created by PopsicleIncorporated on 26/01/2025 at 22:33 UTC
467 upvotes, 4 top-level comments (showing 4)
Was it just comparatively much worse land? I can see this argument for New England perhaps, but the land that would eventually become the American South is certainly very fertile and conducive to agriculture.
Comment by AutoModerator at 26/01/2025 at 22:33 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
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Comment by kalam4z00 at 26/01/2025 at 23:38 UTC*
442 upvotes, 3 direct replies
One important clarification: the Spanish *did* beat them to it. Spain established a permanent settlement at St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 and would (aside from a brief British takeover following the Seven Year's War) remain in control of the Florida peninsula until it was ceded to the United States in 1819. With that in mind, the question becomes why didn't the Spanish expand beyond that narrow region.
"La Florida", as the Spanish called the entire American Southeast, was famously encountered by Ponce de Leon in 1513, when Spanish colonial settlement was mostly limited to the Caribbean islands and the famous (or infamous) conquests of Mexico and Peru had not yet taken place. The Spanish were in need of labor after the indigenous Taino people of the Caribbean had seen catastrophic population declines following brutal Spanish enslavement, so slave raiders - having wiped out the native population of the Bahamas - would occasionally sail north to pluck slaves from the shores of La Florida. In one such raid - in which native peoples in modern South Carolina were lured on to a Spanish ship with promises of trade, and then promptly carried away - a boy who the Spanish called Francisco was captured. He told his captors he came from a land called Chicora, and spun incredible tales of its bounty and wealth. The Spanish were intrigued, and so in 1526 Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon and a small group of settlers were sent off to establish an outpost.
Francisco of Chicora fled after they reached land, and the fledgling settlement of San Miguel de Gualdape quickly started to fall apart. Disease, and a slave uprising (the first recorded on American soil) drove the colony into a doom spiral and it was abandoned in only a few months. Still, Spanish interest in La Florida did not abate, and an expedition under Panfilo de Narvaez was sent to explore modern Florida in 1528. After struggling to make any progress, the beleaguered expedition attempted to sail for Mexico but were caught in a hurricane and washed up on the shores of modern Texas. Only four survivors returned to Spanish Mexico after a grueling overland hike where they finally encountered Spanish-speaking slavers in modern northern Mexico.
Still, with the recent conquests of the Aztecs and Incas in mind, many Spaniards still wondered if a vast empire full of gold and silver might also lie in La Florida. So in 1539 a large expedition under Hernando de Soto landed at Tampa Bay and proceeded to march across the American Southeast, looting and pillaging as they went. They found large cities of the various Mississippian cultures, but nothing comparable to the Aztec or Inca empires, and certainly no gold. De Soto himself died during the expedition and the exhausted survivors fled down the Mississippi River to land back at Mexico. It was yet another failed Spanish attempt to settle La Florida.
The Spanish did eventually find some success, establishing St. Augustine after forcing out a small French settlement at modern Jacksonville and massacring its inhabitants. With La Florida now established, more Spanish settlements began to emerge. In 1566 the town of Santa Elena was established in modern-day South Carolina, and it was from there that a force under Juan Pardo set off into the North American interior to establish a string of forts. But Native resistance meant the forts were quickly abandoned and aside from a brief failed attempt at settling Virginia in 1570 the Spanish never attempted any further settlement north of Santa Elena, and over time continued to pull back from what few outposts they had in modern Georgia and South Carolina. La Florida - with no massive Native empires or gold deposits - became a colonial backwater, with a small population mainly ministering to Native peoples in modern Florida and serving as a barrier protecting Spanish interests in the much more prosperous Caribbean.
By this point we are already almost at the failed English settlement at Roanoke in 1585, and then eventually the successful settlement at Jamestown in 1607. It was not as though Spain hadn't tried to settle La Florida, but it had never stuck, and there was nothing valuable to incentivize them to try harder at serious settlement. So the English were able to swoop in and establish themselves, and though conflict between Spanish Florida and the English colonies would continue throughout the colonial period it was a conflict in which the English - with a larger settler population - were typically able to win.
Comment by monjoe at 27/01/2025 at 17:06 UTC*
25 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Kalam4z00 already covered some of history of Spanish colonization of the Americas. **Spain** and **Portugal** did indeed get first pick of the most desirable (livable and profitable) locations. But even the Caribbean Islands were very competitive among the imperial powers. **Denmark** finally sold its Caribbean territories to the US in 1917, which are now the US Virgin Islands.
But you seem to be specifically asking about the Atlantic coast line that is now a part of the United States. You're correct that it's harder to establish colonies in non-tropical maritime conditions, yet it was still competitive. North American winters were rather harsh and that made persistent settlement difficult. They were reliant on supplies from across the Atlantic, which took weeks to cross. Indigenous peoples still maintained control of most territory. Some natives were friendly, some were hostile, and friction between the starkly different cultures tended to make friendly tribes more hostile over time. Likewise, some colonists were friendly (because it was generally a good idea to not have your limited population get killed,) while some leaders were very aggressive against the natives.
Therefore colonization was very risky and expensive. It requires a huge investment and may not succeed. It's also difficult to recruit people to join such a perilous endeavor. You need lucrative trade to make that investment worthwhile. Furs was the most viable sort of trade in this region, and that did not require large populations to labor on plantations. You simply needed a handful of people to trade with the natives. Farming was a secondary priority with the purpose of supplementing the supplies coming from Europe. But they need farming to take off if they want a colony to endure.
The number of European colonists in this region remained very low until the beginning of the 18th Century. Their territorial control didn't go much beyond their fortified towns and outposts. That's about a century's worth of the Mid-Atlantic essentially being like 'the Wild West.'
England wasn't alone during this period. **Sweden** settled in the Delaware valley including parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware in the middle of the 17th Century. Meanwhile, **the Dutch** had been colonizing the Hudson Valley as well as parts of Connecticut. You may have heard that New York was once New Amsterdam. New Netherlands successfully conquered New Sweden in 1655. And then New Netherlands was conquered by the British in 1667 in the Second Anglo-Dutch War. Netherlands temporarily re-occupied New Amsterdam in the Third Anglo-Dutch War in 1673. The Dutch also had a presence in Maine that was given up to the French in 1678.
The question still on the table is why North European colonists chose to settle in the Mid-Atlantic and not further south where the winters aren't as bad. The British Carolina and Georgia colonies came later after the northern colonies were founded. I am not confident enough to give you a sufficient answer. It's partly because North European colonists were less adaptable to the Southern humid heat and the diseases associated with it. But I am not sure if that is the main reason. Someone else would have to give you a better answer.
In summary, European powers did compete in colonizing North America. But Britain out-competed its colonial rivals over the course of a series of wars.
Comment by [deleted] at 27/01/2025 at 00:14 UTC
30 upvotes, 1 direct replies
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