Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 01.djvu/531

AMERICA. and New Mexico to the great buffalo plains of the Mississippi Valley in 1540-41. Moreover, Almagro and Pizarro drew from Panama the means for their adventurous expeditions into Peru and Ecuador, and these countries furnished the supplies to send Valdivia southward into Chile (1540), and Orellana and Ursua (see the article ) to explore the trans-Andean regions. By 1550 the Spanish-American settlements were firmly established, with every prospect of developing into powerful and wealthy colonies. Unluckily, the home Government in Spain persisted in retaining all the administrative authority in the hands of officials appointed in Europe. As a result, the colonists were subjected to a succession of incompetent, corrupt governors, ignorant of American conditions, and desirous only of securing the greatest annual revenue for themselves and for the royal treasury. Deprived of all the incentives of public service, the Spanish-Americans suffered a steady decline in social and intellectual tone, very similar to that which was so noticeable in the northern English colonies between 1690 and 1750. Missionary zeal supplied almost the only active force for extending the colonial limits. The Jesuits built up a very remarkable domination over the natives along the upper Paraná and Paraguay, and north of Mexico the Franciscans, although driven out of New Mexico by the native &ldquo;rebellion&rdquo; of 1610, eventually succeeded in laying the foundations for permanent settlements in that region. During the eighteenth century there was a flourishing provincial life along the upper Rio Grande del Norte, the strength of which may be inferred from the fact that the first printing press west of the Mississippi, in what is now United States territory, was set up about 1737 in the town of San Fernando de Taos, New Mexico, which is still many miles from any railway. The Franciscans, Dominicans, and Jesuits sent their friars into Upper California, and the mission buildings whose ruins are now so carefully cherished were begun during the second half of the eighteenth century. Soldiers and ranchers followed the priests, and by 1800 the Spanish settlements were scattered thickly along the Pacific coast and throughout the southwest.

Portugal began to colonize the eastern coast of South America in 1531, in order to maintain its claim to what is now Brazil against the Spanish, who were locating everywhere else on the new continent. A few settlements along the coast, however, were all that resulted until early in the eighteenth century, when the Portuguese tried to develop the country as a substitute for the East Indian possessions which the English and Dutch had taken from them. There was little European impress upon the country, however, before 1808, when the Portuguese court emigrated to Rio de Janeiro, which became for a while a pseudo-European capital. In 1821 King John VI. went back to Portugal, but he left his eldest son, Dom Pedro, as emperor. Extensive Brazilian estates were granted to his European retainers, and foreign capital began to be introduced. The country was developed for investment rather than colonization. There was no extensive taking up of the land by Europeans until the second half of the nineteenth century, when Italians, Germans, and Poles turned their attention to this region of South America.

The French colonization of North America began with De Monts' settlement on the Bay of

Fundy in 1604. The English (see the article ) effectually stopped all efforts to extend these settlements along the Maine coast, and so Champlain undertook to open up the interior by way of the St. Lawrence River. Quebec was settled in 1608, and Montreal in 1642; but these towns grew rapidly as trading and shipping places rather than as centres for colonization. A few other towns were started along the lines of communication with the trapping and hunting regions around the great lakes, as headquarters for trade with the Indians. As the competition with England for the possession of the country south of the lakes became keen, military posts, of which Fort Duquesne is the best known, were established on the Ohio and the Mississippi, to emphasize and protect the French claims. Nowhere was there much actual possession of the soil. When, in 1763, England secured the whole of French North America east of the Mississippi, the greatest part of it was open for settlement by her own people.

The English, like the other European nations, began by establishing outposts, first for the fishermen on Newfoundland before 1570, and in 1585 on the Carolina coast for the purpose of extending the search for gold and treasures inland. Religious and political conditions, however, changed the character of the English emigration to America soon after 1600. In 1620 and 1630 the Pilgrims and Puritans established themselves along Massachusetts Bay, with the deliberate purpose of becoming permanent inhabitants of the country. A few years earlier, in 1607, a Church of England colony had been attempted at Sagadahoc, now Popham Beach, on the Maine coast; but it made no permanent impression on New England. The same year a settlement was started at Jamestown, in Virginia, a successor to Raleigh's &ldquo;lost colony&rdquo; of 1587; and after many vicissitudes this gradually acquired a permanent character. The English Roman Catholics had held themselves ready to emigrate if necessary throughout the reign of Elizabeth; but it was not until 1634 that they prepared a place for themselves in Lord Baltimore's grant of Maryland. The development of New England, beginning with the &ldquo;great immigration&rdquo; of 1630, was very rapid. In 1635 the &ldquo;Bay Colony&rdquo; was able to spare a large body of people, who, disagreeing with the majority in some minor matters of doctrine, preferred to live by themselves along the Connecticut River. A year later, others who differed from the Boston elders in opinions regarding more vital points of dogma formed the Providence Plantations as a refuge for those who desired religious liberty. The Southern colonies were settled move slowly, the formal organization of colonial governments (the Carolinas in 1663 and Georgia in 1733) being brought about partly by the necessity of counteracting the extension of the Spanish settlements north and west from St. Augustine (founded in 1565).

The Dutch promptly organized trading posts along the river explored by Hudson in 1609, and sent over a large body of colonists during the next ten years to hold the country. Rivalry with the English on the east, and with the Swedes, who settled on the Delaware in 1638, prepared the way for the absorption of the latter by the Dutch in 1655, and in turn for the occupation of the Dutch territory by the English in 1664.

French trappers and frontiersmen wandered up