European Colonization — Comparing Spanish, French, Dutch, and English Colonial Projects in North America

Morning Meeting + standing recite MG-8 Sovereignty Promise. Read aloud opening pages of 'Encounter' (Yolen/Shannon, 1992) — Taíno child's perspective on Columbus's arrival.

• Standing recite MG-8
• Read 'Encounter' opening
• Affirm: 'European colonization was not a single 'European arrival' — it was multiple competing imperial projects with different practices.'

Show MG-1 Atlantic World map with 4-power territorial overlay (Spanish, French, Dutch, English shown in 4 different translucent colors). Walk children around the chronology — Norse Vikings c.1000 CE, Spanish 1492, French 1534, Dutch 1609, English 1607. For EACH of the 4 powers, fill in the 4-Power Comparison Chart with children: (1) PRIMARY MOTIVATION — Spanish: gold/Christianization missions; French: fur-trade alliance with Indigenous nations; Dutch: trade-post merchant capitalism; English: settler colonization with families; (2) PRIMARY ECONOMIC MODEL — Spanish: extraction of gold/silver from Mexico/Peru, then mission-based agriculture in New Spain; French: fur trade with Indigenous middlemen; Dutch: trade-post commerce; English: settler farming and plantation slavery; (3) PRIMARY RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION — Spanish: Catholic missions; French: Catholic Jesuit/Récollet missions but with more accommodation of Indigenous practices; Dutch: Reformed Protestant (less aggressive missionary work); English: Anglican / Puritan / Quaker / Baptist DIVERSITY; (4) PRIMARY INDIGENOUS-RELATIONS PATTERN — Spanish: extractive labor systems (encomienda, mission system); French: trade alliance with marriage and treaty; Dutch: merchant treaty including Two Row Wampum 1613 with Haudenosaunee (parallel-but-not-mixing); English: settler-dispossession via treaty-then-violation and king's-grant patents. Read aloud one paragraph from Las Casas 1552 — the Spanish CRITIC of Spanish atrocities — apply MG-7 page 1 SOURCING + page 2 CONTEXTUALIZATION.

• Different colonial economies → different relationships with Indigenous nations.

  model Because French economy was based on FUR TRADE which required Indigenous-nation cooperation and knowledge — French traders married into Indigenous nations (Métis people are descendants of this). English economy was based on SETTLER FARMING which required Indigenous-nation land — leading to dispossession.

  prompt Why was French colonization in Canada often more alliance-based with Indigenous nations than English colonization in the 13 Colonies?
• Important: European voices included CRITICS of colonization from within. Las Casas is not the whole story but he is part of the story.

  model Spanish Dominican friar who turned from being an enslaver himself to becoming the most prominent European critic of Spanish atrocities against Indigenous peoples. His 1552 'A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies' documented Spanish atrocities and triggered debate in Spain about the morality of colonization.

  prompt Who was Bartolomé de las Casas and why is his 1552 'Short Account' important?

• Name the primary motivation of each of the 4 colonial powers.
• Why did French colonization have a different Indigenous-relations pattern than English?
• Who was Las Casas and what did he write?

Children apply MG-7 page 1 SOURCING + page 2 CONTEXTUALIZATION to the Las Casas 1552 excerpt. Who wrote it (Bartolomé de las Casas, a Spanish Dominican friar in the Spanish empire)? When (1552, sixty years after Columbus's first voyage)? Why (to criticize Spanish atrocities and trigger reform in Spanish colonial policy)? What was happening in the Atlantic World in 1552 (Spanish encomienda system, Spanish wars with Indigenous nations including the Mixtón War 1540s; the Spanish Crown was beginning the New Laws of 1542 in response to such criticism). Whose voices are present (Las Casas, secondhand reports from Indigenous people)? Whose are absent (most Indigenous people themselves are not direct sources here).

M-5-F-HIS-04-A Map

Three-panel large display showing North America at 1600 / 1700 / 1763 with translucent color overlays (Spanish = warm yellow-ochre; French = blue; Dutch = orange; English = green) showing each power's territorial claims at each date. 1600 panel shows Spanish Florida + Spanish New Mexico + tiny French Acadia; 1700 panel shows expanded Spanish + French Canada + French Louisiana + Dutch (already absorbed by English 1664) + 13 English colonies along coast; 1763 panel shows post-French-and-Indian War — France ceded everything east of Mississippi to Britain; Spain gained Louisiana; British dominant. Proclamation Line of 1763 shown on third panel.

MG-1 Illustration

Unit-opener anchor: a richly layered illustration of the Atlantic World c.1763 (just after the French and Indian War) showing four continents in warm watercolor — West Africa with the Kingdoms of Kongo, Dahomey, Asante, Oyo, and the Senegambian coast labeled; Europe with Spain, Portugal, France, Netherlands, and Britain labeled and color-coded; North America with the Spanish (Florida, New Mexico, California Missions entry), French (Canada, Louisiana), Dutch (former New Netherland), and English (13 Colonies plus Hudson's Bay) territorial claims shown via translucent color overlays; the Caribbean and Brazil sugar islands shown; the 13 Colonies highlighted; the routes of the Triangular Trade shown as three curving arrows (manufactures from Europe to Africa; enslaved Africans from Africa to the Americas via the Middle Passage; sugar/tobacco/rice from Americas to Europe); 12 medallions around the perimeter representing the 12 voices of the Founding Documents Exhibit (Wampanoag / Powhatan / Haudenosaunee Clan Mother / Middle-Passage enslaved African / Chesapeake-plantation enslaved African American / Free Black Bostonian Crispus Attucks / Phillis Wheatley / Olaudah Equiano / Abigail Adams / Mercy Otis Warren / Loyalist Ann Hulton / Working-class shoemaker Patriot George Robert Twelves Hewes); the Founding Contradiction T-chart MG-13 ribbon curves across the bottom; in the center of the continent stands a multi-generation circle of children representing 12 cultural traditions visible on the unit's read-aloud canon. Style: detail-rich line work with warm watercolor wash, Atlantic-World scale, no Disney exaggeration, no romantic-savage tropes, no triumphal European arrival imagery; the Middle Passage is shown as a curving arrow with the Brookes-ship outline at the base of the arrow but treated with dignity and a small accompanying line 'Remember.'

• In small groups, complete the 4-Power Comparison Chart with at least 3 columns filled in for each of the 4 powers.

  scaffold Use sentence frames: 'Spanish motivation was ___. French motivation was ___.'
• Sort 8 events to the correct colonial power (e.g., Coronado expedition 1540 = Spanish; Champlain founding Quebec 1608 = French; Henry Hudson 1609 = Dutch; Jamestown 1607 = English).

  scaffold Use MG-1 territorial-overlay color-key to verify.

• Name the primary motivation of each of the 4 colonial powers (one phrase each).
• What was the 1613 Two Row Wampum treaty between Dutch and Haudenosaunee about?

• Standing recite Sovereignty Promise
• Preview tomorrow: Atlantic World geography and the Triangular Trade — the integrated Atlantic system from Africa to Europe to the Americas

• Find one source about the colonial power that claimed YOUR state in 1763. Bring back one fact about that colonial power's practice in your state region.