Richard Hakluyt and English Expansion

England was not a massive empire like Spain was during the seventeenth century, and one of the first ways colonization efforts in North America took place was by charters given by the government to well-to-do individuals, such as Gilbert and Raleigh. If these private explorers were to successfully colonize areas of the New World at their own expense, they would retain rights to the land and its associated profits. Neither was successful in their efforts.

Active competition and animosity toward Spain was another factor that fueled England’s desire to extend onto the American continent. Not only did the two countries clash directly and militarily at times, but England was in the position to use Bartholome de las Casas’s rebuke of Spanish treatment of native Indian slaves as propaganda. The English would free these unfortunates from Spain’s “Black Legend” of cruelty, and would provide them with the opportunity to convert them to the “correct” faith.

England’s motives were nearly the same as Spain’s in many respects. Bringing additional glory, land, and profits for their home countries were respective desires, as well as “liberating” the poor indigenous tribes already inhabiting the New World with their own “superior” religions. Also like Spain, England was eager to lighten trade costs by establishing their own separate routes, as “the passage thither and home is neither too long nor too short, and to be made twice in the year” (Freedom 8). Additionally, they could reap the resources of the new land for themselves for transport back home or sale to other countries, thus monopolizing the native goods of the area and enhancing the riches of the realm.

One motive that was exclusively a concern of England was a desire to improve their period of significant economic trouble. Once the rich had “fenced off” many of the lands that poor workers had owned and claimed them as their own, the urban areas of London were flooded with displaced people “outside the fences” and seeking work. These wandering unemployed citizens were considered a bane on society, and emigration to America would provide a perfect way to both unload them from being burdens on the state, as well as – in theory, anyway – provide them with the opportunity to own and work their own land in the abundance of the New World (I’m sure that’s what all the advertising at the time said, anyway). Unfortunately, many of the poor who could not afford passage had to sign contracts that made them indentured servants to a rich purchaser, free to own their own land only after predetermined periods of near-slavery (usually four years or more), and even then at their own expense.

One of the things that struck me about Richard Hakluyt’s discourse and “laundry lists” of why England could do what the much-stronger empire of Spain was having difficulty with, is the recurring theme of “salvation” for beings that not only don’t need saving, but just want to be left alone. “The Spaniards govern in the Indies with all pride and tyranny,” Hakluyt says. “…so no doubt whensoever the Queen of England … shall seat upon that firmament of America, and shall be reported thoughout all that tract to use the natural people there with all humanity, courtesy, and freedom, they will yield themselves to her government, and revolt clean from the Spaniard.” It sounds remarkably to me like their plan of treating the Indians with “all humanity, courtesy, and freedom” is another way of saying “We’ll make them ours, not theirs, because we’re better than the Catholics.” As far as believing that the slaves will “revolt clean from the Spaniard,” I doubt Mr. Hakluyt really believed that much, but I think he was stretching things a bit to “close the sale,” or appear more convincing in his ideas. The Indians may well, given the opportunity, revolt against Spain, but only with the idea that things can’t possibly get any worse with these new Europeans than they are with the conquistadors! Little did they know that English rifles can be worse than Spanish whips, their diseases lay the same forms of waste, and they'll "liberate" Indians' lands from them just as aggressively.