Religious and economic factors create a complex situation when one attempts to make general comparisons or contrasts about the French and English colonists’ perceptions of the new world environment. They had much in common stemming from their mutual European origins and viewed the natural world similarly. However, the colonists differed in how they used the land and how their actions impacted it. The religious institutions of each country, Catholic France and Protestant England, influenced each country’s strategy in the reshaping of the new world landscape to meet their needs. In addition to religious differences, divergent means to attain economic goals also affected their perceptions of and impact on the land. Lastly, relationships with neighboring Native American groups influenced access to the surrounding lands of the new world, also affecting impact.
Few generalizations can be made about all colonial activities because the establishment each colony advanced a unique set of goals. Even the Chesapeake and New England, both English colonies, were established for different reasons. Mostly single lower-class men originally settled the Chesapeake. The English government, seeking to solve social problems of over-population, alcoholism and debts from a faltering economy, shipped men from debtor’s prisons and other undesirable people to the Chesapeake. Only later did women, families and non-debtors arrive. Conversely, entire families of middle class people settled New England by design, like at Plymouth Colony. Fur trappers from France had discovered the resources of Canada along with the Native American people who inhabited the region. Jesuit missionaries traveled to Canada to convert them to Christianity. The colonization of New France advanced both religious and economic endeavors, like New England.
While there are many differences between the English colony of the Chesapeake and New England, some similarities can be found between French Canada and New England. Climate and resources of both colonial areas were similar and the Native Americans encountered by both groups shared comparable cultures as members of Algonquin groups.
Religion shaped how the French viewed nature. The Jesuits believed that God worked through nature. Jerome Lalemant, a Jesuit priest who traveled to Canada, summarized this belief in one of his essays for the Jesuit Relations. He recorded a meteor shower in 1633, saying, “Heaven and earth have spoken to us many times during the past year, and in a loving and unknown language which moved us both to fear and admiration.” They interpreted natural phenomena like earthquakes, comets and eclipses in the year 1633 as signs from God in the form of omens or warnings. Jesuit missionaries like Jerome Lalemant and Francois Le Mercier wrote of these occurrences frequently in their contributions to the Jesuit Relations. They awed at the wilderness of the New World and prayed to God for protection from harm. This fear and awe prompted them to use sciences like astronomy to make sense of the natural world.
Religion played the defining role in the Puritan worldview. Puritans interpreted the natural world, including deaths, disease and natural disasters as God’s work. They saw any occurrence, like the decimation of Native populations by disease for example, as having a purpose determined by God. In this example, the deaths of the natives supported their beliefs that the land was ultimately intended for them. They believed God would provide for them. The Reverend Thomas Hooker expressed this belief in a sermon he gave in 1631. He said, “God makes account that New England shall be a refuge for his Noahs and his Lots, a rock and a shelter for his righteous ones to run unto”.[1]
English colonists at Jamestown in the seventeenth century viewed the natural world as a force to reckon with like the French. However, due to their problems as settlers in the Chesapeake they took an extreme view. Sickness and death were common outcomes of life in the Chesapeake. Little variety in foods available caused malnutrition. Salt in the drinking water caused dysentery and mosquitoes carried malaria. They restricted hunting because of the threat of Indians in the woods. In short, they feared the wilderness as something to conquer. Due to their lack of knowledge of the land, there were few food resources available in early Jamestown besides what was provided by English supply ships. This serious problem framed their perceptions of the natural world around them. In an account by Captain John Smith dating from 1624, he recorded that with winter approaching, migratory birds, pumpkins, peas and persimmons were the only available foods.[2] In the same text, Smith went on to say, “our Comedies never endured long without a Tragedy”.[3] He was saying that life was unpredictable and hard. As the colony’s inhabitants struggled to live, they endured a poor quality of life, high death rates, disease and low birth rates due to an uneven male to female ratio. Without aid from neighboring Indians, Jamestown’s inhabitants would have eventually starved to death. Captain Smith’s record of events Captain John Smith Analyzes the Human Scene, Both English and Indian, in Early Jamestown, 1624, cites provisions from Indians as the sole reason the colony did not perish from starvation.[4] Richard Frethorne, another Jamestown colonist, had quite a dreary outlook on life in his letter to his parents from 1623. He begs for cheese, butter and beef. He mentions scurvy and dysentery, saying, “The nature of the Country is such that Causeth much sickness”.[5] His desperate pleas reflected the situation along with conveying his frustration and fear as a young man alone in a new world. These accounts illustrate the relationship between Chesapeake colonists and the environment.
