Book IV, Chapter VII, 1

Of Colonies.

Part I. Of the Motives for Establishing New Colonies.

The interest behind the first settlements of the various European colonies in America and the West Indies was not nearly so clear as the interest that guided the founding of those of ancient Greece and Rome.

Each state of ancient Greece possessed only a small territory. When its population grew beyond what that territory could readily support, some of its people were sent to seek a new home in a distant part of the world, since warlike neighbors on every side made it difficult for a state to expand much at home. Dorian colonies went chiefly to Italy and Sicily, inhabited before the founding of Rome by nations considered barbarous and uncivilized. Those of the Ionians and Aeolians, the other two great Greek peoples, went to Asia Minor and the islands of the Aegean Sea, whose inhabitants seem then to have been in much the same condition as those of Sicily and Italy. The mother city regarded its colony as a child, entitled always to great favor and assistance and owing gratitude and respect in return; but it regarded that child as emancipated and claimed no direct power or jurisdiction over it. The colony established its own government, made its own laws, elected its own magistrates, and made peace or war with its neighbors as an independent state, without awaiting the mother city's consent or approval. The interest guiding every such settlement could hardly be clearer.

Rome, like most ancient republics, was originally founded on an agrarian law dividing public land in fixed proportions among its citizens. Marriage, inheritance, and transfer of property inevitably upset this original division, frequently bringing land intended to support many families into one person's hands. To remedy what was thought a disorder, a law limited each citizen's holdings to five hundred jugera, about 350 English acres. Though we read of the law being enforced once or twice, it was either neglected or evaded, and inequality of fortune kept growing. Most citizens owned no land, and under the customs of the day a freeman without land could hardly maintain his independence. Today a poor man who has no land but some stock may farm another's property or keep a small retail business; without stock he may find work as a country laborer or artisan. Among the ancient Romans, however, rich men's lands were worked entirely by slaves under overseers who were slaves themselves; a poor freeman had little hope of employment as either farmer or laborer. All trades and manufactures, even retail trade, were also carried on by the rich men's slaves for their masters' benefit. Their masters' wealth, authority, and protection made it difficult for a poor freeman to compete. Landless citizens therefore had scarcely any livelihood beyond the gifts of candidates at annual elections. When tribunes wanted to stir the people against the rich and powerful, they recalled the old distribution of land and portrayed the restriction on private holdings as the republic's fundamental law. The people clamored for land, while the rich and powerful, we may suppose, were fully resolved not to surrender any of theirs. They often proposed sending out a new colony to satisfy the people in some measure. But even then conquering Rome had no need to cast its citizens out to seek their fortunes, as it were, across the wide world with no idea where they would settle. She generally allotted them land in conquered Italian provinces. Within the republic's dominions, they could never form an independent state, but at best a kind of corporation with power to make its own bylaws, always subject to the mother city's correction, jurisdiction, and legislative authority. Sending such a colony out not only gave the people some satisfaction but often set up a kind of garrison in a newly conquered province whose obedience might otherwise be uncertain. A Roman colony was thus entirely different from a Greek one, whether in its form or in the motives for founding it. The original words for these establishments accordingly have quite different meanings: the Latin word (colonia) means simply a plantation; the Greek (apoixia), by contrast, a separation of dwellings, a departure from home, a going out of the house. Yet despite the many differences between Roman and Greek colonies, the interest prompting their establishment was equally plain: both institutions arose either from irresistible necessity or from clear, evident usefulness.

European colonies in America and the West Indies arose from no necessity. And although they have proved highly useful, the nature of that usefulness is not so clear. It was not understood when they were first founded, and it motivated neither their founding nor the discoveries that led to it; even today the nature, extent, and limits of their usefulness may not be well understood.

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the Venetians conducted a highly profitable trade in spices and other East Indian goods, distributing them among the nations of Europe. They bought most of these goods in Egypt, then ruled by the Mamelukes, who were enemies of the Turks, as were the Venetians. This common interest, aided by Venetian money, established a connection that gave Venice nearly a monopoly of the trade.

Venetian profits aroused the Portuguese appetite. Throughout the fifteenth century, they had sought a sea route to the countries from which the Moors brought them ivory and gold dust across the desert. They discovered the Madeiras, the Canaries, the Azores, the Cape de Verd islands, the coasts of Guinea, Loango, Congo, Angola, and Benguela, and finally the Cape of Good Hope. They had long wanted a share in Venice's profitable trade, and the last discovery offered a promising prospect of it. In 1497, Vasco de Gamo sailed from Lisbon with four ships and, after eleven months at sea, reached the coast of Indostan. He thus completed a series of discoveries pursued steadily, with very little interruption, for nearly a century.

