American History - King George's War

In 1740, the king of Austria, who also happened to be the Holy Roman Emperor, died without a male heir, creating a bit of a cluster fuck as various people argued over which female heir should inherent the throne.  If you want exact details on this argument, you can look them up, just know now they are extremely stupid and pedantic.  Anyways, more important then such bullshit is the fact that this put Austria in a rather weak position, creating an opening for other nations who wanted to take advantage to gain greater control and influence amongst the smattering of states which made up Germany and Italy at the time.  Within two months of the Austrian king’s death, France, Prussia, Spain, and Sweden were all on the attack, with Britain, the Dutch Republic, and Russia, not wanting these nations gaining more power, jumping in to defend Austria.  What followed was an eight year shit show known as the War of the Austrian Succession, which spread to the Caribbean, North America, and India, and resulted in nearly a million people dead with little to nothing to show for it. 

In New England, the war was called King George’s War, because George II was the King of Britain at the time and creativity was not really a big thing in New England at the time.  The outbreak of war in Europe was pretty much just an excuse to escalate a conflict which had been ongoing since the end of Queen Anne’s War some 27 years earlier.  Throughout this period, Britain had been attempting to settle what is today Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, something which was not really all that okay with the French given how close it was to their colonies in Quebec and Nova Scotia.  However, lacking the population and the willingness to do their own dirty work, they instead armed the native Wabanaki Confederacy, who lived in the area, and had them periodically attack the New England colonists.  This was fine with the Wabanaki given they didn’t really like the British colonists encroaching on the lands where they had lived for generations and because they really had nothing else to trade with the French in order to keep getting much needed European trade goods. 

Pretty much all the outbreak of war in Europe did was create the excuse for both sides to be much more open and dramatic regarding the violence which had been taking place anyways.  At first this increase in violence was focused in Nova Scotia, which had been split between the British and French following the previous war.  The French and their native allies attempted to retake the entirety of the island, but met with failure thanks to reinforcements from Massachusetts which then led an assault on a key French fort, managing to capture it after a bloody two month siege.  Unable to retake the fort, the French retaliated by sending the Wabanaki on raids into Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, and even into Massachusetts itself, causing a significant loss of life and forcing the New England colonies to build a series of forts to protect their northern frontiers.

Now during this time, at least on paper, the Iroquois Confederacy was allied with the British and their colonies.  However, unlike the Wabanaki, the Iroquois did everything they could to avoid being drawn into the conflict other then acting as a buffer on the northwest frontier.  Though still able to access European goods via the trade for buckskins, the Iroquois were in a precarious position, their ability to keep control of western New York and Pennsylvania and the Ohio Country based mostly on their fierce reputation built during the Beaver Wars and their continued willingness to torture and murder anyone who trespassed on their territory.  However, in truth, they had been weakened significantly by conflict and disease, and its leaders, recognizing that much like the beaver trade their ability to exploit the buckskin trade would not last forever, were beginning the process of shifting their society towards more of a European style of living.  This was a big reason they were so friendly to the German Palatine, seeing them as an avenue to learn more about European agriculture and metallurgy.  However, this shift was not universally popular and internal rifts were beginning to threaten the long-standing alliances which tied the Iroquois Confederacy together.

While all of this was going on in New England, the war also affected the Caribbean, Florida, and Georgia.  Known as the War of Jenkin’s Ear, named after some random sea captain who got his ear cutoff, the war was mostly between Britain and Spain, with British businessmen hoping their government could force Spain to open its colonies to British trade.  This involved British attacks on various Spanish colonies in the Caribbean, a failed British invasion of Florida, a failed Spanish invasion of Georgia, and a disastrous attempt by the British to attack Spanish shipping in the Pacific, which though unsuccessful, did result in renewed British interest in the Pacific Ocean the possibility of a Northwest Passage.         

In the end the war ground to a stalemate, and with many of the nations involved facing bankruptcy, the British forced a peace in 1748, which though largely returning everything to the way it was prior to the war beginning, did establish the British as the world’s pre-eminent superpower.  However, it did little to assuage the issues and disagreements which led to the war in the first place.  The peace was especially unpopular in New England, where an estimated 10 percent of the adult male population had perished for apparently no reason whatsoever given the fort they captured in Nova Scotia was returned to the French and the Wabanaki continued raiding their settlements much as they had before.               

