Challenges to Spain’s Supremacy

By the beginning of the seventeenth century, Spain’s rivals—England, France, and the Dutch Republic—had each established an Atlantic presence, with greater or lesser success, in the race for imperial power. None of the new colonies, all in the eastern part of North America, could match the Spanish possessions for gold and silver resources. Nonetheless, their presence in the New World helped these nations establish claims that they hoped could halt the runaway growth of Spain’s Catholic empire. English colonists in Virginia suffered greatly, expecting riches to fall into their hands and finding reality a harsh blow. However, the colony at Jamestown survived, and the output of England’s islands in the West Indies soon grew to be an important source of income for the country. New France and New Netherlands were modest colonial holdings in the northeast of the continent, but these colonies’ thriving fur trade with native peoples, and their alliances with those peoples, helped to create the foundation for later shifts in the global balance of power.            All images referenced in this podcast can be found at https://openstax.org/books/us-history/pages/2-3-challenges-to-spains-supremacy            Welcome to A Journey into Human History.    This podcast will attempt to tell the whole human story.       The content contained in this podcast was produced by OpenStax and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.     Access for free at https://openstax.org/details/books/us-history Podcast produced by Miranda Casturo as a Creative Common Sense production.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/a-journey-into-human-history--5860966/support.