On the Colonial Settlements of the Anglo-Saxons in North America

Abstract

As one of the research-method of historical geography, I will treat the relation of man's historical activities to natural environment. We have many cases in which a complete explanation of a certain human activity can not be achieved within the scope of only one Kind of science or of only one branch of any science. Thus, for the study of colonial settlement, problems such as the political, social situations etc. in the mother-land should be carefully considered. If so I say, the reader will understand that the present paper, though treated only from environmental point of view, is never written in the meaning of environmental determinism. It is solely important for us to study to which degree a certain human activity has relation to natural environment.
Now the present paper considers the problem of the Anglo-Saxon's settlement developed along the Atlantic coast of North America since the beginning of the seventeenth century in its relation to natural environment. Thus, we discuss the settlement problems of New-England, New York district, the Delaware district, the Chesapeake Bay district and Carolinas.
If we can name the colonization pattern of the Anglo-Saxons “tidal settlement”, we may call the early Spanish colonization in America “trade-wind settlement”, and also the French colonization “glacier trace settlement”.