Colonial America: Why Do Americans Speak English? | 5-Minute Videos | PragerU
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The Spanish got to the New World first. The French built the biggest forts. The Indians knew the land best. So how did the English come to dominate North America? Thomas Kidd, author of American History Volumes 1 and 2, walks us through the unlikely rise of the English colonies—and how they laid the foundation for the United States of America.
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Transcript:
Colonial America: Why Do Americans Speak English?
Presented by Thomas Kidd
Why do Americans speak English? Why don’t we speak Spanish? Or French? Or Algonquian, for that matter?
It may seem like a silly question, but it’s not. The Spanish were in the Americas for a hundred years before the English arrived in Jamestown in 1607. The French had a major military presence in North America and the largest army in the world for most of the 18th century. The Indians, of course, had been here for untold millennia and knew the land better than their European adversaries.
So, how was it that the English came to dominate them all?
Our answer begins with Columbus. When the great explorer opened the way to the New World, he oriented the Spanish not toward North America, but toward Central and South America. There, the Spanish discovered gold and silver, making them the richest and greatest power in Europe in the 16th century.
In 1588, they used those riches and their vaunted armada of warships to launch an invasion of England. But this attempt at conquest ended in disaster, thanks to a brilliant English naval strategy and a big assist from Mother Nature in the form of ship-destroying storms.
Spanish dominance of Europe ended with this defeat. Had things gone differently, it’s more than likely they, at
