The early colonial empires of Portugal, Spain, and England varied from one another through their motives, both economically and spiritually. These varying motivating factors led each colony to possess different relations with the Africans and the Indians.  However their different intricacies of the relationships between all the colonies and the Indians and Africans, each shared the view of a superior culture to the Africans and Indians.  The Africans were viewed by all empires as a source of labor.  Also, despite the initial intentions of neutrality between the Indians and some early colonizing empires, eventually, if not initially, all colonies came to believe that the Indians posed a problem for attempt at expansion. 

The Portuguese were the first to prove long range voyages were feasible. Motivated to purify (Christianize) the heathens, the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 divided the New World between Portugal and Spain. Though they received land, namely Brazil, this treaty paved the way for the Spanish Conquistadores to embark upon the New World.  The Portuguese ignited the unrecoverable cultural hiatus in the Africa’s long before the Europeans had any notion of the slave trade.  Portuguese set up the trading posts along the African shore with goods of gold and slaves opening up this trade to the English and Spanish for future use and a great factor to their colonizing empires. 

Spain and Portugal were feuding rivals.  Spain was quickly taking shape shortly after its unification and embarked on the race to beat Portugal to wealth found in the New World as well as in the Indies.  The Spanish were also motivated to purify the heathens, but unlike the Portuguese, they also quested for glory and gold. These economic motives combined with well trained military officers and technology made the Conquistadores an unstoppable force. Led by men like Cortez and Pizarro, the native Incans and Aztecs were no match for the Spanish.  The Spanish did not desire a relationship with the native Indians, but viewed them as a roadblock that required extinguishing.  Spain would control much of the New World as they trekked and conquered all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

The advance of the English posed a threat to the new Spanish empire.  Unemployment as well as the thirst for adventure, markets, and religious freedom caused pilgrimage to the New World.  The English sought out to secure their economic foundation through colonization. Creating trade companies and utilizing the native’s resources allowed the English to establish better relations with the Indians than the Spanish, an advantage that proved favorable in the long run.  The Indian’s offered food to the struggling Jamestown colonists and staged the kidnapping and rescuing of an English captain to show the want of peace.  However, the Indian’s became quickly disposable and were no longer any use to the colonists as they fell victim to disease and disorganization.  The Indian’s were pushed out of their native lands and plantations began to grow.  As the New World’s economy began to stabilize and flourish, slaves became in high demand as a source of cheap labor.

Although Spain, England and Portugal may have had similar motives for creating colonies in the Americas, their economic foundations and relations with Africans and Indians were completely different. Each sought gold and more: the Spanish wanted riches and adventure, the English sought gold and an independent religious society, and the Portuguese wanted assets and to become an empire.

            The Spanish were funded by their government and made quite a profit for King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. The recently united Spain became a large, rich economic power due to their empire-building success. Some of the success may have come from their relations with the natives. Although they were cruel at times, they married Indians. Spanish men were obligated to marry Native American women because Spanish women were few and far between. Not many women came because they weren’t going to settle in the New World like many English expected to do. In fusing with the indigenous people through marriage, the Spanish also integrated some of the native culture into their own. Many Spaniards were seeking an adventure like that of Odysseus’ in addition to vast amounts of precious metals.

            The English were sent by the Virginia Company of London to settle an area with their families and find gold. The fact that they brought their family effected their relations with Indians. If they hadn’t had women to marry, they would have integrated with the indigenous culture like the Spanish did, but they didn’t and ended up shunning the Indians. This eventually led to isolation and created a large gap between the English and Indians that became impossible to bridge.

            The Portuguese were funded by their government, like the Spanish, and set up most of their colonies in present day Brazil, a present day Portuguese speaking nation. They were pioneers in the slave and plantation system. Portugal had set up trading posts along eastern Africa and their sugar plantations were very profitable. They wanted to extend their slave trading and sugar plantation system to the Americas to make more money and become an empire.

            The relations between different European nations and Indians and Africans, varied very greatly between Spain, Portugal and Britain, but still basically remained the same. Europeans had direct or indirect control over the world until very recently and were the world’s scholars and doctors. They had a strong hold of control over the Indians and Africans because of their educational and technological advancements. These always gave them the upper hand in dealing with world affairs and keeping themselves at the top of the food chain.

The empires of Portugal, Spain and England were all wealthy colonies with expansive colonial regions.  Much of the New World was owned by England, yet nearly half was owned by Imperial Spain.  Portugal owned significantly less land than England and Spain.  The Spanish made their new world debut in Santa Fe, during the year 1610.  The English inhabited the new world in 1607 at Jamestown, Virginia.

