Chapter 1: New World Encounters

Major Native American Groups & Culture Areas in the 1600s

• California

• Eastern Woodlands

• Great Plains

• Southwest

• Great Basin

• Plateau

• Northwest Coast (above CA)

• Southeast

• Northern Mexico

• Aztecs

• Mayas

• Sub-Arctic

• Incas

Native Americans had when they came into INITIAL contact with Europeans

• complex societal structures

• religious systems

• sophisticated agriculture technology: tomato and potato cultivated over thousands of years, varieties of maize/corn

• many different languages

• trade with each other, especially within the same region

Native American population at INITIAL contact with Europeans

• 4 million lived NORTH of Mexico

• less than 1 million in the northeast region

• pre-1492 estimate 20-40 million, estimates vary

Cahokia

• large community of mound people with organized government

• gone by the time Europeans came because of mismanagement and flooding

How Europeans saw Native Americans

barbaric and uncivilized

West European arrivals profoundly altered Native American cultures

• Trade became cultural seminars

• Communication was a problem

• They were equally perplexed by each other, very new

• ethnocentric Europeans repeatedly tried to “civilize” the Native Americans

“the Beaver does everything perfectly well: It makes kettles, hatchets, swords, knives, bread…in short it makes everything.”

• a Native American’s comment about how much a beaver’s pelt got them by trading it with the Europeans

• evidence of trade between Native Americans and Europeans

Land Use & Trade between Native Americans and Europeans

• European’s system of land use reduced available hunting ground

• Native Americans gained large debts, so hunted more aggressively

• commerce/trade eroded Native independence

Disease & Native Americans

• before Europeans, Viking explorers came & brought diseases, wiping out 90% of Native populations in some places

• European diseases (smallpox, measles) destroyed the cultural integrity of many Native American tribes because it made them vulnerable by eliminating much of their population

• 90-95% of some tribes die from disease

Columbian Exchange

• the exchange of fatal diseases, plants and animals

• an ecological transformation

• Crosby coined the term & focused on the biological (transportation of plants & animals) aspects

• Zinn focused on the human effects (Native population)

• SOME tribes suffered a 90-95% population loss within the 1st century of contact

• Death (disease, slaughter & abuse) decreased supply of Indigenous laborers, so decimation of native population led to the forced import of Africans for slave labor

• Traditional religious beliefs & practices questioned

Columbian Exchange & European population

• Black Plague wipes out 30% of Europe’s population, but potato makes its way via Columbian Exchange & being a nutritious crop it fuels population growth in Europe & Africa

• England’s population gets too high, so no land & jobs, leading more to come to America

European’s slaughter & abuse of Native Americans

• West Indies’ sugar laborers

• Columbus’ Arawak decimation

• Spanish’s encomienda system

• Friar Bartolome de Las Casas brings awareness to this

West Africa: Ancient & Complex Societies

• 1030 AD: Muslim traders brought religion and expanded sophisticated trade routes

• 1600s: African trade routes well-established

• spoke many languages & organized themselves into diverse political systems

• Several large kingdoms and stateless societies rose & fell,

• Men & women constructed their primary social identity within well-defined lineage groups

• Communities were economically self-sufficient

Europe on the Eve of Conquest (European events that drive people to America)

• between the 15th and 17th centuries, Western Europeans completed in the Age of Exploration due to: Renaissance, New Monarchs, Reliable technical/geographical knowledge

• Renaissance: economic prosperity = new incentives for trade, luxury goods

• New Monarchs: altered traditional political relationships between nobility and crown & citizens and state, combated feudalism & nobility with large armies funded by national taxes, emergent nation-states and political centralization

• Reliable technical/geographical knowledge: Ptolemy & other ancient geographers, printing press spread knowledge & sea captains shared knowledge

• by 1500, Spain ranked as world power

• Holy War (Reconquista) for Catholicism in Spain (would lead to tension with Protestant England in the future)

• Rise of Conquistadors: “men eager for personal glory and material gain, uncompromising in matters of religion and unswerving in loyalty to the crown.”

• Three Gs: Gold, Glory, God

“Discovery” by Columbus’ Enterprise of the Indies (for Spain) Implications

• mass settlement of Europeans in Americas

• Enslavement & death of Native Americans and Africans

• Loss of cultural integrity of man Native American tribes

• Competition between European countries

Spain’s Headstart in America

Established encomiendas decades before the French traders came & 100 yrs before the English.

Spain’s Transition from Plunder to Settlement (How to bring New Spain under royal authority)

• Encomienda System: villagers provided labor tribute in exchange for legal protection & religious guidance (cruel exploitation)

• Rigid hierarchical order: viceroys, castas

• Missionaries: Friar Bartolome de Las Casas defended Native rights

Spanish Conquering Americas, Meanwhile Europe…

• Protestant Reformation (starting in Germany with Martin Luther) divided Europe into warring religious factions (Catholic v. Protestant)

• At first England did NOT want to colonize due to religious civil war (after Henry VIII broke with Roman Catholic Church & formed the Anglican Church/Church of England)

• HOWEVER, England joined other European nations in searching for the Northwest Passage (through North America to China)

• Champlain was the founder of Quebec & “Father of New France”

• mid 16th century: Spain was corrupt, lazy & living off spoils of America, King Philip II (very Roman Catholic) turned his focus on England, a trading & religious (Protestant) rival