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Roman Catholics were the first major religious group to immigrate to the New World, as settlers in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies of Portugal and Spain, and later, France in New France. No other religion was tolerated and there was a concerted effort to convert indigenous peoples and black slaves to Catholicism.
North of Mexico the only settlements were Saint Augustine and the isolated outpost in northern New Mexico. Exploration of the interior was largely abandoned after the 1540s. Around Newfoundland 500 or more boats annually were fishing for cod and some fishermen were trading for furs, especially at Tadoussac on the Saint Lawrence.
The idea that nature and humans are separate entities can be traced back to European colonial views. To European settlers, land was an inherited right and was to be used to profit. [92] While native groups saw their relationship with the land in a more holistic view, they were eventually subjected to European property systems. [93]
Between 1492 and 1820, approximately 2.6 million Europeans immigrated to the Americas, of whom just under 50% were British, 40% were Spanish or Portuguese, 6% were Swiss or German, and 5% were French. But it was in the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th century that European immigration to the Americas reached its historic peak.
The settlers suffered terrible hardships in its early years, including sickness, starvation, and native attacks. By early 1610, most of the settlers had died due to starvation and disease. [3] With resupply and additional immigrants, it managed to endure, becoming America's first permanent English colony. [4]
The first documented settlement of Europeans in the Americas was established by Norse people around 1000 AD in what is now Newfoundland, called Vinland by the Norse. Later European exploration of North America resumed with Christopher Columbus's 1492 expedition sponsored by Spain. English settlement began almost a century later.
While it is true that Columbus visited Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands in 1493, Ponce de Leon was the first known European to reach the present-day United States mainland. [4] On September 25, 1513, Castilian conquistador Vasco Núñez de Balboa was the first European to see the Pacific Ocean once he crossed the Isthmus of Panama.
Labor in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies became scarce. European diseases and forced labor began killing the indigenous people in insurmountable numbers. Therefore, slaves were seen only as a business venture due to the labor shortages. These slaves were forced to work in jobs such as agriculture and mining.