Spain, France, the Netherlands and Britain all colonized North America, but for different reasons and in different ways. This unit compares those empires, then zooms in on Britain's colonial regions, the Atlantic trade and slavery that connected them, and the ideas that made colonists both more British and more suspicious of British power.
By 1607 Spain had a century-old empire, and England, France and the Netherlands wanted their own. Each empire had different goals for land and labor, and each settled a different environment. Over time Britain's colonies grew closer to Britain and to each other, and at the same time more resistant to British control.
Spain built institutions to extract wealth, convert Native people and fold them into a hierarchy. France and the Netherlands sent few settlers and relied on fur trade, alliances and intermarriage. England sent many families who farmed land taken from Native peoples and lived apart from them.
Britain's colonies split into regions shaped by environment and settlers: tobacco in the Chesapeake, towns and mixed economies in New England, grain and diversity in the middle colonies, and slave plantations in the Lower South and the West Indies. Distance and lax oversight let all of them build self-governing institutions.
An Atlantic economy moved goods, enslaved Africans and enslaved American Indians between Europe, Africa and the Americas. Trade changed Native communities and spread disease. Britain tried to run the system for its own benefit through mercantilism, but enforcement was erratic.
Relations swung between accommodation and conflict. European empires armed Native allies, and Native groups used Europeans against their own rivals. British expansion led to wars such as Metacom's War, and the Pueblo Revolt forced Spain to accommodate parts of Pueblo culture.
Every British colony took part in the Atlantic slave trade, but slavery was largest on the plantations of the Chesapeake, the Lower South and above all the West Indies. New laws made slavery a hereditary, race-based status. Enslaved people resisted in open and hidden ways and kept their families, cultures and religions alive.
Religious and ethnic diversity, the first Great Awakening and Enlightenment ideas made colonial culture more pluralistic. At the same time the colonies grew more English through trade, print and evangelical religion. Diverging interests between Britain and colonists bred mistrust that colonists later drew on to resist imperial control.
Comparison means explaining similarities and differences and why they exist. Period 2 invites comparisons between empires, between British regions, and between the colonies' ties to Britain and their resistance to it. A good comparison argument names a category of analysis and backs it with specific evidence.