ABSTRACT
When Humphrey Gilbert initiated the earliest overseas colonization project by an English person in 1580, he needed to prove that England’s claim to North America predated other European ones and that Native-American land rights were invalid. Even though Iberians settled the Americas a century earlier and Native Americans millennia before, Gilbert’s advisor, John Dee, meticulously traced the English claim back centuries to predate the Iberians. They feared that the Indigenous inhabitants would restrict the English settlement to a small area, so Dee cited divine law, civil law, and the law of nations to justify colonization and the British acquisition of all of North America. Gilbert initially envisioned a significant role for Native Americans at his colony, but by the time he set sail in 1583, they had all but disappeared from his plans. Gilbert’s supporters printed promotional literature and maps that rejected the land rights of both Native Americans and rival Europeans. Though their claims were disputable, their efforts reveal the remarkable level of research and significant resources behind early-modern colonizing voyages. They set a precedent for subsequent English colonists who used similar rationale to discount rival claims and settle the area still known as New England.
