America Past; Do3; Decline of Spain, Rise of England

*beep* *woosh* [music playing] "After nine days march, I reached some plains so vast I did not find their limit

anywhere, although I traveled over them for more than 300 leagues. And after 17 days march I came to a settlement of Indians. These Indians could not give me any account of the country where the guides were taking me. I travelled five days more until I reach some plains with no more landmarks than if we had been swallowed up in the sea. And while we were lost in these plains some horsemen, who went off to hunt cows, fell in with some Indians. I obtained from these an account of the country where the guides were taking me, which was not like my guides had described it. This news troubled me greatly, to find myself on these limitless plains where I was in great need of water. It was the Lord's pleasure that after having journeyed across these deserts 77 days,. I arrived at the province they call Quivira." Those are the words of Coronado, writing to Philip II King of Spain, writing from somewhere along the Arkansas River in Kansas.

Coronado was one of those tough, adventuresome, often cruel men that helped Spain build her empire - one of the conquistadores. Here in the southwest, in New Mexico, he probably is the best known of all Spanish explorers because this was the area he explored. He had heard a legend that was very common here, common in Mexico, that somewhere north of Mexico there were cities of gold. Seven of them - the Seven Cities of Cibola - of solid gold. Why would he hear a legend like that? Well no one knows for sure. Maybe someone saw one of the famous Indian pueblos; saw it at sunset when it glowed red and they reported that it looked like a city of gold. If that were told around a few dozen times maybe instead of looking like a city of gold, it was a city of gold. They even appeared on the maps, that somewhere throughout the Southwest there were these

seven cities. So Coronado came and he came looking for those towns. The Indians didn't know quite what to make of him. He had 300 men with him. The last thing they wanted, the Indians wanted, was 300 armed Spaniards stopping at their village. So when he would show up they would say sure, there's a city of gold, it's just on over the next hill or two. So Coronado would go on to another village, and they would say yes it's just a few miles on up the road on over the next hill. They strung that poor guy out until he ended up in Kansas. One of the towns there was supposed to be call Quivira and he finally found it. What he found was a little village of grass shacks. He was so infuriated that he had his guide strangled to death. His expedition was not a complete washout. It was Coronado that brought the first horses into this region. They ran off from his expedition and changed the whole lifestyle of the Indians by introducing horses. His men mapped the Southwest, one of

his lieutenants was the first European, at least, to see the Grand Canyon. They came through this region. They kept journals. They kept diaries. They opened up the southwest to the Spanish. "We crossed a great prairie, so flat and smooth that if a man lay on his back he lost sight of the ground. There's a large quantity of prickly plants of which the natives make preserves. As the army ate much of it, they fell sick with a headache and fever." Magellan, Ferdinand Magellan. That's a key name. Magellan commanded the first expedition to sail around the Earth. He didn't make it. He was killed in the Philippines. In fact, not very many of his men did make it. They start off with five ships and 270 men; got back with one ship and 18 men. Those aren't very good odds. Considering the sailing conditions,

it's amazing they didn't all die. "The biscuit was no longer biscuit, but was powder swarming with worms. It stank of the urine of rats. We ate dust, and rats were sold at one half ducato a piece." Now, why is his voyage considered to be of significance? Not just because he named the Pacific Ocean "Pacific" meaning peaceful, or because he claimed the Philippines for Spain, named them after King Philip II, But because, one, he showed the world was round; he had sailed around it. No one could seriously dispute that. And, two, he showed that Columbus had discovered a new world. Magellan had come down the east coast of South America and up the West Coast. The Americas were not simply the east coast of Asia, and that is the great significance of Magellan. If Columbus had found a new world, was it worth finding? Some had

great doubts. It's said that right after Columbus's voyage everyone in Spain wanted to come across the ocean. Twenty years later no one did. It wasn't Asia. We aren't interested. But the Spanish got interested very quickly after the conquest of Cortez. Cortez conquered the Aztecs in Mexico. The rich empire of the Aztecs. There he found and took the gold of Montezuma. Shortly afterwards Pizarro went down to Peru and did the same to the Incas. They found silver and gold that was going to fuel the Spanish empire for the next 100 years and whet the appetite of every king in Western Europe. The Spanish were also busy in the southeastern part of the United States. Ponce de Leon discovered Florida, named it "full of flowers," thought it was an island. Wandered around with his great big dog, it's said scared the Indians more than Spanish guns. Ponce de Leon was looking for the fountain of

