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Compare And Contrast English Colonization And Spanish Colonization

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From the mid 1500’s to the 1700’s, people from all over Europe flocked to the vast lands of North America. Spain and England quickly became the most dominant European presences in the Americas. Citizens of the two countries had very different experiences of the new world. This was partially due to their different interactions with Native Americans, religions and their different motivations for coming to the new world. Although rivals at the time, Spain and England’s colonization efforts shared many similarities. Motivation for coming to the new world greatly influenced Spanish and British colonization. The Spanish were said to have three distinct reasons; God, glory and gold. God being the conversion of natives, glory being the claiming of new land for the Spanish empire and gold being the desire to find gold or silver to bring wealth back to Spain. The British colony of Jamestown shared the desire to find gold. Unlike the Spaniards, the British didn’t plan on permanently settling in America. However, these plans changed and Jamestown became a settlement. …show more content…

The British relied on the Algonquians to exchange goods for food, and to teach them how to survive on the strange land. The Spaniards took advantage of the Pueblos, forcing them to work on farms and to follow their religion. In the end, both relationships with the Native Americans fell apart. Pueblo Indians grew tired of being treated so poorly, and launched attacks on the Spaniards. In contrast, British colonists initiated the attacks on the Algonquians after the Algonquians withdrew all contact. As you can see, the British had a positive and equal relationship with the natives for the most part. While the Spaniards always had a negative and controlling relationship with the natives. Both the Spanish and the British could not have survived without the Native

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