An English Manual on Colonization

Queen Elizabeth I wanted colonies in the Americas. She was tired of watching her Iberian Catholic foes—especially the Spanish—engage in an enormously lucrative practice of papal sponsored colonialization and conquest throughout the Americas. As the head of England and the English Church, she decided it was time to join in the (supposedly) God-ordained plundering.

In 1578, Elizabeth tapped Sir Humphrey Gilbert, the notorious brutal colonizer of Ireland, to commence colonizing and conquering in America. In letters patent, Elizabeth instructed Gilbert “to discover, search, find out, and view such remote heathen and barbarous lands, countries, and territories not actually possessed of any Christian prince or people…to have, hold, occupy and enjoy to him his heirs and assigns forever.”

The Queen’s instructions were not the only one’s Gilbert took on his inaugural journey across the Atlantic. He also carried a manual on colonization written by the English lawyer Richard Hakluyt.

Recognizing the Queen’s designs to colonize and conquer large swaths of the Americas, Hakluyt prepared a series of “Notes on Colonization.” His goal was to advise the privately owned but Crown-sponsored colonizers on how to establish colonies in wild, dangerous lands filled with “barbarians” that could withstand attacks from these natives and European rivals such as Spain and France. 

Regarding the native population, Hakluyt encouraged English colonizers to begin by promoting “benevolent” relations. As Robert A Williams (Lumbee) observes, “Hakluyt’s advice on dealing with the colony’s ‘natural inhabitants’ urged an initial policy of self-serving amicability as the wisest strategy for achieving ultimate exploitation.” Such pseudo-benevolence was necessary, Hakluyt argued, because the English “might not be suffered by the savages to enjoy any whole country or any more than the scope of a City.”

A City was all Hakluyt thought English colonizing-conquerors needed to spread the English empire. Once they established a small colony in America, he reasoned, the natives would desire to trade with them. “[I]f we might enjoy traffic [read “trade”] and be assured of the same, we might be much enriched, our navy might be increased, and a place of safety might be found, if change of religion or civil wars should happen in this realm [England], which are things of great benefit.” Hakluyt was singing in the Queen’s colonizing key.

Knowing that Elizabeth wanted to dominate large tracks of the Americas, Hakluyt increased the militarized nature of his “Notes.” The “benevolent” interactions he championed toward natives had an imperial, martial upshot:

Nothing is more to be endeavored with the inland people than familiarity. For so may you best discover all the natural commodities of their country, and also all their wants, all their strengths, all their weaknesses, and with whom they are in war . . . which known, you may work great effects of greatest consequence.

Be kind to the natives, Hakluyt argued, because that “kindness” will enable you to carry out the long con of colonial conquest.