The English in New England had a very different experience from the Chesapeake colonists in how they viewed the land. New England colonists expressed positive views of the land as well as the bounty of food resources it provided. Bradford and Winslow, Massachusetts residents, presented a clear picture of farming and hunting practices. “We set the last Spring some twentie Acres of Indian-Corne, and sowed some six Acres of Barley and Peas…”[6] In addition to crops, wild game was plenty. “They four in one day killed as much fowl, as with a little help beside, served the Company almost a week”.[7] A hunting party for a thanksgiving feast was successful. Sustaining experiences in food procurement fostered positive perception of the New England landscape.
Ultimately, each colony viewed the land as something to be exploited in varying degrees. The Chesapeake colonists reshaped Virginia into plantations and populous settlements. New Englanders experienced a population explosion. The population growth caused settlements to expand to accommodate larger numbers of people. New England colonists plowed farm fields and hunted wild game to feed thousands of people by mid-century. French Canada had the least impact. The Native Americans trapped furs and traded with Colonists who resided in very small and scattered settlements.
The French and English had similar strategies to assert control over the land. The French had little impact on the natural world at first, as they inhabited Canada in very small numbers. However, as the fur trade developed their impact grew. They viewed “nature as a storehouse” of raw materials to be used for development and expansion and they acted accordingly.[8] After the peace with the Iroquois in the 1660’s, French colonists and Jesuit priests could move more freely through the land. No longer were Indian raiding parties a great threat to Europeans traveling through the land. These factors aided France’s expansion into Canada. The King of France sent military forces to aid in further exploration of land and resources. Small French settlements began to use agricultural practices for subsistence while they also used commercial pursuits such as sealing, whaling, fishing and fur trading as export commodities. Lumber was utilized for shipbuilding. The French introduced hemp and flax. Colonists and Native groups alike adopted them to supplement native crops like squash and beans. The French found a fertile land rich in resources that offered them prosperity. “Even the French ewes commonly bear two lambs after their first year feeding in this country.” [9] Francois Le Mercier wrote this illustrative summation in his essay Of the Condition of Canada over the Last Two Years in 1666, showing the optimism and sense of prosperity a productive environment can create in the minds of those living there.
Just like the
French in Canada, the English had little affect on the Virginia landscape at
first with growing impact as time passed and the colonies developed and
expanded. As Captain Smith interacted with the native peoples, developed relationships
and gave gifts, further exploration was possible. Powhatan, Opechancanough and
other Indian leaders aided the Jamestown colonists by giving them venison,
sturgeon, corn and other food items. After help from the Indians enabled the
colonists to gain a footing in the new environment, they wasted little time in
converting the land to agricultural purposes. Smith records in one instance
that they dug and planted “Thirty or forty Acres of ground” for crops like corn
and squash. [10] They dug
wells, cut down trees for building and let their animals graze. Later, after
1650, tobacco intensified their effect on the land with sprawling plantations
of tobacco and a rapidly growing and expanding population.
Religion was a point of contrast although not always neatly dividing the two colonizing groups by country of origin. The French had a deep commitment to the conversion of Native peoples to Christianity, as did the English Puritans in New England. Meanwhile, religious fervor did not motivate the English in the Chesapeake. This colony was founded as a place to send the problem element in English society.
Extreme differences in climate and resources between Virginia and the Northern regions of New England and Canada also had a great impact on behavior toward the natural environment. In Canada, the French exploited furs, lumber, and fish for export. The Indians did the work of trapping and skinning, while the French simply traded goods for the pelts. In his essay entitled On Their Hunting and Fishing, Paul Le Jeune, another Jesuit priest, described the tools and techniques employed by the Montagnais. He also relates his perception that the Indians desired metal goods like knives, kettles, swords, and hatchets, which they valued highly. Le Jeune reported that his host said, “They give us twenty knives like this for one beaver skin.”[11] Conversely, the French and other Europeans highly valued beaver pelts, thus creating an extremely well suited exchange system, benefiting both groups. These trapping practices show the behavior of the French in Canada towards the natural world.
