The Spanish’s interest in gaining California is interesting. The Spanish were dominant in Mexico and afterwards, Cortes turned his gaze northward up the coast of California. In the early to middle part of the 17th century, the Spanish were exploring up the coast of California, looking to see what the land there was like. They found a land that, to them, did not seem worthy of their attention or further exploration. The Spanish Empire was stretched very wide at this point and it was probably a smart decision to focus themselves on what they had already gained. As JaNewton points out, it was the threat of the British and the Russians that scared the Spanish into returning to explore California. I think it is interesting to look at the competitiveness of the Spanish and how that forced them into gaining as much land as they could before the British or the Russians could get there.<\/p>\n

This also points to the vast lack of knowledge of the Pacific coast of North America. The Spanish had heard that the Russians were moving into North America via modern day Alaska and they felt threatened even though the two empires were thousands of miles away from each other. Also this is an example of how communication might have been exaggerated as there were only “a few dozen Russian traders” (445) in pursuit of sea otter pelts for commercial trade. Clearly, a few dozen men over 3,000 miles away shouldn’t be much of a threat, but the Spanish were very eager to keep their land and not let anyone get it. The Spanish needed this land to act as a buffer between their precious Mexico and the Hudson Bay Company and whoever else may be to the north and the more land they have, the bigger the buffer is. They were also intent on gaining more and more land in the New World to compete with the thriving colonies of the British. I think the Spanish felt threatened by the success of the British colonies and were determined, due to their competitive nature, to outdo them and become more successful, and that meant gaining new territory and new Christians.<\/p>\n

The other important aspect of the Spanish colonization up the coast of California was the fact that they were spreading Christianity through missions. Although these missions were tough to maintain, the Catholic Church in Rome was willing to help out as they might get more followers. The missions played a major part in forming relationships with the natives of California and many became dependent upon them for providing them with easy food. They were, however, put to work and became at great risk for contracting a myriad of diseases. The Spanish missions were integral in making their stamp on the coast of California as many of them are still standing today, reminding all Californians and Americans who was there first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Spanish’s interest in gaining California is interesting. The Spanish were dominant in Mexico and afterwards, Cortes turned his gaze northward up the coast of California. In the early to middle part of the 17th century, the Spanish were exploring up the coast of California, looking to see what the land there was like. They … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Conquest of California”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[50,249,262,285,295],"class_list":["post-382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-california","tag-religion","tag-russians","tag-spanish","tag-taylor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/123"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}