American History - Meanwhile Back in New Spain

For a good chunk of time, the colony of New Mexico was the farthest northern enclave of New Spain, the largest and most dominant power on the North American continent.  Though explorations across North America had occurred throughout the sixteenth century, large swaths of territory in what was to become northern Mexico, California, Arizona, and Texas, were largely ignored by the Spanish government.  The reasoning for this was simple, namely all the Spanish really cared about was silver, and since they had no idea if these areas had silver, and there was lots of silver in central Mexico, there was really no reason to give two shits about the barren lands to the north full of natives who really didn’t want them around.  The fact that keeping control of New Mexico was a pretty big pain in the ass as well certainly didn’t help either.

Now this didn’t mean that the region was ignored by everyone for most of the seventeenth century, it just meant that it was ignored by the Spanish government.  The same can’t be said of the Jesuits.  Now the Jesuits were an order of Catholic missionaries who throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were a significant power in New Spain.  Seeing it as their holy mission to convert as many people to the Catholic faith as possible, Jesuit missionaries travelled far and wide beyond what was at the time considered the frontier, exploring territory otherwise left unmapped and establishing missions where they attempted to introduce the natives to the Catholic faith, European crops and cattle, and Spanish culture.  At times these missions were successful, basically creating Spanish enclaves beyond the power of the Spanish government.  However, other times they ended in the missionaries being killed or forced to flee, usually because the missionaries became a little too forceful in their attempts to convert the locals, or because they got greedy and began using the locals basically as slaves.  The missionary game was a real mixed bag of whether or not someone was a real fuck.  The missionaries also tended to bring Old World diseases with them, which wasn’t all that great for the natives either, you know, if you’ve been paying attention.

Anyways, Jesuits first began to move into what is today northwestern Mexico in the 1640s, but they met with no success until the 1660s, and even then had pretty limited success due to the natives just not giving two shits about adopting a new god.  However, say what you want about the Jesuits, but they were most certainly persistent.  A new influx of Jesuit missionaries in the 1680s not only explored the region in more detail then ever before, finally disproving the widely held belief that Baja and California was an island, but also establishing a number of missions throughout northwestern Mexico and southern Arizona.  This proved rather advantageous given a number of silver mines were discovered in these same areas in the early eighteenth century, and though there were a number of native revolts during this period, overall it was much easier for the Spanish to assert control then if the Jesuit hadn’t laid the groundwork.

Meanwhile, in what is today northeastern Mexico and Texas, the spread of Jesuit missionaries was following a similar pattern, though one enhanced by direct investment from the government of New Spain.  In the 1685, France built a small colony on the coast of Texas, and the Spanish spent the next decade sending military expeditions north in an attempt to destroy it, finally discovering the natives had wiped it out years before in 1691.  Concerned over continued French interest in Texas, they then built several missions, which were soon after abandoned because the local Caddoan peoples really didn’t want them there.  Unfortunately, the missionaries left behind small pox when they left, and a majority of the Caddoan didn’t have much of an opinion on anything soon after.  Further concern over possible French expansion led to the re-establishment of a large number of Spanish missions and forts in eastern and southern Texas beginning in 1716.  This time around the Caddoan were much more open to the idea of converting.  With their numbers greatly reduced and increasing attacks by the Comanche and Apache, converting to a new religion seemed like a pretty low price to pay for protection. 

In 1720, the Spanish attempted to assert themselves north of Texas via an armed military expedition.  French traders were increasingly appearing on the Central Plains, establishing relationships with the local tribes, good enough relationships that they managed to convince the Pawnee to wipe out the Spanish expedition.  The French followed up by presenting trade goods to the Comanche if they agreed to attack the Spanish, which the Comanche were more than happy to take because they were going to do so anyways.  For the next sixty years, the violence of the Comanche raids checked any further northeastern Spanish expansion.  Though not supplied by the French, the Apache played a similar role in limiting northwestern Spanish expansion, at least until other countries began showing up in the Pacific Ocean.

Now for the better part of two centuries, the Spanish had dominated the Pacific Ocean.  In fact, other then some English privateers in the late sixteenth century and a three trading expeditions by the Japanese in western style ships in 1610, 1614, and 1617, nobody but them had been crossing the Pacific between the Old World and the New World.  In fact, though Spanish ships, following the trade winds, often arrived on the coasts of the Pacific Northwest and California during these two centuries, they really didn’t give two shits about them.  They were traders damn it, not explorers.  However, that all began to change in the 1740s when the Russians began to explore the northern Pacific, with British and French explorers beginning to explore the southern Pacific in the 1760s.  Rather alarmed by this, New Spain began funding the exploration of the Pacific Coast and the establishment of missions in California.  The first of these, San Diego, was founded in 1769, with 20 more founded before the end of the century, the northernmost being San Francisco in 1776.      

