simpher unit 1

Causes of European Exploration

Native Americans before conquest:
❖ Small bands of spear-throwing Indians pursued giant mammals across the Bering Strait
❖ Migration took place over a long period of time and involved small, independent bands of highly nomadic people-never developing a common identity.
➢ With a seemingly inexhaustible supply of meat, the early migration experienced rapid population growth. (5,000 years ago) They discovered how to cultivate plants-corn, squash and beans. This profoundly altered their societies--no longer needed to be nomadic.

❖ Causes of European Exploration
➢ changing factors
▪ economic
▪ technological
▪ political
▪ geographic
➢ God, Gold, Glory

Medieval times people did not look outside of their own communities
• Kingdoms were loosely organized
• Lack of education
• Plagues-Black Death
Renaissance
• Europe became more prosperous
o Created powerful new incentives for exploration and trade
• Political authority more centralized
o changes in social order
o between nobility and crown
o between citizen and state
o creation of nation states brought peace
o created nations large enough to finance and supply exploration
• Rebirth of the arts and sciences
o Johann Gutenberg 1440s printing press facilitated the spread of knowledge
o Advances in reliable technical knowledge

❖ Spain will take the lead:
➢ Union of Ferdinand and Isabella-political and religious consolidation
➢ Conquistadores-prepared to employ fire and sword in any cause sanctioned by God and King
▪ Men eager for personal glory
▪ Material gain
▪ Uncompromising in matters of religion
▪ Unswerving in their loyalty to the crown
➢ 1492 Christopher Columbus set sail on the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria
o <show map of European Exploration-voyages

Christopher Columbus estimated the distance west to the Indies to be 3,000 nautical miles and in reality it was 10,600
❖ Treaty of Tordesillas
➢ Compromise between Spain and Portugal negotiated by the Pope
➢ Divided the entire world along a line-west of the line was Spain and east was Portugal
➢ Did not discourage England, France or the Dutch from future explorations
❖ Spain’s conquest in the New World would transform them into the wealthiest state in Europe
❖ Spanish and later the French would settle in the New World and frequently marry the indigenous populations (producing mestizos and mulattos)-the French viewed the Indians as necessary economic partners, distinctly different from the English ways who regarded the Indians as obstacles in the path of civilization
❖ Spain claimed far more of the New World than it could manage
➢ Colonies used for a source of precious metal
▪ (1500-1650 200 tons of gold and 16,000 tons of silver sent back to Spain)
❖ England enters into the competition:
➢ Reformation-English Protestantism
➢ English Nationalism
➢ John Cabot established England’s belated claim to American territory
➢ England needed American colonies-they were essential to their nation’s continued prosperity and independence

❖ Effects of Exploration:
➢ new territory, discovered and mapped
➢ discovery of new cultures
➢ new trade and settlement
➢ wealth
➢ European nations began powerful expansionist movement that changed world forever

These countries would grow vast colonial empires-empires that would profoundly change the lives of millions of people in Europe, Africa, and the Americas.

European Perspective- a process by which more civilized Europeans conquered barbaric American Indians for the rightful possession of the fertile and rich American territories.

American Indian Perspective-contact with European explorers, missionaries, and settlers as a process by which alien invaders shattered traditional cultures and ways of life.
Native Americans-it is estimated that originally there were between 10-12 million indigenous peoples and by 1900 only ½ million remained!

Reasons for early settlement: (push factors) at different times, different colonies appealed to different sorts of people

1. economic-populations had expanded which strained the economies
   a. hunger
   b. homelessness​
   c. jobs
   d. poverty
   e. owning land
   f. improving social status
   g. lack of opportunity
2. religious intolerance/persecution
3. slaves didn’t come willingly, but they did come-10.7 million were transported to the New World
4. colonies could provide a dumping ground for the undesirables/unwanted
   a. religious misfits causing trouble
   b. criminals
   c. poor
5. political turmoil-freedom, the colonies did have limited local self-rule, although they still answered to its home country
6. Escape-bad marriages, prison, bad situations

English Protestantism-
• Growing anger at Catholic church and the Pope
• 1517 Martin Luther challenged the basic tenets of Catholicism-Reformation began
o Divided kingdoms
o Sparked bloody wars
o Unleashed an extraordinary flood of religious publication
• Henry VIII couldn’t have a boy with Catherine of Aragon-need for a male heir
• Pope would not grant divorce under pressure from Catherine’s father, the former king of Spain
• 1527 King Henry VIII severed all ties with the Pope and the church
• 1534 created the Church of England in which the king is the supreme head of-divorced wife
• 1547 Henry VIII died and his young, weak son attempted to wipe any trace of catholic from England
• 1553 Edward dies, his oldest daughter Mary ascended to the throne-very Catholic
• Executed 100s of Protestants
• 1558 Mary died and sister Elizabeth took the throne and the exiles came back
• They had absorbed Calvinism and that dominated the Elizabethan Church

First colonization by Sir Walter Raleigh was in Virginia, Roanoke-a disaster
• Settlement was poorly situated, difficult to reach with treacherous currents and storms
• Leader pissed off the Indians by destroying an entire village for a suspected theft of a silver cup
• Sir Francis Drake visited the settlement the following year, 1586, and since they needed supplies that had not shown up the climbed on board with Drake and went home
• 2nd attempt-1587, trouble in the waters because of Spain kept resupply ships from visiting the colony for 3 years and when they were finally arrived the colonists had disappeared-deserted
• Best guess is that they were absorbed into the tribes of the local Indians

Europeans considered natives inferior regardless of cultural and social achievements of natives.
Aztecs-elaborate human sacrifice associated with Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec sun god, horrified Europeans, who apparently did not find the savagery of their own civilization so objectionable.
Introduction of Europeans transformed Indians’ world. Native peoples had to devise new answers, new responses, and new ways to survive in physical and social environments that eroded tradition.
Europeans tried to “civilize”:
• Dress like the colonists
• Attend white schools
• Live in permanent structures
• Accept Christianity
Natives rejected European values.English-decimation of Native American peoples was an aspect of ecological transformation known as the Columbian Exchange
A matter of perspective-what one group proclaims as providential progress may strike others as utter disaster
Europeans expected the New World to be an extension of Europe
• cleared forests and put up fences altering the Indians ecological systems
o Reducing hunting grounds
o Reducing supply of deer and other animals essential to traditional cultures
• Trade
o Indians hunted more vigorously to supply pelts for trade-reducing population of fur bearing mammals
• Disease
o Exposed to bacteria and viruses which they had no natural immunity (they had been isolated from these since the early migration of nomadic groups had crossed the Bering Strait)-smallpox, measles, and influenza
• Transfer of plants and animals from old world to new and new to old
o Horses to new world
o Crops (corn, squash, potatoes) changed economies in Europe
o Demand for tobacco

Estimated that some tribes suffered losses of 90-95% of population within first century of contact.
The loss of the Indians would cause another ecological disaster in Africa-with no steady supply of a cheap labor source from the Indians the Europeans needed to look outside in order to continue to develop this new world-slaves from Africa!
African slaves: it is estimated that 10.7 million Africans were taken to the New World as slaves

Migration to the colonies: striking competition and diversity • At different times, different colonies appealed to different sorts of people • Economic insecurity

oJobs o Owning land o Improving social status • Political turmoil • Religious conditions/persecution • Population expanded which strained the economy, people needed work and money • Escape o Bad marriage o Prison o poverty