles; political authority was cen-tralized. The changes came slowly—and in numerous areas,violently—but wherever they occurred, the results alteredtraditional political relationships between the nobility andthe crown, between the citizen and the state. The new rulersrecruited national armies and paid for them with nationaltaxes. These rulers could be despotic, but they usuallyrestored a measure of peace to communities tired of chronicfeudal war.

The story was the same throughout most of westernEurope. Henry VII in England, Louis XI in France, andFerdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile in Spain forgedstrong nations from weak kingdoms. If these politicalchanges had not occurred, the major European countriescould not possibly have generated the financial and militaryresources necessary for worldwide exploration. Indeed, theformation of aggressive nation-states prepared the way forthe later wars of empire.

During this period, naval innovators revolutionizedship design and technology. Before the fifteenth century, theships that plied the Mediterranean were clumsy and slow.

But by the time Columbus sailed from Spain, they werefaster, more maneuverable, and less expensive to operate.Most important of all was a new type of rigging developedby the Arabs, the lateen sail, which allowed large ships to sailinto the wind, permitting transatlantic travel and difficultmaneuvers along the rocky, uncharted coasts of NorthAmerica. By the end of the fifteenth century, seafarers setsail with a new sense of confidence.

The final prerequisite to exploration was knowledge.The rediscovery of classical texts and maps in the humanis-tic Renaissance of the fifteenth century helped stimulatefresh investigation of the globe. And because of the inven-tion of the printing press in the 1430s, this new knowledgecould spread across Europe. The printing press opened theEuropean mind to exciting possibilities that had only beendimly perceived when the Vikings sailed the North Atlantic.

Imagining a New WorldIn the early fifteenth century, Spain was politically divided,its people were poor, and its harbors were second-rate.There was little to indicate that this land would take the leadin conquering the New World. But in the early sixteenthcentury, Spain came alive. The union of Ferdinand andIsabella sparked a drive for political consolidation that,owing to the monarchs’ militant Catholicism, took on thecharacteristics of a religious crusade. The new monarchswaged a victorious war against the Muslim states in south-ern Spain, which ended in 1492 when Granada, the lastMuslim stronghold, fell. Out of this volatile political andsocial environment came the conquistadores, explorerseager for personal glory and material gain, uncompromis-ing in matters of religion, and unswerving in their loyalty tothe crown. These were the men who first carried Europeanculture to the New World.

Myths and RealityIf it had not been for Christopher Columbus (CristoforoColombo), Spain might never have gained an Americanempire. Born in Genoa, Italy, in 1451 of humble parentage,Columbus devoured classical learning and became obsessedwith the idea of sailing west across the Atlantic Ocean toreach Cathay, as China was then known. In 1484, he pre-sented his plan to the king of Portugal, who was also inter-ested in a route to Cathay. But the Portuguese were moreinterested in the route that went around the tip of Africa.After a polite audience, Columbus was refused support.

Undaunted by rejection, Columbus petitioned Isabellaand Ferdinand for financial backing. They initially were nomore interested in his grand design than the Portuguesehad been. But fear of Portugal’s growing power, as well asColumbus’s confident talk of wealth and empire, led thenew monarchs to reassess his scheme. Finally, the two sover-eigns provided the supremely self-assured navigator withthree ships, named Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria. The

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Imagining a New World 9

indomitable admiral set sail for Cathay in August 1492, theyear of Spain’s unification.

Educated Europeans in the fifteenth century knewwithout question that the world was round. The questionwas size, not shape. Columbus estimated the distance to themainland of Asia to be about 3,000 nautical miles, a voyagethat his small ships would have had no difficulty complet-ing. The actual distance is 10,600 nautical miles, however,and had he not bumped into the New World along the way,he and his crew would have run out of food and water longbefore they reached China.

