For that matter, a comprehensive American history could devote at least an entire chapter to the Sixteenth century, to explain the background of European and Caribbean history behind why English speaking people began to colonize North America beginning in the Seventeenth century. There’s a heck of a lot more to it than “the Western hemisphere was Spanish for a century, until the English, Dutch and French got into the act”.
The Dutch wars for independence from Spain and their Constitution/religious tolerance would profoundly influence the American Revolution and state building well over a century later, yet they’re never mentioned.
Not to completely hijack, but your ideas interest me and I’d like to subscribe to your newsletter. What did set off the colonization of (present-day) New England? I know the French colonies were largely set up to export goods, but I don’t know anything about why the timing ended up as it did.
The British came into North America with three feet. The right foot went up into Canada and started the Hudson’s Bay Company to provide furs (cheaper than Russians and the accursed French)
The left foot landed in Virginia and the Carolinas (and also the Caribbean). That provided novelty goods such as sugar and tobacco.
The middle foot set up in New England, but unlike the the land was not so generous. There were no easy pickings. There were not enormous profits. This lack of profits did encourage another group of people: prophets.
The Pilgrims Fathers were English, but they left England due the hostile religious environment. They didn’t head west though, the went to Holland, first to Amsterdam and then to Leiden. They didn’t get on well there either and it was then decided to give America a go. They chose New England precisely because no one else wanted to go there. It was somewhere where they would be left alone.
Charles V was the all time high water mark of dynastic marriages. Through his mother (Joanna the Mad/Juanna de Loco) he was the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella of Columbus fame; through his father (Philip the Fair) he was the grandson of Maximilian (Habsburg), Archduke (for all practical purposes king) of Austria and by election Holy Roman Emperor, and of Mary, the Duchess of Burgundy (died young but was the richest woman in Europe). He inherited Spain, Austria, overlordship of Portugal, Burgundy, bits and pieces of Italy and Sicily and even little bites of France and Switzerland, and he was elected (through lots and lots of politicial machinations and bribery [including New World gold and silver]) Holy Roman Emperor, which gave him most of what’s now Germany and Poland and other bits and pieces of Europe. His wife brought Sicily and even more chunks of Italy to the picture. A map works better- everything in orange or yellowwas inherited or controlled by Charles V. Europe wouldn’t see a man that powerful again until Napoleon.
He also ruled the Spanish colonies in what’s now South and Central America, which would become increasingly important. He’d already inherited a good bit of Aztec gold and the Incan gold (and even more importantly the Incan silver) would make him the richest monarch in European history in terms of revenue. Of course he needed it: he was fighting wars on all fronts- with the Turks who were constantly breathing on his neck in Austria, with rebels everywhere, Martin Luther and the Reformation happened on his watch which was pretty bloody, with Francis II of France and (his one-time uncle-in-law) Henry VIII of England and others (though he also fought alongside those men- alliances were constantly changing), but he was the reason that France and England were salivating for a piece of the New World, but at the same time he kept them so busy on the continent that they didn’t have the time or men or resources to invest in trying to take it. (He’s also the reason that Henry VIII didn’t get the divorce; annulling a marriage to a wife who’d borne no sons was almost a formality- the Pope probably kept a blank template in his desk drawer- but when the most powerful man in Europe doesn’t want his favorite Aunt Katherine to be divorced and happens to have you not just surrounded but even forced out of the Vatican, it’s not a good idea to stand on tradition.)
Anyway, Charles V eventually got old and was very tired. Juggling that many wars and that many different peoples and language groups and religions, even with that constant influx of New World and later Asian revenue, wore him out, plus his old pals/enemies Francis II and Henry VIII were dead and it just wasn’t fun anymore so he became a monk (kinda-sorta- it was really just a super luxurious retirement but he took holy orders) and split his empire between his son, Philip II, and his brother, Ferdinand. Philip’s big inheritances were Spain, the Netherlands, and the New World, while his brother got Italy and Austria and the Holy Roman Empire (which wasn’t Charlie’s to leave but he helped his brother secure the election).
The Netherlands had never particularly liked being ruled by Charles V (who made no bones about the fact he much preferred Spain and Italy to any province where the people sounded remotely German as the Dutch of course did- he hated the German language) and they found they liked being ruled by his son Philip even less. This became very important.
Also important were the Atlantic currents. The reason that Columbus and then more than a century of subsequent explorers and conquerors went to South America and the Caribbean even though it’s many times further than North America was because the currents did the work for them; the Atlantic coast of North America was a lot harder to get to, which is why they never really settled it much.