youth. He found death from an Indian's arrow. One of the interesting explorers in the East was Hernando de Soto. He gets credit for being the first European to find the Mississippi River. He set off from Florida, fought, raped, and plundered his way to the southeastern part of the United States, looking for riches. The Spanish were always looking for riches. He carried his own food supply with him. He had heard that pigs would melt in the hot climate so he drove 20 of them along with him so he'd always have enough. Had about 600 men and about six women. By the time they got to the river, he had lost all but about 20 men, but he had 600 pigs. It's not reported how many women. Now to get along with the Indians he had told them he was a god. Well gods are supposed to be immortal. They're not supposed to die. That's where he made his mistake. He died. His men were scared that the Indians would find the body, realize they had been lied to, and there'd be all sorts of trouble. So they dumped him into the river and they took off. His claim to fame,

he found the Mississippi River. He showed Europeans there was a great river running through the central part of the United States. These very Spanish explorers and the empire that they built flourished in the 16th century. That's the 1500's from the time of Columbus in 1492 to 1588. After that Spain continues to exist, of course, but she does not continue to expand her empire. What went wrong? Well there are several things. She was involved in wars in Europe, wars with the Dutch and the French. They were close at hand. They had to be dealt with. That drained away resources that might have been used to expand her empire. Then she had all these ships of gold coming back from the new world of Spain, gold she was counting on, but the English started raiding those ships. English pirates began lurking in the islands, and when the Spanish ships would come out they would capture them and that gold began ending up in England. There's

piratical sea dogs, the best known of the sea dogs was Francis Drake. When the king of Spain asked Queen Elizabeth of England to do something about those pirates, she not only wouldn't do anything about them, she knighted Sir Francis Drake. That's why he's called sir, that's what it means, he was made a knight. Philip tried everything with the English He tried diplomacy; that failed. He offered to marry Queen Elizabeth; unite the two countries live happily ever after. Queen Elizabeth turned him down. He then decided to attack England. He would build a huge navy and he would wipe the English out once and for all. That huge navy is referred to as a Spanish Armada. The year was 1588. The English navy was smaller, but faster. Its ships could dart in and out of these big lumbering Spanish galleons, like a little dog around a Great Dane. Drove the Spanish crazy. When the Spanish tried to get away, a wind came up, a storm came up, and blew them onto the coast of England.

It could have blown them out to sea but it didn't. The sailors climbing ashore could be picked off by the English. It was a disaster. Without their navy, the Spanish were not able to protect their trade routes to the new world, so even more gold began going to England. So pirates, war in Europe, the defeat of the Spanish Armada - All were disastrous by the year 1588. Let's recap again just briefly though what contributions did the Spanish leave in the New World. We've mentioned the horse several times. We've mentioned the cattle industry. Their religion, with the areas controlled by Spain are Catholic to this day. Place names in language, street names throughout the West. Food, wheat, citrus fruit, peas, sugarcane - and their architecture. Look in any western city and you know that the Spanish once were there. Where do the English fit into this picture? Everyone hears about the 13 English colonies.

You hear about the Americans waging their revolution against the English. How did they get into the game? Well they got into it in 1497, and that year John Cabot and his son Sebastian landed on the coast of North America and claimed it for England. Of course it had already been claimed for Spain and for France, but we won't worry about that. We'll get into the game too. Cabot was paid about 10 English pounds for his efforts. Kind of hard to convert that but that would be just a few hundred dollars. The English got a good return for their money on that one. If you're going to sail with John Cabot you had to sign a pledge that you would not use filthy or ungodly language. He wouldn't really have got a crew. I mean, sailors, certainly 16th century sailors or 15th century sailors, were not noted for their puritanical ways, and filthy, ungodly language was probably a way of life. But somehow he got that crew together and in

