Oldest European Settlement in US

[Polux]

Originally Posted by sailingfarmer

The entire population in England in 1800 was 8.9 million! C'mon get some perspective here.

"The first Census in 1801 revealed that the population of Great Britain was 10.5 million. In 1800 the population of Ireland was between 4.5 and 5.5 million. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demogr...United_Kingdom

In 1800 the native population in the US was about 600 000. In 1700 it is believed that they were between 15 and 17 millions (18 millions before Colombus).

In 1800 the total population of US, including natives and slaves was of a bit more than 5 millions, 3 times less than what had been the native population in US a century before.

If we took the slaves and native Americans out the equation the number of collons was a bit more than 3.5 millions. That means that only the population of UK and Ireland (15 millions) was more than 4 times bigger than the number of collons on the US and those colons were not only British and Irish but German, French, Dutch, Nordic, Jewish, Polish, Italian and of Spanish/Mexican origin (among others).

On the XIX century European population passed from 200 millions to 730 millions and that overpopulation was what lead to North America meaningful colonization during the XIX century and after.

[Seymore]

Originally Posted by Island Time O25

I have somewhere "The Voyage of St. Brendan" (?) about a modern reconstruction and ocean crossing sailing of a replica Viking (pre-Viking?) ship.

Timothy Severin The Brendan Voyage is a fascinating read about some people who built a leather boat in Ireland and sailed it across the Atlantic. St
Brendan in Ireland before 1000 AD(?) wrote a flowery account of how he visited his flock in the new world, and they demonstrated that he did so. As I remember, the inference is that the Irish had established colonies in North America before 1000 AD and their religious leaders visited them sometimes.

[Seymore]

Originally Posted by sailingfarmer

That is why the Asians who crossed the archipelago between Northern Asia and Alaska are not recognized to any degree nor honored as perhaps they should be. Except for the Mayans, Aztecs and Incas... there was little to show...

They didn't have guns and gunpowder and didn't habitually carry swords.

[Seymore]

Originally Posted by hpeer

I was reading a bio of Maggellen that had some translated quotes from his log. He was discussing his decision to hole up for the winter in the bay where the mutiny occurred. He noted that he wanted to set out the winter in this bay and then proceed through the strait in the spring.

How did he know there was a strait ahead of him?

I betcha that, as they do, he sent a longboat up there and they found no end to it. And the current that came down it was salt water, not fresh which would indicate a river.

[sailingfarmer]

Originally Posted by Polux

That is a funny view of history. Colonization of America or Australia with meaningful numbers only took place when Europe became overcrowded and that happened only in the XVIII century and over. Till then Europeans were not interested in leaving permanently their countries and colonizing, but in the wealth they can took from new lands.

The total population of US in 1800 was 5 millions, in 1850 23 millions, passing to 76 millions in 1900. It is easy to see when North America was meaningfully colonized. Nothing to do with the first Spanish or Portuguese settlements in America that dated from the XVI century.

1800 was 5 millions




"The total population of US in 1800 was 5 millions"

Hard to have a discussion if you keep changing your supposed facts...

[Polux]

Originally Posted by reed1v

The Portuguese were intrepid sailors long before the 14th century. Most of their sailing logs, maps, and routes were kept secret for centuries well before Christoper was a baby.....More than likely they bummed around north and south America, probably misbehaving in politically incorrect manners. ..

There is a tendency to look at past history with today's eyes and apply today's political correctness and moral to past events.

That does not make sense and don't help to understand history and their players.

If want to see in comparative therms if in a general way Portuguese behaved themselves correctly (regarding the way the world was then) you should look at the way the ones that dealt with Portuguese or lived under their rule look at them and to the culture that they leaved behind and was accepted and integrated in far away regions.

Regarding the last point the fact that a country with then 1 million inhabitants has today its language as native for 280 millions (10 million Portuguese) and how the prestige of Portuguese remained high on places where they have left at almost 500 years, like Malaca (and many other places) with many proudly still have Portuguese names and claim Portuguese ancestry and still party at the traditional Portuguese festivities.
Os portugueses da Malásia

The Europeans that come after the Portuguese don't managed to have this reconnaissance, quite the opposite. I believe that had to do with the fact that the Portuguese were the only Europeans that mingled with the local populations, marrying with local girls. That lead to a much bigger mutual respect and interaction. That was the opposite of what the Dutch and British had done. they always looked with contempt to the local populations and marry there was unthinkable for them.