They planted a couple of colonies in what’s now the Carolinas in the 1520s- total disaster- the slaves joined with the Indians and drove them out [and there have been black Indians in the Carolinas ever since incidentally], then Narvaez and others came and de Soto had his epic disaster and when the survivors from it mentioned that they never came around any gold to speak of (though ironically they marched around one of the richest deposits in the mountains of North Georgia) they figured it wasn’t really worth it anyway. They founded St. Augustine for trade but that was about it as far as any real settlements.
TO BE CONTINUED
I love this place.
So, gold and (more importantly to the Spanish economy) silver are coming into Spain throughout the 16th century in seemingly endless supply. (Potosi, a Bolivian village high in the Andes and peopled by enslaved natives high on coca leaves, was built on a mountain of silver ore so rich that it literally funded the Spanish navy for centuries; the “pieces of eight, pieces of eight” were mined there, and by some accounts (not all) the Potosi mint mark is where the dollar sign comes from (check out the column and the drape).
Unfortunately the Spanish have a stranglehold on most of the Caribbean and what’s now Central America and Mexico and much of South America, and what they don’t control the Portuguese do through Brazil. After 1581 is the King of Portugal is also the King of Spain when the old king dies and Philip II of Spain presses a claim to the throne; he has relatives with equal or better claims but unlike them he has an excrement load of money to fund his military in support of his claim. So, by the 1580s Philip II is for all intents and purposes Emperor of the Americas as well from northern Mexico down to Chile, and using South America as a pit stop he’s making literally tons of gold from Japan and China as well. (No hopes of conquering those lands but he doesn’t even want to really since they’re more than happy to fill up the Spanish/Portugese ships with gold/spices/silk/etc. in exchange for weapons and other trade items [though they eventually say ‘we’re all stocked up on Jesuit priests, thanks just the same- use that space to bring some more muskets’]).
So Philip II, who doesn’t control anywhere near as much of Europe as his father did, has instead a global empire. Long before the sun didn’t set on the British Empire the Spanish were sunbathing like mo-fos, and it is driving England, France, and everybody else in Europe bonkers. The Spanish are a super power and their revenue is absolutely endless- you could burn down Barcelona and blow up Madrid and make Ibiza go condo and still they’d manage to get the money to rebuild it.
Philip II had briefly been the King of England as well when he was married to ‘Bloody’ Mary; he was co-crowned with her, though Mary- as much as she loved him- never gave him the power of a monarch. He’d assumed it would be his through their child however, and failing that (since she never had a child) then upon her death- and there was a [mostly well paid and mostly Catholic] faction that rooted for him to become king when she died, but there was never any real contest twixt him and his sister-in-law Elizabeth. Unlike Mary Elizabeth was youn, attractive, potentially capable of having lots of babies, but she spurns him of course. I don’t think it was his ego so much as his ambition that was hurt of course, but he and Elizabeth- who is also of the “Hail Mary’s can go to merry old Hell” bent religiously and does away with Catholicism- came to cordially hate each other, plus having done quite well with his pressed claim to Portugal he decides to do likewise with his claim to the throne of England (“because my beloved late departed wife Mary, God rest her crazy silly smelly old soul, wanted me to have it- it was her dying words to me- or would have been had I been anywhere remotely near her- I’m guessing”).
Elizabeth meanwhile (and other powers too) realizes that she has to get a piece of Philip’s New World action if she’s going to compete. A land invasion of Panama or Mexico or Peru or whatever is unthinkable of course, but piracy is another matter entirely, and it’s not like it’s stealing if it belongs to a Catholic monarch who’s already your sworn enemy. This is where the privateers come in- literally, the only difference between privateers and pirates was that the privateers had a license to steal so long as they gave the crown of England a [big] cut.
Elizabeth’s other buddies in hatred of Philip are the Dutch. And pretty much everybody else in Europe who’s not Philip or his court really, including the Catholic kings of France, but most particularly the Dutch. They hate being a vassal state of Spain- a micromanaging greedy Catholic superpower while they themselves are (by and large) Protestant and religiously tolerant (not to say they have any shortage of religious fanatics, Catholics and Protestants and otherwise, but they’re religiously tolerant because it’s really good for business). The Dutch start providing privateers as well. Piracy becomes the biggest thorn in Philip II’s side; true, most of his treasure ships get through just fine, but every one that doesn’t is a MAJOR loss to him and more so when you realize that Elizabeth’s wetting her beak in it.
England decides it’s finally ready for its own New World colony. This was Roanoke of course- founded in 1585, tons written about it including on these boards. What’s less well known is that what ultimately damned the colony was the Spanish Armada which left the English unable to resupply or reinforce the colony and when they finally did get back to it there was nothing but an amphitheatre showing The Lost Colony pageant each summer.
