Question

From the earliest years of settlement, we see how different populations of Europeans had vastly different goals and reasons for coming to the “New World.” Cite examples of the different reasons Europeans made the perilous journey to North America and where they settled.

Answer 1

There were mainly 2 groups of Europeans that made various journies to North America- The British and the French.  The Spanish and the Portugese mainly focussed on South America.

The French and the British indeed had different goals in coming to the new world. For example, the goals of the British were-

• To expand the British Empire- The british wanted to expand the empire as much as possible. In that regard, it made sense to them to settle in sizeable numbers. Hence, tradesmen, farmers and even convicts were sent to the new world to establish the colonies.
• Natural resources- The British were more interested in exploiting the resources that new world offered and take them back to England to increase prosperity there. They wanted to harvest the raw materials from the colonies and take them to England for refinement and the selling to other European nations.
• Competition with Spain and Portugal- By 16th century Spain and Portugal and colonized much of south American but north America was mostly uncolonized, which gave the British an opportunity.

The British mainly settled in the original 13 colonies, along the Atlantic cost, from Massachusetts to Georgia.

The goals of the French were-

• Passage to east- The French were looking for the Northwest passage to India. For this reason they sailed through a lot of rivers and thats how St. Lawrence river and areas became their main stronghold.
• Religious reasons- The French were more religiously motivated than the British. They also allowed only Catholics to go to new world and wanted to spread Catholicism, at least initially.
• Trade- The French were mainly interested in trade rather than exploitation of resources outright. They traded fur with the native population.

The French were mostly there in the northern areas, along the St Lawrence river and Montreal. They were also in South in Florida and Louisiana but later were confined to the Louisiana area.