[Polux]

Originally Posted by sailingfarmer

1800 was 5 millions

"The total population of US in 1800 was 5 millions"

Hard to have a discussion if you keep changing your supposed facts...

Yes the total population was 5 millions but that were not only the European colonizers. It included more than half million natives and almost 1 million of African slaves.

We were talking about colonization and colonists not about natives or slaves.

[sailorboy1]

who would have thought this thread could get so heated and long on a boating forum

[boatman61]

[QUOTE=Polux;2056581]There is a tendency to look at past history with today's eyes and apply today's political correctness and moral to past events.

The Europeans that come after the Portuguese don't managed to have this reconnaissance, quite the opposite. I believe that had to do with the fact that the Portuguese were the only Europeans that mingled with the local populations, marrying with local girls. That lead to a much bigger mutual respect and interaction. That was the opposite of what the Dutch and British had done. they always looked with contempt to the local populations and marry there was unthinkable for them.[/QUOTE]

Au Contrare Mon Ami as 'Del Boy' would say...
Its was contemptible only for the upper classes.. the common soldier in the lower ranks had no such aversions.. nor many vicars.
A large Anglo-Indian community soon built up who managed the railways, local government and the police.. and often the senior nco's in the Sepoy regiments..
Being an ally the Portuguese were left alone in India by the British as in much of the Far East.. unlike the French who hated the English and lost all they had in India when Napoleon tried raising the local Rajah's against the Empire..
However what is often forgotten is that the Portuguese were a major source of slaves along the E African coast as 'Factor's' set up to take advantage of the slave caravans from the interior that used the coast to transport slaves on dhow's to Arabia.
Once other nations had discovered the Cape of Good Hope they recognised the cash opportunity and slaves became the labour force of the Tropic's where the white mans tendency to keel over and die was a severe handicap.. so the slave trade boomed along the coasts of Mozambique and Northwards...
Re slaves.. they are still in existence.. the Bhutto's in Pakistan for example still have generational slaves.. their fathers, grandfathers and back through the ages.. a fact well known by the hypocrites who run the Western World.. and turn a blind eye too.. as in Saudi, Oman etc etc..

[Polux]

Originally Posted by hpeer

Just to season the sauce a bit, I'll throw this tid bit out there....

I was reading a bio of Maggellen that had some translated quotes from his log. He was discussing his decision to hole up for the winter in the bay where the mutiny occurred. He noted that he wanted to set out the winter in this bay and then proceed through the strait in the spring.

How did he know there was a strait ahead of him?

Instead of reading a Bio you should read the original story written by Pigafetta (great read), one of the few that survived that voyage. He explains that (translated): "...If it was not been the Captain General (Magalhães) we would not be able to find this strait because we all thought it had no way out. But the Captain knew that he should pass by a hidden strait because he had seen it on a map...that was kept in the treasure house in Portugal."

Several Portuguese maps included that Passage before Magalhães passed there and those waters had been explored even if the state secrecy of the time does not allow it to know exactly who were the Captains.

Maybe Tristão da Cunha or João de Lisboa that mapped the passage before Magalhães passed there. Some say that João de Lisboa was sailing with Magalhães and in that case it was probably him that found that passage for Magalhães, assuming he had not been there before.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo%C3%A3o_de_Lisboa

Anyway the biggest discovery and the more difficult feat in what regards navigation is not well understood and in fact only sailors can have an easy perception of that: It was the trade route to go to India following and mapping the trade winds.

Going to America was easy, from Iceland or Portugal/Spain. All it was needed was going to Iceland, Madeira or Canaries and then go West following the wind. You want to go west, you sail to West.

To go to India rounding Africa they had to leave the coast of Africa at Cabo Verde and actually go on the opposite direction for thousands of miles reaching almost Brazil before turning East again. Seems simple today after they have mapped those winds and that route but there was nothing logical about going on the opposite direction for going East. It was needed brave sailors and lots of perseverance to find out how to manage to pass the Southern point of Africa.