After stopping in the Canary Islands for ship repairsand supplies, Columbus crossed the Atlantic in thirty-threedays, landing on an island in the Bahamas. He searched forthe fabled cities of Asia, never considering that he hadcome upon a landmass completely unknown in Europe.Since his mathematical calculations had been correct, itdidn’t occur to him that he had come upon a new world,where he met friendly, though startled, Native Americans,whom he called Indians.

Three more times Columbus returned to the NewWorld in search of fabled Asian riches. He died in 1506, afrustrated but wealthy entrepreneur, unaware that he hadreached a previously unknown continent. The final blowcame in December 1500 when an ambitious falsifier,Amerigo Vespucci, published a sensational travel accountthat convinced German mapmakers that he had beatenColumbus to the New World. By the time the deception wasdiscovered, America had gained general acceptance through-out Europe as the name for the newly discovered continent.

The Conquistadores: Faith and GreedUnder the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), Spain and Portugaldivided the New World between themselves. Portugal gotBrazil, and Spain laid claim to all the remaining territories.Spain’s good fortune unleashed a horde of conquistadoreson the Caribbean. They came not as colonists but as fortunehunters seeking instant wealth, preferably gold, and theywere not squeamish about the means they used to obtain it.The primary casualties of their greed were the NativeAmericans. In less than two decades, the tribes that hadinhabited the Caribbean islands had been exterminated,victims of exploitation and disease.

Around then, rumors of fabulous wealth in Mexicobegan to lure the conquistadores from the islands Columbushad found to the mainland. On November 18, 1518, HernánCortés, a minor government functionary in Cuba, and asmall army set sail for Mexico. There Cortés soon demon-strated that he was a leader of extraordinary ability, a personof intellect and vision who managed to rise above the goalsof his avaricious followers.

His adversary was the legendary Aztec emperorMontezuma. It was a duel of powerful personalities. Afterburning his ships to cut off his army from a possible retreat,Cortés led his band of six hundred followers across difficult

mountain trails toward the Valley of Mexico. The sound ofgunfire and the sight of armor-clad horses, both unknownto Native Americans, frightened them. Added to the techno-logical advantages was a potent psychological factor. At firstMontezuma thought that the Spaniards were gods, repre-sentatives of the fearful plumed serpent, Quetzalcoatl. Bythe time the Aztec ruler realized his error, it was too late tosave his empire.

From Plunder to SettlementCortés’s victory in Mexico, coupled with other Spanish con-quests, notably in Peru, transformed the mother countryinto the wealthiest nation in Europe. But the Spanish crownsoon faced new difficulties. The conquistadores had to bebrought under royal authority. Adventurers like Cortés werestubbornly independent, quick to take offense, and thou-sands of miles from the seat of government. One solutionwas the encomienda system. Conquistadores were rewardedwith local villages and control over native labor. They alsohad the responsibility of protecting the Indians, who suf-fered terribly under this cruelly exploitative system of labortribute. The system did make the colonizers very dependenton the king, however, for it was he who legitimized theirtitle. As one historian noted, the system transformed “afrontier of plunder into a frontier of settlement.”

Bureaucrats dispatched directly from Spain soonreplaced the aging conquistadores. Unlike the governingsystem that later existed in England’s mainland Americancolonies, Spain’s rulers maintained tight control over theirAmerican possessions through their government officials.After 1535, a viceroy, a nobleman appointed to oversee theking’s colonial interests, ruled the people of New Spain.Working independently of the viceroy, an audiencia, thesupreme judicial body, brought a measure of justice to theIndians and Spaniards and made certain that the viceroysdid not slight their responsibilities to the king. Finally, theCouncil of the Indies in Spain handled colonial business.Although cumbersome and slow, somehow the rigidly con-trolled system worked.

The Spanish also brought Catholicism to the NewWorld. The Dominicans and Franciscans, the two largestreligious orders, established Indian missions throughoutNew Spain, and some barefoot friars protected the NativeAmericans from the worst forms of exploitation. Onecourageous Dominican, Fra Bartolomé de Las Casas, evenpublished an eloquent defense of Indian rights, Historia delas Indias, that among other things questioned theEuropean conquest of the New World. The book led toreforms designed to bring greater “love and moderation” toSpanish-Indian relations.

