The Europeans

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The reasons that brought the Europeans to the Americas are various and complex. Its basis lies in the historical developments that ended the Middle Ages in Europe. Although primacy is often given to the economic change from feudalism to capitalist modes of labor and increased interdependency, the change was also motivated by very important political, intellectual, and religious changes.
In the Middle Ages Western European societies were nearly self-sufficient. Actual trade was limited to very few luxury products. Land was the essential source of wealth. Wealth was the source of power, and power was spread among the hierarchy of landlords known as Feudalism That quasi-static society found its central reference point in the unity of the doctrine taught by a unique church, and restrained its thoughts to be mystical quest.
The Commercial Revolution put the Middle Ages to an end. Interdependent economy was progressively installed. Strong centralized monarchies, supported by a merchant bourgeoisie, realized national unity in several states. It must be noted that the first nations to attain unity under such national governments were Portugal, Spain (Castille and Aragon), England, France, and the Netherlands. These nations are also the great empire building nations of modern time. (Henri W. Littlefield, History of Europe 1500 - 1848, p.3).
In the intellectual field, the revival of interest in classical Greek and Latin literature resulted in a movement known as the Renaissance. The Renaissance replaced the mystical religious quest by a spirit of practical inquiry. Finally, the onerous spiritual unity that was preserved throughout the Middle Ages was broken by efforts of reform.
The growth of commerce in Western Europe began in the late Middle Ages (see Middle Ages link above). Its broad pattern was as follows: The main traffic was the purchase of oriental goods, especially spices, which were much in demand because of the monotony of diets. In exchange for these commodities, rough materials and especially metals from Southern Germany were exported. The trade balance was not equal, and silver and gold were gradually drained out of Europe. Northern Italian cities retained absolute monopoly of this trade. In Northern Germany an association of trading cities, known as the Hansatic League, monopolized the prosperous importation of Baltic wheat. Although the Hanseatic League entered its decline in the fifteenth century, it retained considerable power through the 17th century.
In spite of trading monopolies, neither Italy nor Germany succeeded in realizing national unity. Italy was divided into violently rival city-states (Milan, Venice, Florence, Genoa). Their quarrels made them too competing for French, German and Spanish powers at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Germany was part of the ineffectual Holy Roman Empire that was still officially comprised of the completely independent states of Switzerland, Northern Italy, and the Netherlands. In actuality the Holy Roman Empire was the association of three hundred different states under the nominal power of an elected Emperor. Attempts to consolidate the association and the powers of the Emperor, like that of the Diet of Worms (1495) were unsuccessful.
The Netherlands (the present Holland, Belgium and part of Northern France) was another nation without actual unity, and divided in little states. Since 1477, it had retained considerable freedom under the distant and protective rule of the Hapsburgs (the Hapsburgs were the Austrian princes and traditionally elected Emperors) and its commerce was increasingly prosperous. The northern part (Holland) will complete national unity a century later, in its revolt against the Spanish power.
Portugal was the first European state to realize the combination of a commercial and political revolution. Its present boundaries were reached in 1263, and it has been ruled since the defeat of the Noble's party in 1385 by a strong monarchy supported by merchants. Portugal was the first European country to embark on a politic of imperialism over the seas, to which the decisive impulse was given by Prince Henry the Navigator (1394 - 1460), who directed a systematic exploration of the coasts of Africa. The results of these voyages were extremely important. Not only did the Portuguese realize their initial aim, which was to divert to Christendom the flow of West African gold which founded Arab power, they also discovered new spice-producing countries and, with Vasco de Gamma's voyage, a direct route to India. This was the end of the Venetian spice trade monopoly. Alas, they also discovered "slave-producing" countries.
Spain was the second empire building state. Although it occupied its present territory at the beginning of the sixteenth century (with the marriage of King of Castille and the Queen of Aragon, and by the conquest of Muslim Granada), unity was more apparent than real. Spanish ";pride"; articulated opposition to the important communities of Moors and Jews. The commercial class was weaker than that of Portugal; however, Ferdinand, the King of Castille, jealous of Portugal's success, and gifted with the existence of a poor nobility reduced to leisure by the end of the Reconquista (re-conquest of the Moslems), imposed an imperialist politic of discoveries.
England realized unity under a strong national monarchy with King Henry VII (1485-1509). The conditions were favorable: an exhausted nobility after the War of Roses, a rising bourgeoisie, and a certain national consciousness after the "Hundred Years War" with France. Henry VII developed a policy of external peace, interior order and aid to commercial development.
France performed the same work of unification and strengthening of royal power under King Louis XI (1461-1483), often described as an unscrupulous tyrant, but deserving of honorable mention in history for the intelligent way he governed his kingdom. He favored the creation of new markets and the expansion of the recently conquered Mediterranean harbor of Marseilles. Yet France, like England, would embark later than other countries in a real policy of new world imperialism. If the reasons for that delay are complex, the most important one is their lack of trust in adventure in matters of business. The real beginning of a French colonial policy can be found in the interest they developed in turning high jacking (piracy) into a national policy as well as closely duplicating and interfering in the affairs of the Dutch West Indies Company which was the first to excel in the "triangle traffic" (European goods were brought to Africa, traded for slaves which were then traded in the West Indies for colonial products).

The tremendous profits gained from these parasitic commercial ventures help France to become a force to be reckoned with in the competitive world of Empire development of the "new world". See Also:Protestant Reformation