Spain claimed most of the Americas from its native inhabitants by virtue of first discovery.
Conquistadors explored, such as:
- Ponce de Leon, 1513;
- Hernán Cortés, 1519;
- Panfilo de Narvaez, 1527;
- Desoto, 1539;
- Coronado, 1540; and
- Cabrillo, 1542.
Since gold was minimal in North America, the area was of little interest to the Spanish Empire.
Spanish attempts to colonize North America mostly failed.
In 1526, Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón landed with 600 settlers near Sapelo Sound, Georgia; but the settlement failed due to the harsh winter, disease, mutiny, and 100 African slaves running off to live with the native tribe of Guales.
In 1528, Pánfilo de Narváez landed with 400 settlers near St. Petersburg, Florida, but this settlement failed due to a hurricane and native attacks.
Eighty survivors built rafts and floated along the coast till the Mississippi River current swept them out to sea.
A few landed near present-day Galveston and were enslaved by natives.
Four escaped, including Cabeza de Vaca, who traveled through the areas of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and Mexico, preaching the Gospel and praying for sick natives, with reports of miraculous recoveries, till he finally arrived in Mexico City in 1536.
In 1524, Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, in the service of King Francis I of France, was the first European to explore the Atlantic coast of North America, sailing from Florida to New York Bay, to Narragansett, to New Brunswick.
In 1534, French explorer Jacques Cartier claimed Canada as New France.
In 1541, Roberval attempted to settle Charlesbourg-Royal near present-day Quebec.
Adam Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations, 1776:
"The Spaniards, by virtue of the first discovery, claimed all America as their own, and ... such was ... the terror of their name, that the greater part of the other nations of Europe were afraid to establish themselves in any other part of that great continent ...
But ... the defeat ... of their Invincible Armada ... put it out of their power to obstruct any longer the settlements of the other European nations.
In the course of the 17th century ... English, French, Dutch, Danes, and Swedes ... attempted to make some settlements in the new world."
In 1603, Good King Henry of Navarre sent Samuel de Champlain to settle New France (Canada).
In 1605, Champlain, considered “the Father of New France,” together with Pierre Du Gua de Monts, founded Port Royal as the first capital of French Acadia.
In 1608, Champlain founded Quebec City near the Indian settlement of "Stadacona."
In 1609, he encountered the lake which was named for him – Lake Champlain – draining north into the Saint Lawrence River Valley of Canada.
English settlements began in Virginia in 1607, and Massachusetts in 1620.
In 1624, the Dutch settled New Amsterdam, present day New York.
In 1638, King Gustavus Adolphus sent settlers to found New Sweden, present day Delaware and New Jersey.
In 1673, French missionary priest, Jacques Marquette, and French explorer Louis Joliet, traveled down from Canada to Lake Michigan.
They then followed the Fox River till they reached the Mississippi, canoeing as far south as Arkansas.
France claimed Canada and the land west of the Appalachian Mountains, across the Mississippi River valley to the beginning of the Great Plains.
On April 9, 1682, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, claimed the entire Mississippi River Basin and named it Louisiana in honor for France's "Sun King" Louis XIV, the longest reigning monarch of a major European country -- 72 years. His global empire stretched from the Far East to the Caribbean, Africa to America.
Centralizing power, Louis XIV was reputed to have said "L'État, c'est moi" ("I am the state").
When told by an administrator that a certain action was illegal, Louis XIV replied "It is legal because I wish it."
In 1681, he revoked his grandfather Henry IV's 1598 Edict of Nantes and proceeded to persecute Protestant Huguenots.
In 1699, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, started the first French settlement, at Fort Maurepas (now Ocean Springs, Mississippi).
In 1702, Bienville settled the area of Mobile, Alabama, and in 1718, he started construction of New Orleans.
In 1723, Bienville moved the capital of French Louisiana there from its previous locations of Dauphin Island and Biloxi.
Beginning in 1755 the British drove the French out of Acadia, Canada, in The Great Expulsion.
Thousands of French sailed to the Caribbean Islands, and other colonies, but most notably to Louisiana, where the name "acadian" came to be pronounced "cajun."
