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Historical Background

The British Colonials and Progenitors

Of all the European influences on the United States, those of the English were the most substantial and enduring. British colonials were the basic progenitors of the new Nation. Many of them were escaping from the religious persecution that convulsed England in the 17th century. Indeed, the desire for religious freedom was a major factor in colonization. However, proprietors or companies, whose motives included the desire for profit, founded many of the colonies. At the same time, they also provided the outlet that many believed England needed for her surplus population.

Despite the claim in the New World provided by John Cabot's voyage in 1497, the British were the last of the three major European powers to attempt to settle. Yet, by 1700, they had established substantial colonies all along the Atlantic coast. [Development of the British colonies during the period 1700-1783 is treated in Colonials and Patriots, Volume VI in this series.] Though by that time the colonies had some degree of unity because of the common language and overall English control, they had made little progress toward unification. Their efforts were hampered because of the separate founding of the colonies and the lack of roads and communications. Despite the need for defense against the Indians French, Spanish, and Dutch, six plans for union in the 17th century failed; some of these involved only two or three colonies, and the British Government sponsored some of them.

Yet colonial Englishmen, influenced by the freedom and opportunities in the New World, gradually evolved into "Americans." Their outlook and ideas began to differ from those of their compatriots in the British Isles, though they maintained strong loyalties toward their native land. The English colonies lacked the gold and silver of New Spain and the wealth in furs of New France. But, based on trade, agriculture, and fisheries, colonial wealth steadily increased. New settlers arrived to take advantage of the opportunities, and the population soon surpassed that of the French and Spanish colonies.

ESTABLISHING A CLAIM

John Cabot, the English explorer, a conjectural portrait. His voyages in 1497 and 1498 laid the foundations of England's claim to North America. From a late 18th- or early 19th-century painting by an unknown artist. (Courtesy, Chicago Historical Society.)

England became unified late in the 15th century. On Bosworth Field, in 1485, Henry Tudor put an end to the civil strife of the Wars of the Roses and crowned himself Henry VII. Forcefully bringing recalcitrant nobles to heel, he strengthened his authority. For the first time in nearly a century, the country had stability in government and a considerable degree of peace and prosperity. Henry, therefore, could devote his attention to the promotion of commerce. He encouraged English merchants to enter foreign trade, supported the formation of trading companies, and restricted the activities of the foreign merchants in London and Bristol, who had monopolized trade. Columbus even sent his brother to England when he failed to obtain support from the Portuguese or Spanish Kings for his proposal that Cathay could be reached by sailing west across the Atlantic. Henry VII agreed to finance the voyage and urged Columbus to come at once to England. But, before the latter left Spain, the Spanish monarchs experienced a change of heart and supported the voyage that was to give Spain an empire.

Meanwhile, Henry VII never gave up his hope of obtaining for England a share of the rich Eastern trade. British merchants established a trade link with Iceland about 1490. And, encouraged by news of Columbus' voyage, on March 5, 1496, Henry VII granted letters-patent to the "well-beloved John Cabot" and his three sons to sail across the Atlantic to Asia. An Italian-born navigator, Cabot had lived in England since 1484. As a youth, he had visited the East, and when he arrived in London he had already decided that an all-water route could be found to the trading centers there. He may have made a few trips to Iceland before the King commissioned his trans-Atlantic voyage.

In May of 1497, Cabot left Bristol with a crew of 18 and, after a voyage of 52 days across the North Atlantic, landed on Cape Breton Island and took possession of the land for Henry VII. From there, he explored several islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and in August returned to England and the praise of Henry VII, who granted him new letters-patent. When Cabot sailed again, in 1498, he had perhaps 5 or 6 ships, whose crews totaled some 300 men. The King personally financed a substantial portion of the expedition's cost. On his second voyage, Cabot probably explored the North American coast from Newfoundland south to the Delaware or Chesapeake Bays.

John and Sebastian Cabot, English explorers, land in North America, in 1497. From a wood engraving by an unknown artist, published in 1855. (Courtesy, Library of Congress.)

Having failed to find the shores of Cathay (China) or Cipango (Japan), the English turned in the opposite direction. Henry VII's son, Henry VIII—better known for his marital involvements and his break with the Pope—enthusiastically began to build "a fleet the like of which the world has never seen." John Cabot's son, Sebastian, became a renowned navigator. After serving Spain for a number of years, he returned to England and opened the northern sea-land route to Moscow. He also helped found the company of Merchant-Adventurers, predecessor of the Muscovy Company, and became its president for life.

Thus, for nearly a century, England's interest was diverted from the New World, and her energies were concentrated on the development of a commercial empire and a merchant fleet that became second to none in Europe. But John Cabot had given England a claim to the northern shores of the New World, and in the course of time the "sea dogs" and other English mariners were to breathe new life into it.

HARASSING THE SPANISH

When Henry VIII died, in 1547, he left his throne to his sickly son, Edward. After Edward died, in 1553, while yet a minor, the scepter passed to Mary. "Bloody" Queen Mary, half-Spanish daughter of Henry's first marriage, to Catherine of Aragon, tried with fire and sword to return England to the papal fold and against all counsel wedded her ambitious cousin Philip II of Spain. Her death, in 1558, spared the English a questionable future as Hapsburg vassals. But under Mary's half-sister, Elizabeth, the third of Henry VIII's children to ascend the Tudor throne, England entered a golden age of exploration and expansion. The Queen promptly restored the Church of England as the state religion and embarked upon a policy of ecclesiastical compromise and domestic tranquillity. Abroad, she coyly flirted with her former brother-in-law, Philip II of Spain, while secretly encouraging her admiring liegemen to enrich themselves—and her—by raiding and harassing Spanish commerce. It was a delightful game.

Queen Elizabeth was the first English monarch to encourage colonization of the New World. During her reign, England entered a golden age of exploration and expansion. From a 1596 engraving by an unknown artist.

Shortly after Elizabeth's ascension to the throne, John Hawkins began illicitly smuggling slaves into Hispaniola. He then shifted to the plundering of Spanish treasure galleons, and ultimately to the raiding of coastal towns in Spain's colonial empire. By about 1570, usually with royal connivance, English sea rovers were regularly attacking the Spanish treasure fleets. The Queen knighted both Hawkins and Francis Drake, whose exploits are better known. Drake not only pillaged towns and ships in the Caribbean. In 1577, he also passed through the Strait of Magellan and, in a series of surprise attacks, looted Spanish settlements on the Pacific coast. While on this incredible escapade, in 1579 he landed on the California coast. Then, laden as he was with plunder that he feared Spanish men-of-war might wrest from him if he returned through the strait, he boldly struck out across the Pacific. He completed his circumnavigation of the globe in 1580, when he arrived back in England. His hold bore treasure that repaid his financial backers some 5,000 percent on their investment and added more than a quarter of a million pounds to the Queen's coffers.

SEEKING THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE

About this same time, during the period 1576-78, Martin Frobisher made three voyages to the northernmost part of the New World, exciting short-lived rumors that he had discovered gold west of Frobisher's Bay and, at long last, the Northwest Passage to the Orient. After his first exploring expedition, he and his associates organized the Company of Cathay, which went bankrupt after the failure of two subsequent expeditions. A few years later, John Davis revived his project of seeking a Northwest Passage. He, too, made three voyages into the icy waters beyond the Hudson Strait, between 1585 and 1587, the results of which were as disappointing as Frobisher's.