Spanish Colonization In The 17th Century Essay

North America has been for many years and currently is, home to different people, language, and religion. The reason for that is that during the 15th to the 17th century despite not having much knowledge on what they were looking for other than a new beginning, many European countries such as Spain, France, and England were driven to come to the “new world” in order to obtain wealth, religious freedom, power, and many other things,but in order to accomplish this, they first needed to sail through the Atlantic Ocean which they weren 't too familiar with at the time. Although the Spanish, French, and English had similar goals, their form of colonization and the way they structured their economy, society, and religion ended up being very different …show more content…
The aim was neither to exterminate nor remove the Indians, but to transform them into obedient, Christian subjects of the crown.”(Give Me Liberty pg 26) Spain really had no contact with Africans at the time until 1537 which Pope Paul III saw the brutal condition of the Indians and outlawed enslavement but still required some amount of labor, (Give Me Liberty pg 27) and promoted African to do the same brutal work the natives were doing. In the other side, the French created friendly relations with the Indians, they knew that would be their gateway to successful fur trade, though they were still wars between them most were peaceful.(Give Me Liberty pg 37) French pretty much were the opposite of Spain because they really didn 't care of transferring the Indians to their religion.Though the …show more content…
The Spanish similar to the French ended with interracial societies because when they went to conquest, they only sent men, which intermarried with the natives, (Give Me Liberty pg22) England also consisted of many races, but much later after they began to succeed, but at the beginning they sent both men and women (families) which was more potent because they could have men and women do different jobs apart from each other and build families, rather than the other 2 countries which only sent men. While all 3 countries had different races, England was the one that for the most part stayed isolated.One thing that did remain the same were gender roles, each society tended to give the male population higher rights.Economy also varied thru each country as the Spanish relied heavily on metals such as gold and silver obtained from Mexico and Peru, which they would then send back to east to Europe. Spain highly profited from this because it was in high demand and was settled in the region richest in natural resources.(Give Me Liberty pg 22-23) The French got disappointed when they first arrived had a much smaller population which opposed them for agricultural settlement, but relied on fur trade which they used for their trading posts. France’s fur trade was successful because they kept a good affection with the Indians(Give Me Liberty pg 37) unlike Spain and England,