Why did the Spanish have trouble colonizing North America, especially California?
If you think it was because "of all the British that had colonized" then you don't know crap about the Spanish in the Southwest. Did you know, for instance, that the SPANISH were in the New World at least 100 YEARS BEFORE THE BRITISH.. They were in Mexico in 1564 and the FIRST COLONY of San Gabriel was established by 1606.. Santa Fe was settled in 1608 and made the capital of New spain in 1610.. YEARS BEFORE THAT BUNCH OF RELIGIOUS WHACK JOBS settled on the East Coast. To understand why the Spanish had a hard time colonizing the Southwest was they came to the New World to RAPE THE LAND OF GOLD and to bring the indians to GEEZUS AT THE POINT OF A BAYONET.. which didn't exactly endear them to the locals.. and is why the Spanish got thrown out of what is now New Mexico in the Pueblo Revolt of 1694. The SPANISH controlled EVERYTHING from the ATLANTIC OCEAN on the East Coast of Florida, all the way to CALIFORNIA at a time when the BRITISH were barely into a few COLONIES.. so YOU DON'T KNOW CRAP ABOUT THAT TIME PERIOD.. and I really hate it when you people MAKE UP ANSWERS instead of LOOKING THEM UP. Did you know that the FIRST THANKSGIVING was in NEW MEXICO nearly 50 YEARS before those religious WHACK JOBS on the East Coast had theirs? Anyway.. back to the question.. The SPANISH SETTLED CALIFORNIA and set up the MISSIONS for a number of reasons.. ONE was to provide a first line of defense against RUSSIA which was trying to claim territory in the North West and to provide a SAFE HARBOR for the TREASURE GALLEON that came from MANILA in the Philippines to the West Coast of MEXICO every YEAR for a number of years. Look up the SECRET TREATY OF SAN ILDEFONSO if you really want to understand what happened between Spain and France and protecting the Spanish interests in the New World.. that is WAY to much for me to write about here.. Just don't go making crap up about how the British did ANYTHING that even mildly threatened the Spanish operation in the Southwest.. in fact it was the FRENCH who settled along the Mississippi River and had TRADING POSTS that were more of a worry to Spanish interests than a few BRITISH settlers 2000 MILES AWAY.
Why did Spain not colonize Africa?
The timing wasn't right. At the height of Spanish naval power, they were not looking for Africa. They were looking for India. And they found the Americas. Raising a seperate question-suppose the conquistadores had sought for and landed on African shores. Would I be speaking spanish? This is more interesting, and allow me to speculate.No. Spain won America primarily by decimating populations because of disease. The West coast of Africa in the time of the Spanish conquest of the Americas was very densely populated, and had exposure to all manner of diseases because of the trans-saharan trade. The east-had genuine trade with all manner of places including china, india, and especially arabia. There was no chance that we would all die.So spain could not have conquered africa-for one thing they did not want to. and for another, the key tool-sickness-we did not fall sick to european diseases. For the record the british were another matter. They sailed around the cape, up the coast, came to east africa, and decimated our population with measles and gonorrhea.Edit: in case you think am being facetious, the dominant tribe in terms of numbers and territory before the british in east africa were the maasai. they died in horrendous numbers because of sexually transmitted diseases, brought by the british. mainly gonorrhea and syphilis. In my own ancestral home our population was decimated by flu brought back by conscripted soldiers after world war one. In my mother tongue it is called kimiri (which is another name for plague). But because of exposure to the outside world, something the native american population did not have, we did not die as much.Spain colonised by death. We did not die.
Thesis on European Colonization help.?
Yes: Different Euros settled in different places: English and French in North America and the Spanish in Central and Latin America The English pretty much were much more agreeable to the Native Americans compared to the Spanish, who employed slavery and forced labor systems on the Indians in their territory. The English colonies varied because of climate/geography: New England was based around fishing and fur exports Mid Atlantic region was shipping (Philadelphia is an example) and the South was about cotton, tobacco and dyes such as indigo. Hope this helps Lance
Why were Spain and England so good at colonization, in comparison to the other European countries?
Three reasons.The first, and most important, is that they had the world's most developed and advanced navies at the time when Europe was first aware of the existence of the Americas. England and Spain had the resources to not only build lots of ships, but comparatively large ones as well. Other countries with well-developed commercial navies (I'm thinking of Holland and Italy specifically), either had pre-existing relationships with profitable trading partners (thus little reason to invest in exploration) or the wrong type of ship, ones that couldn't stand up for potentially stormy Atlantic crossings.The second factor was location. Both countries had unrestricted access to the wide open sea (unlike, say Italy, which was pretty much limited to the Mediterranean, or the Netherlands and Germany, which had to sail around the British Isles), so their ships could freely come and go with comparatively little interference.Finally, both England and Spain had the drive to colonize. At first, it was trying to outdo each other, but pretty soon they realized it could be commercially profitable. Spain also had the added religious zeal that brought the Catholic Church (an extremely important element in their society) to the colonies.I would also like to point out that Portugal was also a considerable presence in South America, especially in what is now Brazil, and that France had considerable holdings in the Caribbean. England and Spain, though were the more dominant political presence in Europe at the time, and had more territory in terms of land mass.
Did Spain achieve its colonization goals in the Philippines?
I wouldn't say so, there's not much of a Spanish tint left there. America has done a better job, even though there are Spanish words in the language, there are many more English. Philipinos even speak English with an American accent.
Why was the technology of Native American societies so far beyond the European societies?
And don't say there was less warfare in the Americas to drive technology. There was plenty. I am taking an anthropology class on Mesoamerica and I took one last semester on the eastern seaboard of what is now the USA. There is lots of warfare. It just isn't organized. It is as if the Native American societies had similar technology as Classical Greece, but why have they not advanced more like with the European societies? Do you think maybe it could be related to entheogenic traditions which fostered a strong relationship to the earth and made them not feel a need to innovate? I am very curious. This question is not meant to be offensive either, all aggressive answers will be reported.