Читать книгу The Colonies, 1492-1750 - Reuben Gold Thwaites - Страница 9

17. References.

Bibliographies.—C. Lucas, Introduction to Historical Geography of British Colonies, vii., viii.; Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, III., V.; Larned, Literature of American History, 67-76; Avery, United States, II. 409-411; E. Greene, Provincial America, ch. xix.; Channing and Hart, Guide, §§ 92, 104, 110.

Historical Maps.—No. 2, this volume (Epoch Maps, No. 2); MacCoun, Winsor, and Avery.

General Accounts.—Colonization: Lucas, as above (colonial policies of the European states); J. Seeley, Expansion of England, chs. iii., iv.; A. Smith, Wealth of Nations, chapter "Of Colonies"; H. Morris, History of Colonization; A. Snow, Administration of Dependencies, chs. i.-v.—English movement: G. Beer, Origin of British Colonial System; H. Merivale, Colonization and the Colonies; H. Egerton, Short History of British Colonial Policy, and Origin and Growth of English Colonies; W. Woodward, Expansion of British Empire; C. Dilke, Greater Britain, and Problems of Greater Britain; E. Creasy, Imperial and Colonial Constitutions; Mill, Colonial Constitutions; J. Toner, Colonies of North America; J. Marsden, Early Puritans.—Free institutions imported by American colonists, and colonial government generally: Greene, Provincial Governor; E. Eggleston, Transit of Civilization, and Beginners of a Nation; A. Low, American People; Wilson, The State, §§ 832-864; E. Freeman, English People in its Three Homes, lecture vi.; H. Taylor, English Constitution, 15-48; Channing, Town and County Government; C. Bishop, History of Elections in the Colonies.

Contemporary Accounts.—Published records (chiefly by historical societies) of the several American colonies. See also Hakluyt, Voyages; Holinshed, Chronicles.—Reprints: E. Arber, Pilgrim Colonists; A. Brown, Genesis of United States; W. Macdonald, Documentary Source Book of American History; American History told by Contemporaries, I. part iii.

18. Colonial Policy of European States.

The time had now come for making the first permanent English settlement in America. Before we proceed to the story of that famous enterprise, however, it will be well hastily to summarize the colonial policies of those European States which have at various times established plantations in the New World. It will be well also to know what sort of people were the seed of English colonization, and what institutions they brought with them as the foundations of American commonwealths.

Motives of colonization.

Four motives, working either singly or conjointly, lead to colonization,—the spirit of adventurous enterprise, the desire for wealth, economic or political discontent, and religious sentiment. For instance, Columbus was quite as much a religious enthusiast desirous of spreading the gospel in new lands as he was an adventurer; the southern group of English colonies in America was in the main the outgrowth of a trading spirit working in conjunction with economic distress in England; and the Puritan migration to New England was impelled by economic and political causes, as well as by religious.

Colonization is the expansion of the parent State, though early viewed as a source of revenue to it.

In a large sense the planting of a colony means merely the expansion of the parent State. But this was not the view formerly taken by European governments. For a long time colonies were treated as dependencies of the mother-country, existing chiefly to furnish revenue to the latter, either directly in taxes or indirectly in increased trade. It was because the English colonists in America, taking a broad view of their relationship to Great Britain, wished to be treated as free Englishmen in Greater Britain, and not merely as revenue-producing subjects, that they revolted in 1776. Colonial history is nearly everywhere the history of this obtuseness of vision on the part of the home government, and it is full of most painful details.

19. Spanish and Portuguese Policy.

Spain.

It chanced that the American discoveries made by Spain were in the region of rich and physically weak nations. Consequently she won her vast dominions on this continent by sweeping conquest rather than by commercial growth. This was in sharp contrast with the slow, steady planting of New England, where the settlers were obliged to conquer a sterile soil and brave a rigid climate, where they were hemmed about with savage neighbors who disputed their establishment, and where they met as well the sharp opposition, first of the Dutch, and then of the French,—the latter, in their desire for the Mississippi valley, jealously endeavoring to restrict Englishmen to the Atlantic slope. The Spaniards were brave, and they could rule with severity. But they thirsted for adventure, conquest, and wealth, for which their appetite was early encouraged; their progress in Mexico, Peru, and the West Indies had been too rapid and brilliant for them to be satisfied with the dull life and patient development of an agricultural colony. Had they known in advance the conditions of success on the North American mainland, it is probable that we should never have been obliged to chronicle the splendid but disastrous expeditions of Narvaez and De Soto. They would doubtless have made no attempt to subdue a land which offered nothing for such appetites as theirs. Their aims were sordid, their State was loosely knit, their commercial policy was rigidly exclusive, their morals were lax, and their treatment of the savages was cruel, despite the tendency of the colonists to amalgamate with the latter, and thus to descend in the scale of civilization. The effect of the specie so easily acquired in Mexico and Peru was to make Spain rapidly rich without manufactures; but her people were thereby demoralized and unfitted for the ordinary channels of employment, and her rulers were corrupted and enfeebled; in the end the country was impoverished, declining as rapidly as it had risen. Spain's glory was fast waning both in the New and the Old World at the close of the sixteenth century, and France was ready, in the march of events, to succeed to her place as the leading nation of Europe. France was to be supplanted a century later by England, which was not known as a great power until the dispersion of the Armada. We have seen that in this historical progress Spain unwittingly helped England by driving the French out from Florida and Carolina; nevertheless the decline of Spain left France the most formidable rival of the English.