Meanwhile the Spanish Armada has not just taken the wind out of Philip’s sails, it’s burned the mothers. Even with his New World revenues the Armada’s failure and destruction hurt like hell financially and would take a long time to recoup.
Also, just as Elizabeth had the (largely) Protestant Dutch who hated Philip as her friends, Philip had the (almost completely) Catholic Irish who hated Elizabeth on his, and who were in fact to be his allies if the Armada succeeded. And they’re cutting up in other ways too and have been for years, so Good Queen Bess decides that the Earl of Leicester is more than just a pretty boy and genocide is more than just a pretty word.
TO BE CONTINUED
(and yes, I’m aware, this is way simplified)
Yeah, I always love it when Sampiro says TO BE CONTINUED.
I’ve heard of laws to the effect that a free (or freed) black person could face re-enslavement, if they didn’t stay out of the jurisdiction in question. I’m not sure how that worked, since AFAIK it was always possible, theoretically, for a slave to become free, whether by simple emancipation or by the slave somehow saving the money to buy himself free. I’d hate to think that a person who had just bought his freedom after decades of saving didn’t get at least a few weeks’ time to travel to free territory.
I suspect that misogyny was a major factor here, since most of the “witches” were women.
Cotton Mather himself owned a native African slave* named Onesimus, who told him about his people’s time-honored practice of smallpox vaccination, and eagerly allowed himself to be guided by this, even though this entailed pricking the skin and inserting a tiny bit of the pus from someone else who was infected. Of course it worked just great, since, crudely put, that’s how we vaccinate today. Incision–pus–insert–OK, but Irish/Latin rappin’ Catholic female–burn her!
*I suppose just about all black slaves in those days were imported. This story comes from the David McCulloch bio of John Adams.
In one of the books I read they researchers did a profile of women most likely to be accused of witchcraft and in both Europe and America the highest risk of being “satanically profiled” was a poor single woman (unmarried/widowed/or abandoned) who did not regularly attend church. The mentally ill- both male and female- were also high risk, especially if they were poor, but if you were a mentally ill woman of that description go ahead and call your lawyer now cause they’re coming for you.
Cool info- I didn’t know that. I knew that he was pro-vaccination and IIRC was physically attacked for it a couple of times, but I didn’t know the idea came from a slave.
Apropos of nothing, one of my direct ancestors was a woman hanged as a witch in New England - who survived (she was allegedly cut down by her neighbours after the lynch party left).
I’m English and we were brought up to believe that the smallpox vaccination was an English invention, care of Edward Jenner in around 1796. Man, was my eduction off base. You can see the 1721 text here. There’s also a Chinese book from 1536, but I’m too dumb to read it.
CONTINUING FROM THE LOST COLONY:
Elizabeth I fought a war with Ireland that was extraordinarily expensive for England and extraordinarily bloody for the Irish. For all the Cate Blanchett and Glenda Jackson vehicles she’s inspired she’s still to this day about slightly more beloved to Irish history buffs than Mao Tse Dong, and with reason. The war was also extremely unpopular in England- not because so many Irish were being killed (though I’m sure you can find some who had problems with that as well) but because it was sucking the treasuries dry and because a lot of English soldiers were killed as well. You can also look up the intrigues twixt Elizabeth and Robert Devereaux, Earl of Essex, who some claim was her lover even though he was 32 years her junior- no idea on that but she was definitely infatuated with him, and he was the stepson of Robert Dudley, E. of Leicester, who was the undisputed love of her life who had died by this time, but the infatuation ended when Essex (who had always had boundary issues where the royal person was concerned) decided he didn’t like the way Bess was running the war and crossed the [del]Rubicon[/del] Irish Channel back into England with his troops. It didn’t go well and he lost his head. (There’s speculation he believed James VI of Scotland had his back on this one.)
Anyway, the Irish were led by Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, who had been essentially held hostage during his childhood and educated at the English court (an old trick the Romans used to do- probably predated them- make your enemies kids as much like you as possible and they’ll become allies and often it worked- even in Hugh’s it did for a time). O’Neill was one of the richest men in the British Isles due in part to the concessions the English crown had made to his loyalty (he was in fact a king- a title honored by the English- of a couple of petty traditional Irish kingdoms, but the Earldom was his big money title) but ultimately his patriotism and Catholicism or perhaps his ambition won out over his loyalty to Elizabeth and he rebelled. It didn’t go well of course- at one point he and other Irish nobles pretty much offered Ireland on a silver tray to Philip II if he would just send troops, but after the Armada and his other problems in running a vast empire and fighting a rebellion with the Dutch and various family problems (among other things he had become increasingly a Mr. Mom to his youngest kids after his 4th wife died [she’d originally been betrothed to his oldest son but when the Infanto proved to be either retarded or mentally ill {we’re not sure what, just that he had serious issues} his dad broke the engagement and married her himself whereupon the Infanto starved himself to death and Philip had lots of guilt issues) and the ongoing problems with pirates and privateers and Protestants he just didn’t want to get involved, so it went bad for the Irish.
