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  • - [Instructor] I think there's a strong argument

  • to be made that England was the most

  • powerful and successful imperial nation

  • of all time, but when you look back to the

  • Age of Exploration, it becomes clear that England

  • was actually pretty late to the imperial game.

  • As we know, Christopher Columbus,

  • backed by Spain, had arrived in

  • Hispaniola in the New World in 1492.

  • He was the first European to start

  • a colony in the New World.

  • England, by contrast, didn't actually have

  • a successful colonial venture in the

  • New World until 1607 with Jamestown.

  • Now from this distance it doesn't look

  • that far behind, but this is more than 100 years

  • later than Spain's first colonial ventures.

  • So what was England up to?

  • Why were they so late in the colonial game?

  • That's what I'd like to take a closer look at

  • in this video, and I'll also talk

  • a little bit more about what conditions

  • in England led that nation to start New World colonies.

  • Now I think the biggest reason why England

  • waited another 100 years to have a

  • New World colony is that England had

  • its own problems, and it had a number

  • of problems in this time period,

  • and we're talking about the 1500s here.

  • And the first of these was ongoing conflict

  • between Catholics and Protestants in England.

  • Now this is a very long story.

  • I don't have time to do justice to it here,

  • but suffice it to say that the trouble started

  • with Henry VIII, who we know from his

  • many wives and many beheadings,

  • and Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church

  • in Rome to start his own church,

  • the Church of England, also known as the Anglican Church.

  • Now this is a Protestant religion.

  • I'm gonna put P here for Protestant.

  • Now Henry had two daughters, Elizabeth

  • who like him was a Protestant,

  • and Mary, who was a Catholic, and Mary occupied

  • the throne for a number of years,

  • but Elizabeth managed to wrest it away from her

  • and once Elizabeth was on the throne

  • as Elizabeth I, England became a Protestant nation.

  • So it's hard to be involved in world affairs

  • when you've got kind of a crisis of succession

  • going on, so one factor here is religious conflict.

  • Another reason why England is not headed

  • over to the New World is that they have

  • colonial problems closer to home in Ireland.

  • England is trying to, and will succeed at,

  • subduing Ireland as one of its colonies,

  • and they're undertaking a very bloody

  • and costly war, and they think of this

  • Catholic Irish population almost as

  • barbarian savages who don't know

  • what's good for them and in the opinion of the English,

  • what's good for them is English rule

  • and Protestantism, when of course

  • what the Irish really want is self rule

  • and to be left alone, but they use

  • very brutal tactics against the Irish,

  • and we'll kind of see that again

  • when they're met with another hostile

  • colonial population in North America.

  • Another issue England is dealing with

  • is economic depression.

  • The Crown doesn't have a lot of money

  • and there's a great deal of crime

  • and poverty throughout the nation,

  • so while the Crown can't actually afford

  • to sponsor colonial exploits the way

  • that Spain sponsored Columbus, they still

  • managed to get some riches out

  • of the New World by giving ship captains

  • license to plunder Spanish ships

  • coming back with New World riches,

  • and these were called privateers,

  • the most famous of them here is this man,

  • Sir Francis Drake, and really, privateers are

  • just pirates with a fancy name,

  • but the logic here was, why bother

  • trying to set up a colony here in Mexico

  • or South America, the West Indies,

  • and do all the work of setting up housing

  • and trying to tame laborers and mining,

  • when instead you could just let the

  • Spanish do all of that and then put that

  • gold on a ship and then use your awesome navy,

  • 'cause England is growing a very awesome navy,

  • to steal those riches.

  • So England doesn't have a strong incentive

  • to do all the labor when they can

  • just steal it from the ships along the way.

  • Alright, those are some of the reasons

  • why it took England so long to start

  • colonization in North America.

  • In the next video I'll talk about

  • the factors that led England to finally

  • join the race for New World colonies.

- [Instructor] I think there's a strong argument

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