Spanish Explorers and English Colonists in the 15th and 16th Century
When the warmth of the day comforts the air the all-seeing eye in every form is over you as you tread the paths of life. When the wind was blowing, shrill and shrewd, the all-seeing eye is also there marking every movement in the temper of the winds. When the setting of the sun released the shadows imprisoned all day, which now closed in and gathered like mustering swarms of dark spirits, the all-seeing eye calculates every movement engraved in different images. When the dark shadows stood lowering all about from the far corners of rustic places, ends of lanes and behind trees and bushes, the all-seeing eye was near when things that might have been, and never was, always wandering.
“The common eye sees only the outside of things, and judges by that, but the ‘all seeing eye’ pierces through, and reads the heart and the soul, finding there capacities which the outside didn’t indicate or promise, and which the other kind couldn’t detect.” – Mark Twain
The world is full of eyes. The all-seeing eye is a universal symbol representing spiritual sight, inner vision, higher knowledge, and insight into occult mysteries. The all-seeing eye for all mankind is a powerful symbol of protection, health and wisdom. There is the eye of water, which soothes the soul, and the eye of land, which offers refuge of the mind..
The Bible’s interpretation of the ‘all-seeing eye’ can be found in the Book of Genesis in the creation of man. The crafty snake promised Adam and Eve that their eyes would “be opened” if they ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The key word in this passage is eyes, which in Hebrew can be translated “knowledge.” Opened can be translated “broadened.” What the Serpent promised Adam and Eve was that knowledge would be broadened if they ate of the forbidden fruit.
But the most foreboding aspect of this scripture emerges from the fact that the Hebrew word for “eyes” is not plural, but singular. What the Serpent actually told Adam and Eve was that their “eye” would be broadened by knowledge. The “eye” that the text of the Bible wants us to consider is not the physical organ of sight, but the eye of the mind or the soul. (1)
‘The all-seeing eye’, …to the Egyptian initiates was the emblem of Osiris, the Creator. “… His [Osiris] power was symbolized by an Eye over a Scepter. The Eye of Mind or the Eye of Horus… and conveying the idea of the ‘all-seeing eye’. The end set before the Egyptian neophyte was illumination, that is to be ‘brought to light’. The Religion of Egypt was the Religion of the Light.” The Sun was termed by the Greeks the Eye of Jupiter, and the Eye of the World. In Hindu symbolism “the eye of Shiva – the all-seeing eye which directs the will and purposes of the Deity.”
“That ray of His, becoming sight, is present in all his children, whoever see it, by means of the ray that he sees…” – Brahmanas
The exploration of the new world in the 15th and 16th century was done for completely different reasons between the English colonists and the Spanish explorers. The areas that were settled by each group was one of the major differences to begin with, but these areas had much to do with the continuing exploration of the areas.
The English colonists faced extreme hardship in England and sought to find a land where they could worship their religion without being persecuted. The English government was killing people because they did not worship the same religion that the king did, so the colonists fled for their lives.
Once they reached America, they formed a few colonies. The first colony was Jamestown. Jamestown was the first English colony founded in the new land. Jamestown was located in what today is known as the New England states. The hardship of creating a new colony with nothing is hard enough, without having to deal with the weather in the New England states. Jamestown Colony was the first permanent English settlement in North America, located near present-day Williamsburg, Virginia. Established on May 14, 1607, the colony gave England its first foothold in the European competition for the New World, which had been dominated by the Spanish since the voyages of Christopher Columbus in the late 15th century (Jamestown Colony).
The weather was the first hardship that the colonists faced. Without proper shelter and time to build the shelter they needed, many of the colonists died in the first winter because of disease from the cold.
After the colonists survived through the first winter, they soon faced more hardship when the met the Native Americans. At first, they thought that the Native Americans were there to kill them, and lived in fear of them. After some time, they realized that the Native Americans could help them learn the land and be able to live successfully in their colony.
This is one of the only times that the colonists lived in peace with the Native Americans. Soon after, the Native Americans would become enemies because the colonists would continue to explore and expand and take the Native American’s land.
Another challenge the colonists of Jamestown faced was the lack of resources. They had nothing to start their colony with. They had to start at the beginning and do everything from scratch. This made it extremely difficult for most of the colonists because England was a fruitful city and there was no need to find resources from the land. This turned out to be a major challenge.
Finally, maybe the biggest challenge that the colonists faced was the inability to fight disease. Disease ravaged the colony because there were no doctors or cures for the diseases since they had nothing in the new colony. Many of the colonists died when diseases hit the colony.
There were also small challenges that faced the colonists every day. There were animal attacks such as wolves and bears, bad storms, lack of food that damaged the colonists moral daily. These are all things that they took granted for before they came to America to make their own colony, and now they had to deal with it on a daily basis.
