Question

Please write a six sentence paragraph for each of the terms listed below. Each paragraph should contain two sentences of identification and four sentences of historical significance. The historical significance sentences explain why we are studying the term.

Encomiendas, Textbook I, Chapter 2, pages 52-54

Dutch Colonization, Textbook I, Chapter 2, pages 50-51

French Colonization, Textbook I Chapter 2, pages 49-50

history of America

Answer 1

Encomiendas:

The encomienda was a Spanish labor system that rewarded conquerors with the labor of particular groups of conquered non-Christian people. The laborers, in theory, were provided with benefits by the conquerors for whom they labored, the Catholic religion being a principal benefit.

The encomienda was first established in Spain following the Christian conquest of Moorish territories (known to Christians as the Reconquista), and it was applied on a much larger scale during the Spanish colonization of the Americas and the Spanish Philippines.

Encomiendas devolved from their original Iberian form into a form of "communal" slavery. In the encomienda, the Spanish Crown granted a person a specified number of natives from a specific community but did not dictate which individuals in the community would have to provide their labor. Indigenous leaders were charged with mobilizing the assessed tribute and labor.

In turn, encomenderos were to ensure that the encomienda natives were given instruction in the Christian faith and Spanish language, and protect them from warring tribes or pirates; they had to suppress rebellion against Spaniards, and maintain infrastructure. In return, the natives would provide tributes in the form of metals, maize, wheat, pork, or other agricultural products.

With the ousting of Christopher Columbus, the Spanish crown sent a royal governor, Fray Nicolás de Ovando, who established the formal encomienda system. In many cases natives were forced to do hard labor and subjected to extreme punishment and death if they resisted. However, Queen Isabella I of Castile forbade slavery of the native population and deemed the indigenous to be "free vassals of the crown"

The abolition of the Encomienda in 1542 marks the first major movement towards the abolition of slavery in the Western world. Nevertheless, coerced labor continued in other forms throughout the Spanish colonies

Dutch Colonization:

The Dutch colonial empire comprised the overseas territories and trading posts controlled and administered by Dutch chartered companies—mainly the Dutch West India Company and the Dutch East India Company—and subsequently by the Dutch Republic (1581–1795), and by the modern Kingdom of the Netherlands after 1815.

It was initially a trade-based system which derived most of its influence from merchant enterprise and from Dutch control of international maritime shipping routes through strategically placed outposts, rather than from expansive territorial ventures. The Dutch were among the earliest empire-builders of Europe, following Spain and Portugal.

With a few notable exceptions, the majority of the Dutch colonial empire's overseas holdings consisted of coastal forts, factories, and port settlements with varying degrees of incorporation of their hinterlands and surrounding regions.

Dutch chartered companies often dictated that their possessions be kept as confined as possible in order to avoid unnecessary expense, and while some such as the Dutch Cape Colony and Dutch East Indies expanded anyway (due to the pressure of independent-minded Dutch colonists), others remained undeveloped, isolated trading centres dependent on an indigenous host-nation

In the 18th century, the Dutch colonial empire began to decline as a result of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War of 1780–1784, in which the Dutch Republic lost a number of its colonial possessions and trade monopolies to the British Empire, along with the conquest of the Mughal Bengal at the Battle of Plassey by the East India Company.

Nevertheless, major portions of the empire survived until the advent of global decolonisation following World War II, namely the East Indies and Dutch Guiana.

French Colonization:

The French colonial empire constituted the overseas colonies, protectorates and mandate territories that came under French rule from the 16th century onward.

A distinction is generally made between the "First French Colonial Empire," that existed until 1814, by which time most of it had been lost or sold, and the "Second French Colonial Empire", which began with the conquest of Algiers in 1830.

At its apex, the Second French colonial empire was one of the largest empires in history. Including metropolitan France, the total amount of land under French sovereignty reached 11,500,000 km² (4,400,000 sq mi) in 1920, with a population of 110 million people in 1936.

France began to establish colonies in North America, the Caribbean and India in the 17th century but lost most of its possessions following its defeat in the Seven Years' War.

The North American possessions were ceded to Britain and Spain but the later retroceded Louisiana (New France) back to France in 1800 . The territory was then sold to the United States in 1803 (Louisiana Purchase).

Nevertheless, French colonization dramatically impacted its colonies through policies and systems that entrenched internal strife, lack of economic diversity, aid dependency, and loss of cultural treasures.  Links between France and its former colonies persist through La francophonie, the CFA franc and military operations such as Operation Serval.

History of the United States:

The history of the United States started with the arrival of Native Americans in North America around 15,000 BC. Numerous indigenous cultures formed, and many disappeared in the 1500s.

The arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492 started the European colonization of the Americas. Most colonies were formed after 1600, and the early records and writings of John Winthrop make the United States the first nation whose most distant origins are fully recorded

By the 1760s, the thirteen British colonies contained 2.5 million people along the Atlantic Coast east of the Appalachian Mountains. After defeating France, the British government imposed a series of taxes, including the Stamp Act of 1765, rejecting the colonists' constitutional argument that new taxes needed their approval. Resistance to these taxes, especially the Boston Tea Party in 1773, led to Parliament issuing punitive laws designed to end self-government in Massachusetts. Armed conflict began in 1775.

The United States became the world's leading industrial power at the turn of the 20th century, due to an outburst of entrepreneurship and industrialization in the Northeast and Midwest and the arrival of millions of immigrant workers and farmers from Europe.

The United States and the Soviet Union emerged as rival superpowers in the aftermath of World War II. During the Cold War, the two countries confronted each other indirectly in the arms race, the Space Race, propaganda campaigns and localized wars against communist expansion, notably the Korean War and Vietnam War.

The goal of the United States in this was to stop the spread of communism.