Some years earlier, while Europe waited to learn whether the Portuguese enterprise would succeed, a Genoese pilot conceived the still bolder plan of sailing west to the East Indies. Europeans then knew the position of those countries only imperfectly. The few European travelers who had visited them had exaggerated the distance, perhaps through innocent ignorance, since a distance genuinely very great seemed almost infinite to those unable to measure it; or perhaps to make their own adventures in such remote regions more marvelous. The longer the route to them by the east, Columbus quite reasonably concluded, the shorter the route by the west. He therefore proposed the western route as both shortest and safest, and succeeded in convincing Isabella of Castile that his plan was plausible. He sailed from Palos in August 1492, nearly five years before Vasco de Gamo's expedition left Portugal, and after between two and three months at sea discovered first some of the small Bahama or Lucyan islands and then the great island of St. Domingo.

The countries Columbus found on this and all his later voyages bore no resemblance to those he had sought. In place of the wealth, cultivation, and population of China and Indostan, in St. Domingo and every other part of the new world he visited he found a land wholly covered in woods, uncultivated and inhabited only by tribes of naked, impoverished people he considered savages. Still, he was reluctant to believe these lands were not among those described by Marco Polo, the first European to visit—or at least to leave an account of—China or the East Indies. The slightest similarity, such as that between Cibao, a mountain in St. Domingo, and Cipange, mentioned by Marco Polo, often drew him back to his favorite conviction in defiance of the clearest evidence. In letters to Ferdinand and Isabella, he called the lands he found the Indies. He had no doubt that they lay at the edge of Marco Polo's countries, not far from the Ganges or the lands conquered by Alexander. Even when at last persuaded they were different, he still hoped the wealthy lands lay close by, and on a subsequent voyage sought them along the coast of Terra Firma toward the Isthmus of Darien.

Because of Columbus's mistake, the name Indies has clung to those unfortunate countries ever since. Once it became clear that the new lands were entirely distinct from the old Indies, they were called the West Indies to distinguish them from the East Indies.

For Columbus, however, it mattered that whatever lands he had found should appear to the Spanish court immensely important. Yet in the animal and vegetable products of the soil—the real wealth of every country—there was then little to justify such a description.

The cori, an animal something between a rat and a rabbit, which Mr Buffon thought the same as the Brazilian aperea, was the largest live-bearing quadruped in St. Domingo. The species never seems to have been numerous; Spanish dogs and cats are said long ago to have almost exterminated it and several smaller species besides. These animals, together with a fairly large lizard called the ivana or iguana, made up most of the animal food the land supplied.

The inhabitants' plant foods, though not abundant because of their want of industry, were not quite so scarce. They included Indian corn, yams, potatoes, bananas, etc.—plants then entirely unknown in Europe, where they have never since been held in high esteem or thought to provide nourishment equal to the common grains and pulses cultivated there since time immemorial.

The cotton plant did supply the material for an important manufacture and was undoubtedly then the most valuable of these islands' plants to Europeans. But although East Indian muslins and other cotton goods were highly prized throughout Europe at the end of the fifteenth century, cotton manufacturing itself was practiced nowhere in Europe. Even this product, therefore, could not then have seemed very important to Europeans.

Finding nothing in the animals or plants of these newly discovered lands to support a glowing account, Columbus turned to minerals, hoping that the riches of this third kingdom would fully compensate for the insignificance of the other two. The little pieces of gold the inhabitants wore as ornaments, which he learned were often found in streams and torrents flowing down the mountains, convinced him the mountains held immensely rich gold mines. He therefore described St. Domingo as abounding in gold and, on that account—in keeping with the prejudices of his time as well as ours—as an inexhaustible source of real wealth for the crown and kingdom of Spain. When Columbus returned from his first voyage and was presented with a kind of triumphal honor to the sovereigns of Castile and Arragon, the principal products of the lands he had discovered were carried before him in solemn procession. The only valuable things were a few narrow bands, bracelets, and other gold ornaments, and some bales of cotton. The rest were mere objects of popular wonder and curiosity: exceptionally large reeds, birds with beautiful plumage, and stuffed skins of the huge alligator and manati. Ahead of them all walked six or seven of the unfortunate natives, whose unfamiliar color and appearance added greatly to the spectacle's novelty.

On the strength of Columbus's accounts, the council of Castile resolved to take possession of lands whose inhabitants were plainly unable to defend themselves. The pious purpose of converting them to Christianity sanctified the injustice of the scheme. Its only real motive, however, was the hope of finding stores of gold; and to strengthen that motive Columbus proposed that half of all the gold and silver discovered there should belong to the crown. The council approved his proposal.

Of Colonies.

