I’m gonna hazard a guess there’s a bunch of people on here who aren’t familiar with Eddie Izzard’s Dressed to Kill. So let’s give credit and to those who this applies go watch it!
That used to be my reddit flair on subs that had flag flair. Lemmy needs flair, it was fun!
It's still my favorite routine. This segment was specifically about the expedition that founded the colonies on the east coast of North America. However, I generalized it to encompass the 6 or so other groups that "found" the continent or discovered an "empty" region.
Except I think it's interesting this was not generalizable. The Spanish were looking for people, just different people at first. Cortez for example landed and immediately "employed" hundreds of native people to come up with some wealth to pay off the exploration debt. The friars were specifically there to convert people to Catholicism.
The British puritans were looking to build their personal Utopia, but the Spanish and others, it seems to me, were looking for a populated colony from the start.
Its been a looooong time since I’ve seen it, but as I recall, what I really want to know is… cake? Or Death??
Worth pointing out that America was colonized exactly because there were already people there who created cities over centuries. Without them, Spain wouldn't have an immediate financial gain to colonize