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the epic poem "Evangeline," about an Acadian girl's heartbreaking search for her lost love, Gabriel, whom she was separated from during the Great Expulsion.
Louis XIV's grandson was Louis XV, who lost the French and Indian War in 1763.
This gave Britain control of all of America east of the Mississippi, with the exception of Spanish Florida.
As the French and Indian War was ending, France ceded the Louisiana Territory west of the Mississippi to Spain in the secret Treaty of Fontainebleau, 1762, in order to keep Britain from getting it.
French settlers fled the British controlled land, across the Mississippi, to found the city of St. Louis, Missouri, in 1764, even though the land was nominally under Spanish control.
In 1780, during the Revolutionary War, the British and Indians led a failed attack on St. Louis.
France's new King, Louis XVI, sent his navy to help America win the Battle of Yorktown, resulting in America's independence from Britain.
France incurred an enormous war debt for helping with the American Revolution, which weakened the monarchy.
The French Revolution began in 1789, and on January 21, 1793, a mob beheaded 38-year-old King Louis XVI.
The Reign of Terror that followed resulted in 40,000 citizens in Paris dying in prison or being beheaded by the "Committee of Public Safety."
Thousands more were killed across France for refusing to embrace the intolerant secular government.
Though the French Revolution abolished slavery in France, it did NOT abolish slavery in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, modern-day Haiti.
First discovered by Christopher Columbus, he called the island Hispanola.
Its capital city was Santo Domingo, thought to have been named for Columbus' father, Dominic.
In 1660, the French took half of the Island from Spain, and called it Saint-Domingue.
It became one of the wealthiest colonies in the world, producing sugar, indigo, cotton and coffee.
Plantations deplorably used slave labor.
A slave revolt revolt began with a voodoo ceremony on the stormy night of August 21, 1791 and raged for over a decade, leaving over 350,000 dead.
Blacks, Mulattos, French, Swiss, Spanish, and even Polish, suffered horrible brutality, including pillage, murder, rape, disease, torture, mutilation, and death.
The slave rebellion caused France to seek another tropical colony to compete with Britain's India, so Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798.
In the midst of this chaos, Napoleon staged a coup d'état in 1799 and installed himself as First Consul of France.
Napoleon pressured Spain to sign another secret treaty, the Treaty of San Ildefonso, in 1800, which gave the Louisiana Territory back to France.
In 1802, Jefferson sent James Monroe and Robert Livingston to France to meet with Napoleon, in order to purchase a small area of land near New Orleans for docking ships coming down the Mississippi River.
Napoleon was in fear was that Saint-Domingue's slave rebellion might spread to the Louisiana Territory.
If France could not put down a slave revolt in one tiny island, it would be impossible to do so in the expansive Louisiana Territory, therefore it would be best for France to cut its losses and sell it.
This, plus his need for cash to fight Britain and other European powers, convinced Napoleon to sell the entire Louisiana Territory to the United States for $15 million dollars.
Saint-Domingue's slave rebellion finally ended in 1804 with France giving up the island, which changed its name to Haiti -- the indigenous Taíno name for "land of high mountains."
On April 30, 1803, the Louisiana Purchase was made, effectively doubling the size of the United States.
The 828,000 square miles were purchased at less than three cents an acre - it was the greatest real estate deal in history!
In 1804, Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark to explore it.
Not everyone in America was happy.
The State of Massachusetts threatened to secede from the Union, arguing that the vast area was undefendable and that the adding of so large a territory would dilute the influence of existing States in Congress.
Jefferson brokered a compromise with Daniel Webster and Henry Clay, commenting in his Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1805:
"I know that the acquisition of Louisiana has been disapproved by some from a candid apprehension that the enlargement of our territory would endanger the union, but who can limit the extent to which the Federative principle may operate effectively?"
The rush to turn the Louisiana Purchase into new States, either slave or free, was a factor leading up to the Civil War.
Napoleon put his brother Joseph on Spain's throne in 1808.
Shortly after, in 1810, Venezuela declared its independence from Spain.
