Ships were lost during these dark voyages, and said to have had no souls. Forced labor was commonly used by most colonial powers. The practice was more common for transporting slaves than for the general colonizing process itself, and it was forbidden under many statutes, except for private enterprise. Many historians have documented the presence of slave labor in the American colonial economy. In his essay, 'Slavery in the Americas: Three Essays', David Brion Davis examines the significance of labor on four continents, including the United States, Brazil, India, and Mexico. The Portuguese were the first colonial powers to be faced with the problem of how to sustain slave labor. The Dutch West India Company carried the first large-scale trade in Africans, since it was forbidden under the treaty of Westphalia (1648) between Christian European countries. The first shipment of Africans (to Suriname) did not arrive until 1639. Early American Colonial slave labor was often supplied by indentured servants who, in the new land, were sold to slave-owners as 'the last of the Mohicans', usually for several years' work. The earliest African slaves in British North America were taken as a spoil of war in the mid-18th century. The 17th century English colonies such as Virginia and Barbados usually relied upon indentured laborers, particularly from England and Ireland. Between 1620 and 1640, over 100,000 English-speaking immigrants arrived in North America, about three quarters of them from England. Early colonists in Massachusetts were required to bring 20 acres of land within ten years to support themselves. After 1662, this system was modified so that newly arrived settlers were only required to provide the government a proportion of their income as rent to support its expenses. Tracts of land to be granted in exchange for monetary payment were called 'public lands'. However, they should not be confused with free land grants from the government. When Europeans arrived in the seventeenth century, the Americas were already home to millions of indigenous people. At the time of the European colonization, there were an estimated 500,000 to 600,000 Amerindians in North America, with a diverse set of cultures spread out over what is now Canada, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and the eastern and southern United States. In the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, the Spanish monarchs and the Vatican agreed to the division of the world between Spain and Portugal. The dividing line was set at 370 leagues (about 1200 miles) north of the equator. This line had nothing to do with physical features, but reflected a desire of the Catholic Church to avoid conflict with Portugal's colonial empire, and the need to find a halfway point for which there was no dispute over rights. That the line would become known as the "Tordesillas Line" was purely coincidental. For the next two centuries, there would be a series of armed conflicts between Spain and Portugal, with the Spanish taking control of most of North America, while the Portuguese took most of South America. After 1640, the Dutch conquered the Brazilian Captaincy of Pernambuco. By the Treaty of Madrid in 1750, Spain yielded all claim to the Dutch territory south of the Tordesillas Line. The treaty with the Spanish was of little concern to the British. The British Empire had recently taken over New France. The French West Indies were also under British control, though Britain had no further interest in these holdings. New England colonists who were already living in Rhode Island and New York, and who were still under the British Crown, did not want the West Indies. They wanted a huge area for settlement that the Spanish had already claimed: the continent of South America, plus all of the land west of the Mississippi River. The English needed financing to support their new colonies, and did not wish to use money taken from the local inhabitants, as they had done in New England. The French seemed to be the perfect source. Since the English had no immediate plans to take possession of Canada, they decided to let the French occupy it. The French agreed to lease the territory for a period of 99 years. To encourage investors, the English Parliament passed the Quebec Act of 1774, which extended the rent payments indefinitely, but was silent as to whether the Crown or Parliament should claim ownership of the territory. In 1616, Captain John Smith went to the West Indies to take part in the fight against the Spanish Armada. While there, he wrote a description of the local Indian tribes which he termed, "A True Relation". He reported that they lived in what is now called Panama. However, they still did not have horses, and needed the Spanish to carry out the war, "as our England people will never meddle with the Indies, if they be not very strong, until they be better instructed of what the world is made". He further noted, "I had great conference with a Captain and Councell of the Indians, who were born in the West Indies". Upon his return to Virginia, Captain Smith became an advisor to the new king of England, James I. The son of King James, Charles I, died shortly after his father. Upon the death of James II in 1685, Charles II succeeded to the throne as Charles III, but the power was in the hands of Parliament and it would not accept the claim of the Stuart Kings. The next generation of the Stuart line would be ruled by the Hanoverians in Britain. The Stuart cause was backed by the British Colonists of the American colonies. As the British tried to suppress the rebellion, some of the colonists went into exile. They found asylum in the French colony of Acadia (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton Island, and Prince Edward Island) with the aid of Governor Charles de Saint-Étienne de la Tour, who granted them land, and the protection of the French King Louis XIV, or Louis the Just (Louis the Great). In 1693, Samuel Vetch and others went to Acadia. A year later, Governor Noel, acting on the advice of the intendant of New France, granted Vetch a grant of 3,500 acres of land at Port Royal, or Mines (present day Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia). The Acadians were, at this time, subjects of France. During the reign of King Louis XIV (1643 - 1715), the French had begun to colonize the North American mainland, starting with Acadia, and including the area around Montreal. Vetch and his sons established themselves in the Acadian settlements along the Bay of Fundy in what is now called New Brunswick. This was an area full of game, which would be important for survival as the population grew. The climate was mild with no insects. Some settlements were made during the early years of French colonization. One of the earliest was by Jean de Chauvin, who founded a settlement in 1598 called 'Port Royal' (present-day Annapolis Royal, Canada). However, this was not intended to be a permanent settlement. It was established for temporary use by the fur trade and was to be abandoned at the end of the season. One of the earliest French trading posts was also established at Port Royal. It was built in 1605. French colonization led to conflict, as they tried to extend their dominion to the southern New England colonies. Acadia and New England shared the same ocean, so trade was to be found in the middle of the area. The primary French goal was the fur trade, which was a lucrative enterprise. The first ships carrying furs to Europe would arrive at a port in France by 1624, a number of years before Jamestown. In an attempt to halt the colonization of Acadia, the English claimed that they were using the Acadians to smuggle furs out of the colony to trade for manufactured goods in Europe. While in his new home, Vetch took part in the development of the fur trade. He also continued to have an interest in settling the Acadian area. During the late 1640s, after the Cromwell Wars had broken out between Parliament and the Royalist forces in England, Charles II came to rule the British Empire. He began negotiations with Louis XIV to obtain a French alliance against Parliament. Louis XIV agreed to help and French war ships arrived in the English Channel by 1651. After much negotiation and maneuvering by both sides, Louis XIV and Charles agreed on a Treaty of Alliance, known as the Treaty of Paris. This forced the English to stop the restoration of the Stuarts, and also led to the Treaty of the Pyrenees, which would ultimately lead to the restoration of the Spanish Empire in America, and the Spanish throne for Charles II. Shortly after the outbreak of the French and Indian War, in 1757, a treaty was signed between France and Britain. This treaty defined French and British land and sea boundaries on the northern frontier. This frontier extended to the north to the St. Lawrence River and Montreal, and then extended west to the Mississippi River. The only area left to France was New France, which stretched from the Gulf of St. Lawrence south along the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. It did not extend south of the Mississippi because the Spaniards had already settled most of the land east of the Mississippi, though much of the land between the two rivers was uninhabited. France made two attempts to colonize New Orleans. One attempt involved a scheme to take control of Louisiana without the cooperation of Spain. This was done with an expedition to the West Indies in 1766. However, the expedition