British and Spanish Colonies

Some of the world’s strongest powers today started out colonizing in America. The entire race to colonize in the new world started with Christopher Columbus’s desire to find a shorter route to India. Since then, Spain and Britain seized the opportunity to colonize in the new world for their countries gain or to simply start over. The English and Spanish colonies were able to flourish in the new world even though they differed in motives for colonization and social layout; yet both colonies were similar to each other in the fact that they had common economies and like ways of treating the indigenous population. Once they established land in the new world, each country was able to find a new source of wealth, either from precious metals or from building necessities such as lumber. Seemingly, the British and Spanish colonies were some of the strongest and most productive colonies in history. Despite the similarities in the Spanish and English colonies, the two countries had different motives for establishing colonies in the new world. The main religion of Spain in the 1500’s-1600’s was Catholicism because their kings and queens were Catholic. One of their main motives for colonization of the new world was to spread Catholicism. As they conquered the native tribes, they tried to convert them to Catholicism. If the tribe converted to Catholicism, they were spared. However, if they rejected the new religion, the tribe was killed. For example the Incan Empire was wiped out under the hands of Francisco Pizarro. On the other hand, the settlers of the early British colonies (Puritans, Pilgrims) settled in the new world to break off from the Anglican Church of England. The Pilgrims were persecuted in England because they were protestant, and to avoid persecution they came to the new world. The Puritans colonized in America because they wanted to remove the hierarchical structure of the Anglican Church. Another difference between these two countries was their means