Part I. Reasons for Establishing New Colonies.

The reason the first European colonies were settled in America and the West Indies was not as clear-cut as the reason for founding the colonies of ancient Greece and Rome.

Each of the ancient Greek states had only a small territory. When its population grew too large for that territory to support easily, it sent some people to find a new home in a distant part of the world. Warlike neighbors surrounded these states, making it hard to expand much at home. Colonists from the Dorians mainly went to Italy and Sicily. Before Rome was founded, those places were inhabited by peoples the Greeks considered barbarous and uncivilized. Colonists from the Ionians and Aeolians, the other two major Greek peoples, went to Asia Minor and the islands of the Aegean sea. Their inhabitants seem to have been in much the same condition as the inhabitants of Sicily and Italy at the time. The mother city regarded its colony as a child entitled to help and favor, and expected gratitude and respect in return. Yet it regarded the colony as a child that had come of age, over whom it claimed no direct power or legal authority. The colony set up its own government, made its own laws, elected its own officials, and made peace or war with its neighbors. It acted as an independent state and needed no approval or consent from the mother city. The reason for founding such colonies could hardly be clearer.

Like most other ancient republics, Rome was originally founded under a law dividing public land among its citizens in fixed proportions. Marriage, inheritance, and transfers of property inevitably disrupted that original division. Land meant to support many families often ended up in one person's hands. To correct what was regarded as a problem, a law limited each citizen's landholding to five hundred jugera, about 350 English acres. Yet although records say the law was enforced on one or two occasions, it was otherwise neglected or evaded. Inequality of wealth kept growing. Most citizens owned no land, and the customs of the time made it hard for a free man without land to support himself independently. Today a poor man who owns no land but has a little stock can rent someone else's land to farm or run a small retail business. Without any stock, he can work as a rural laborer or an artisan. In ancient Rome, however, slaves worked the rich people's land under overseers who were also slaves. A poor free man thus had little chance of work as a farmer or laborer. Slaves of the rich also conducted every trade and manufacture, including retail trade, for their masters' benefit. Their masters' wealth, authority, and protection made it difficult for a poor free man to compete with them. Landless citizens therefore had almost no means of living except gifts from candidates in the annual elections. When tribunes wanted to stir the people against the rich and powerful, they reminded them of the original division of land. They described the law limiting private landownership as the republic's fundamental law. The people loudly demanded land, while the wealthy were, we may be sure, firmly resolved not to surrender any of their own. To satisfy the people somewhat, the wealthy often proposed a new colony. But even then, victorious Rome did not have to send its citizens out to seek their fortunes across the world with no idea where they would settle. It usually allotted them land in conquered parts of Italy. Since these lands remained within the republic, the settlements could never become independent states. At most, they were a kind of local corporation, able to make its own bylaws but always subject to the mother city's correction, courts, and lawmaking authority. Sending out this kind of colony partly satisfied the people and often provided a garrison in a recently conquered province whose obedience might otherwise be uncertain. A Roman colony was therefore wholly different from a Greek one, both in its nature and in the reasons for establishing it. Accordingly, the original words for the two kinds of settlement mean quite different things. The Latin word (colonia) simply means a plantation. The Greek word (apoixia) means leaving one's dwelling, departing from home, or going out of the house. Despite their many differences, however, Greek and Roman colonies were founded for equally clear reasons. Both arose from urgent necessity or an obvious practical benefit.

No necessity drove the creation of European colonies in America and the West Indies. Though the benefits that have followed have been very great, they are not nearly so obvious. People did not understand those benefits when the colonies were first founded. The benefits did not motivate either their founding or the discoveries that led to it. Perhaps even today the nature, extent, and limits of those benefits are not well understood.

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the Venetians made a very profitable trade in spices and other East India goods, distributing them to Europe's other nations. They bought most of these goods in Egypt, then ruled by the Mamelukes. The Mamelukes were enemies of the Turks, as were the Venetians. Their shared interest, backed by Venetian money, created a relationship that gave Venice nearly a monopoly of the trade.

The Venetians' large profits stirred Portuguese greed. Throughout the fifteenth century, the Portuguese had tried to find a sea route to the countries from which the Moors brought ivory and gold dust across the desert. They discovered the Madeiras, the Canaries, the Azores, the Cape de Verd islands, the coast of Guinea, and the coasts of Loango, Congo, Angola, and Benguela, and finally the Cape of Good Hope. They had long wanted a share of the Venetians' profitable trade. The last discovery seemed likely to give them one. In 1497, Vasco de Gamo left Lisbon with four ships and reached the coast of Indostan after eleven months at sea. He thus completed a series of discoveries pursued steadily, with very few interruptions, for almost a century.

