Describe how Spain, England, France and Dutch’s different economies-along with their justification for expansion-shape their settlements in North America –
The colonization of North America revolves around the need for Spain, England, and Spain to conquer and control the continent. The French and the Spaniards governed through autocratic sovereigns while the English were free to govern themselves as much as they followed the English law. The biggest advantage, therefore, for the English to expand into North America was that they allowed immigration which enabled them to boost their colonial population that helped them to participate more actively and on a wide scale in agricultural activities.
The English colonies were established by a royal charter and settled first in Massachusetts and Virginia. French colonies engaged in the trade of posts that happened in the Newfoundland, spreading to St. Lawrence Valley and Mississippi River. Spanish Colonies depended on Crown sponsored invasions to expand its empire (Granburyisd 1). They claimed the southwestern and southern regions into some sections that stretched into California coast. The economic activities of the English colonies depended on farming, trading, and fishing. The French encouraged the lucrative fur trade while the Spaniards depended on trade and some farming. The involvements helped them to establish dominance in North America.
How did the interaction between the new world and old world impact the different cultures, economy, and plants and animals on both continents?
The history of the continental drift dates back to millions of years ago. The old world and new world were separated by the continental drift which carried and split North America and South America from Africa and Eurasia. The split took a long time that the continents developed diverse differences in the culture of the people, the weather and even the animals. Ecological changes defined this era. An example of a distinct change is the evolution that brought about the rattlesnakes and the vipers which developed on different sides of the Atlantic (Crosby 4).
It is after the interaction of the human voyagers between the old and new world that brought about a reversal in the tendency. There was the mixing of the new and old world diseases, plants, animals and even the people cultures that brought about the interaction in culture and even economic activities. The Europeans traveled to the Americas, and it is in this way that the agricultural activities of the new world changed. They introduced the crops of the old world into the new world that included barley, wheat, rice and many others (Crosby 4). There was an exchange where new world crops like Manioc, sweet potatoes, maize and many others were introduced into the Old World.
The interaction of the two worlds contributed to a number of factors. Population growth was experienced in the Old world due to the introduction of New World crops like maize. Diseases were prevalent in the New world due to the spread of bacteria and Malaria causing mosquitoes. Economic activities improved with the planting and cultivating of weed seed that thrived in the new world. The change did not occur due to superiority in Biosystems; it is because of the environmental differences that the crops and the activities shifted and thrived.
How were Virginia, Plymouth, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina colonies different when analyzing their politics, economics, religious, and diversity?
The colonies boast of racial diversity, national, socio-economic, political, geographical and cultural diversity amidst the colonization era. The colonies were different as most of them had a number of independent cultures due to the varied grouping of their population. There was a Protestantism dominance in the colonies while some were Calvinists. The religion is what controlled the acquisition and nurturing of resources. This is because resources were important in determining individual welfare whereas it brought a group of individuals together.
Euro-Americans in this states had racial attitudes. They discriminated, subordinated, enslaved and paternalism non-white people. They had fears that were controlled by racial lines. This meant that they had to control the non-whites in order to guarantee their safety. They had violent policies that were meant to affect the control of the other races. The political systems of the time emerged due to the various resistances and political up rises in the region. Self-governance was established before independence as North America was believed to be far geographically from Britain, which could not administer continued centralized rule.
The difference in the culture, diversity and even political systems cropped up due to the diverse cultures of the American people. The population is said to have been formed by a number of people from Europe. This encouraged them to conquer the land in the form of agriculture and trade in order to maintain and uphold their lives. The Pennsylvanians were majorly Quakers. The society in the Southern colonies was bi-racial, and most were defined by the Anglican faith. The southern colonies had a system that obeyed the local laws and were ruled by the plantation group of politicians (Raymer 2).
What were the steps leading up to the revolutionary war (from the Navigation act, [including the 7 years’ war] to the skirmish at Concord)?
There are a number of involvements and steps by the British that triggered the war to independence. There was the enactment of acts that aimed to tax the American colonies and more so treaties that were meant to benefit the British in trade. There was the Boston massacre that tended to infuriate the colonies to the extent of fighting back. The colonies understood that the British will not stop taxing them and many other human atrocities will follow in order to put them down.
Pontiac’s Rebellion happened in August 1763 where the Ottawa Indian chief started the rebellion to show that the British traders and fur trappers had occupied the land that the Indians and French lived hence the Indians were not going to get any presents. The proclamation of 1763 happened in England, but the effects spread to Indians that stayed in Ohio River Valley. The colonists on the land were required to move, and this is what started the Pontiac rebellion. The Stamp Act was passed in 1765, and it was meant to tax the colonies so that the British could pay the costs of the French and Indian War. The Sons of Liberty group was formed to oppose the Stamp Act and they one time hanged a puppet that resembled the stamp agent to a tree that is now called the Liberty Tree.
There was the Townshend Act that was aimed at taxing the goods that the colonists imported. This was made to finance the troops in the colonies and custom collector’s board was formed in Boston. The Boston massacre happened when the colonists and the British soldiers collided. Then there was the Boston Tea Party, which led to the formation of the Intolerable Acts, the initial continental congress, the succeeding Continental Congress, as well as the battle of Lexington that declared force up to the battle of Concord.
What were the major battles during the revolutionary war and how did they result in United States defending Britain?
There were a number of events and battles that happened before America got independence. The Americans were in aid of the French where the Patriot supporters approached the French in 1774 for aide in fighting the British (Aryes 4). The French Minister was not willing to get involved in the war. Comte de Vergennes later sent an agent to negotiate the terms of involvement. The conditions were that the American rebels had to declare their independence and show that they could defend themselves against the army.
France ensured that in 1776 a firm they cooked up delivered 300,000 pounds of gunpowder, 3,000 tents, 30,000 muskets, and artillery to the rebels. Lafayette, who was impatient to enter France into war, went to America in 1777 to volunteer for the war. They joined the George Washington’s Continental Army and in 1778 the two allies signed the “Treaty of Alliance” and “Amity and Commerce” and it is at this time that the French declared war against Great Britain. The strategy was to use the superiority of the French armed forces considering the French navy in order to counter the British army both on land and sea.
There were instances when the French army failed to reach the British-occupied New York City because of a sandbar that blocked their passing. This was the beginning of blame by the Americans to the French, at the time the French army was under the command of Comte d’Estaing. The British continued to conquer the Southern States and captured Savannah Georgia. It required the combination of the allied forces to surround and trap Cornwallis. The Yorktown campaign was the last war that brought independence to America (Aryes 4).
Works Cited
Aryes, E. The French Alliance and the Winning of American Independence. 2016. Web. 22 June 2016.
Crosby, W. A. "The Columbian Exchange." The Journal of the Gilder Lehman Institute (2009): 4. Web.
Granburyisd. English, French and Spanish Colonies: A Comparison. n.d. Web. 22 June 2016.
Matej. The Revolutionary War: The American Colonies' Independence from England the Path to the American Revolution. n.d. Web. 22 June 2016.
Raymer, O. D. Humboldt State University Department of History. 31 December 2014. Web. 22 June 2016.