American History - Don't Forget About the Spanish Empire

As we go through the colonial period of our country, it is often easy to forget that throughout this period the Thirteen Colonies were on the northern fringe of a vast empire which was home to over nine million people in 1700.  At the time the first of the Thirteen Colonies were being established in the early seventeenth century, many of the Spanish cities had existed for nearly a century.  Old and well-established to the point that some had even began to go into decline, the Spanish Empire was the dominant force in the New World, largely unchallenged until the end of the eighteenth century. 

Spanish possessions in the New World were divided between the Viceroyalty of New Spain, which controlled possessions in North America and the Caribbean, and the Viceroyalty of Peru in South America.  Both largely existed for one reason, the mining and export of silver and gold to Spain, where it was frivolously wasted on wars and various other fools errands which despite such an influx of wealth left Spain always teetering on the edge of collapse.  Until the mid-seventeenth century, the Viceroyalty of Peru was the primary source of silver to Spain, but this shifted over time to New Spain, thanks to new silver mines discovered in first central and then northern Mexico.  This combined with other exports such as indigo and sugar, and the Pacific trade with the Philippines and what is today Thailand and Vietnam, made New Spain the center of New World commerce, though one largely only accessible to Spain.  Foreigners were rarely allowed in, and the viceroyalties could only trade with Spain, not even with each other.  As one can imagine, this led to a lot of smuggling, a perpetual problem that was largely ignored as long as it did not get overly out of hand or overly affect the flow of wealth across the Atlantic. 

Each viceroyalty was ruled by a viceroy, who was appointed by the king and overseen by the Council of the Indies, a group of Spanish nobles back in Spain whose main job was to largely sit around and talk about things they had no idea about given most had never been to the New World.  Under each viceroy were several Audencias, which were judicial and legislative councils called Audencias which acted as a check on the power of the viceroys and various smaller territorial governorships, some of which were appointed and some of which were hereditary.  All of these were prized positions given they all came with various ways to greatly enrich oneself via skimming off the top, graft, and other forms of corruption. Another and slightly separate power was the Catholic church, which held a great deal of sway and whose bishops often held high political posts, controlled vast tracts of land, and had significant influence over the native population. Though men of god, they of course also enriched themselves just as much as everybody else.

The capitals of the viceroyalties, Mexico City and Lima, were the largest cities in the New World throughout this period, and Mexico City remains the largest city in North America to this day.  They were home to universities, museums, monuments, and unique arts and culture.  Both viceroyalties were connected via extensive networks of roads, albeit ones which mostly connected the mines to port cities, stage lines, postal services, and an extensive bureaucracy and unified legal system.  However, despite all of this, the viceroyalties were perpetually broke, most of their wealth exported back to Spain.  Many public works projects were started, halted, and restarted numerous times, or just outright abandoned.  In many ways the viceroyalties were treated as independent kingdoms.  They were expected to be self-sufficient and to see to their own infrastructure, public works, and defense.  Farming and ranching were large and well-developed industries, as was the manufacturing of many goods.  Each viceroyalty had a standing army, a naval fleet, and frontier and coastal forts, and conflict with other colonial powers, especially in the Caribbean, Belize, and Gulf of Mexico was not uncommon.  Though the king or the Council of the Indies often made edicts concerning the governing of the viceroyalties, these were often ignored. 

Both viceroyalties had extremely stratified societies.  On the top was an upper class, which was divided between appointed officials sent from Spain and the wealthiest land owners who had been born in the viceroyalties.  Below them was a middle class made up of a growing population of mixed Spanish and native heritage, and on the bottom was a working class almost entirely made up of natives, which made up the majority of the population.  There was a small population of African slaves, but the importation of slaves was nowhere near as predominant as in other parts of the New World.  Though huge numbers of natives had died of disease, the pre-contact high population density combined with over a century of time to recover meant the viceroyalties had a much more abundant workforce compared to other parts of the New World, such as the Caribbean, the Thirteen Colonies, and Brazil. 

The history of these two viceroyalties is long and as complex as one would imagine and are well worth studying.  However, this is a history of the United States, and as such we have to gloss over a lot of things worth knowing to keep the narrative moving forward.  Go read another book or article or something, I can’t do everything for you.