Compare And Contrast French And Spanish Colonization

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During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Europeans began their colonization and settling into America. France and Spain both began exploring the New World to find gold and to spread Catholicism. What differed between them were their priorities in colonization. During the 16th century Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther posted the Ninety Five Theses, accusing the Church of corruption. Because of that, he ended up dividing the Catholic Church, which led to the rise of Protestant Churches in Europe. Spain, as a representative of Orthodox Catholicism, wanted to spread Catholicism further. They then established colonies in America, to convert the Indians to Catholicism and to stop Protestantism. France had entered the New World in search …show more content…

At first, they didn’t think much of North America, they had no plans to settle there or to explore the new lands. But their attempts to establish settlements elsewhere had failed due to poor planning and financing. Later on in the 17th century, France made a permanent settlement in North America. New France encompassed the areas around the St. Lawrence, Mississippi, and Ohio Rivers. It had a relatively small white population and they emphasised on fur trade rather than agricultural settlement. Since they depended on the Indians a lot for trade, the French needed to have good relations with them. This may be why the French also had a more humane policy compared to the other colonists. The alliance between the Indians and French colonists was the most long lasting out of all the other settlers in North America. Unlike the other European colonists, they didn’t take a significant amount of Indian land, or conquer and force the native people to work. In Spanish America, colonists forced Indians to perform most of the labor. They worked by extracting gold and silver from mines, which contributed to the empire’s wealth. Spanish landlords also forced Indians to do labor on large scale farms called

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