Climate played a large role in the evolving focuses of each colony. In the Chesapeake, a warm humid climate produced fewer furs and lumber. The coastal location offered little for export in the earliest colonization. Not until tobacco was established as an export commodity did the Chesapeake become profitable. These colonists relied on Indian good will for food resources after their initial stores were exhausted and they waited for resupply from England. Disease was prevalent, unlike in Canada and New England where the cold climate did not support bacterial growth as well. Dysentery and malaria caused the deaths of many Chesapeake colonists. In New England, a hilly cooler climate provided fresh water free from salt. The same was true in Canada. In the Chesapeake, a long warm growing season and the alluvial soils from a tide marsh environment created ideal agricultural land capable of supporting many crops. In New England, a glaciated rocky ground and a shorter growing season made for less ideal farming land. The Puritan settlers small family groups were highly adapted to his environment. The land provided for family farms and garden patches. The French settlers, mostly Jesuits and fur trappers, relied on trapping and Native American intervention. They farmed very little in relation to English colonies.
A fundamental difference separated the Chesapeake from Canada and New England. Social and economic motivations versus economic and religious motivations, respectively, created different attitudes and actions when dealing with the environment. Interest in economic gain motivated the colonists of the Chesapeake to emigrate from England and settle in an unknown land. Virginia offered a chance to own land and raise a family free from poverty. England was experiencing high levels of unemployment and hunger, leading people to immigrate to the New World. Jamestown, as an early English colony, was settled not for religious reasons, but economic ones. On the other hand, both New England and Canada were explored and settled due to a combination of religious and economic motivations. France’s explorations into Canada were by Jesuit priests, traders, trappers and some initial settlers. France wanted to stay competitive with other European powers by establishing colonies in the New World and at the same time fulfilled religious goals of spreading Christianity to the Native Americans they encountered. Like France, England had monetary gain in mind when it began to explore North America. At the same time the economy of England failed to support its exploding population, religious conflict between the established church and Puritan separatists opened up the option of leaving England for the New World. Puritan English and poor people alike, fled to the new world for a chance to practice religion as they saw fit and begin a better life.
Primary documents describing French and English
experiences in North America show that religion, economics, and the resources
and environment of each colony dictated how differently each settlement would
function, as well as in what ways each colony behaved similarly. Perceptions of
nature and how to best use the land were influenced by religious beliefs in
both the Puritan English and the Catholic French settlements. Each group of
colonists had strong religious beliefs directing their actions. For example,
the Jesuit priests working in Canada attempted to create a harmonious
relationship with the Native Americans in order to gain their trust. Having
gained that trust, they converted them to Christianity from a position of trust
and authority. This strategy spilled over into how the French impacted the
land. The Jesuits fit themselves into Native culture rather than forcing the
Native Americans to conform to European culture. This willingness to interact
with the Indians on their level led them to have little impact on the
environment. The Puritan ethic of the central role of family along with a
yeoman heritage shaped their social structure, which in turn determined how
they worked the land. Family farms, as opposed to the Chesapeake’s large
plantations, affected the land in a different way than in the Chesapeake and
Virginia colony. There religion was not a primary factor fueling the
colonization effort. Economic and social issues in England brought about the
establishment of England’s first successful colony.
Documents Analyzed
From Kupperman:
Captain John Smith Analyzes the Human Scene, Both English and Indian, in Early Jamestown, 1624
Richard Frethorne Begs his Parents for Support, 1623
Pilgrim Leaders Create the Mayflower Compact and Describe the First Thanksgiving, 1620, 1621
The Reverend Thomas Hooker Warns of England’s Impending Punishment by God, 1631
Colonist John Pond Writes to His Mother and Father for Help, 1631
The Reverend Thomas Welde Describes the Success of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1632
From Greer:
Paul Le Jeune, On Their Hunting
and Fishing
Paul Lee Jeune, Of Their Customs
and Their Belief
Jerome Lalemant, Various Matters
Jerome Lalemant, Three Suns and
Other Aerial Phenomena Which Appeared in New France
Francois Le Mercier, Of the Condition of Canada over the Last Two Years
[1] Karen Ordahl Kupperman, Major Problems in American Colonial History, 2nd ed., (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 2000), 91.
[2] Kupperman, 58.
[3] Kupperman, 58.
[4] Kupperman, 61.
[5] Kupperman, 65.
[6] Kupperman, 89.
[7] Kupperman, 89.
[8] Allan Greer, ed., The Jesuit Relations: Natives and Missionaries in Seventeenth-Century North America (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000), 132.
[9] Greer, 135.
[10] Kupperman, 61.
[11] Greer, 26.