By the time the first English colony in North America was established in Jamestown in 1607, Spain and Portugal had colonized much of what we now call Latin America, and French and Dutch settlements were being established in the Caribbean area as well as in East Asia and elsewhere around the globe. The French and Dutch began colonizing North America as well soon after Jamestown was settled. By the time of the American Revolution, Great Britain possessed thirty-
One colonies around the world, including some—Canada, Florida, and New Netherlands, for example-wrested from colonial competitors such as France, Spain and Holland. Thus the American colonies in 1776 were but thirteen small parts of a vast colonial empire that had been growing since the 1500s.
(It may be noted that Great Britain acquired Spanish Florida in the Treaty of Paris of 1763 that ended the French and Indian War. But Florida had a negligible English population and did not participate in the Revolution. Florida reverted to Spain in 1783, and was later added to the United States in a treaty negotiated by John Quincy Adams with Spain in 1819.)
Acknowledging the debt Americans owe to the past, we can still assert that in many ways the American experience was unique, as are all national experiences. What brought about the American colonial experience? What was its character? What was the colonial experience really like?
The Colonial Experience: No Free Lunch
Imagine climbing aboard a ship in which you and about one hundred other people, mostly strangers, have not much more space than exists in your college classroom or perhaps a small house, carrying only as much personal property as you can fit into a medium sized suitcase. You sit in that ship in port for days or even weeks until suitable winds and tides take you out to sea, and then you toss and rock for more weeks or months, as food spoils, water becomes foul, people get sick and often die, storms threaten life and limb of everybody on board. If you survive that ordeal, you finally arrive on a distant shore, disembark with whatever provisions have not been ruined by saltwater, and set out to make yourself a life. Particularly in the earlier years of colonization, there was not much on those shores to greet you when you arrived.
Try to place yourself in that time:
• Imagine: No hotel to check into, no shops in which to purchase what you need (even if you had money), no restaurants, hardware stores, or theaters—not even a 7-Eleven! But don't sell yourself short—people are adaptable, and those hardy colonial souls would be completely unable to comprehend our world.
World History
