| In the long half-century between 1590 and 1640, European powers experimented with and developed many of the long-term patterns of imperial policies and social relations that continue to influence American societies today. Most historical studies of this period, however, focus on a single colony or at most a set of colonies (such as "British North America"). While this practice often produces a rich picture of a small region, it generally ignores the contemporaneous presence of various European colonial powers and very different models of colonialism. Without some sense of how these competing colonies both differed from and mirrored each other, we are left with a shallow understanding of an important formative period.;This study engages these issues by taking a comparative approach to the study of early modern colonialism, focusing on the first generations of sustained colonialist ventures in North America. The dissertation compares French colonial efforts in northeastern North America with those of the Spanish southwest in the 1590--1640 period. It concentrates on publications in three areas: missionary accounts (Geronimo de Zarate Salmeron's Relaciones of 1629, a Canadian Jesuit Relation of 1639--1640), cartographic representations (Jean Boisseau's 1643 Description de la Nouvelle France, 1602 maps of the Southwest by a Native American named "Miguel" and a Mexican cosmographer Enrique Martinez), and dramatic depictions (Marc Lescarbot's 1606 play "Le Theâtre de Neptune en la Nouvelle France," Gaspar Perez de Villagra's 1610 Historia de la Nueva Mexico). Each document is treated in individual chapters, and is subjected to an intense reading to expose the various themes and assumptions embedded within.;The documents considered in this study amply demonstrate that there was a considerable range of reactions, rationalizations and conceptions of America as an imperial stage, a range that does not exactly fit into either "European" or particular national molds. At the same time, this range was also limited in important regards: no matter what generalized Indians were conceived as, difference seems to be a unifying factor, and this difference appears to have given commentators considerable ammunition for justifying colonialism, as well as providing a legacy that continues throughout the Americas. |
