History of Europeans in America - Research Paper Example

History of Europeans in America The paper seeks to examine the invasion and colonization of America in the early 14th centuries by Europeans, as well as the subsequent formation of America as a state and the problems of immigration and getting employment opportunities that will be later experienced by Europeans in America. Early Expeditions of New World by Europeans The first European voyages to the Northern coast of America were made by the Norsemen (Scandinavian Vikings). A Norsemen Leif Eriksson's discovery of Greenland lead to the colonization of the west Coast of Greenland. In around 1000 A.D., Leif Eriksson is said to have discovered North America (Ingstad, 2000, p.1). The early European explorers were trying to identify sea routes, which would lead them to Asia. The first officially known explorer of these routes was Christopher Columbus who undertook his sailing by order of the monarch of Spain in 1492. He made three expeditions before his death in 1506 and was able to identify the Caribbean Islands in the Bahamas. After his death, the Spanish continued the further explorations of new lands. In 1499, Italian navigators Amerigo Vespucci and Alonso de Ojeda sailed to the northern coast of South America and referred to the newly found land as a new continent. The European mapmakers named the new continent America in honor of Amerigo and Alonso de Ojeda. In 1513, a Spanish explorer Vans co Nunez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and became the first European explorer to see the Pacific Ocean. In the same year, Juan Ponce de Leon explored the Bahamas and Florida in search of the Fountain of Youth (Space and Warren, 2011 p.4). In 1497, John Cabot, a navigator from England, traveled to the new world. French explorers Giovanni da Verrazano and Jacques Cartier explored the Atlantic coast of the present US in 1524 and 1534. As European explorers continued to look for the shortest sea routes to Asia, they also thought of colonizing the newly found land. As a result, Spain by hands of Hernan Cortes invaded Mexico in 1519 and Francisco Pizarro invaded Peru in 1532. The Early Settlement in America-New Spain Of all the European nations, Spain was the pioneering one to the colonization of America. Cortes invaded Mexico and defeated the Aztec Empire in the period 1519-1521. By 1533, Pizarro had conquered the Incas of Peru. The Spanish in their search for rumored piles of gold and silver in America sent expeditions to Kansas and Colorado under Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, Hernando de Soto and Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca. These early explorers were searching for cities made of gold and silver, but they did not find them. Instead, in 1545 they discovered silver at Potosi, in what is presently Bolivia, as well as in Mexico in the same year. The new American gold and silver mines remained a powerful base for Spain’s wealth and power for a century. After the Spanish conquest in the new world, the Spanish Jesuits attempted to convert the Native Americans to Christianity. Mission centers were established in the new empire, in Florida, in New Mexico and in Virginia. After defeating the Native Americans, the Spanish established a system of forced labor known as ecomienda which was later abandoned after the Spanish religious and government authorities witnessed the brutality of the system. The Spaniards, therefore, started establishing large estates of land known as haciendas. In the beginning of the 17 century, the Dutch, Swedish, French and English colonists started arriving in the New World. By then, the Spanish colonies in New Granada (Colombia), Caribbean, New Spain (Mexico) were a century old. The colonies were a major source of power for Spain and became the main source of jealously from other European nations. French Settlement in New World By the year 1530, the French explorers had navigated the coast of America from newly found lands to Carolinas; a French explorer Samuel de Champlain had build a foundation of what came to be known as French Canada (New France) in 1604 and 1606. The settlements were established at Acadia in Nova. In 1608, Samuel de Champlain traveled to the Saint Lawrence River and made contact with the Algonquin and the Huron people and established a French base at Quebec. In New France the French concentrated upon the fur trade and Catholic Missions in the interior of North America. The French established friendly relations with the natives to ensure success of their newly established colony. By 1700, the population of French people in New France stood at 14,000 people. During this time, the smaller islands in the Caribbean - Saint Dominique (Haiti), Martinique, and Guadeloupe were of immense economic value to France. Dutch Settlement in New World The Dutch expeditions in the New World were carried out by Henry Hudson. Hudson explored the Hudson River which was named after him. The Dutch established elaborate agricultural settlements between the areas Fort Orange (Albany, New York) and New Amsterdam (New York City) subsequent to year 1614. The Dutch became the main European traders with the Iroquois and supplied them with firearms, metal tools, blankets and other European commodities in exchange for their furs. The Iroquois applied the firearms to conquer the Huron and to push the Algonquins into Michigan and Illinois. Because of this, the Iroquois gained control of the Native Americans’ fur trade. The Dutch settlements, referred to as New Netherlands, grew slowly and later became more urban as the trade between the Dutch and the indigenous people strengthened. The Dutch colony in this New World tolerated different religions and became exceedingly prosperous. As a result of this, there were many European immigrants coming to settle into New Netherlands. In 1640, the population of the Dutch colony was 6,000 people. English Settlements in New America England, unlike the Spanish, Dutch and French, sent more people to America in the 1600s and established more permanent colonies for agricultural purposes. England provided colonies with the population of approximate 400,000 people. The English immigrants moved to America because of two main reasons. The first reason was that land in England had become too scarce. Between 1530 and 1680, the population of England doubled. In the same period, majority of England’s largest land holders evicted tenants from their land, fenced the lands and began keeping sheep to meet the demand of the expanding wool trade. This