Compare And Contrast French And Spanish Colonization

1162 Words5 Pages

As the world of global exploration and colonization grew, many powerful European empires set out to see what the New World had in store for them. Each empire had their own individual agendas and incentives for colonization. This led to the many differences between methods of colonization and exploration in every colony and region. The Atlantic World portrayed these contrasts between the Spanish, French, Dutch and British empires. However, the British settlements along the Eastern seaboard differed the most from those of other empires because there were no established policies or methods in British colonization, which led to differences in the economics and culture of each colony depending on who settled it. All four empires colonized for a number of reasons. These included finding another route to the East Indies, empire building, proselytization, and the extraction of natural resources. These different motivations shaped the settlements and colonies of each empire. While most empires had the same motivations in all of their colonies in an area, the British motivations varied in each colony. This was determined by the people and the environment of the colony, rather than one international method. The Spanish colonized to expand their empire economically through resource …show more content…

Their policies and methods of colonization were consistent in every region they conquered because of this fact. The British colonies were inconsistent because the they were controlled by both the king and stock companies, which meant that different colonies had different incentives to settle. This hybrid of authority in each region meant that the North American colonies cannot be studied thematically as a whole, rather they must be analyzed as individual cases. These differences were determined by the motivations to settle the colonies and what environment the people lived

Open Document