After reading so much about the British colonial conquests of the 17th<\/sup> and 18th<\/sup> century along the east coast of the United States, I had almost forgotten about anything in America at the time that existed west of the Mississippi. During this era, the Spanish took it upon themselves to maintain their superiority in North America by conquering most of the western United States, securing themselves as the most important colonizers on the continent. In this chapter we are also introduced to another player, the Russians, and their colonization of Alaska.<\/p>\n Throughout all of the North and South American colonies of the 17th<\/sup> and 18th<\/sup> century, one common theme that unites all of the settlements (with the possible exception of New France) was the use of excessive violence when conquering new territories. As Alan Taylor writes in his history American Colonies<\/i>, the Spanish \u201cheard alarming rumors of Russian and British advances towards the West Coast of North America\u201d (Taylor, 445), which prompted them to colonize at a faster, more violent rate. I believe this shows a deep insecurity on the part of the Spanish colonial exploits, who were determined to demonstrate their superior colonizing skills through any means necessary, even if that resulted in them \u201crap[ing] Quechan women and brutally whipp[ing] native men who protested\u201d (Taylor, 459).<\/p>\n I was surprised with Taylor\u2019s devoted a portion of the chapter to Russian settlements in North America (particularly Alaska), as I was unaware they conquered any land. I enjoyed reading WEKING\u2019s analogy where he compared the Russian promyshlenniki<\/i> to Spanish conquistadores in terms of violence of cruelty to the local Indian population. Taylor writes that \u201cthe promyshlenniki<\/i> became notorious for their brutality to native peoples and for the rapidity with which their operations harvested wild animals to local extinction,\u201d (Taylor, 447), showing a complete disrespect for not only the native peoples, but for their land too. Through reading all the chapters devoted to different European colonies, it seems as though most Europeans believed they were automatically a more sophisticated group of people than their native counterparts, and it was almost their duty to \u201csave\u201d them by forcing their practices on the Indians. The Russians were apparently no different.<\/p>\n The intertwined nature of religion and Spanish colonial conquests has always been an interest of mine. Religious conversion played an important role in the conquering of Spanish Latin America and continued to be important as the Spaniards colonized out west. As EVFARESE noted, it was clearly in the best interest of the Catholic Church to fund these overseas expansions, as they had the potential to gain many more followers. Overtime, the Indians eventually became dependent upon the missions, as Taylor writes, \u201cby introducing free-range livestock [among other resources], the Hispanics narrowed the Indian\u2019s ability to live outside the missions,\u201d (Taylor, 461), detailing the full extent of Spanish control in America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After reading so much about the British colonial conquests of the 17th and 18th century along the east coast of the United States, I had almost forgotten about anything in America at the time that existed west of the Mississippi. During this era, the Spanish took it upon themselves to maintain their superiority in North … <\/p>\n