Colonization. Spanish – U.S. to 1877

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In chapters three and five, Taylor focuses on New Spain in Central and South America and contact in the Canadian region, where the Iroquoia met the French, respectively. The questions fueling the majority of the chapters include, “Who did the Europeans come in contact with? What were the goals of each party? How did each party go about trying to achieve these goals? If anyone was successful, who and how? What did these successes mean for the future of the region?” Taylor does an efficient job in answering these questions in an informative way including facts and evidence to support. The chapters are organized in a way that separates different European countries and their separate colonization efforts. By concentrating specifically on one power, then another, Taylor makes an argument that the French and Spanish contrasted greatly in the way they interacted with the American continent and its people. By showing the Spanish initiative to conquer and convert, the Taylor characterized the Spaniards as powerful, hungry for land and wealth, and devoted in a religious sense. By showing the French as a people who prioritized trade and peace, he stressed their economical goals and desire for harmony. To support this position, Taylor uses specific evidence. The journal entries from Spanish soldiers and officers give a vivid sense of what happened to the Aztec empire. The historical facts about battles and plots to take the largest city in all of Central America illustrate the plan the Spanish had in mind when they arrived. The French, on the other hand, had only small trading posts in this time period. They did not grow much food on their own and kept their numbers small. Beaver pelts, rather than vast stretches of land, were in high demand and the area was too cold for much agriculture anyway. They did their best not to fight the local tribes and even helped their trading partners fend off the dangerous Five Nations from the south. The kept it to a small operation with economic priority.

When reading a previous post by “chmasone”, I came across an observation that discussed Europeans’ respect for the Natives’ talent in growing maize. They called it ingenious and disputed the popular belief that all Natives are savage beasts. This viewpoint reminded me particularly of the French experience with the Huron tribe. The Native traders possessed a certain wit and intelligence when acting as a middle man for the Europeans and tribes further west. The used inflated prices to make a profit and had even a upper hand on the French in many circumstances. This evidence shows the Native’s ability to be, at least, equals in trade with Europeans and not to mention far superior in agriculture.

The shocking brutality of the Spanish conquistadores was the thing that stood out to me most in reading Chapter 3. So brutal were the Spanish, in their “conquering and colonization [of] vast stretches of the Americas” (Taylor, 51) that even the other European nations who were also colonizing American lands during that time period were shocked and appalled by their actions. The English, who were competitors with the Spanish when it came to colonizing the “new world”, even came up with the term “Black Legend” to describe the horrifying ways in which the Spanish treated the natives. Now, the English clearly weren’t upstanding in their treatment of the natives who had been living independently for hundreds of years before British arrival, but it says something that even they drew a more appropriate line as to what was acceptable in the treatment of natives than the Spanish.

Before reading these chapters and discussing them in class, it was my understanding that most European nations who were involved in the early colonization of the Americas had the same motivation for being there and mostly went about colonization in the same way. It is clear however, that this is not the case. There were varying levels of violence, peaceful interaction with natives, trade, implementation of religion, etc with almost every European nation that attempted to colonize the land. Taylor made it known early that part of his reason for writing this book was to give a more comprehensive and complete overview of this history; almost as a way to fill in the gaps that are so often left there when American history is told. Him more indepthly describing the differences in which various nations went along in colonizing these lands better gives the reader an understanding of how and why things developed the way they did during early colonization.

Tag: Colonization. Spanish

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