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DISCOVERY AND CONQUEST

Colonization of the American soil

The history of the Americas begins with their colonization by peoples from Asia, the ancestors of today's Native Americans. They established numerous civilizations such as the Moche, Cahokia, Maya, Toltecs, Olmec, Aztecs, Inca, and the Iroquois.

The North American continent was first colonized by Asian nomads that crossed the frozen Bering Strait sometime around 20,000 BC.

The continent was rediscovered by Europeans later. Initially the Vikings established a short-lived settlement in Newfoundland. It was the later voyage of Christopher Columbus that led to extensive European colonization of the Americas.

Portugal

Portugal was the leading country in the European exploration of the world in the 15th century. The Treaty of Tordesillas split the New World into Spanish and Portuguese zones in 1494.

Spain

Spanish colonization of the Americas began with the arrival in the Americas of Christopher Columbus in 1492. He had been searching for a new route to the Asian Indies and was convinced he had found it. Columbus was made governor of the new territories and made several more journeys across the Atlantic Ocean. He profitted from the labor of native slaves, whom he forced to mine gold; he also attempted to sell some slaves to Spain. While generally regarded as an excellent navigator, he was a poor administrator and was stripped of the governorship in 1500

The Spanish conquest  replaced the Amerindian local oligarchies and impose a new religion: Christianity. Diseases and cruel systems of work decimated the Amerindian population. African Negro slaves were introduced to substitute the Amerindia

France

Explorers and settlers from France settled in what is now Canada, the Mississippi Valley and along the Gulf coast in what is now Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana founding the cities of Quebec, Montreal, Detroit, Michigan, St. Louis, Missouri, Mobile, Alabama, Biloxi, Mississippi, and New Orleans, Louisiana.

The first French attempt at colonization was in 1598 on Sable Island, southeast of present Nova Scotia. This colony went unsupplied and the 12 survivors returned to France in 1605. The next and first successful colony was Acadia founded in 1603 with its town of Port Royal, now Annapolis.

France once held vast possessions in North America including the Mississippi and St. Lawrence river valleys. The colony of Louisiana was founded in 1699. However, as a result of the French and Indian War, all French territory on the North American continent was divided between the British and the Spanish. The sole exception was the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon off the Canadian coast, retained as a fishing outpost. The French were able to briefly regain some of the Spanish possessions in North America during the Napoleonic Era. However, because France did not have the navy to resupply its North American holdings and because France did not want its possessions to fall into the hands of the British, Napoleon sold Louisiana to the United States, a sale referred to as the Louisiana Purchase. The only remaining French possession in North America is Saint Pierre and Miquelon.

First German Immigrants

The Augsburg banking families of Anton and Bartholomeus Welser obtained the rights to Venezuela from Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and king of Spain, in 1528, which brought the Germans into the area, mostly in search of gold.
By 1541 disputes had arisen with Spain and the bankers were stripped of control of the colony in 1556.

The German colonists suffered a high rate of mortality due to tropical diseases and hostile Indian attacks.

Sweden

In May 1654, the Dutch Fort Casimir was conquered by the New Sweden colony, led by governor Johan Rising. The fort was taken without force since no gunpowder was present, and the settlement was renamed Fort Trinity. As reprisal, the Dutch - led by governor Peter Stuyvesant - moved an army to the Delaware River in the late summer of 1655, leading to the immediate surrender of Fort Trinity and Fort Christina.

The Swedish and Finnish settlers continued to enjoy a degree of local autonomy, having the right to their own militia, religion, court, and lands. This status lasted officially until the English conquest of the New Netherlands colony, in October 1664, and continued unofficially until the area was included in William Penn's charter for Pennsylvania, in 1682. During this later period some immigration and expansion continued. The first settlement and Fort Wicaco were built on the present site of Philadelphia in 1669.

Dutch Influence

During the 17th century, Dutch traders established trade posts and plantations throughout the Americas.
In 1626, director general of the Dutch West India Company Peter Minuit "purchased" the island of Manhattan from Indians and started the construction of fort New Amsterdam. In the same year, Fort Nassau was built in the New Jersey area. Other settlements were Fort Casimir (Newcastle) and Fort Beversrede (Philadelphia). In 1655, the main settlement of New Sweden, Fort Christina, was captured after the Swedes had briefly occupied Fort Casimir. Large numbers of the inhabitants of these settlements were not Dutch, but came from a variety of other European countries, including England.

In 1664, English troops under the command of the Duke of York (later James II of England) attacked the New Netherlands colony. Being greatly outnumbered, director general Peter Stuyvesant surrendered New Amsterdam, with Fort Orange following soon. New Amsterdam was renamed New York, Fort Orange was renamed Fort Albany.

