European Invasion of America
Butean Nicoleta-irina
LMA 1
European
Invasion of
America
"With the arrival of the
conquistadores began the extermination of 90 million natives of South America
and destruction of all cultures on this side of the Atlantic.
There is nothing to celebrate on [Columbus D 19519n1314t ay], unless you want to celebrate
the death and cultural destruction of the conquest." Marta Gordillo, Argentine.
On July 24, 1534, Jacques Cartier erected at the mouth of Gaspe 
harbour and placed a thirty foot cross in the name of France.
Cartier's "traffic sign had pointed the way for explorers, missionaries, traders and settler who had gradually changed,
dispersed, and enclosed the Native populations. "With the
coming of the Europeans to North America,
brought many changes to the land and the people inhabiting it. By the
end of the nineteenth century, most of North America was Europe.
The European
colonization of the Americas
forever changed the lives and cultures of the indigenous peoples of the
continent. In the 15th to 19th centuries, their populations were ravaged by the
privations of displacement, by disease, and in many cases by warfare with
European groups and enslavement by them.
When the London Company
sent out its first expedition to begin colonizing Virginia
on December 20, 1606, it was by no means the first European attempt to exploit North America.
In 1564, French Protestants built a colony near what is now Jacksonville, Florida.
This intrusion did not go unnoticed by the Spanish, who had previously claimed
the region. The next year, the Spanish established a military post at St. Augustine; Spanish
troops soon wiped out the French interlopers residing but 40 miles away. Meanwhile,
Basque, English, and French fishing fleets became regular visitors to the
coasts from Newfoundland to Cape
Cod. Some of these fishing fleets even set up semi-permanent camps
on the coasts to dry their catches and to trade with local Indians, exchanging
furs for manufactured goods.
In the 1580s, the
English tried to plant a permanent colony on Roanoke
Island, but their effort was short-lived. In the early 1600s, in
rapid succession, the English began a colony (Jamestown)
in Chesapeake Bay in 1607, the French built Quebec
in 1608, and the Dutch began their interest in the region that became
present-day New York.
Europeans' attempts to
establish colonies in the western hemisphere foundered on the lack of laborers
to do the hard work of colony-building. The Spanish, for example, enslaved the
Indians in regions under their control.
The English struck upon the idea of indentured
servitude to solve the labor problem in Virginia.
Virtually all the European powers eventually turned to African slavery to
provide labor on their islands in the West Indies.
The Europeans main objective on their arrival in
North America was to gain land and settle. The
Hurons believed accepting the missionaries would lead to benefits in the trade
of European goods. One tactic used by the Europeans to settle in North America with their neighboring Amerindians was
intermarriage.
