Dr. Robert Owens Chronicles the History of the Future

Chapter Two: The Colonizers December 25, 2024

Several factors converged to create the climate for European dominance after the Fifteenth Century. 

The growing populations and limited resources provided a social impetus for expansion.  The accumulation of wealth and a mercantilist economic policy which sought to make every country self-sufficient drove the Europeans to seek both raw materials and markets which could be appropriated as possessions.  The development of technology in the spheres of ocean-going ships and weapons provided the transport too far off places and the ability to overcome the primitive weapons of what were almost always the superior numbers of the indigenous peoples. A tradition of crusades especially the Iberian Reconquista and a feeling of cultural superiority combined with a religion based on evangelism provided a philosophical rationale for overseas conquest.  In addition, organizational skills and techniques in government, military and business provided the means to mobilize the forces necessary to confront and overcome much larger populations and the ability to impose their various colonial establishments. 

A geo-political motive also had a significant interplay in the European drive for exploration.  The Islamic powers controlled the trade routes between sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia.  The leaders of Europe saw their wealth being drained away to pay for the trade goods desired by their populations.  It was the desire to find alternative trade routes that provided the initial impetus for exploration of the Atlantic Sea routes.

The Iberian Peninsula which had been under Islamic domination for hundreds of years fought a century’s long series of wars to dislodge the invaders.  Finally in 1492 the combined might of the kingdoms of Aragon, Castile and Portugal finally triumphed and expelled the Moors.  They immediately confronted a new problem, what to do with the thousands of unemployed crusaders.  These hardened troops were used to nothing but war.  They were skilled in nothing but fighting.  Suddenly instead of being the most necessary of citizens they became a burden upon the treasury and an impediment to the growth of civil society.

With a coast and ports facing the West and South both Spain and Portugal took the lead in exploring the Atlantic.  They established colonies in the Canary Islands, Maderias, and the Azores which became convenient jumping off points for ever further ventures into the unknown.  Once new lands were found the Kingdoms poured in legions of veteran troops to subdue and take possession.

At first the Iberians led by Portugal sought for a way around Africa.  Incrementally, year after year they went further and further south.  Once they had established their outposts in the Canary Islands, they soon began the more intense project of colonization.  The native populations were overwhelmed and replaced.  Then as the riches in fish and forest products flowed to the homelands the safe harbors provided bases for the continued probes along the African coast.

Finally in 1487 the Portuguese mariner Bartolomeu Dias rounded the southern tip of Africa and in 1498 Vasco De Gama followed Dias’ trail and crossed the Indian Ocean completing the European’s long search of an alternative route to the riches of the East.  This put Portugal in the forefront as a colonizing and trading power.  But this success and concentration on their now lucrative trade route to the south and east also diverted their attention from heading west.  Seeing the riches and prestige that Portugal was gaining from their new empire Spain, excluded from the way south by Portugal’s success and power turned west.

The way west was not new.  For hundreds of years the people of the North, Norway, Denmark and Sweden had traveled to the Faroes, Iceland, and Greenland.  In approximately the year 1000 the Norse moved on from Greenland to reach the northeastern edge of North America making landfalls on Baffin Island, Labrador and Newfoundland.  In a place they called Vinland they established the first European colony in North America.  This colony lasted no more than a generation before succumbing to a lack of support and hostility with the Native Americans.

Columbus, an Italian, was an experienced mariner who had trained under the Portuguese.  He had lived and worked for the Portuguese for many years but when they refused to finance his quest for a route to the East across the Atlantic, he turned to Spain.

Although it is a well-accepted legend that everyone thought the world was flat and that Columbus had to battle against the ignorance of the Spanish leaders to get financing this is not true.  It was a generally accepted fact among the European intellectuals of the day that the world was round.  This knowledge had been discovered by the ancient Greeks.  The leaders of Spain didn’t fear sending ships to fall off the end of the earth they simply believed that the distance was so far no one could carry enough supplies to make the voyage.  Their miscalculation was not in the shape of the planet or the size of the ocean instead their problem was that they didn’t imagine that other continents might bar the way.

The reason for Columbus’ belief that he could successfully sail from Europe to the East was that he miscalculated the distance.  His mistake gave him the confidence to head west to arrive in the East.  This confidence eventually led the monarchs of Spain to invest a small fleet of 3 ships in what would prove to be one of the best investments of all time.

When Columbus arrived in the Caribbean, he encountered the Taino people who were technologically and organizationally primitive compared to the Spanish.  Immediately Columbus began to replicate the colonization and subjugation process which had proven so effective in the Canary Islands.  And then another new European invention made as big an impact on the Americas as the firearms and ships.  The printing press quickly spread the word of the discovery and soon every European country began preparing to join the drive to the west in any way they could.

The Spanish were eager to expand and exploit their discovery.  In less than a year Columbus returned with 17 ships and more than 1,000 men.  The first farmers and artisans began remaking the islands into a colonial environment which was to become all too familiar.  The introduction of slavery and disease soon decimated the native populations as the Spanish transformed the New World into an approximation of the Old while the increase in the European food supply spurred by the introduction of American crops such as corn and potatoes increased the supply of potential colonists.  When we combine all this with the detrimental impacts of the Columbian Exchange such as the introduction of pigs which soon became voracious wild animals destroying native crops the New World as an Eden ended as the Old World invaded.