Simón Bolívar led the revolutionary fight, which spread to other Central and South American countries, including: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, Chile, Argentina, and eventually Mexico.
On June 23, 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia with nearly a half million men.
Six months later he retreated with less than 50,000.
This disastrous loss forced him to abdicate the throne and he was exiled to the Mediterranean Island of Elba.
Napoleon escaped Elba on February 26, 1815, and returned to rule France for 100 days.
The Battle of Waterloo took place on June 18, 1815.
It was one of the largest battles in world history, with 73,000 Frenchmen facing a coalition of 118,000 British, Prussian, Dutch and other soldiers.
After his defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon was permanently banished to the tiny South Atlantic island of St. Helena.
During his career, Napoleon fought in over 100 battles, conquering large areas of Europe.
He instituted the Napoleonic Code on March 21, 1804.
The Napoleonic Code did not mention rights coming from a Creator. It was just a collection of edicts from the powerful government.
It effectively installed Napoleon as a dictator, though it did permit religious freedom, prohibited privileges based on birth, and required government jobs be given to the most qualified.
The Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815) had caused an estimated 6 million deaths from battle and related diseases, starvation and exposure.
Banished permanently to the island of St. Helena, Napoleon had time to reflect on his life.
He even began reading the Bible.
Napoleon died at the age of 52.
His final conversations were recorded by one of his officers, General H.G. Bertrand, in "On St. Helena," 1816.
Napoleon said:
"The Gospel possesses a secret virtue, a mysterious efficacy, a warmth which penetrates and soothes the heart. One finds in meditating upon it that which one experiences in contemplating the heavens ...
... The Gospel is not a book; it is a living being, with an action, a power, which invades everything that opposes its extension.
Behold it upon this table, this book surpassing all others (here the Emperor solemnly placed his hand upon it):
I never omit to read it, and every day with new pleasure.
Nowhere is to be found such a series of beautiful ideas, and admirable moral maxims, which pass before us like the battalions of a celestial army ...
The soul can never go astray with this book for its guide
He continued:
"Everything in Christ astonishes me. His spirit overawes me, and His will confounds me.
Between Him and whoever else in the world there is no possible term of comparison;
He is truly a Being by Himself. His ideas and His sentiments, the truth which He announces, His manner of convincing, are not explained either by human organization or by the nature of things.
Truth should embrace the universe.
Such is Christianity, the only religion which destroys sectional prejudices, the only one which proclaims the unity and the absolute brotherhood of the whole human family, the only one which is purely spiritual; in fine, the only one which assigns to all, without distinction, for a true country, the bosom of the Creator, God."
Napoleon concluded:
"Christ proved that He was the Son of the Eternal by His disregard of time.
All His doctrines signify one only and the same thing-eternity.
What a proof of the divinity of Christ!
With an empire so absolute, he has but one single end - the spiritual melioration of individuals, the purity of the conscience, the union to that which is true, the holiness of the soul ...
Not only is our mind absorbed, it is controlled; and the soul can never go astray with this Book for its guide.
Once master of our spirit, the faithful Gospel loves us. God even is our friend, our father, and truly our God. The mother has no greater care for the infant whom she nurses ..."
Napoleon ended by telling General H.G. Bertrand:
"If you do not perceive that Jesus Christ is God, very well: then I did wrong to make you a general."
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American Minute is a registered trademark of William J. Federer. Permission granted to forward, reprint, or duplicate.
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Image Credits: The Louisiana Purchase Projection: USA Contiguous Albers Equal Area Conic (EPSG:102003); Sources: Natural Earth and Portland State University https://gist.github.com/wboykinm/05756ac2e625bae9ed81 ; Date: September 1, 2015; Source: This file was derived from: Louisiana Purchase.png ; Author: William Morris; Permission: w:en: Creative Commons; attribution share alikel; This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Louisiana_Purchase.jpg?mc_cid=fa475887c3&mc_eid=60e56cb55d
That was a sweeping history of the new world.
I didn’t know of Napoleon’s love of the Gospel. Wonderful.
The Lord had to place him on an Island so remote to allow his mind to be free to receive the Good News. Thank You Bill Federer for another home run.