1. The period of great geographical discovery
In the late fifteenth century, ideological revolution, technological innovation, and economic development swept across European countries. In order to shorten the voyage of trade with Asia, the Portuguese navigator ventured around the Horn of Africa and headed east to India. Other adventurers chose more risky routes and sailed west across the Atlantic. Italian navigator Christopher Columbus was one of them. He persuaded the Spanish king Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to help him lead the fleet across the Atlantic. Due to the wrong estimation of the size of the earth, he did not know that he was lucky enough to traverse a vast continent on his route. Columbus set anchor from the port of Palos, Spain on August 3, 1492, and led this small fleet of three ships to West Air is heading to Asia. On October 12th of that year, Columbus’s fleet landed on a small island and named the island San Salvador. Columbus thought that he had already arrived in India, so he called the local aboriginal people "Indians" and this name was passed down. This wave of nautical expeditions has complicated economic, political, and religious motivations. And Columbus himself also dreamed of gaining more wealth and fame and was keen to teach Indians to become Christians (so he went on three voyages after he first landed on the island). At the same time, Columbus believed that his voyage fulfilled the prophecies in the Bible, which is also one of the early manifestations of the United States has been regarded as a land blessed by God. For the Spanish royal family who funded Columbus, the exploration of the unknown world will expand the territory they rule, help them overcome their European rivals, and reap huge wealth-people think that this is what Shakespeare mentioned in "The Tempest". "New World", gold everywhere.
2. The period of European colonial expansion
Soon, Europe’s maritime powers embarked on the route pioneered by Columbus and began to swear sovereignty. First of all, Spain has established colonial settlements in today’s Florida (St. Augustine, 1565), New Mexico (Santa Fe, 1609), the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, and South America. Soldiers from Spain, expeditions Scholars, colonial rulers, and Catholic missionaries flocked to the American continent. Later, the Netherlands also established a colony in North America. In 1609, British navigator Herry Hudson (Herry Hudson), who was hired by the Dutch East India Company, arrived at the Hudson River named after him and went upstream for an expedition. In 1625, the Dutch East India Company purchased a piece of land on Manhattan Island from the Delaware Indian tribe and established the New Amsterdam colony. The East India Company granted the land along the Hudson River to the owner of the large manor, who collected rent and taxes from the tenant farmers who settled here.
3 Rising Star
In this empire battle, although Britain started late, it quickly caught up. The Protestant reforms in the 1630s had a significant impact on the British North American colonies. Therefore, with the exception of Maryland, the other British colonies have a strong Protestant color. (Cecilius Calvert, a Catholic believer, was granted a charter by Charles I in 1632 to establish a colony of Maryland and become a refuge for native British Catholics.) The British named the area where their first colonial settlement in North America was located in Virginia to commemorate the Virgin Queen Elizabeth I [Elizabeth I]. In 1607, with the funding of an investment company called "Adventurers", about 600 colonists of various colors arrived in Virginia today and established a relationship with James I, the successor of Elizabeth I. Ⅰ) Jamestown Fortress named after. The "adventurer"s the illusion of gold and silver soon shattered, and most of the earliest colonists died of disease, famine, and attacks from the Indians. However, since the tobacco farming industry was introduced to Virginia in 1611, the prevailing fashion of smoking pouches in Europe at that time made tobacco exports bring huge profits to the colonies. Although as early as 1604, James I criticized tobacco in a pamphlet, saying that the habit of smoking is an abomination, an abomination to smell and it hurts the mind and body but the effect was minimal.
4. British colonial expansion
Britain began to advance south, from North Carolina to Georgia, establishing more colonies, reaching Spain's outpost in Florida. After experiencing the sufferings of the early colonial period, the health of New Englanders improved rapidly and their lifespans were greatly extended. The geographical scope extended southward to Rhode Island and Connecticut, and extended northward to New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine. . In addition to farming, fishing, and working in towns, New Englanders began to develop maritime trade. The merchant ship departed from New England, loaded with wood, grain, turpentine, and dried cod, and sailed to the British colonies in the United Kingdom and the West Indies. Britain brought back tea, furniture, tableware, and other manufacturing products.Subsequently, Britain established the colonies of Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware, and New Jersey on the Mid-Atlantic coast. So far, Britain has temporarily stopped establishing colonies in North America.
Against the historical background of the conflict between Britain and the Netherlands, the Governor of New Amsterdam surrendered to the British occupying forces in 1664. Subsequently, this multi-ethnic colony (after the Duke of York, the future Charles II) was renamed New York, becoming a prosperous commercial center and a fertile agricultural hinterland in the Hudson Valley. With the decline of Dutch manor owners, the private farm model in New England gradually became dominant.
Delaware was first a fur trading point established by the Swedish colonists, then fell into the hands of the Netherlands, and was finally occupied by the British. New Jersey was originally part of New York and became a British Royal Colony in 1702.
5. Indians and colonists: a fateful encounter
American historians once wishfully deified the Americas before Columbus' voyage, calling it the "virgin land", which was just an empty wilderness. In fact, European colonists encountered an Indian tribal society that was widely distributed, complicated, and with a long history. This encounter has had a long-term impact on both the colonists and the Indians. There are also various forms of exchanges between the two sides, including negotiations, trade, and strategic alliances, as well as bloody conflicts and new diseases (because of their lack of immunity, Indian tribes are almost affected by smallpox. Virus destruction) and misunderstandings caused by different cosmological views and social systems. In the British colonies, the relationship between the colonists and the Indians was once more harmonious, and sometimes even formed alliances to fight against common enemies. For example, in 1637, the Connecticut colonists formed allies with the Mohicans and the Narragansett Indians and attacked the Pecots together. In this operation, the militias of the Connecticut colonists burned down a Pecot village and killed hundreds of Pecots who were trying to flee, both men and women, young and old. The relationship between the colonists and the Indians often developed in the direction of plundering and violence, and the two sides' different understanding of property ownership made this situation worse. For Indians, the land is used for production and life and should be shared; European colonists emphasized the binding and exclusiveness of land ownership. It is precise because of this gap in understanding and the relentless expansion of the Indian territories by the colonists that fierce conflicts continue to erupt.