Elizabeth died in 1603 and the throne passed to her cousin, the big tongued bisexual Jimmy Six of Scotland. He had often wanted the throne while she was alive but he probably didn’t feel in 1603 she’d done him too many favors. England was broke and in debt and in serious need of coin, and Spain- even wounded and with a not particularly bright kid, Philip III, on the throne (Philip II died in 1598) was still a whole lot richer and more powerful than England and its New World colonies and Asian trade ever growing and who knows when that kid is going to say “I’d like to be king of Ireland too”. There’s even religious problems- Protestants and Catholics of course hated each other but within Protestantism Anglicans hated Puritans and both hated Presbyterians which is what Jimmy was, so there’s that as well.
So Jimmy Six needs lots and lots of money and he needs an answer to the Irish problem (because even though England had won the wars it was just a matter of time before it started up again) plus he still has all the problems he had when king of Scotland (including a Scottish overpopulation problem). And one of his solutions of course gives birth to both America and the Scots Irish (and their eventual cross pollination of each other).
TBC
How about a date of 1701, at least for the island of Nevis?
As far as I can tell, it’s actually a piece of anti-Catholic legislation, as upstanding English Protestants were becoming afraid of the growing number uppity Irish Papists .
My mind is blown. Indeed, innoculation was a common practice even in England long before Jenner’s time, apparently.
I would tend to agree. There was huge hatred for all Catholics by the Brits in that era. The hatred was so extreme that the Irish who were sent to the Caribbean an “indentured” rather than outright as slaves. Mind you they had become “Indentured” as punishment for the crimes of being Irish & Catholic… ANYWAY…
The Irish “indentured” in the New World were in a bad way. They had extremely limited rights and the BRITS (who hated Catholics) were in charge of everything. Whatever a Brittish land owner said was true… no matter how untrue it was.
You might have been sent off for 10 years transportation and labor (because you were “walking while Irish” and were jailed without a trial) but in reality NOBODY cared if it was forever, and you had a very low chance of living to be set free…due to how the protestants land owners treated the Catholics.
From the standpoint of the Anglican Brits… black slaves were “lesser beings” BUT they were still better than Irish Catholics. They also COST a lot more. A black slave (transported or born near by) sold for 30 to 50 pounds… and Irish transported servant/slave sold for about 5 pounds.
The treatment the Irish got reflected all of this :
- hatred of the English for Catholics
- hatred of the English for the Irish
- higher cost of buying Africans.
Again…note - Catholics were HATED
It got to be SO bad for those Irish Catholics who were essentially grabbed off of the streets and sold as “indentured” … that they made LAWS to try and decrease the violence.
A lot of kids had ben taken from their families and sold off… and the Planters had been taking the Irish girls and BREEDING these girls to the African slaves (shipped off to the Caribbean because you were Irish, and the raped to make slaves for the master). So they made laws against this (“anti-race mingling” laws). And it was STILL so horrible for the Irish in the Caribbean that they eventually outright BANNED the trade in Irish slaves. They had hopes that this would “in general” decrease brutality to all the slaves because those left would cost 10 times as much.
Responding to old posts I know.
People had known that if you had smallpox once, you never got it again. So some people tried to give themselves a mild case of smallpox, hope it would stay mild, and give them immunity to any future smallpox. It was better odds overall than risking getting ordinary smallpox but it was still a risky procedure.
Jenner’s discovery was that you could give people cowpox, a mild disease, and they would then be immune to both cowpox and smallpox. (There’s evidence that other people had noticed this before Jenner. But he deserves credit as the guy who pushed to make cowpox vaccination a widespread practice.)
One of the “evolutions of thought” that I recall reading was the trend toward the belief that Christians should not be enslaved by Christians. Whether this was a result of the African slave trade or the cause of it, I don’t know. It does seem to me though, that the same viewpoint also spread across Europe and so slavery of Europeans was less prevalent (although obviously not non-existent) even before the colonization of the Americas.
Right, one of the reasons initially Africans were deemed suitable for enslavement is that they weren’t Christians.
The problem with this comes when your slaves convert to Christianity. Now you have to let them free. So the reason Africans should be enslaved must not be because they aren’t Christians, there must be some other reason. So now we declare that Africans are naturally inferior to Europeans.