          The colonial empire of England was one of the most expansive and successful of all the colonial regions owned by the aforementioned countries.  England had managed to kill nearly 90 percent of the Indians living in the regions in which they wished to inhabit.  This genocide of the Indians was brought on mainly by disease, (smallpox especially.)  They also brought many different fruits and vegetables to add to the Indians broad agricultural system.  Cattle, swine and horses were also brought to the new world from England.  The horse totally revolutionized the Indian tribes living in the new world.  They adopted the creature and benefited greatly from the English settlers.  The relationship between the Indians and the English was an interesting one.  At first, the English were willing to bargain and negotiate with the native people of the land in which they wished to share.  Before too long, sharing was not an option, and the English began to wrest the land from the Indians without an ounce of mercy.  The English were an extremely strong people.  They were determined to make the new world theirs, and that they did.  The primary colonial empire of the 17^th century in North America was England.  Their people were mainly protestant and a majority of the settlers followed the puritanical extremes of Christianity,

          The Spanish empire inhabited nearly half of the new world during their time.  Buccaneers, who were encouraged by Queen Elizabeth, swarmed shipping lanes to try to promote Protestantism and invaded Spanish ships and settlements.  Sir Francis Drake was the most popular among these tirades.  The English were persistent, and invaded Spanish territory, eventually leading to the downfall of Spain.  The problem worsened for Spain when the Spanish Netherlands declared that they wished to be independent.  Meanwhile, England was a very united colonial empire.  Religion, economic and leadership issues were few and far between.  This launched England into a new age, a peace treaty was signed with Spain in 1604.  This readied England for a truly remarkable colonization of the new world.  The Spanish were considerably less hostile with the Native Americans than the English were. 

          Portugal owned very little land in the new world during the 1600’s.  The Portuguese empire was a speck of dust in comparison to Spain and especially the English empires.  The substantiality of the Portuguese domain wasn’t large, it did not make any staggering changes that we benefit from today, unlike the English.  Without the English colonies, it is hard to say what north America would be comprised of today.  If the Spanish didn’t decline, America could be a Latin American country.  This is the reason why the English made the most profound impact of the new world.

The Endless Empires

            The old saying, “The sun never sets on the British Empireâ€� is derived from the imperialistic time period.  It refers to the rapid physical and economic growth in Britain during the age of exploration and colonialism, and the tremendous influence it, (and other countries like it,) proceeded to have on the rest of the world.  Imperialism among nations became very popular beginning in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.  It was a means for a country to become wealthier and larger.  During this time period, Portugal, England, and Spain became imperialistically involved.  These countries all desired to seek out nations that were rich in natural resources and versatile raw materials.  Although these countries yearned to expand their empires, and make money; their motives, economic interests, and relations with the foreigners were somewhat analogous, however, were also dissimilar.

The Portuguese, English, and Spanish were united in their belief that they were the dominant countries, and thus “deservedâ€� to conquer advantageous countries for self-benefit.   These countries sought after money and glory to please their King and/or Queen.  They conquered lands in the name of “God, Glory and Gold.â€�  They demanded an increase in land and money.   

            These countries sought after different materials which kept them rich.  The English were interested in America’s cotton in the south and tobacco in the north.  The enslaved Africans cultivated and planted these crops, which enabled the English to be financially supported.  The Portuguese set up trading posts in Africa in search of slaves and gold.  The gold provided them with money; however, the slave trade was an invaluable monopoly.  These slaves were traded and highly priced throughout much of the world at this time.  The slave trade allowed Portugal to become an important part of Portuguese imperialism.  The Spanish were in search of the immense amount of gold in South America.  After the conquistadores conquered a country, Spanish Missionaries were built to expand the Catholic Church to the local “pagansâ€�.    

The Portuguese and English, in particular, oppressed certain groups of people in order to keep their already established colonies in tact.  They resorted to the African slave trade to keep their colonies rich.  The slaves were forced to work under poor working conditions, and were not paid.  The Spanish and English, however, caused mass-death among the Indians.  When the Spanish and English came to their respective colonies, (South America and America,) they brought with them diseases such as small pox.  This, along with the bison hunting, (the Indians’ main food source,) caused the Indians to die out, and basically become an endangered people.  Approximately ninety percent of Indians died due to disease and starvation.

The Portuguese, English, and Spanish empires sought to expand their empires.  The subsequent mixing of cultures and colonial expansion forever changed history.  Imperialism led to the increase of travel around the world.  It also furthered the already prevalent European dominance, as well as the further developing of the British, Portuguese, and Spanish Empires.