Читать книгу Anglo-American Cultural Studies - Jody Skinner - Страница 40

SpanishSpanish, French, Dutch, …Countries like SpainSpain, FranceFrance, the Netherlands, Sweden, and EnglandEngland actively encouraged settlement and colonization as part of their policy of enlarging their territories and increasing their powerpower. While everyone has heard of Christopher ColumbusColumbus, fewer people have heard of the SpanishSpanish explorer Ponce de León, who arrived just a few years later and actually landed on what was to become much later the United States, establishing in St. Augustine, FloridaFlorida, the oldest European settlement.

Fig. 2.1

Fort San Marcos in St. Augustine, FloridaFlorida. Note the use of “continental United States” ( 1) in the description.

Other SpanishSpanish explorers came for God (Christianizing the natives) and gold. For example, CoronadoCoronado discovered the Grand CanyonGrand Canyon and explored what would later become part of the southwest US; [37]De SotoDe Soto discovered the MississippiMississippi RiverMississippi River. French explorers and traders settled around the Great LakesGreat Lakes; De CadillacDe Cadillac founded a fort that he called DetroitDetroit. And CadillacCadillac became the name of an American luxury auto built in Detroit a few hundred years later. The Dutch West IndiaIndia Company claimed a chunk of what would become the states of ConnecticutConnecticut, New YorkNew York, New JerseyNew Jersey, and PennsylvaniaPennsylvania, and named it New NetherlandNew Netherland. The famous Dutch colonial governor Peter StuyvesantStuyvesant conquered the small neighboring colony of New Sweden but later was forced to surrender the entire colony as well as the settlement called New Amsterdam to the English, who then renamed it New YorkYork.

… and the EnglishMore than fifty years earlier, Sir Walter RaleighRaleigh, Sir Walter, an adventurer and explorer for Elizabeth IElizabeth I, had founded the first English settlement on Roanoke IslandRoanoke Island off the coast of what would later become North CarolinaNorth Carolina. When a successor to Raleigh returned to Roanoke after being delayed by the SpanishSpanish ArmadaSpanish Armada, the “Lost ColonyLost Colony” had mysteriously vanished. The first permanent English settlement that didn’t disappear was made a few years later in JamestownJamestown further north along the coast in an area which later would become the state of VirginiaVirginia.