Ideals of Colonization

It did not take long, following the so-called ‘discovery’ of America, for dreams of new and profitable European colonies to emerge.

But in order to understand these desires fully, it is worth exploring what the idea of a ‘New World’ meant for Europeans, once news of its discovery reached their shores.

What, before this ‘discovery’, did Europeans believe about the world?

Did they ever imagine that so much was yet to be explored?

Back in Ancient Greece, the Atlantic Ocean had been considered literally out of bounds.

Named after the colossal Greek titan ‘Atlas’, the Atlantic was thought to be accessible only by passing through the Pillars of Hercules (the modern Strait of Gibraltar).

According to the later Romans, these pillars were said to be carved with the warning "Non Plus Ultra" (nothing further beyond), designed by the God’s to be seen by adventurous sailors.

Graph

And yet Greek mythology did imagine lands beyond this horizon.

The Greeks told tales of the "Fortunate Isles,": Atlantic islands, described by the Ancient poet Hesiod, said to be an earthly paradise.

Former heroes would come to dwell here in peace and happiness after death.

On the Fortunate Isles of the Atlantic, the season was always spring, and food grew in abundance.

Another mythical Atlantic Island was described by the Greek philosopher Plato.

In two of his philosophical dialogues ('Timaeus' and 'Critias'), Plato told of an advanced island civilization named Atlantis, which supposedly existed about 9,000 years before his time.

According to Plato, Atlantis was located beyond the 'Pillars of Hercules', and was a powerful and technologically advanced maritime power.

This civilization was said to have conquered many parts of Western Europe and Africa but eventually fell out of favor with the gods.

According to the legend, Atlantis faced a catastrophic downfall, sinking into the ocean in a single day and night of misfortune.

For many Europeans of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the discovery of the continent of America had a dramatic effect on how they thought about the world and its wealth of possibilities.

Some began to wonder if ancient myths of Atlantic paradises had a grounding in reality.

For example, the Fortunate Isles, with its lush landscapes and relative isolation in the Atlantic, began to be associated with the island of Bermuda, discovered by the Portuguese in 1505.

Fueled by ancient, mythic imagination, colonizing newly discovered lands gradually became seen as a means to live out fantasies. Particularly fantasies of building new, ideal civilizations.

The Spanish even created a new motto, ‘Plus Ultra’ (Further beyond), echoing (but crucially altering) the ‘Non Plus Ultra’ inscribed on the mythic Pillars of Hercules.

This motto signaled to the world that Spanish exploration was the fulfillment of a kind of mythic prophecy.

The discovery of new lands in the 1500s gave rise to a new genre of fantasy: ‘Utopian’

‘Utopian’ writing made use of semi-mythical places like the ‘Fortunate Isles’ not just for pure fantasy, but as settings for a form of ‘thought experiment’.

The thought experiment went something like this: “If we could set up a society from scratch, what political or intellectual structure would be the most ideal?”

The word ‘Utopia’ was first used as the title of a 1516 work by Sir Thomas More. More depicted an idealized island society, isolated from the rest of the world, built on principles of communal ownership, religious tolerance, and rational thought.

More's work was at heart a critique of contemporary European society and a proposal for a better way of living.

The title itself was a pun: It combines "topos" meaning "place," with the prefix “u”, which translates to either “ou” (“no”) or “eu” (“good”). In other words, it is both a good place and a non-existent place. It is perhaps too good to be true.

‘Utopias’ imagined societies free from the restrictions of traditional European life, that could be structured around new, more modern ideas and interests.

Another key example of ‘utopian’ writing came from the English philosopher Francis Bacon, who is often credited as the inventor of the scientific method.

Bacon published his "New Atlantis" in 1626, describing an island society inspired by the fictional island described by Plato.

This island was radically free from the old traditions of education and church authority that dominated 17th-century England.

Instead, the island functioned exactly according to Bacon’s interests: the islanders were devoted purely to the pursuit of scientific knowledge and discovery.

Perhaps the strongest motivation for colonization came not from political or intellectual ‘utopias’, but from those centered on religion.

The concept of a Christian utopia gained prominence due to the huge religious divisions that emerged in the 16th century, particularly in England.

This period saw the rise of Protestantism, a new branch of Christianity that challenged the long-established Roman Catholic Church.

Protestantism advocated for reforms in the Church, emphasizing practices such as using Bibles in local languages (like English) instead of Latin and allowing divorce, which were not accepted in Catholicism.

In England, these religious changes led to the creation of the Church of England, a Protestant church, under the reign of King Henry VIII.

This new church marked a departure from Roman Catholicism, yet it retained some Catholic practices.

This half-way reform was not sufficient for a group of Protestants called the "Puritans." They sought to purify the Church of England of all Catholic elements, pushing for more radical changes.

A subgroup within the Puritans, known as the "Separatists," took an even more extreme stance. They believed the Church of England was so corrupt that they needed to break away from it completely.

However, this view was controversial and led to persecution and harassment by the government and the Anglican Church (the Church of England), as their beliefs were seen as a threat to the established social and religious order.

In search of religious freedom and a place to practice their faith without persecution, many of these Separatists fled to the Netherlands, a country known for its religious tolerance.

However, even in the Netherlands, they faced economic hardships and social limitations.

So, in 1620, a group of these Separatists, known as the Pilgrims, who had been living in the Dutch city of Leiden for over a decade, decided to embark on a journey to North America.

