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What compelled seafaring Europeans to journey westward towards unfamiliar land and unfamiliar peoples? Was it strictly financial incentive? Was it the prospect of converting a ‘Godless’ people to Christianity? As it turns out, a great deal of motivation came from religious schisms and divisions in Europe itself.
Before 1517, Europe had largely existed as one monolithic Catholic Christendom (Chapter 4, 117). However, with the advent of Martin Luther and his 95 Theses, the continent quickly fractured into numerous denominations of Christianity (Chapter 4, 117). The Reformation granted Protestant Christianity a huge presence in several kingdoms ruled by Catholic monarchs such as England and France (Chapter 4, 120). Given the lack of separation between political and religious spheres, animosity emerged between Protestant nations and Catholic nations (Chapter 4, 129). This animosity manifested in the Atlantic, where contesting factions of Christianity competed against each other for strongholds throughout the Americas. French Huguenots and English Puritans, horrified by the Black Legend, sought to undo the atrocities committed by Spanish Catholic missionaries onto natives (Chapter 4, 126). The French established footholds in Brazil and Florida, only to be slaughtered and expelled by Iberian Catholics (Chapter 4, 135). The English founded short-lived colonies in the North Atlantic far from the reach of Spaniards (Chapter 4, 137). Indeed, as Kyle Kelsay noted in his own Chapter 4 reading response, an insatiable desire for Spanish wealth drove the French, the English, and the Dutch to launch bases throughout the Atlantic as bases of operation for privateering. These privateers, or corsairs, were state-sponsored and raided Spanish galleons and coastal settlements for tremendous profit (Chapter 4, 143). Privateering became an important method by which Protestant nations were able to undermine the economic might of Catholic Spain, a necessary recourse given Spanish aggression in Protestant Netherlands. As evident, a chief motivating factor for trade in the Atlantic was the European sibling rivalry that emerged from the splintering of Christianity in the 16th century. This dimension of religion emboldened the English, French, and Dutch to seek wealth comparable to their Catholic counterparts, and gradually integrate themselves into the burgeoning pan-Atlantic trade. Ultimately, Protestant nations would find themselves dominating this sprawling trade system and seizing areas of loose Iberian control (Chapter 4, 142).