1 88 : The Atlantic 



The Spanish settlers, of course, came to the Caribbean and to the 

 southern shores of North America in search of gold and silver. The 

 easiest way of acquiring the precious metals was to take it from the 

 Indians, but when the Indians' supply began to diminish the Spanish 

 settlers developed mining as one of their most important industries. 

 Of course, there were hardly enough gold and silver mines to go 

 around even in America and there was a crying need of other prod- 

 ucts. Ranching and farming colonies grew to have an importance 

 almost equal to that of the mine regions. Products from the Span- 

 ish colonies included hides, corn, sugar, cocoa, vanilla, cochineal, etc. 



Sailors from Brittany and the other coasts of France were among 

 the earliest and most persistent of the fishermen to discover and uti- 

 lize the Grand Banks of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. When the 

 French began to establish permanent settlements along the St. Law- 

 rence and elsewhere in Canada, fishing was rapidly supplanted by a 

 new interest and adventure; this was the fur trade. Compared with 

 fishing, the fur trade proved a highly profitable enterprise. While fur- 

 bearing animals ran in abundance along all the streams and in all the 

 forests of Canada, the Indians were already successful in trapping ani- 

 mals and improved their natural ability under French direction. The 

 French had a natural ability for dealing with the Indian. They were 

 able to benefit by Indian experience and knowledge and methods of 

 travel; in fact, the French explorers, traders and trappers were soon 

 extending and speeding up the Indian's own routes and methods of 

 travel. The French settlers' passionate preoccupation with the fur 

 trade did much to account for the slow rate of development of other 

 parts of their economy and other articles of export. 



The Dutch, also, established at New Amsterdam a thriving and 

 rapidly expanding trade in American furs. The West India Com- 

 pany, which established the Dutch colonies in this country, was par- 

 ticularly interested in the quick profits which the fur trade provided 

 and, therefore, encouraged the settlers in this enterprise. However, 

 the leaders in the colonies themselves had marked out large and 

 extensive landholdings along the Hudson, the Delaware and in other 

 areas. On these holdings they were anxious to establish many and 

 diversified agricultural enterprises. The large estates grew and pro- 

 vided products which could be sent to the European markets along 

 with furs but there was a continuing difference of view and conflict 

 of interest between the "patroons" and the West India Company. 



In the case of the English colony at Jamestown, in Virginia, we 

 have seen already how Captain Newport's ship, on the second trip 