The soil was not what they were used to and they had a very hard time growing food. The only reason that they finally were able to grow any food at all was because the Native Americans helped show them how to plant and take care of corn. This was a lifesaver because without food, there was absolutely nothing that could make the colonists survive.
All of this was worth it to them, though. They had dealt with much worse in England. They were being killed for the beliefs. As some of the colonists said while they were in America, they would rather die of hunger than die for their religion. So, it made sense to them to deal with these hardships.
The Spanish colonists had a completely different reason for exploring the new world. They also dealt with hardships, but not in the same way that the English colonists dealt with them.
The Spanish colonists came to America in search of new land and a new trade route to the Philippines so that they could trade their items for riches. Since the only way to the Philippines was through the mountains in Asia, it was a very dangerous way to go. So the Spanish explorers decided that it would be easier if they found an alternative route to the Philippines by going around the ocean.
This plan would have worked if the Americas would not have been in the way. When the Spanish explorers found the Americas, they found much more than they were hoping for. The first explorers that set foot in the Americas soon found the Incan’s, Aztec’s, and Mayan’s. These cultures had been living in the America’s for centuries without disturbance. The thing that caught the eye of the Spanish explorers was the riches that these three cultures possessed.
So the Spanish colonists set out to colonize the area with these three cultures and make it and their riches their own. While they attempted to do this, they fell into many hardships that they did not see in their future. “Spanish conquest in the New World was driven by the three ‘G’s-gold, glory, and gospel. In his drive to gather riches, Columbus (and later conquistadors) enslaved and decimated the local populations” (Spanish Discovery and Colonization).
The first hardship that they had in front of them was war. The cultures that owned the land before they came would not surrender their land easily. The Spanish colonists sent bribe after bribe to the Incan’s, Aztec’s, and Mayan’s and nothing worked. So, finally, they decided that the only way that they were going to get the land was to take it by force. They gathered what army they could and attacked the established civilizations. They eventually won the battles, but it was not because they had a better army. The Spanish colonists had many diseases that the civilizations had never experienced before. These diseases wiped out masses of people, and in the end caused the fall of the great civilizations.
In return, disease from these civilizations also affected the Spanish colonists. Just as the civilizations had not experienced the Spanish diseases, the Spanish colonists had not experienced the Incan diseases. This was another hardship which the Spanish colonists had to suffer through. These diseases ended up wiping out a large portion of the Spanish colonists.
The Aztec kingdom in Mexico is conquered in 1521, followed by a campaign against the Maya in Yucatan. Central America, from Guatemala to Nicaragua, is brought under Spanish control between 1524 and 1526. In the southern part of the continent the coast of Venezuela (where the rich pearl fisheries are a powerful lure) is the first region to attract Spanish settlers, from 1523. Down the west coast, the Inca kingdom in Peru is overwhelmed in 1533; Ecuador and Colombia are subdued later in the 1530s; and most of Chile is gradually brought under control during the 1540s (HISTORY OF THE SPANISH EMPIRE).
After the Spanish had conquered the land and claimed it as their own, another challenge lay ahead them. The pope decided that he would divide the land between the Spanish and the Portuguese. These two cultures were bitter enemies and they would end up fighting over the land until it would be finally settled in Spain who the ruler of each part of the land was.
The Spanish colonists faced many hardships in their quest to conquer all the land in the Americas. Throughout their quest, they faced disease, hunger, war, and the new land. They would stumble upon tribes that would create a surprise attack on them and kill a quarter of the men. These little challenges that they faced every day eventually added up and began to demoralize the Spanish colonists.
There are a lot of differences between the Spanish colonists and the English colonists. The Spanish colonists came to the Americas to gain new land and build to their empire, while the English colonists came to the new land to get away from persecution. Even though both of the separate colonists came to the Americas for entirely different reasons, they both faced extremely challenging hardships that many of them did not survive.
The hardships that the colonists faced were caused directly by why the colonists came to the Americas. The English colonist’s hardships were food, water, disease, and shelter. These hardships were created because they ran away from their country without knowing what they were doing, where they were going, and how they were going to survive. The Spanish colonists ran into hardships such as water, war, disease, and death. These hardships were created because they came to the Americas to expand their empire and conquer every land that was available for them to conquer.
References
HISTORY OF THE SPANISH EMPIRE. History World. 03 Feb. 2006 .
“Jamestown Colony.” EncyclopÃ?¦dia Britannica. 2006. EncyclopÃ?¦dia Britannica Premium Service. 3 Feb. 2006
“Spanish Discovery and Colonization.” Spanish Discovery and Colonization. 2005. US History. 03 Feb. 2006 .