resulted into the growth of a population of young, poor, desperate and unemployed English men and women. Therefore, England looked for colonies in America to settle some of its population. The second reason for migration of English migrants to America was related to the English Reformation. In 1530s, King Henry the VIII broke from the Catholic Church of England. The New Church of England, through a series of political and religious turns and twists, developed a Protestant theology but retained some of the catholic practices. In the New Church of England, the Puritans who were radical Protestants wanted the remaining Catholic practices suppressed. Between 1553 and 1558, Queen Mary I who was a committed Catholic prosecuted and exiled hundreds of Puritans. Her successor, Queen Elizabeth, invited the exiled Protestants and tried to resolve the religious disputes within the Church of England. Some of the Stuarts, King James I and Charles I, who followed Queen Elizabeth, prosecuted the Puritans again; as a result, the Puritans became wiling to immigrate to New America. The English settlements in America started in Chesapeake Bay in 1607. Latter settlements were established in Massachusetts and Virginia in 1620. Virginia was established as a slave-based tobacco colony. Jamestown, which was the first English settlement in America, started as a business center but failed. In Jamestown, the settlers died of typhoid fever and dysentery. The Native Americans also became too troublesome. The Natives, who were organized into large and Powerful Powhatan Confederacy, became tired of demanding food from the settlers and from the period 1609 to 1614, they launched a war on the English settlers and by 1622, 350 settlers had been killed. In 1624, King James I of England made Virginia the first royal colony of England. King James I revoked the Virginia Company’s Charter and appointed a council and a royal governor. He also established a House of Burgesses. Burgesses were elected by the settlers. In 1634, Cecilius Calvert, the second Baron Baltimore, founded Maryland. Under a Royal Charter, Maryland was made Baltimore’s personal property. More Catholics than Protestants migrated to Maryland. In 1649, Baltimore granted religious tolerations to all Christians, but this never made the Protestants stop opposing his government; on several occasions, his government was overthrown (Guisepi, 2007). The high rates of European immigrants to U.S in the 19th century sparked nativist sentiments; subsequently, this made the US government introduce stringent legislation specifically towards immigrants from Asian countries. The congress passed many bills advocating the suspension of immigration since unemployment was unusually high and the majority of non-Americans who experienced financial hardships during this period were deported. During the Russian revolution, the US government feared the spread of communists’ ideologies in the country; therefore, any person suspected of holding such political ideologies was deported (wisconsinhistory.org, 2011). In the beginning of 1896, many immigrants to US were from southern Europe and Eastern Europe. These immigrants were mainly Italians, Jews and Slaves from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They were comprised of the largest groups of European origin arriving in U.S. These immigrants got a reception, which was quite different from the Earlier European immigrants. These immigrants experienced housing and unemployment problems. This made them reside in the Ghettos in the Northeast and Midwest of U.S. They were also discriminated racially because Many Americans considered them racially different and inferior. The ideology of race was applied to many Eastern and Southern Europeans because they were culturally and physically different from the Scandinavians and the Northern Europeans. In the US, African Americans migrated from the rural south to the urban north because there was frequent violence: many Europeans opposed the Jim Crows laws in the Post-Reconstruction South, as well as inadequate job opportunities. The migration of the blacks began in 1890s as African Americans moved out of Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, New York and Philadelphia. The largest migration in the US took place during World War I when the estimated 500,000 people migrated from rural towns in the South to cities in the Midwest and North US, as employment in factories peaked. The Blacks and Europeans in the north encountered frequent violence from the whites who claimed they were competing for jobs. Racial segregation and discrimination in residential areas, education institutions, and job places were particularly rampant in Northern US. In 1911, there was a fire break out in the Triangle Shirt Factory with the result of many girls and women being killed. The tragedy happened because newly arrived European immigrants were exposed to unsafe working conditions. In World War I, more than 350,000 African Americans worked in segregated units, and this made them migrate to Northern US to work in factories that were opened up during the war. In 1917, a racial riot between blacks and whites occurred in Illinois. Also riots happened in East St. Louis in the Wartime factory, which left 40 blacks and 8 whites dead. In 1919 in Chicago and Washington, D.C., as well as in southern US a race riot broke out which came to be known as Red Summer. During the Tulsa race riots in Oklahoma in 1921, the whites killed 300 blacks and burned 1,400 homes and businesses in Greenwood section of the Oklahoma City (understandingrace.org, 2007). Work Cited: Guisepi, R. A. The United States of America. 2007. Web. Retrieved 22nd November, 2011 http://history-world.org/united_states_of_america.htm Ingstad, Helge, and Anne Stinge Ingstad.The Viking discovery of America: the excavation of a Norse settlement in L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland. Edition Illustrated. Breakwater Books. (2000). p.1. Print. Space, Sharon, and Warren Lieb. Southeast Florida: Including Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, Palm Beach, and Vero Beach. Edition illustrated. Hunter Publishing, Inc. (2001). p.4. Print. “Immigration, Black Migration and U.S. Colonialism: 1870s-1930s.” Understandingrace.org. 2007. Web. Retrieved 22nd November 2011 http://www.understandingrace.org/history/society/immigration.html# “20th-Century Immigration.” Wisconsinhistory.org. Web. 2011. Retrieved 22nd November 2011 http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/tp-052/?action=more_essay Read More