Establishment of the Colonial Empire The 18th Century






Early Colonial Losses, 16th and 17th century



Spain regarded the TREATY OF TORDESILLAS (1494) as binding and every intrusion into their sphere of interest as an act of piracy. Needless to say, the states not involved in the treaty, most importantly France, the nascent Dutch Republic and England, did not recognize it. Early French, English and Dutch captains, when enterring Caribbean waters, were pirates, hoping to capture the rich Spanish SILVER FLEET. To secure a base in the Caribbean waters, the French established a settlement at ST. AUGUSTINE in Florida, which was destroyed by the Spanish and reestablished as a Spanish fort in 1565.
Theoretically, the Spaniards regareded all of America except Brazil as their sphere of interest and attempted to destroy any non-Spanish European settlement there, such as Scottish attempts to establish a colony at DARIEN (Panama) and Russian settlements in Alaska, in the late 1700s. Yet, the British, Dutch, Swedish and French succeeded in establishing colonies along the eastern coast of the modern United States in the early 1600s, and Spain did little to prevent this, virtually giving up it's claim.
The Dutch, French and English established colonies on the Lesser Antilles - SAINT KITTS (Brit./French, 1624), BARBADOS (Brit., 1627), MARTINIQUE (Fr., 1635), ST. MAARTEN (Dutch 1631-1633, 1648-), CURACAO (Dutch, 1634). Most of these small island colonies had received little attention from the Spanish so far; now, attempts to establish sugar plantations made them extremely profitable.
In 1655, the British took JAMAICA, the French SAINT DOMINGUE (modern Haiti) in 1660. The Spanish were able to hold on to the vast majority of it's colonial possessions, but they were unable match the British and French fleets.

The territories Spain lost to the Dutch, English, French had been marginal to the Colonial Empire's economy and neglected by the Spanish administration, thus were not much of a loss. The danger of a Dutch, French, English or Buccaneer fleet appearing and threatening a Spanish colonial port, however, resulted in remarkable changes.
In the early colonial period, the Spanish fleet had dominated the Caribbean Sea, and new cities had been established without defences. They proved easy prey to the first pirates. Now Spain sent architects which erected strong forts protecting the harbours of major cities, such as HAVANA (Cuba), MARACAIBO, CALLAO (near Lima) etc. These forts enabled Spain to hold on to its colonial Empire, despite the constant threat of sea attacks. The annual SILVER FLEET was escorted from Maracaibo all through the Caribbean to deter pirates.



EXTERNAL
FILES 		Biography of Pedro Menendez de Aviles, Founder of St. Augustine, from Conquest. The Spanish Occupation of the United States
The Darien Venture of 1698, from Scottish Clans
DOCUMENTS
REFERENCE



This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted in 2000, last revised on November 9th 2004

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