The Spanish settled primarily in regions like present-day Mexico and the southwestern United States, where they found economic success through the extraction of precious metals, particularly silver, and the establishment of plantations that relied heavily on enslaved Indigenous and African labor, exemplified by the wealth generated from mines like Potosí. In contrast, the French concentrated on areas like Canada and the Great Lakes region, developing an economy based on fur trading, fostering alliances with Indigenous peoples, and utilizing a system of trade that benefitted both parties, as seen with the coureurs des bois who engaged in the lucrative beaver pelt trade. The English, on the other hand, established colonies along the Atlantic coast, particularly in Virginia and New England, where their economy thrived through tobacco cultivation and small-scale farming, as evidenced by the establishment of tobacco plantations that became a staple of the colonial economy. Some of the defining factors of each country are their geographic focus—Spain’s conquest of rich mineral lands, France’s emphasis on trade relations with Indigenous groups, and England's agricultural expansion—along with their differing approaches to labor and settlement patterns.
The late 1400s through the early 1600s was a time of exploration and early settlement of several European colonies. Write a paragraph that compares and contrasts the location they settled in the Americas and how they developed their economy. Those groups include the Spanish, French, and English, provide specific examples that are unique to each country. (Optional Sentence Stem: The Spanish settled___ and found economic success through ___. The French settled____ and found economic success through___. The English settled___ and found economic success through___. Some of the defining factors of each country are ___, ___, and ___.)
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