1497 landed on North America and claimed it for the English. Why were the English interested in it? Well certainly they were prepared to begin colonizing. They were a strong country; They were a unified country. They were a wealthy country. They had the resources. Their docks were teeming with commerce; their countryside was dotted with homes with elaborately carved wood walls, rich furnishings. They just smacked of smug, wealth, and power, and if you were going to be a powerful nation you had to have colonies. You had to keep up with other nations. Spain has an empire. Portugal has an empire. The French are building one. We have to have one. We can't sit back. Our nation would look inferior, and we want our nation to be number one. That is called nationalism. It's still one of the strongest motivating factors in the world. This desire to promote your

nation - nationalism. The United States and the Soviet Union are involved in that type of struggle today. So are other nations. It's not new. Everyone participates in it and the English did. We've got to keep up. We've got to have an empire. There are also economic reasons. We want to be a wealthy empire. There was an economic theory at the time called merchantilism, and merchantile theory. And it said that the strongest nations will be those with the most hard money. And you get money by selling goods, not by buying goods. If you will buy it you're paying out money, that's fairly obvious, I think. You want to sell goods, not buy them. Therefore you want to produce everything you need. England was buying about two-thirds of her fish and most of her lumber from Scandinavia. Her grapes from France. Why enrich those countries? Let's start colonies, trade with our own colonies. Keep that

money within the family, keep ourselves wealthy, and if we trade with other nations we'll sell goods to them, not buy from them. Called the mercantile theory, starting colonies for trade. They also hoped that they might find a way to the riches of the Far East. They hoped that North America looked like this, which it didn't. They hoped that there was a northwest passage through it, that they could cut through North America, get to the Pacific, and get to the riches of the Far East. The English government also was concerned about religion or at least talked a lot about it. England was a Protestant nation. Spain and France were Catholic nations. The English maintained that the Catholic should not control all of the New World, but the Protestants ought to get in on some of it too. Were they genuinely concerned or was that just an excuse? Probably depends on who was saying it.

They also thought they were overpopulated. They pictured their island being inhabited by people shoulder to shoulder within 100 years unless they could get colonies and ship some of that population off to them, particularly the undesirables, which they would later do to colonies such as Georgia. So that's why the English government wanted colonies. "God save the King! God save the King!" But why did the individual? Why was he willing to come? As an individual you might not care at all about keeping up the Spanish or merchantile theory. You're

not going to get any of that money. Why were you willing to come? There were all sorts of dangers involved. You had read the diaries and heard the accounts of people starving and freezing and drowning. Why take the risk? "Great gales befell we. And thus we must partake of cold food. And too great a chance of fire. Biscuit, cheese, dried fruit. After we wash it down with a bit of beer or cider, whence the water so fouled out of the cask I look here above unto the great yardarms, and hear tell from the Master of the ship that of times would dip first one onto one side of the sea and thence to other, pitch and roll the innards as well. A long passage living in darkness. For darest one set flame onto an oil lamp whence the ships so courses about. Wall mice would come out at night once you're trying to sleep and

fleas and this bed we become overmuch infested in the darkness below unto the bowels of the ship." Now knowing all those things, Why would you bother to come? Well probably the chance to own land was the single biggest motivating factor. More people apparently came to the New World because it gave them the opportunity to own land. Wealth was measured in land, more so than in money. Land gave you status, it gave you the chance to vote. At home, certain large families had owned much of that land since the Middle Ages. You're not going to get in on it. Forget it. Take the risk. Come across the new world. We'll give you land free, if you'll just come over here and start a colony for us. That was one of the big factors. Not just among the poor, certain wealthy sons came for that reason. England operated under the theory of, or practice of primogeniture, which

says that the oldest son inherits everything from the father. So if you are the second, third, or fourth son what do you get you get? You get nothing. But you want to lead the life you have become accustomed to. So why not come to the New World, get some land and start over here? Religion was important to certain individuals. If you were in England and if you wanted to be a first class citizen with all the privileges pertaining there to, you had to belong to the Church of England. The Church of England was headed by the king. Now who'd object to that? Well Catholics, for one. The Church should be headed by the Pope, not by the King. So they'll be more than anxious to leave. And they do. They come and start the colony of Maryland as a home for Catholics. The Puritans didn't like the Church of England being headed by the king. It was too much like the Catholic Church that had too much ceremony, too big a hierarchy. They wanted to get away and