About seven hundred fifty thousand people migrated tothe New World from Spain. Most of the colonists wereimpoverished, single males in their late twenties in search ofeconomic opportunities. They generally came from the poor-est agricultural regions of southern Spain. Since few Spanish

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10 CHAPTER 1 NEW WORLD ENCOUNTERS

women migrated, especially in the sixteenth century, the menoften married Indians and, later, blacks, unions that producedoffspring known, respectively, as mestizos and mulattoes. Thefrequency of interracial marriage created a society of morefluid racial categories than there were in the English colonies,where the sex ratio of the settlers was more balanced and theracially mixed population comparatively small.

The lure of gold drew Spanish conquistadores to theunexplored lands to the north of Mexico. Between 1539and 1541, Hernando de Soto trekked across the Southeastfrom Florida to the Mississippi River looking for gold andglory, and at about the same time, Francisco Vásquez deCoronado set out from New Spain in search of the fabledSeven Cities of Cíbola. Neither conquistador found what hewas searching for. In the seventeenth century, when Juan deOñate established outposts in the Southwest, the Spanishcame into open conflict with Native Americans in thatregion. In 1680, the Indians drove the invaders completelyout of the territory. Thereafter, the Spanish decided tomaintain only a token presence in present-day Texas andNew Mexico in order to discourage French encroachmenton Spanish lands. For the same reason, the Spanish colonyof St. Augustine was established in Florida in 1565. Spanishauthorities showed little interest in California, a land ofpoor Indians and even poorer natural resources. Had it notbeen for the work of a handful of priests, Spain would havehad little claim to California.

Even so, Spain claimed far more of the New World thanit could possibly manage. After the era of the conquista-dores, Spain’s rulers regarded the American colonies pri-marily as a source of precious metal, and between 1500 and1650 an estimated 200 tons of gold and 16,000 tons of silverwere shipped back to the Spanish treasury in Madrid. Theresulting inflation hurt the common people in Spain andprevented the growth of Spanish industry. Unimaginativeleadership and debilitating wars hastened the Spanishdecline. As one insightful observer declared in 1603, “TheNew World conquered by you has conquered you in itsturn.” Nonetheless, Spain’s great cultural contribution tothe American people is still very much alive today.

French Exploration and SettlementFrench interest in the New World developed more slowly. In1534, Jacques Cartier first sailed to the New World in searchof a northwest passage to China. At first he was depressed bythe rocky, barren coast of Newfoundland. He grumbled, “Iam rather inclined to believe that this is the land God gave toCain.”But the discovery of a large, promising waterway raisedCartier’s spirits. He reconnoitered the Gulf of St. Lawrence,traveling up the river as far as Montreal, but he did not dis-cover a northwest passage, nor did he find gold or other pre-cious metals. After several voyages to Canada, Cartier becamediscouraged by the harsh winters and meager findings; he

Equator Equator

Frobisher1576

Gilbert1583

Cartier 1535

Verrazano 1524

Cabot1497

Columbus 1492

La Salle1679–1682

de Soto 1539–1542

Coronado1540–1542

Cortés1519

Magellan 1519–1521

da Gam

a

1497–1498

Dias 1487

del Cano

1522

Magellan 1521

Line

of D

emar

catio

nT

reat

y of

Tor

desi

llas

1494

PA C I F I CO C E A N

PA C I F I CO C E A N AT L A N T I C

O C E A N

I N D I A NO C E A N

PA C I F I CO C E A N

England

France

SpainPortugal

NORTHAMERICA

SOUTHAMERICA

AFRICA

EUROPE

ASIA

AUSTRALIA

French

English

Portuguese

Spanish

Hispaniola

PA C I F I CO C E A N

Gulf ofMexico

Columbus

1492 Cortés 1519

AztecEmpire

MayaEmpire

TenochtitlánVera Cruz

Cuba

VOYAGES OF EXPLORATION The routes of the major voyages in the Age of Exploration. Thegreat explorers and navigators established land claims for the European nations.

