The English and French did not colonize the Americas until almost a century after the Spanish and Portuguese. Why? How were the French and English colonies both similar to and different from those of Spain and Portugal?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

ANSWER:
Students should recognize the universal desire to find easily extracted wealth and great indigenous empires. All colonizers met native peoples with a mixture of violence and diplomacy. African slaves were important in much of the Americas. The French and the English, however, were initially distracted by civil and foreign wars and so lacked the will and resources to seek colonies any sooner. When they did begin to colonize, neither country found easily extracted wealth or vast empires. Rather than controlling American expansion through their central governments, both nations acted through private corporations and individual proprietors. Both colonized with larger percentages of Europeans than did their Iberian counterparts. While the English favored removal of Native Americans rather than assimilation, the French preferred to convert native peoples to Christianity. French Catholic missionaries mastered native languages, created schools, and set up model agricultural communities for the converted.