Religious Motivation Research (1485-1640), Early Modern British Colonial Expansion

In the Early Modern Times, the British Colonial Expansions experienced following stages:the searching for the North Passage, the adventuring of pirates in Atlantic, the colonizing to Ireland and America in Elizabethan and Early Stuart, and the trade expansion in the East. By the efforts of one and a half century, England had become a strong colonial and trade Empire.The religion is the requisite factor of the achievement on overseas colonial expansion. It embodies following aspects:The first is the pursuit of religious ideals. In 16th century, England accomplished the Reformation, and freed from the shackles of Catholic Church. On the one hand, the devout Englishmen wanted to spread the God's Gospel, on the other hand, they wished to build an ideal kingdom according to the religious and social ideals under the guide of the Bible and the early Apostles. The second is shunning for the religious persecution. Since the Henry VIII started the English Reformation, the conflicts in religion had always constituted the most complicated part of historical paintings. For pursuing the freedom and shunning for persecute of religion, overseas colonization became an important way. The third is resisting the catholic power. The Reformation of the Tudor pushed the England into the camp of Protestants. So, the catholic group under the leadership of the Pope and Spain sealed the England off in politics and economy, trying to kill this protestant state in the "swaddling clothes". Facing this situation of existential threat, the Englishmen had to choose the Self-enhancement to resist aggression. Colonization is one of the strategies. The protestant colonies in America not only became the real threats to the Spanish colonies, but also broke a path to grow the protestant force which was in the ascendant.In the promotion of religious factors, the British colonial expansion in the Early Modern Times embodied distinctive features. Firstly, the colonies distributed in America and Ireland showed different and distinct religious characters. Secondly, the resultant force produced by the interaction between the newborn modern nationalism, mercantilism and religion pushed the colonial expansion faster and deeper. Certainly, the two features made profound impacts. Not only was the Protestantism spread around the world, but also the great changes in social culture of colonies was procured indirectly, thus, the new modern nations emerged. In addition, macroscopically, the colonial expansion of Europe pushed the Christianity breaking through the limits of physical geography and geopolitics and spread all over the world since A. D.1500. In the course of the interactive promotion between the religion and the colonial expansion, both accomplished the transformation and development of themselves. On the one hand, the religion agreed with the modern capitalism, completed the modernization of itself, on the other hand, the promotion of Protestantism made the concepts of colonial expansion new.