Once in North America, specifically in what is now New England, these Puritans aimed to build what they called a "city upon a hill" .

The phrase ‘"city upon a hill" is from the Bible's Sermon on the Mount.

It implies that the Puritans' new society would be an elevated moral example for others. A beacon of righteousness the world would look up to.

When the Separatists sailed for America, they called themself the ‘Pilgrims’ – a traditional title for someone who journeys to a sacred place for religious reasons.

For them, America counted as a ‘holy’ place because they envisioned it as a new Garden of Eden – an uncorrupted paradise where they could live according to their strict religious principles.

We can see this attitude in the English poem “Bermudas”, written in the mid-17th century by a Puritan poet, Andrew Marvell.

Graph

The poem begins:

Here, 'his praise' acknowledges God's guidance to the fruitful Bermudas, akin to the Greek's Fortunate Isles, full of eternal spring:

In the minds of many, America was a Puritan utopia.

In the year 1620, a group of English settlers, known as Pilgrims, obtained permission to live and establish a new colony under the authority of the Virginia Company.

This company was managed by English investors who had the right to establish colonies in Virginia, which was a vast region along the eastern coast of North America claimed by England, roughly stretching from New Jersey to North Carolina.

The Pilgrims originally planned to use two ships for their journey, named the Speedwell and the Mayflower. Unfortunately, the Speedwell turned out to be leaky and unsafe for the long voyage.

Left with no choice, the Pilgrims packed into the Mayflower, leaving from a port in Plymouth, England. They embarked on their perilous journey across the Atlantic on September 16, 1620.

The ocean crossing was grueling, with over two long months at sea facing stormy weather and high waves.

After a long and difficult journey, the Mayflower glimpsed the shores of the New World on November 21, 1620.

The Pilgrims had aimed for the Virginia territory, yet the storms had pushed them to a northern shore, far from their intended destination.

This place was part of what is now known as Massachusetts.

When they landed, they found a region with dense forests and an abundance of natural resources. The area was home to the Wampanoag people, who had cleared several sections of land that the Pilgrims used for their initial settlement.

The name "Massachusetts" is believed to come from "Massachusett," a Wampanoag word that roughly translates to "near the great hill, referring to a specific area that is today known as the Blue Hills region south of Boston.

When the Pilgrims began seriously to build their own settlement, they named it Plymouth after the English port from which they’d departed.

When the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in 1620, they faced a daunting task: building a new society from scratch. They needed more than buildings; they needed a blueprint for a functioning community.

Their solution? — a written agreement, "The Mayflower Compact", which was drafted and signed while still aboard the ship.

Though fairly short, at only around 200 words, this was no trivial document.

At a time when Europe was mostly ruled by hereditary, all-powerful monarchs, the Compact established principles of self-governance.

It set out how they should elect their own leaders, and enact their own laws.

Every adult man on the Mayflower (41 in total) signed it, committing to a government based on the majority's will.

This revolutionary, democratic ideal served as a model for later American colonies – and would eventually form the ideals of government in the United States as it still exists today.

New England grew sharply in the following decades, though not only in Plymouth harbour.

In 1630, a new settlement took root: the Massachusetts Bay Colony. A fresh wave of English Puritans came, seeking the same religious freedom the Pilgrims had sought just 10 years earlier.

This new colony didn't just grow; it thrived and soon outpaced the original Pilgrims. Why?

Firstly, it was significantly bigger than its counterpart in Plymouth harbor.

By 1640, 20 years after its founding, Plymouth Colony had a population of just over 1,000 people. In contrast, the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1640, just ten years after its founding, had a population of nearly 9,000 people.

It therefore had more skills and more hands for labor.

Secondly, it had a strong, well-ordered system. They put a high value on working together and on learning.

Out of these values came Harvard College in 1636. Named for John Harvard, a clergyman, the college aimed to train the colony's future leaders and ministers.

The reality of early colonies was far from utopian, and the majority of Spanish settlements were short-lived.

La Navidad was founded back in 1492, during Columbus’ first voyage

It was located on the northeast coast of Hispaniola (present-day Haiti), where Columbus's ship, the Santa María, ran aground.

Seeing an opportunity, Columbus decided to leave a group of his men on the island to establish a settlement and gather gold, using the materials from the wrecked ship to build a fort.

When Columbus returned on his second voyage in 1493, however, he found the settlement destroyed.

The men he had left behind had been killed, possibly due to conflicts with the local Taíno people.

Other early attempts followed similar patterns, for example, the Roanoke Colony, established by English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh in 1587.

Located on an island off the coast of present-day North Carolina, this settlement is famously known as the "Lost Colony."

Just like La Navidad, by 1590 when Raleigh returned to the island, the colony had mysteriously disappeared, with no trace of the settlers.

This disappearance gave rise to various theories and speculations, including the possibility of a massacre or assimilation into local Native American tribes.

Though less shrouded in mystery, a similar ill fate shadowed the early London Company, a joint-stock company that hoped to profit from the natural resources of the New World.

Their settlement in Bermuda of 1609 was abandoned after just one year.

“Jamestown”, founded in 1607 by the London Company along the banks of the James River, Virginia, proved initially difficult to farm. Settlers struggled with disease, lack of supplies, and famine.

Though later successful, the first years of the Jamestown settlement were marked by a high mortality rate. In 1608, two-thirds of settlers had died.