Chapter #2-Blog #1: State the factors that led England to begin colonization.

To protect themselves from reprisals over the mass murders, nervous Spanish priests erected a fort in St. Augustine, Florida.  This was the first permanent European settlement in North America. By this time, Elizabeth I ruled the throne of England, and this pro-Huguenot queen was troubled by Spain’s hostile dominance in the New World.  The writings of geographer Richard Hakluyt reminded the English people that John Cabot had staked a claim for England in the New World a mere five years after the first voyage of Columbus.  Queen Elizabeth commissioned the bold sea captain, Sir Frances Drake, to challenge the Spanish monopoly in the Americas.  From 1577 to 1580, Drake raided Spanish galleons and stormed settlements along the west coast of South America.  When the queen openly received the captured Spanish treasures and granted knighthood to Drake, Spain’s King Philip II ordered people to prepare for war against England. During this period, Sir Humphery Gilbert twice attempted to establish an English colony in Newfoundland, only to be thwarted by foul weather.  Upon his return to England, Gilbert was killed in a shipwreck.  His half-brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, assumed the challenge, setting his sights southward, where the climate appeared more hospitable.  In 1585, Raleigh planted 107 men on Roanoke Island, in Chesapeake Bay, off the coast of what is now North Carolina.  Frustrated over the absence of women, the men returned to England the following year.  On his second attempt to establish a settlement, Raleigh allowed women and children to accompany the men.  The new group of 114 people landed at Roanoke in July 1587.  The island served as gateway to a large expanse of land that Raleigh called “Virginia” in honor of Elizabeth, England’s celebrated “virgin queen.”  On August 18, 1587, the Roanoke settlers celebrated the birth of Virginia Dare, the first English child born on American soil.