worship in their own ways, to start their city on a hill. So we find New England being settled by Puritans basically for religious reasons. The Quakers - the Quakers were unpopular due partially to their attitude toward the military service. Their lack of respect for their betters, refusing to call anybody Mister, for example. They come to Pennsylvania. William Penn gets a charter, starts a Quaker colony in Pennsylvania. Don't be so cynical and say that nobody does anything unless they benefit from it economically. Some of these people came apparently for no reason other than they wanted to worship the way they pleased. Others saw a chance to worship as they pleased and make a little money along with it, and that appealed greatly to them. Others want to come for reasons of unemployment. In England you were getting the enclosure movement. In the enclosure movement people were enclosing their farmlands, fencing them in, stopping farming, and beginning to

graze sheep. Now let's say on that farmland there been a 100 peasants working there. Once we stop farming and start grazing sheep, how many people do you need? One peasant, a dog. They can take care of it. What do the other 99 do? They do what unemployed farmers do today. They move into the cities and the towns. Many of them ended up in the slums of London, rolling around the gin mills. You go to these people and say hey you're going to die in the slum. Why don't you come to my colony? You might die on the way, but you might not. You know you are here. Your children are going to be raised in crime and prostitution. Pick up and come along. That sounded very appealing. So unemployment, bad times at home cause people to be willing to leave. "Well for money it wasn't any harder than what they come from; simply 'tis different. But in truth most have naught to go back to. Many sold everything they had just to come here and here they be." Others came hoping to find gold; they will be disappointed. And some others for

adventure. It sounded exciting. You might drown, you might freeze. You might be killed by the Indians. No thanks, I'll stay home. I'll stay home and run the shoe store. You can go. To others, hey that's exciting let's go. And they packed on the ships and away they went. "Everything I do here, is nothing like what I did before. I'm from the largest city in the world before here. When I came there was naught but a wilderness. There was five houses, six houses, it was all pasture and bush. No markets, no large churches, no large anything." How did you get over here if you were unemployed and poor? Now you could pay your way. A lot of people couldn't afford to do that. How did they get over here? Well you went to somebody and you said, look if you pay my way over I'll work for you for a certain length of time to make up for it. And then I'm a free man. That was called being an indentured servant. This worked as good a deal as you could work.

You had to be employed by the other person for five to seven years. At the end of that you were free. Thousands came that way. The first blacks that came to the New World came as indentured servants, not counting the explorers. Later their period of indenture was extended and they became slaves. The South needed cheap labor. They had tried to enslave the Indian, but the Indian could take off into the forest too easily or his relatives showed up to free him. That wasn't true of blacks, and the indentured thing became a slavery situation for them. You could go to a colony that had received a charter. Anybody wanting to start a colony had to have this charter - a piece of paper giving you a section of land. You may have this land. You may start a colony in it. An individual could get that charter, like William Penn in Pennsylvania. A group of people could get one, as in the Virginia Company in Virginia. They were

called trading companies. Their idea simply was we'll start a colony and we'll trade with it, and we'll make money on it, and we'll sell stock in our company, and if we make money we'll divide it up among you. A lot of these companies existed in England. They could get a charter. So you want to go to some colony that has a charter, either pay your way or come as an indentured servant. Now as the colonies developed there were certain differences among them, particularly between the New England and the southern colonies, but they had certain things in common too. Remember these colonies are going to be able to unite. They are going to form a country. They're going to unite and put together a revolution against Great Britain. So what do they have in common? Well most of them spoke English. Maybe 90 percent spoke English, 70 percent of them were from Great Britain. About 20 percent were black, but they spoke English. The other 10 percent were mainly

German. So they were united by their language, that's important. They had a common background. We all came from Great Britain. We have the same ideas about government. We want trials by jury. We want to elect our lawmakers. We want to vote on our taxes. So they had a common notion there. Later when England tries to take away these rights, why do the colonies object? They say we object because you're taking away our rights as Englishmen. Things we share in common, we want them over here. And they faced common dangers. They had crossed the ocean together; they had faced the Indians together; they had faced that climate. Face something scary with somebody; be snowbound with somebody, the right person, and see if it doesn't bring you closer together. It did the colonies. For the next program, we'll look at the things that made the colonies different - particularly New England

And the South.