North America's Colonial European Roots Summary

“North America’s Colonial European Roots,” Chapter 2, North American Odyssey

In his chapter, titled “North America’s Colonial European Roots,” Jeffrey S. Smith surveys the overwhelmingly European stock population that ultimately dominated North America’s people. Specifically, Smith recognizes the historical context that drove exploration into foreign lands as an antecedent into North American settlement. Furthermore, the author observes a progressive approach to colonial mercantilism, which enables a greater understanding of why certain areas became mature in a more rapid manner than others. Smith thus begins his argument in the section titled “European Context for Exploration.” In this section, the author clearly identifies the causes of European mass exploration in the late 15th century: the expelling of the Moors from the Iberian Peninsula, skills learned while fighting The Crusades, economic demand for exotic spices, and the proliferation of mercantilism throughout Europe (28). Furthermore, in “European Colonial Settlements,” Smith proffers three stages of …show more content…
The following section, “Constructing the New England Landscape,” explores how the authors of such a tradition sought to juxtapose the traditions and culture of the English homeland upon the memory of Puritan life. In their section titled “Image Formation,” the authors describe the creation of the New England tradition as the “city upon a hill.” (111) In “Myth Creation,” Wood and Steinitz discuss the impact of romanticism upon nature, history, and fiction, to subsequently proliferate the New England myth (112). Finally, the authors conclude that the image imposed on historical views of early New England dwellings reflect little reality; rather, that Puritans and other early New Englanders lived more rudimentary and modest lives