<P> Whereas Spanish colonialism was based on the religious conversion and exploitation of local populations via encomiendas (many Spaniards emigrated to the Americas to elevate their social status, and were not interested in manual labour), Northern European colonialism was frequently bolstered by people fleeing religious persecution or intolerance (for example, the Mayflower voyage). The motive for emigration was not to become an aristocrat nor to spread one's faith but to start afresh in a new society, where life would be hard but one would be free to exercise one's religious beliefs . The most populous emigration of the 17th century was that of the English, and after a series of wars with the Dutch and the French the English overseas possessions came to dominate the east coast of North America, an area stretching from Virginia northwards to New England and Newfoundland, although during the 17th century an even greater number of English emigrants settled in the West Indies . </P> <P> However, the English, French and Dutch were no more averse to making a profit than the Spanish and Portuguese, and whilst their areas of settlement in the Americas proved to be devoid of the precious metals found by the Spanish, trade in other commodities and products that could be sold at massive profit in Europe provided another reason for crossing the Atlantic, in particular furs from Canada, tobacco and cotton grown in Virginia and sugar in the islands of the Caribbean and Brazil . Due to the massive depletion of indigenous labour, plantation owners had to look elsewhere for manpower for these labour - intensive crops . They turned to the centuries - old slave trade of west Africa and began transporting humans across the Atlantic on a massive scale--historians estimate that the Atlantic slave trade brought between 10 and 12 million individuals to the New World . The islands of the Caribbean soon came to be populated by slaves of African descent, ruled over by a white minority of plantation owners interested in making a fortune and then returning to their home country to spend it . </P> <P> The January 27, 1512 Leyes de Burgos codified the government of the indigenous people of the New World, since the common law of Spain wasn't applied in these recently discovered territories . The scope of the laws were originally restricted to the island of Hispaniola, but were later extended to Puerto Rico and Jamaica . They authorized and legalized the colonial practice of creating encomiendas, where Indians were grouped together to work under colonial masters, limiting the size of these establishments to a minimum of 40 and a maximum of 150 people . The document finally prohibited the use of any form of punishment by the encomenderos, reserving it for officials established in each town for the implementation of the laws . It also ordered that the Indians be catechesized, outlawed bigamy, and required that the huts and cabins of the Indians be built together with those of the Spanish . It respected, in some ways, the traditional authorities, granting chiefs exemptions from ordinary jobs and granting them various Indians as servants . The poor fulfilment of the laws in many cases lead to inummerable protests and claims . In fact, the laws were so often poorly applied that they were seen as simply a legalization of the previous poor situation . This would create momentum for reform, carried out through the Leyes Nuevas ("New Laws") in 1542 . Ten years later, Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas would publish A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, in the midst of the Valladolid Controversy, a debate about the existence or not of souls in Amerindians bodies . Las Casas, bishop of Chiapas, was opposed to Sepúlveda, who claimed Amerindians were "natural slaves"... </P> <P> In the French empire, slave trade and other colonial rules were regulated by Louis XIV's 1689 Code Noir . </P>

Which of these was not a common goal of european colonialism