Why Did Colonists Come?

(1492-1760), Part 1 -The first fact we need to recognize when discussing colonial North America is how poor, cold, and dangerous these first settlements were. Far, far worse than almost anyone expected. Given how bad it was, we need to understand how powerful the economic, political, and cultural forces were that drove Europeans to set up colonies there. -The territory that is now the eastern United States was so poor and so deadly that your odds of surviving just 2 years in one of the early colonies was around 50-50. During the 1500s and early 1600s, colony after colony started by the Spanish, French, and English, all failed. Some colonists returned home, some died off, some like those at Roanoke simply disappeared. The Europeans werent able to establish a permanent colony in North America until 73 years after Columbus first arrived and that colony was a small Spanish military base in St. Augustine, Florida. We dont really find sustained European habitation in the territorial US until ~115-120 years after Columbusand for another hundred years after that, life in the colonial US remained very rough and fragile. The Southern colonies were the deadliest. Even by the late 1600s, a thirty year old showing up in say Maryland had a life expectancy of only 21 more years, compared to 41 more years in Massachusetts. -However, if we go south just a few hundred miles to Mexico, the Caribbean, and South America, and wed have found dozens of Spanish, Portuguese, and some French colonies flourishing, exploding in both population and wealth, and doing so within just a few decades after Columbus. Latin America and the Caribbean were rich and well populated, North America was poor. -Why? Well, in Latin America and the Caribbean, there was highly profitable agriculture and mining, and advanced civilizations upon which to base colonies. This was a shock to the Europeans. Immediately after discovery, during say the first 25 years after Columbus, European investors thought that all of the Americas were a complete bust. Columbuss voyages were supposed to tap into the Indian spice trade, but all he brought back were strange plants and even stranger natives, but little gold or silver. However, explorers soon realized that the Caribbean islands were perfect for growing exotic agricultural products like sugar, tobacco, indigo, and coffee. Sugar was highly sought after in Europe, but in short supply, so the ability to produce sugar in mass quantities was hugely profitable. So the Spanish (and other Europeans) started setting up small sugar plantations on the islands. In 1517, colonial development in the Americas accelerated due to Hernando Cortes. Cortes started out as a young poor Spanish noble who wanted to improve his wealth and social status. To do this, he became an adventurer and colonist. Cortes joined an expedition west to participate in the conquest of Cuba, to enslave or en-serf the local population, and to transform Cuban land into productive mines and farms. But there wasnt much gold found in Cuba. Also the best land for farming was running out, hence so were the opportunities to get rich. Cortez became frustrated. He wanted to find new opportunities, new land, so he hijacked from his boss an expedition of 11 ships and 500 men and took them to the nearby Mexican coast. When Cortez got to Mexico, he burned the ships and plunged inland where he met the Aztecs and found something far better than farming: millions of tons of gold. Cortez used a combination of lies, surprise, disease, and superior skills and technology to take over Aztec Mexico and ship back

