Native Americans Pre-Contact (Prior to 1492)

• Over 10,000 years before Columbus, people came to the Americas via the Bering Strait

• Native Americans developed wide variety of social, political, and economic structures based upon interactions with each other and the environment.

• Native American religion was very often connected to their relationship with nature

  • Animism: belief that non- human things (plants, animals) possess a spiritual essence

Native American Culture

• They developed different and complex societies that both transformed and adapted to their diverse environments

• Examples:

• Southwest (Pueblo): lived in arid land and relied on irrigation to grow maize & other agricultural products

• Great Basin & Great Plains (Lakota Sioux): lack of natural resources led to growth of nomadic lifestyle & the importance of hunting buffalo

• Atlantic coast & Northeast (Iroquois): mix of agricultural & hunter-gatherer society. Established permanent villages

  • Iroquois Confederation

Colonization of the “New” World

• 3 G's: Gold, Glory, God

  • Gold: New sources of wealth (trade with Asia)

  • Glory: power & status

  • God: convert the native population to Christianity

• The arrival of Columbus in 1492 (& other Europeans after) led to massive demographic and social changes on both sides of the Atlantic

• Columbian Exchange: Trans-Atlantic exchange of people, diseases, food, trade, ideas, etc. between the Western Hemisphere, Africa, and Europe

  • Horses (from Europe) dramatically change Native life

  • Disease such as smallpox (from Europe) lead to massive population decline as deadly epidemics spread

  • Maize/corn (from America) fueled population increase in Europe

Early Colonization: Spain & Portugal

• Treaty of Tordesillas Spain & Portugal agree to divide up the Western Hemisphere

• Spain was the earliest to colonize North America (St. Augustine, 1565)

• Encomienda System: Spanish colonists received land with native people

  • Native slave labor in mining (silver) or agriculture (sugar)

  • Spanish sought to convert Native people to Catholicism

• Racially mixed populations of European, Native, and African people

  • Mestizo: people of mixed Indian and European heritage

  • Mulatto: people of mixed white and black ancestry

Attempts to change Native American beliefs led to resistance and conflict

• Pueblo Revolt 1680

• Popé's Rebellion in 1680 leads to the death of hundreds of Spanish colonists and the destruction of Catholic churches in the area

• “Native people strove to maintain their political and cultural autonomy

Debating Spanish Colonization

• "Debates occurred over how Native Americans should be treated and how "civilized" they were compared to European standards"

• Juan de Sepúlveda wrote "Just Causes for War Against the Indians" that justified Spanish colonization of the Americas

• Bartolomé de las Casas published in 1552 "A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies" that criticized Spanish treatment of the indigenous people

Comparing European Colonization

• Protestant England will soon challenge Spanish colonization of North America

• Unlike the English colonist, the Spanish, French, and Dutch are going to attempt to exploit new world resources AND form more complex relationships with indigenous people

  • Spain and Portugal formed colonies that used Native American and African slave labor in agriculture and mining

  • France, Holland, Spain will trade, intermarry with natives

    Reasons for colonization

• Mercantilism: colonies exist to enrich the Mother country

  • Access to raw materials

  • Provide gold and silver