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The English New World 11

This seventeenth-century woodcut depicts Samuel deChamplain’s fortified camp at Quebec on the St. LawrenceRiver. Champlain founded Quebec for France in 1608.SOURCE: North Wind Picture Archives.

returned home for good in 1542. Not until seventy-five yearslater did the brilliant navigator Samuel de Champlain redis-cover the region for France. He founded Quebec in 1608.

In Canada, the French developed an economy based pri-marily on the fur trade, a commerce that required close coop-eration with the Native Americans. They also explored theheart of the continent. In 1673, Père Jacques Marquette jour-neyed down the Mississippi River, and nine years later, Sieurde La Salle traveled all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. In theearly eighteenth century, the French established small settle-ments in Louisiana, the most important being New Orleans.

Although the French controlled the region along theMississippi and its tributaries, their dream of a vast Americanempire suffered from several serious flaws. From the first,the king remained largely indifferent to colonial affairs. Aneven greater problem was the nature of the land and cli-mate. Few rural peasants or urban artisans wanted to ven-ture to the inhospitable northern country, and throughoutthe colonial period, New France was underpopulated. By thefirst quarter of the eighteenth century, the English settle-ments had outstripped their French neighbors in populationas well as in volume of trade.

The English New WorldThe earliest English visit to North America remains somethingof a mystery. Fishermen working out of the western Englishports may have landed in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland

as early as the 1480s. John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto), aVenetian sea captain, completed the first recorded transatlanticvoyage by an English vessel in 1497. Henry VII had rejectedColumbus’s enterprise for the Indies, but the first Tudormonarch apparently experienced a change of heart after hear-ing of Spain’s success.

Like other explorers of that time, Cabot believed thathe could find a northwest passage to Asia. He doggedlysearched the northern waters for a likely opening, but adirect route to Cathay eluded him. Cabot died during a sec-ond attempt in 1498. Although Sebastian Cabot continuedhis father’s explorations in the Hudson Bay region in1508–1509, English interest in the New World waned. Forthe next three-quarters of a century, the English peoplewere preoccupied with more pressing domestic and reli-gious concerns. The Cabot voyages did, however, establishan English claim to American territory.

Religious Turmoil and Reformation in EuropeThe reign of Henry VII was plagued by domestic troubles.England possessed no standing army; a small, weak navy; andmany strong and independent local magnates. During thesixteenth century, however, the next Tudor king, Henry VIII,and his daughter, Elizabeth I, developed a strong centralgovernment and transformed England into a Protestantnation. These changes propelled England into a central rolein European affairs and were crucial to the creation ofEngland’s North American empire.

The Protestantism that eventually stimulated colo-nization was definitely not of English origin. In 1517, arelatively obscure German monk, Martin Luther, publiclychallenged certain tenets and practices of RomanCatholicism, and within a few years, the religious unity ofEurope was forever shattered. Luther’s message wasstraightforward. God spoke through the Bible, Luthermaintained, not through the pope or priests. Pilgrimages,fasts, alms, indulgences—none of these traditional actscould ensure salvation. Luther’s radical ideas spreadrapidly across northern Germany and Scandinavia.

Other Protestant reformers soon spoke out againstCatholicism. The most important of these was John Calvin,a lawyer turned theologian, who lived in the Swiss city ofGeneva. Calvin emphasized God’s omnipotence overhuman affairs. The Lord, he maintained, chose some per-sons for “election,” the gift of salvation, while condemningothers to eternal damnation. Human beings were powerlessto alter this decision by their individual actions.