gold to the King of Spain. In doing so, Cortez became the Bill Gates of his day, the richest man in the world. And every European who wasnt rich wanted to copy him. This triggered a huge gold, and later silver, craze, with colonies being established all over Latin America: especially Peru, Uruguay, and parts of Argentina and Paraguay. Where there was no gold or silver (as in Caribbean, Venezuela, Columbia, Brazil), plantations for high margin goods were started (sugar, coffee, tobacco, indigo) and other exotic products. The relative wealth and popularity of Latin American colonies were further helped by the fact that, all across Latin America, there was a native civilization to exploit and build upon. The Aztecs, Mayans, and Incas had cities of thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of people. They had hundreds of miles of well-maintained roads and trails, well established mines, farms, markets, vast trade networks, relatively advanced mathematics and astronomy, and even books. Colonists save enormous amount of money and lives by exploiting this physical and social infrastructure. So from ~1520 until around 1750-1800, the plantations and mines of Latin America and the Caribbean were basically money making machines, and Europeans who wanted to get rich flooded in to take advantage of them. None of this existed up north, in eastern North America. There was no gold, no silver, colonists couldnt grow coffee there, or sugar cane, or any other high margin agriculture. The local strain of tobacco was bitter and harsh, so you even couldnt sell it profitably in Europe. Early attempts to grow cotton were barely profitable. None of the familiar European crops seemed to grow well there: British staples like peas, wheat, barley died off. Also, the weather in North America was brutal. Back then, Europeans believed that latitude determined climate. And since New England is at the same latitude as Italy, they figured that it would have similar weather. Colonists were therefore shocked to find that it snowed for months and months in New England, and that neither English nor Italian crops could grow well. They also regularly bumbled into Indian culture and politics, sometimes threatening or offending Indians accidentally, sometimes robbing them or killing them outright, hence colonists suffered frequent attacks in retribution. As a result, as many as half of the Europeans who came to explore or early colonize North America died. As much as a 50% death rate! Worse yet, there was no recognizable civilization upon which to build or exploit. North Americas Indians were composed hundreds of disparate tribes, some peaceful, some warlike, many speaking different languages (as many as 500 languages in 12 distinct language groups). Economically, most Indian tribes mixed hunter-gatherer techniques with light agriculture. Most would live in a particular region, but wander around within that region throughout the year. They would hunt in one place during the winter, and then move north to plant and harvest in another place during the spring and summer, or over to rivers, lakes, and ocean to fish, and not necessarily in the exact same spots. In sum, there was no easy money to be made in North America The Kings and Queens in Europe figured this out quickly and stopped financing expeditions to North America early on. Just like any other investor, monarchs needed to make money in order

to fund their castles and fight wars, and they realized that they could not make much money by investing in North America. +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= So, this prompts the question: if life in colonial North America was so deadly and so poor, then why did anyone want to come? The answer is that most people didnt. Say youre an wealthy or middle class European, then you probably dont want to come North America. Theres no profit in it for you, theres not much chance for social advancement, especially if theres a 50% chance that youll wind up dead and 100% chance that youll spend most of your time cold, hungry, over-worked, and terrified of Indians. Moreover, all of your friends and family are back home in your European town or village. So if youre already comfortable, then why leave the stability of that life and that network of friends and family? Its just not worth it. [Similarly, most Georgia Tech engineers could earn a huge salaries moving to China, India, Iraq or any place in the Third World after they graduatebut why do that when they can still make good money back here at home and remain safe and in the company of friends and family?] This is where economics, politics, and cultural forces come in to drive three kinds of people to colonial America, and one of them to fund it all: In order to understand this, we need to understand a few underlying concepts. The first concept is: what it meant to live the good life in 17th and 18th century Europe. The key to the good life back then was to become a gentleman. Being a gentlemen didnt mean you behaved nicely or had polite manners. Rather, gentleman was an socio-economic term, it described a man who didnt have to work because he had substantial property. Property usually meant a large, productive farm or some other profitable concern. And he derived his annual income from that property to support himself and his family. Also, property was not something that people traded like we do today, or improved and then sold. Property during this period was something that people kept in their family for generations. If you had enough property, which earned enough income, so that you didnt have to work, then you were a considered a gentleman. Gentlemen used the wealth derived from their property to buy, or marry into, the nobility and perhaps even gain a title (like Knight or Baron or Earl). This was the ruling class of Europe. Since a gentlemen didnt have to work, he donated his time to King and country by working in government, by becoming an officer in the Army or Navy, by contributing to the arts and sciences. Together with the royal family, gentlemen basically ran the country. So, summing up, becoming a gentleman was the key to success, power, and prestige. And to become a gentleman you needed to get good stable property from which to earn regular income The problem was that, throughout most of western Europe, most of the good farmland or other types of property were already taken, so property was very difficult and very expensive to get. -Now you can understand the first type of colonist who headed to North America: these were young men who wanted to find gold and silver, so that they could come home and buy some good property and become gentlemen. Some were already low-level gentlemen (like Cortes) or the sons of gentlemen who wanted to increase their property holdings, and become very rich. It was these were the kind of colonists who lead the early colonies in North America, like

