The Spanish and English in the New World: Competing Views on Building Empire

In discussions about the discovery and development of the Americas beginning in the 16th century, many choose to skip over the Spanish contribution not only to cultural development in North America but also the role that their colonial failure had in the success of the British colonial success. The Spanish effort, begun in earnest in the early 16th century with the extraction of raw resources (i.e. sugar, spice, raw ores) to be used in the burgeoning industrial sectors of Europe. However, the downfall of the Spanish colonial effort was that it did not provide a lasting infrastructure for imperial rule. Spanish conquistadors took land and killed natives with little regard for the resources they were using or the massive fortunes that were drained in massive military campaigns. Authoritarian government by Spanish governors over natives in the Caribbean, Florida, and Central America were ineffective and though they remained a presence into the 19th century, the Spanish were supplanted by the English, Dutch, and French by the turn of the 17th century.

The English became the main inheritors of the North American territory by the mid-17th century, following fifty years of exploration along the Atlantic Coast. English Queen Elizabeth I began to consolidate power and increase funding to stock companies in the West Indies and the Atlantic Coast, due to the need to suppress religious groups and fund an outlet for the surging British population. Given these factors, the royal court felt that great profits could be made from even marginal development of the mid-Atlantic. Beginning with the Jamestown settlement of 1607 and the slow discovery of how to survive in the wilderness, the English began to make their footprints upon the American continent, slowly moving north and south of Virginia and the Carolinas to expand their claim to the continent.

The English colonial effort took place on two fronts, with the sugar cane trade developing in the Carribean and the tobacco trade developing in the Carolinas, Maryland, and Virginia. The desire for cheap sugar and spices on the continental Europe fueled the growing slave trade (begun in 1619) throughout the English empire and made for a model to exploiting resources in a sustainable manner. The tobacco trade became the staple of the North American economy and the need for labor not only expanded the slave trade but also strengthened the need for indentured servitude from the Old World (which meant a contractual obligation to serve with the promise of land at the end of service). In order to create a more orderly development of economic resources and to create community in a strange land, the people of Virginia created a smaller model of the British government, including a representative House of Burgesses, a Governor’s Council, and the promotion of aristocratic mores (including fox hunts and the tying of land ownership to voting). While colonial governments were officially Anglican, out of necessity it was tolerant of other Protestant groups. The Puritans in the colony, as well among the other land companies and settlements, were afraid of over-bureaucratic and dictatorial rulers and sought more democracy in the New World. By the standards of the day, Virginia and other British settlements were more democratic than any other political body of the day. These early developments explain the strength and resiliency of the British and the comparative failure of the Spanish.