Common sense suggests that such a bleak doctrinemight lead to fatalism or hedonism. After all, why not enjoyworldly pleasures if they have no effect on God’s judgment?But common sense would be wrong. Indeed, the Calvinistsconstantly were busy searching for signs that they hadreceived God’s gift of grace. The uncertainty of their eternalstate proved a powerful psychological spur, for as long aspeople did not know whether they were scheduled for

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12 CHAPTER 1 NEW WORLD ENCOUNTERS

heaven or hell, they worked diligently to demonstrate thatthey possessed at least the seeds of grace. This doctrine ofpredestination became the distinguishing mark of Calvin’sfollowers throughout northern Europe. In the seventeenthcentury, they were known in France as Huguenots and inEngland and America as Puritans.

Popular anticlericalism was the basis for the ProtestantReformation in England. Although they observed tradi-tional Catholic ritual, the English people had long resentedpaying monies to a distant pope. Early in the sixteenth cen-tury, opposition to the clergy grew increasingly vocal.Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the most powerful prelate inEngland, flaunted his immense wealth and became a sym-bol of spiritual corruption. Parish priests were ridiculed fortheir ignorance and greed. Anticlericalism did not run asdeep in England as in Germany, but by the late 1520s, theRoman Catholic clergy had strained the allegiance of thegreat mass of the population. Ordinary men and womenthroughout the kingdom were ready to leave the institu-tional church.

The catalyst for the Reformation in England wasHenry VIII’s desire to end his marriage to Catherine ofAragon, daughter of the king of Spain. Their union in1509 had produced a daughter, Mary, but no son. Theneed for a male heir obsessed Henry. He and his coun-selors assumed that a female ruler could not maintaindomestic peace and that England would fall once againinto civil war. Henry petitioned Pope Clement VII for adivorce. Unwilling to tolerate the public humiliation ofCatherine, Spain forced the pope to procrastinate. In 1527,time ran out. Henry fell in love with Anne Boleyn, wholater bore him a daughter, Elizabeth. The king divorcedCatherine without papal consent.

The final break with Rome came swiftly. Between 1529and 1536, the king, acting through Parliament, severed allties with the pope, seized church lands, and dissolved manyof the monasteries. In March 1534, the Act of Supremacyboldly named Henry VIII “supreme head of the Church ofEngland.” Land formerly owned by the Catholic Churchpassed quickly into private hands, and property holdersacquired a vested interest in Protestantism. In 1539, WilliamTyndale and Miles Coverdale issued an English edition ofthe Bible, which made it possible for the common people toread the Scriptures in their own language rather thanCatholicism’s Latin. The separation was complete.

When Henry died in 1547, his young son Edward VIcame to the throne. But Edward was a sickly child. MilitantProtestants took advantage of the political uncertainty tointroduce Calvinism into England. In breaking with thepapacy, Henry had shown little enthusiasm for theologicalchange; most Catholic ceremonies remained. But oppo-nents now insisted that the Church of England removeevery trace of its Catholic origins. Edward died in 1553, andthese ambitious efforts came to a sudden halt. Henry’s

eldest daughter, Mary I, ascended the throne. Fiercely loyalto the Catholic faith, she vowed to return England to thepope. Hundreds of Protestants were executed; othersscurried off to Geneva and Frankfurt, where they absorbedthe radical Calvinist doctrines. When Mary died in 1558and was succeeded by Elizabeth I, these “Marian exiles”returned, more eager than ever to purge the Tudor churchof Catholicism. Mary had inadvertently advanced the causeof Calvinism by creating so many Protestant martyrs. TheMarian exiles now controlled the Elizabethan church, whichremained fundamentally Calvinist until the end of the six-teenth century.

The Protestant QueenElizabeth was a woman of extraordinary talent. She gov-erned England from 1558 to 1603, an intellectually excitingperiod during which some of her subjects took the firsthalting steps toward colonizing the New World.

Elizabeth’s most urgent duty was to end the religiousturmoil that had divided the country for a generation. Shehad no desire to restore Catholicism. After all, the popeopenly referred to her as a woman of illegitimate birth. Nordid she want to recreate the church exactly as it had been inthe final years of her father’s reign. Rather, Elizabeth estab-lished a unique church, near-Catholic in ceremony butProtestant in doctrine. The examples of Edward and Maryhad demonstrated that neither radical change nor wide-spread persecution gained a monarch lasting popularity.