The ones that managed that were the best sailors and navigators and the one that was considered by all as the best was the one that succeeded that, Bartolomeu Dias, the best sailor from the XV century. But that was only possible due to the work of many other great sailors that are not well known. Just look at this list and you will be surprised with the size of it:
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catego...es_de_Portugal

[reed1v]

Polux, thanks for a great post. As an added tidbit, it was the natives'fires along the strait that gave the name to the region: Land of Fires. Also as noted in the logs, the silly natives wore no clothing at all. To keep warm in that region they needed big fires. Evidently the notion of clothing never occurred to them. Kind of like southern californians nowadays.

[Polux]

[QUOTE=boatman61;2056618]

Originally Posted by Polux

There is a tendency to look at past history with today's eyes and apply today's political correctness and moral to past events.

The Europeans that come after the Portuguese don't managed to have this reconnaissance, quite the opposite. I believe that had to do with the fact that the Portuguese were the only Europeans that mingled with the local populations, marrying with local girls. That lead to a much bigger mutual respect and interaction. That was the opposite of what the Dutch and British had done. they always looked with contempt to the local populations and marry there was unthinkable for them.[/QUOTE]

Au Contrare Mon Ami as 'Del Boy' would say...
Its was contemptible only for the upper classes.. the common soldier in the lower ranks had no such aversions.. nor many vicars.
A large Anglo-Indian community soon built up who managed the railways, local government and the police.. and often the senior nco's in the Sepoy regiments..
...

There is a big difference in being the lower classes that married with local girls or the middle and even upper classes marrying local girls and establish links with the local upper class.

In fact it is known that the Portuguese Empire was the only one that incentivated those unions and for a practical reason: How would a small country with one million inhabitants and a Navy with 20000 sailors and warriors would manage to dominate the waters and coats of a great part of the World? Not certainly without local allies.



It was not a slavery empire but a maritime and trading empire and the objective was to dominate the trade routes.

Slavery old took a part at its decadence several centuries before its high point and in that the Portuguese were no different from the British, French or Americans. Slavery in great scale from Africa was due to the needs of intensive agriculture (cotton) and sugar can plants, in Brazil, US and Central America.

There is a cultural differences however regarding what happened to those slaves in what regards integration trough the centuries:

Look at North America and you will see that integration only happened on the last decades of the XX century and the miscegenation in large numbers (half breads) to not account for a a large part of the population.

Look at Brazil, to the level of miscegenation and to the number of half breed (Mestiços) regarding the overall number. The ones that assume they are not white in Brazil is over 50% and if we look at the ones that think they are white (for some kind of faux status reason) but in fact have mestiço blood in their veins, than then the vast majority of Brazilians are mestiços and their number tend to increase rapidly.

In fact many are justly proud of that and the miscegenation of cultures is what makes the Brazilian culture singular and very rich, from the music to the literature to the easy going way of live.

[boatman61]

At no point did I say Portugal was a Slave Empire.. just stated the historical fact that the Portuguese in the main controlled the Sale of slaves to the West in E Africa.
But the Portuguese were in the main Traders and not 'Conqueror's' like the Spanish, French, German, Italians and Brits.. else they would have colonised Australia instead of bypassing it as of no value..
Most of the British Empire was established by trade not direct warfare with the population and.. unlike the Spanish and Portuguese the Brits made huge changes and improvements to the infrastructure and agriculture for all peoples.. not just create cities and churches for themselves and leave the natives to get by as best they could.. its a shame that so many peoples in the world are incapable of maintaining infrastructure and allow their cities etc to crumble around them..
The lovely little city that was Karachi at Independence is today a massive slum with most of the lovely buildings that made up the city allowed to decay and crumble through neglect... same with Madras.. or Chennai as they call it today..

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by Polux

. . . There are some theories about miscegenation with the natives. . . .

In the future you might consider using the term intermarriage rather than miscegenation which has unpleasant/racist connotations with certain groups in the US.


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[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Adelie

In the future you might consider using the term intermarriage rather than miscegenation which has unpleasant/racist connotations with certain groups in the US.


Sent from my iPhone using Cruisers Sailing Forum

Yup.. 'Gone Native' is much more acceptable..