Some years earlier, while Europe was still waiting to see whether the Portuguese plans would succeed, a Genoese pilot devised an even bolder plan: sail west to the East Indies. Europeans then had only a vague idea where those countries were. The few European travelers who had visited them had exaggerated the distance. Perhaps they did so through simple ignorance: a distance that was truly vast seemed almost infinite to people unable to measure it. Or perhaps they wanted their journeys to such remote regions to sound even more marvelous. Columbus quite reasonably concluded that the longer the route to the Indies by the east, the shorter it would be by the west. He therefore proposed going west as the shortest and safest route, and succeeded in persuading Isabella of Castile that his plan was likely to work. He sailed from Palos in August 1492, nearly five years before Vasco de Gamo left Portugal. After a voyage of between two and three months, he discovered first some small Bahama or Lucyan islands and then the large island of St. Domingo.

But the lands Columbus found, on that voyage or on any later one, were nothing like the places he was seeking. Instead of the wealth, cultivated land, and dense population of China and Indostan, he found in St. Domingo and every other part of the new world he visited only forested, uncultivated land inhabited by a few peoples whom he saw as naked and desperately poor savages. Even so, he was reluctant to believe these were not among the countries described by Marco Polo, the first European to visit, or at least leave any account of, China or the East Indies. The slightest likeness could bring Columbus back to his favorite belief in spite of the clearest contrary evidence. For example, he thought Cibao, the name of a mountain in St. Domingo, resembled Cipange, a name used by Marco Polo. In letters to Ferdinand and Isabella, he called his discoveries the Indies. He had no doubt that they lay at the far edge of the countries Marco Polo described, not far from the Ganges or the lands Alexander conquered. Even after becoming convinced that they were different lands, he continued to hope the rich countries were nearby. On a later voyage he searched for them along the coast of Terra Firma toward the Isthmus of Darien.

Because of Columbus's mistake, the name Indies has stayed with those unfortunate countries ever since. Once it became clear that the newly discovered lands were completely different from the old Indies, the new ones were called the West Indies to distinguish them from the East Indies.

Columbus needed to convince the Spanish court that the lands he had found, whatever they might be, were very important. Yet in the things that make up a country's real wealth—what its land produces in animals and plants—there was then little to support that claim.

The cori, an animal somewhere between a rat and a rabbit, was the largest live-bearing four-legged animal in St. Domingo. Mr Buffon supposed it was the same as the Brazilian aperea. It never seems to have been very numerous, and Spanish dogs and cats are said to have almost wiped it out long ago, along with some even smaller kinds of animals. These creatures and a fairly large lizard called the ivana or iguana made up most of the animal food provided by the land.

The inhabitants did not grow a great deal of plant food because they put little effort into cultivation. But it was not quite so scarce as their animal food. It included Indian corn, yams, potatoes, bananas, etc. These plants were then completely unknown in Europe. Even since then, Europeans have not valued them very highly or thought they provide as much nourishment as the usual grains and beans cultivated there from time immemorial.

Cotton did supply material for a very important manufacture. To Europeans at that time it was certainly the most valuable plant product of those islands. Yet although muslins and other East Indian cotton goods were highly prized throughout Europe at the end of the fifteenth century, Europeans themselves did not manufacture cotton anywhere. Even cotton, then, could not have seemed very important to them at the time.

Finding nothing in the animals or plants of the newly discovered lands to support a highly favorable account, Columbus turned to minerals. He hoped that the wealth of this third kind of product would fully make up for the small value of the other two. The inhabitants wore small pieces of gold as ornaments, and he learned that they often found them in streams flowing down from the mountains. That was enough to convince him the mountains held extremely rich gold mines. He therefore described St. Domingo as rich in gold and, according to the prejudices of both his day and ours, an inexhaustible source of real wealth for the crown and kingdom of Spain. When he returned from his first voyage, he was presented with something like a triumph to the rulers of Castile and Arragon. The main products of the lands he had found were carried before him in a formal procession. The only valuable ones were a few small gold bands, bracelets, and other ornaments, and some bales of cotton. The rest merely excited ordinary wonder and curiosity: some unusually large reeds, beautifully colored birds, and stuffed skins of the enormous alligator and manati. Six or seven of the unfortunate native people walked ahead of all these. Their unusual color and appearance greatly increased the novelty of the display.

After hearing Columbus's account, the council of Castile decided to seize lands whose inhabitants clearly could not defend themselves. The declared religious aim of converting them to Christianity gave a holy cover to the injustice of the plan. The only motive for carrying it out, however, was the hope of finding gold. To make that motive still stronger, Columbus proposed that half of all gold and silver found there go to the crown. The council approved his proposal.