pleased. Their political affairs were in the hands of governors and other officers sent out from Spain, and every one was required to accept the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church which was established by law. But as the government in Spain would not permit any one to come to America unless he was a true Spaniard and a good Catholic, religious differences were not so acute as among the English settlers.

In spite of this lack of freedom in politics and religion many of the best features of European life were brought to

Influence Latin America by the Spaniards, who were not lacking in energy in their efforts to civilize the people of their new empire. The missions among the Indians were the outposts of this civilizing work. At a very early date higher schools and colleges were established and great universities grew up in Lima and in the City of Mexico. The first printing press in America was brought by the Spaniards in 1536. By the patient and persistent use of all these means the Spaniards succeeded in permanently stamping their language and their religion upon all the countries of Latin America

in America

The Rivalry between Spain and England.-The Spaniards won their vast empire in America during the first half of the sixteenth century; in the second half of that century they English fought a great war with England which determined the destiny beginnings of North America. Only five years after the first voyage of Columbus, John Cabot, an Italian sailor in the English service, found a strange land far to the west of Ireland, and possibly he visited it again the following year; but there was little real English interest in America before the days of Queen Elizabeth, who ruled England from 1558 to 1603. In her reign English sailors became the active rivals of the Spaniards for the rich trade of the New World. The discoveries of John Cabot, which had been almost forgotten for years, were now remembered and made the basis of an English claim to America. John Hawkins began

the English traffic with
Spanish America by trading
negro slaves to the Spanish
planters in the West Indies
in exchange for sugar, hides,
and other products of the
islands. Spain objected to
the presence of these English
traders, and, on his last
slave-trading voyage, Haw-
kins lost hundreds of his
men in a fierce fight with a
Spanish fleet. Among the
survivors there was a young
sailor named Francis Drake,
who was destined to become
a terror to the Spaniards
and the greatest English
seaman of his time. Drake
led several expeditions
against the Spanish cities in America. On his most
famous voyage he entered the Pacific Ocean through the
Strait of Magellan, plundered the Spaniards on the west coast
of South America, explored the coast as far north as California,
and finally reached England by way of the Cape of Good Hope,

Sir John Hawkins

John
Hawkins

Francis
Drake

Frobisher,
Davis, and
Hudson

thus circumnavigating the globe. About the same time Martin Frobisher and John Davis and, a little later, Henry Hudson, boldly steered their ships among the icebergs of the far North in a vain search for a passage through the northern part of North America into the Pacific Ocean. The straits and bays which bear the names of these daring sailors tell us where they sought for a northwest passage to Asia.

As he listens to the sailor's tale of the land beyond the sea, Raleigh resolves to win it for England when he is a man.

Meanwhile other Englishmen were planning the beginnings

of settlement upon the coast of America. Sir Humphrey Unsuccessful Gilbert made an unsuccessful attempt to colonize in Newfoundattempts at land and was lost at sea while on his way back to England.

settlement

Gilbert's unfinished work was continued by his half brother,
Sir Walter Raleigh, one of the most famous Englishmen of
Queen Elizabeth's time. Raleigh sent two companies of settlers

to the coast of Virginia but neither succeeded in planting a permanent colony. However, Raleigh's failures brought about the introduction of two important native products of the New World into the British islands: tobacco, which from this time the English began to use, and the potato, which Raleigh planted upon his lands in Ireland.

The attempts of the English to settle in lands which Spain claimed as her own, and the piratical attacks of Drake and his associates upon Spanish ships and Spanish cities in the New Enmity World, stirred up the wrath of Spain. Then, too, the second between England and half of the sixteenth century was an age of religious strife in Spain Europe. Spain was the defender of the Catholic faith, while, more and more, England and Holland came to be recognized as the champions of the Protestant cause. As time passed, colonial rivalry and religious hatred combined to make England and Spain the bitterest of enemies.

At last the Spanish king, Philip II, resolved to stop, once for all, the aggression of the English. In the summer of 1588 he sent a great fleet of one hundred and thirty ships to begin the conquest of England. This "Invincible Armada," as it was called, was to sweep the English navy from the sea and then to transport a great Spanish army from the Netherlands to the shores of England. In this moment of utter peril, English liberty was saved by the bold seamen who had been trained for years under Hawkins, Drake, and Frobisher. As the Armada passed up the English channel the English captains attacked it and for six days there was a great running fight. On the last day of this famous battle Drake and his men drove the Armada before them through the strait of Dover into the North Sea. Then a great storm arose and completed the destruction which the English had begun. Only a remnant of the Spanish fleet succeeded in returning to Spain.

Queen Elizabeth Knighting Drake
upon the Deck of His Flagship

The Spanish
Armada

The defeat of the "Invincible Armada" saved England

and decided the destiny of America. Spain and England were Results of rivals for the possession of North America. Before England its defeat could hope to succeed in planting colonies on the western shore of the Atlantic she must be able to defend them against the attacks of Spain. When the gallant sailors of Queen Elizabeth broke the power of Spain upon the sea, and established that of England in its place, they made possible an English-speaking America. For this reason the defeat of the Spanish Armada is one of the most important events in the history of the United States.

REFERENCES.

Cheyney, European Background of American History; Fiske, The Discovery of America; Bourne, Spain in America; Channing, History of the United States, Vol. I; Lummis, Spanish Pioneers; Froude, English Seamen of the Sixteenth Century.

TOPICAL READINGS.

1. The Europe Which Found America. Burnham, Our Beginnings in Europe and America, 188-207.

2. The Early Life of Columbus. Fiske, The Discovery of America, I, 342-364.

3. Where Did Columbus Get His Geographical Ideas? Fiske, The Discovery of America, I, 354-381.

4. Prince Henry the Navigator. Fiske, The Discovery of America, I, 316-326.

5. The Story of Magellan. 184-210.

Fiske, The Discovery of America, II,

6. The First American Traveler. Lummis, Spanish Pioneers, 101-116. 7. The Pioneer Missionaries. Lummis, Spanish Pioneers, 149-157. 8. The Man Who Would Not Give Up. Lummis, Spanish Pioneers, 215-224.

9. Early Spanish Adventures in the United States. Parkman, Pioneers of France in the New World, 9-19.

10. The Sea Kings of England. Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neighbors, I, 15-40.

11. The Story of the Spanish Armada. Froude, English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century, 176-228.