The loss of the New Netherland province led to the Second Anglo-Dutch War during 1665-1667. This conflict ended with the Treaty of Breda in which the Dutch gave up their claim to New Amsterdam in exchange for Suriname.

From 1673 to 1674, the territories were once again briefly captured by the Dutch in a renewed war with England, only to be returned at the Treaty of Westminster.

British Era

The English established colonies along the east coast of North America from Newfoundland as far south as Florida. Early colonies included Jamestown, Virginia founded in 1607, the Plymouth Colony founded in 1620, and the Massachusetts Bay Colony. There was also an early unsuccessful Scottish attempt at a colony at Darien, and the colonisation of Nova Scotia is also associated with Scotland.

England also took over the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, which was renamed New York in 1664. With New Amsterdam the British came to control the former New Sweden which the Dutch had conquered earlier. This became part of Pennsylvania. Britain acquired the French colony of New France and the Spanish colony of Florida in 1763. New France became the Canadas.

In the north the Hudson's Bay Company actively traded for fur with the Indians, and had competed with French fur traders. The company came to control the entire drainage basin of Hudson Bay called Rupert's Land. The Hudson Bay drainage south of the 49th parallel went to the United States in 1818. Britain also colonized the west coast of North America with the colonies of Vancouver Island, founded in 1849 and New Caledonia, founded in 1846 (later combined and named British Columbia). In 1867 the colonies of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and the Province of Canada (the southern portion of modern-day Ontario and Quebec) combined to form modern Canada. Quebec (including what is now the southern portion of Ontario) and Nova Scotia had been conquered from the French. The colonies of Prince Edward Island, and British Columbia joined over the next six years, and Newfoundland joined in 1949. Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory were ceded to Canada in 1870. This area now consists of the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, as well as the Northwest Territories and the territory of Nunavut.

Danish Settlers

Explorers and settlers from Denmark took possession of the Danish Virgin Islands which Denmark later sold to the United States. 

Denmark started a colony on St Thomas in 1671, St John in 1718 and purchased Saint Croix from France in 1733. During the 18th century, the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean Sea were divided into two territorial units, one English and the other Danish. Sugar cane, produced by slave labor, drove the islands' economy during the 18th and early 19th centuries. They were also used as a base for pirates. In 1917, the US purchased the islands which had been in economic decline since the abolition of slavery in 1848.

Russians in America

After the discovery of northern Alaska by Fedorov in 1732 and the Aleutian Islands, southern Alaska, and north-western shores of America in 1741 during the Russian exploration.
The Russian-American Company was formed in 1799 for the purpose of hunting sea otters for their fur.

Subsequently, Russian explorers and settlers continued to establish trading posts in Alaska, the Aleutian Islands, British Columbia, Washington (state), Oregon and as far south as Fort Ross in northern California. Fort Ross, some 50 miles north of San Francisco was founded in 1812 and closed in 1841.

The peak population of the Russian colonies was about 40,000 although most of these were aborigines.

The colony was never very profitable, because of the costs of transportation. At the instigation of Secretary of State William Seward, the United States Senate approved the purchase of Alaska from Russia for $7,200,000 on April 9, 1867.

In Russia and even in its predecessor, the Soviet Union, there has been speculation in the Russian mass media that Alaska was not, in fact, sold, but was instead leased to the USA for 99 or 150 years and has to be returned to Russia.

U.S.A

Direct control from Europe began to unravel on July 4, 1776 with the United States Declaration of Independence which was followed in the early 1800's by the independence of Haiti and several South American countries.

By 1783, the colonists had won the American Revolutionary War and established themselves as the United States of America. The US Constitution contained no laws on immigration. In 1790, the US government did legislate the process for becoming a naturalized US citizen, however, restricting this privilege to any "free white person" who had resided in the US for at least two years. In 1810, US president Thomas Jefferson increased the residency requirement to five years, where it has remained ever since.

Because the original 13 states were former English colonies, the language, religion, architecture, customs, and legal, economic, and governmental systems of those English colonists became the standard for the United States. For the next 200 years, all immigrants were expected to be assimilated to the English norm. Only in the 1980s and 1990s has the expectation begun to shift away from assimilation towards multiculturalism in the US. The basic structure of US society is still based on the English standard, however.

FORCED IMMIGRANTS

Slavery under European rule began with importation of white European slaves (or indentured servants), was followed by the enslavement of local aborigines in the Caribbean, and eventually was primarily replaced with Africans imported through a large slave trade as the native populations declined through disease. But by the 18th century, the overwhelming number of black slaves was such that white and Native American slavery was less common.

The majority of African Americans are not considered to be descended from immigrants because their ancestors were brought to America against their will. Another group of early colonists who were not truly immigrants were some 50,000 English criminals exported to America by the British government. They also did not freely choose to immigrate to America, but once in the New World, they settled down to a new life and became productive citizens.

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