Jamestown in Virginia. Settled in 1607, Jamestown was the first permanent British colony. About half of the Jamestown colonists were British low-level gentlemen who only wanted to find gold and silver to increase their property. And because they were gentlemen, they didnt believe that they had to take orders from anyoneespecially anyone beneath them in social status. So these gentlemen spent their time around Jamestown searching for gold and silver, and didnt do any farming or fishing. As a result, half the Jamestown colony starved during its first year. For years, the colony only survived because new gentlemen kept showing up from the UK. Since Jamestown was under continuous threat of starvation or Indian attack due to so many disorderly and unruly gentlemen. The London Company, which was financing the ,colony sent over a set of strict laws in 1610 and designated colonial officials to enforce them. This first set of laws was called the Lawes Divine, Morall and Martiall, it was our earliest form of formal government. The laws were strict. Colonists were punished if they didnt go to church regularly; if they slandered the government or another colonist, or if they lost or broke farm implements (which could not be made locally, but had to be sent from Europe). You could be executed for lying under oath, for trading with the Indians, or for stealing, Again, the Jamestown colonists found that British crops didnt grow well in Virginias soil and climate. But luckily, one of the new Jamestown colonists smuggled out of the Spanish colonies some seeds of sweet Venezuelan tobacco. This strain of tobacco not only grew quite well in Virginia, but it didnt require much labor or technology to grow or to process and it sold extremely well on the European markets. Tobacco soon became the major cash crop in Virginia and the upper south. Once it was profitably introduced, stability in the mid-Atlantic colonies soon followed. Later rice was also discovered to be a stable crop, especially in the Carolinas; and since rice is native to Africa, it was a profitable fit for black slavery. But thats another lecture. -So low-level gentlemen (or those who aspired to be gentlemen) are the first type of North American colonists. But gentlemen can also be found investing in these colonies. Lets talk a bit about those investments. Setting up a colony was very expensive. It required ships, food, equipment, supplies, insurance, and all of the other inputs that a few hundred people might need to live, but could not produce locally. So colonies needed investors to pay the bill. On the other hand, established gentlemen in Europe wanted to get their hands on the profits of colonization but without taking the personal risk of doing so. So they became investors. Remember that, back then, farming might pay profits of a few percent per year, bonds a bit more, but some of the mines and plantations in Latin America and the Caribbean were paying off massively. So if you could get in on the on the ground floor of an American colony, then you could make yourself a lot of moneya lot of income to maintain yourself as a gentleman. -One of these gentleman investors was Sir Walter Raleigh. He inherited a royal charter (basically permission from Queen Elizabeth) to found a colony on the outer banks of North Carolina. So, in 1584, as a potential investor, Raleigh personally had a survey done of the area. As a result of the survey, he decided to invest in sending settlers to prospect for gold and copper on Roanoke Island in 1585. But the first winter at the Roanoke colony was so bad that the colonists were forced to abandon the colony and head back to England. So Raleigh financed a second colony which arrived in 1587. But communication with Roanoke II was cut off in 1588

when the Spanish Armada attacked British ports. As a result of that war, an English flotilla could not be sent to resupply Roanoke until 1590. When it arrived, all the Roanoke colonists were gone, the buildings were mostly dismantled, and the word Croatoan was found mysteriously carved into a tree in the center of the abandoned settlement. Between these two failed attempts, Raleigh had lost all of his investment. And it ended his interest in North America. Moreover, since Sir Walter Raleigh was so famous, everybody quickly learned about the disaster and most wealthy gentlemen got sacred off from investing in North America...the Roanoke incident had shown dramatically how expensive and risky these colonies were. -As a result, by the late 1500s, not only are Kings and Queens not investing in North American colonies, but now wealthy gentlemen dont want to risk their money after learning about Sir Walter Raleigh. So whose going to fund more colonies? Deeper Reading: American Colonies: The Settling of North America by Alan Taylor (Penguin Press, 2002). Rouse, Irving. The Tainos: The Rise and Decline of the People Who Greeted Columbus. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992. Best account of the Native Americans who occupied much of the Caribbean in 1492. Davis, Ralph. The Rise of the Atlantic Economies. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1973. Excellent overview of Europes move out into the Atlantic world in the 15th and 16th centuries. Audio/Video: Before 1776: Life in the American Colonies by Professor Robert J. Allison (The Teaching Company, 2009) www.teach12.com Sources: The Cambridge History of the United States (Vol I): The Colonial Era edited by Stanley L. Engerman and Robert E. Gallman. (Cambridge University Press, 1996) Empire of Liberty by Gordon Wood (Oxford University Press, 2009)