England and the Columbian Discoveries: The Attempt to Legitimize English Voyages to the New World

Abstract

In the century-and-a-half following the opening of the New World by Christopher Columbus, the non-Iberian nations of Europe watched with emotions of astonishment and desire tinged with more than a little envy as gold and silver riches poured into Spain and Portugal. Not content to allow these nations to monopolize the booty from the new-found lands, non-Iberian countries such as England quickly mounted campaigns to obtain their own share of this wealth. In England, propagandists such as the well-known Richard Hakluyt the Younger used a variety of arguments to both popularize and legitimize English voyages of exploration and colonization in areas that, legally at least, were strictly Spanish. These arguments ranged from those based upon religious obligations to the benighted Indians of the new lands, to the potentially beneficial aspects of the New World as a drain for the undesirable elements of English society. Likewise, the economic benefits of New World explorations and colonies were widely touted, both as sources for new products, and as potential markets for traditional ones. Popular political views propagandized the necessity for the English to develop an Impirel rivalling those of its Iberian competitors. Another significant political ramification of New WorId colonization would be the annoyance these would prove to the Spaniards. In a period of rising nationalism, all of these arguments found a number of supporters.