Elizabeth still faced serious religious challenges.Catholicism and Protestantism were warring faiths; each wasan ideology, a body of deeply held beliefs that influenced theway that average men and women interpreted the experiencesof everyday life. The confrontation between Protestantismand Catholicism affected Elizabeth’s entire reign.

Militant Calvinists urged her to drop all Catholic ritu-als, and fervent Catholics wanted her to return to theRoman church. Pope Pius V excommunicated her in 1570.Spain, the most intensely Catholic state in Europe, vowed torestore England to the “true” faith, and Catholic terroristsplotted to overthrow the Tudor monarchy.

Religion, War, and NationalismEnglish Protestantism and English nationalism slowlymerged. A loyal English subject in the late sixteenth centuryloved the monarch, supported the Church of England, andhated Catholics, especially those who happened to live inSpain. Elizabeth’s subjects adored their Virgin Queen, andthey applauded when her famed “Sea Dogs”—dashing navalcommanders such as Sir Francis Drake and Sir JohnHawkins—seized Spanish treasure ships in American waters.The English naval raids were little more than piracy, but theypassed for grand victories. With each engagement, eachthreat, each plot, English nationalism took deeper root.By the 1570s, the English people were driven by powerful

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An Unpromising Beginning: Mystery at Roanoke 13

John White depicts several fishing techniques practiced by theAlgonquian Indians of the modern Carolinas. Riders in thecanoe use dip nets and multipronged spears. In the background,Indians stab at fish with long spears. At left, a weir traps fish bytaking advantage of the river current’s natural force.

ideological forces similar to those that had moved the sub-jects of Isabella and Ferdinand almost a century earlier.

In the mid-1580s, Philip II of Spain constructed amighty fleet carrying thousands of Spain’s finest infantry. TheArmada was built to cross the English Channel and destroythe Protestant queen. When one of Philip’s lieutenantsviewed the Armada at Lisbon in May 1588, he described it asla felicissima armada, the invincible fleet. The king believedthat with the support of England’s oppressed Catholics,Spanish troops would sweep Elizabeth from power.

It was a grand scheme; it was an even grander failure. In1588, a smaller, more maneuverable English navy dispersedthe Armada and revealed Spain’s vulnerability. Philip’shopes for a Catholic England lay wrecked along the rockycoasts of Scotland and Ireland. Elizabeth’s subjectsremained loyal throughout the crisis. Inspired by success inthe Channel, bolder personalities dreamed of acquiringriches and planting colonies across the North Atlantic.Spain’s American monopoly had been broken.

An Unpromising Beginning:Mystery at RoanokeBy the 1570s, England was ready to challenge Spain andreap the profits of Asia and America. Only dimly aware ofCabot’s voyages and with very limited colonization experi-ence in Ireland, the English adventurers made almost everymistake that one could possibly imagine between 1575 and1600. They did, however, acquire valuable informationabout winds and currents, supplies, and finance that laid thefoundation for later, more successful ventures.

Sir Walter Ralegh’s experience provided all English colo-nizers with a sobering example of the difficulties thatawaited them in America. In 1584, he dispatched two cap-tains to the coast of present-day North Carolina to claimland granted to him by Elizabeth. The men returned withglowing reports about the fertility of the soil. Diplomatically,Ralegh renamed this marvelous region Virginia, in honor ofhis patron, the Virgin Queen.

Ralegh’s enterprise seemed ill-fated from the start.Though encouraged by Elizabeth, he received no financialbacking from the crown, and despite careful planning,everything went wrong. In 1585, Sir Richard Grenvilletransported a group of men to Roanoke Island, but thecolonists did not arrive in Virginia until nearly autumn.The settlement was also poorly located, and even experi-enced navigators found it dangerous to reach. Finally,Grenville alienated the local Indians when he senselesslydestroyed an entire Indian village in retaliation for the theftof a silver cup.

