I found it very interesting how the 3 colonial empires all came with the same objective, but they went about accomplishing it in different ways. France, Spain, and England all wanted to acquire new land for their colonies. France stuck in Canada, traded fur and formed kinship relationships with the native peoples and due to the small population of their colony they encouraged intermarriages. Since France couldn't increase the size of their colony because of the lack of interest in Canada, they weren't fighting any native peoples for territory they just needed enough to trapped and hunt. The English just wanted territory for their poor community to live and the Spanish wanted land for their missionaries and to turn everyone Christian.
While reading Chapter 1 in the book I came across many interesting facts regarding the native people, particularly the cultures along the Pacific Coast. The richness of the environment made California the most densely settled area in North America. It was stated that about five hundred separate tribes speaking ninety languages occupied California. With that amount of different languages how were they able to communicate with members of a different tribe? Were the languages similar enough to where they could understand or were they brought up educated on the different languages of the surrounding tribes? Also, the book mentioned how the life expectancy was 18. At what aged did the women give birth and if the parents died while the child was still very young who took on that responsibility?
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I haven't read the book yet, but I think the life expectancy of 18 is an error.
You bring up excellent points. We will discuss these in class this week.
The different means of colonizing that the three countries employed is an extremely interesting topic on many levels. It's like an enormous sociology project! Each country hoped to mold the natives, but the differences in their influences they were attempting to impress on the populations is a notable contrast of the three cultures as well.
I am very interested in the life expectancy as well. I find that very interesting if it was 18, the reproduction age had to be very very young then didn't it and that had to produce even more problems.
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