Why Early European Attempts at Colonization Failed

Europeans were so dominate around the world in the 18th and 19th centuries that it is difficult to imagine that they could have failed as miserably as they did in trying to colonize Vinland and reclaim the Middle East. There were, however, some significant challenges to these specific colonization efforts that made them especially difficult.

The Norse efforts to colonize Iceland, Greenland, and Vinland suffered to a large extent from the fact that these areas are very far away from Europe and did not have much to entice settlers or even merchants to brave the fierce cold of the North Atlantic to go there. Given the choice of living in the comfort of your home country or migrating across an uncharted ocean to eke out a living in the bitter cold, most people would choose the former.

It may have been different if these areas had cash crops like tobacco in Virginia. Also, although they discovered a great deal of territory, the Norse were by no means explorers and generally only set out in search of land after someone else had found it by accident. When they got to Vinland, they found that they were greatly outnumbered by hostile natives and though they enjoyed a slight technological advantage over the natives, it was not enough to ensure their supremacy.

In sum, it seems that these colonies suffered mainly from lack of people which was a result of having little to offer new settlers. If some economic or religious or political motivation had been at work, it may have driven enough people there to make something of the colonies. This, in turn, would have attracted new colonists as it did later in the United States. Without these factors, however, there was nothing to motivate people to leave their homes and tame a new world.

Europeans faced similar problems when trying to re-conquer the Holy Land. Here they had religious and economic motivation, but the distance was still far enough to make getting there and keeping supplied a problem. Furthermore, the “natives” were a much greater problem there than they were in the new world and they were much more advanced in terms of military capacity. The inhabitants of the Holy Land were largely Muslim (a great civilization by that time) and very numerous. Further, because so few Christians wanted to actually settle in the Holy Land, the Muslim advantage in numbers was sure to get greater and greater all the time.

The greatest enemy of the European efforts, however, were not the Saracen, but disease. Europeans had little if any immunity to diseases like malaria since that disease was never very strong in their home countries. By entering the home of a deadly disease to which they had no immunity, the Crusaders set themselves up for defeat. Again, the Europeans inability to populate the region proved a huge problem. Outnumbered and weakened by disease, the Crusaders were ultimately forced to end their efforts at regaining the Holy Land. They had the motivation, but they lacked the ability to draw permanent settlers to the area.