Grenville hurried back to England in the autumn of1585, leaving the colonists to fend for themselves. They per-formed quite well. But when an expected shipment of sup-plies failed to arrive on time, the colonists grew discontented.

In the spring of 1586, Sir Francis Drake unexpectedly landedat Roanoke, and the colonists impulsively decided to returnhome with him.

In 1587, Ralegh launched a second colony. The new set-tlement was more representative, containing men, women,and even children. The settlers feasted on Roanoke’s fish andgame and bountiful harvests of corn and pumpkin. Yetwithin weeks after arriving, the leader of the settlement,John White, returned to England at the colonists’ urgingto obtain additional food and clothing and to recruitnew immigrants.

Once again, Ralegh’s luck turned sour. War with Spainpressed every available ship into military service. When res-cuers eventually reached the island in 1590, they found thevillage deserted. The fate of the “lost” colonists remains amystery. The best guess is that they were absorbed by neigh-boring groups of natives, some from as far as the southernshore of the James River.

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14 CHAPTER 1 NEW WORLD ENCOUNTERS

Conclusion: Propagandafor EmpireRichard Hakluyt, a supremely industrious man, never sawAmerica. Nevertheless, his vision of the New Worldpowerfully shaped public opinion. He interviewed captainsand sailors and carefully collected their travel stories in amassive book titled The Principall Navigations, Voyages, andDiscoveries of the English Nation (1589). Although each taleappeared to be a straightforward narrative, Hakluyt editedeach piece to drive home the book’s central point: Englandneeded American colonies. English settlers, he argued, wouldprovide the mother country with critical natural resources,and in the process they would grow rich themselves.

Hakluyt’s enthusiasm for the spread of English tradethroughout the world may have blinded him to theaspirations of other peoples who actually inhabited thosedistant lands. He continued to collect testimony fromadventurers and sailors who claimed to have visited Asiaand America. In a popular new edition of his workpublished between 1598 and 1600 and titled Voyages, hecatalogued in great detail the commercial opportunitiesawaiting ambitious English colonizers. His entrepreneurialperspective obscured other aspects of the English Conquest,which within only a short amount of time would transformthe face of the New World. He paid little attention, forexample, to the rich cultural diversity of the NativeAmericans; he said not a word about the pain of theAfricans who traveled to North and South America asslaves. Instead, he and other polemicists for the Englishcolonization led the ordinary men and women who crossedthe Atlantic to expect nothing less than a paradise on Earth.By encouraging such unreal expectations, Hakluyt persuadedEuropean settlers that the New World was theirs for thetaking, a self-serving view that invited ecological disasterand human suffering.

America Past and Present OnlineTo find more resources for this chapter, please go towww.MyHistoryLab.com.

� C H R O N O L O G Y �

30,000–20,000 B.C. Settlers cross the Bering Straitland bridge into North America

2000–1500 B.C. Agricultural Revolutiontransforms Native American life

A.D. 1001 Norsemen establish a smallsettlement in Vinland(Newfoundland)

1438 Printing method using movabletype is invented

1492 Marriage of Isabella andFerdinand leads to theunification of Spain

1492 Columbus lands atSan Salvador

1497 Cabot leads first Englishexploration of North America

1502 Montezuma becomes emperorof the Aztec

1506 Columbus dies in Spain afterfour voyages to America

1517 Martin Luther’s protests set offthe Reformation in Germany

1521 Cortés achieves victory over theAztec at Tenochtitlan

1529–1536 Henry VIII provokes theEnglish Reformation

1534 Cartier claims Canadafor France

1536 Calvin’s Institutes is published

1540 Coronado explores the NorthAmerican Southwest for Spain

1558 Elizabeth becomes queenof England

1583 Sir Humphrey Gilbert dies

1585 First Roanoke settlement isestablished on the coast ofNorth Carolina

1588 Spanish Armada is defeated bythe English

1603 Elizabeth I dies

1608 Champlain founds Quebec

1682 La Salle travels the length of theMississippi River

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