Spanish, French and English Culture in the age of Exploration
1. The Spanish, French, and English were the major explorers of the New World. Using the documents provided and your knowledge of early exploration and colonization, explain how the mind-set of the people of each nation influenced each group’s actions pertaining to the Americas.
Document A
Source:
Journal of Christopher Columbus, 1492.
Whereas, Most Christian,
High, Excellent, and Powerful Princes, King and Queen of Spain and of the
Islands of the Sea, our Sovereigns, this present year 1492, after your
Highnesses had terminated the war with the Moors [Muslims] reigning in Europe,
the same having been brought to an end in the great city of Granada, where on
the second day of January, this present year, I saw the royal banners of your
Highnesses planted by force of arms upon the towers of the Alhambra, which is
the fortress of that city, and saw the Moorish king come out at the gate of the
city and kiss the hands of your Highnesses…your Highnesses, as Catholic
Christians, and princes who love and promote the holy Christian faith, and are
enemies of the doctrine of Mahomet, and of all idolatry and heresy, determined
to send me, Christopher Columbus, to the above-mentioned countries of India, to
see the said princes, people, and territories, and to learn their disposition
and the proper method of converting them to our holy faith; and furthermore
directed that I should not proceed by land to the East, as is customary, but by
a Westerly route, in which direction we have hitherto no certain evidence that
any one has gone. So after having expelled the Jews from your dominions
[unless, as in the case of the Moors, they convert], your Highnesses, in the
same month of January, ordered me to proceed with a sufficient armament to the
said regions of India…
Document B
Source: Juan Gines de Sepulveda, The Second Democrates, 1547.
The Spanish have a perfect right to rules these barbarians of the New World and the adjacent islands, who in prudence, skill, virtues, and humanity are as inferior to the Spanish as children to adults, or women to men, for there exists between the two as great a difference as between savage and cruel races and the most merciful, between the most intemperate and the moderate and temperate and, I might even say, between apes and men…[who are] ready to do the bidding and desire of [their] rulers and possessing no liberty…they have been born into slavery and not to civil and liberal life. Therefore, if you wish to reduce them, I do not say to our domination, but to a servitude a little less harsh, it will not be difficult for them to change their masters, and instead of the ones they had, who were barbarous and impious and inhuman, to accept the Christians, cultivators of human virtues and the true faith…
Document C
Source: Richard Hakluyt, Discourse Concerning the Western Planting, 1584.
It is well worth the observation to see and consider what the like voyages of discovery and planting in the East and West Indies have wrought in the kingdoms of Portugal and Spain; both which realms, being of themselves poor and barren and hardly able to sustain their inhabitants, by their discoveries have found such occasion of employment, that these many years we have not heard scarcely of any pirate of those two nations; whereas we and the French are most infamous for our outrageous, common, and daily piracies…through our long peace and seldom sickness…many thousands of idle persons are within this realm, which, having no way to be set on work, be either mutinous and seek alteration in the state, or at least very burdensome to the commonwealth…by employing them in England in making of a thousand trifling things, which will be very good merchandise for those countries where we shall have ample vente [sales] thereof. And seeing the savages…are greatly delighted with any cap or garment made of coarse woolen cloth…all occupations belonging to clothing and knitting shall freshly be set on work…whereby many decayed towns may be repaired.
Document D
Source: Samuel Daniel, an English poet,
“Musophilus.” First published in Poetical Essays, 1599 (An excerpt from
the poem)
And who in time knows whither we may vent
The treasure of our tongue, to what strange shores
This gain of our best glory shall be sent
T' enrich unknowing nations with our stores?
What worlds in th' yet unformed occident
May come refin'd with th' accents that are ours?
Document E
Source: Samuel de Champlain, Voyages, 1604.
But since
[abandoning the settling of New France], a report had been made to the king on
the fertility of the soil by him [Sieur de Monts], and by me on the feasibility
of discovering the passage to China, without the inconveniences of the ice of
the north or the heats of the torrid zone, through which our sallors pass twice
in going and twice in returning, with inconceivable hardships and risks, his
Majesty directed Sieur de Monts to make a new outfit, and send men to continue
what he had commenced. This he did. And, in view of the uncertainty of his
commission, he chose a new spot for his settlement, in order to deprive jealous
persons of any such distrust as they had previously conceived. He was also
influenced by the hope of greater advantages in case of settling in the
interior, where the people are civilized, and where it is easier to plant the
Christian faith and establish such order as is necessary for the protection of
a country, than along the sea-shore, where the savages generally dwell. From
this course, he believed the king would derive an inestimable profit; for it is
easy to suppose that Europeans will seek out this advantage rather than those
of a jealous and intractable disposition to be found on the shores, and the
barbarous tribes.
Document F
Source: Map showing France’s American empire at greatest extent, 1700
End of Documents
Bibliography
A. Columbus, Christopher. [Journal Entry.] 1492. As in: “Medieval Sourcebook:
Christopher Columbus: Extracts From Journal.” Paul Halsall Mar, 1996.
http://www.ukans.edu/carrie/docs/amdocs_index.html
B. de Sepulveda, Juan Gines. The Second Democrates. 1547. As in: Baily, Thomas A.
and David M. Kennedy, eds. The American Spirit. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1994.
C. Richard Hakluyt, Discourse Concerning the Western Planting, 1584. As in: Baily,
Thomas A. and David M. Kennedy, eds. The American Spirit. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1994.
D. Daniel, Samuel. “Musophilus.” 1599. Lines 19-24. As in: “Samuel Daniel.”
University of Toronto. http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/daniel7.html
E. de Champlain, Samuel. 1604. As in: “Samuel de Champlain. Voyages (1604).”
Department of Humanities Computing,
1997. http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/1601-
F. Baily, Thomas A. and David M. Kennedy. “France’s American Empire at Greatest Extent, 1700.” in The American Pageant, 10th ed.