The Shaping of North America

• History began to be recorded 6,000 years

• Europeans began the colonization of the Americas 500 years ago

• The theory of Pangea suggests that all the continents were once a singular, mega-continent and over time spread out as drifting islands

• The Appalachian and Rocky Mountainswere created by the shifting of continental plates
  

Peopling the Americas

• With the decline of the Great Ice Age, the glaciers over North America leading to the emergence of a Land Bridge

  • This emergence was known as the Land Bridge Theory with it linking Asia and North America

• People were said to have walked the bridge before the sea level rose, populating the Americas with this being estimated to have happened 35,000 years ago

• The groups that traveled across the bridge spread across North, Central, and South America

• Numerous tribes emerged (estimation of 2,000 languages) with the most notable of these tribes being the Incas (Peru), Mayas (Yucatan Peninsula), and Aztecs (Mexico)

• As the Great Ice Age diminished, so did the glaciers over North America.
  

The Earliest Americans

• Corn/Maize was developed around 5,000 B.C. in Mexico

• People were able to settle down and become farmers which led to towns and cities

• Corn came to the U.s. around 1,2000 B.C.

• The Pueblo Indians were the first to grow corn in the Americas

• The Pueblo Indians lived in adobe houses, had irrigation systems, were mound builders that built large ceremonial and burial mounds, and lived in the ohio valley

• Eastern Indians grew corn, beans, and squash (three sister farming)

• The Iroquois Confederation was a group of 5 tribes in the New York State with Hiawatha being the leader

• The Iroquiois authority was matrilineal

• Each tribe was independent but all met with each other occasionally to discuss topics such as war and defense

• Native Americans had vastly different views than the Europeans with them feeling tat no man alone owned the land, instead the tribe as a whole did while Europeans were supporters of private property

• Natives felt that nature was sacred and related to spirits while Europeans were Chrfistian and monotheistic and felt that nature and land was given to man by God to put to use

• The Indians weren’t interested in money while the Europeans were greatly interested by the prospect of wealth (money & gold)

Indirect Discoverers of the New World

• The Norse (vikings from Norway) were the first Europeans to come to America (around 1000 AD)

• The Vikings landed in Newfoundland/Vinland and later left America and didn’t leave behind a written record, meaning they got no credit for the discovery

• Records of the Norse discovering America are in Viking songs and sagas

Europeans Enter Africa

• Marco Polo traveled to China and ignited European interest

• Asia to Europe trade flourished (overland) due to a desire for spices

• Trade instigated new exploration down and around Africa in hopes of the discovery of an easier water route

• New developments of the time consisted of the Caravel (ship that could better track ahead into wind and could return to Europe from the coast of Africa) and the Astrolabe (a device that could tell a ship’s latitude)

• The first slave trade was across the Sahara Desert and was later along the coast of West Africa

  • Slave traders intentionally busted up families and tribes (to stop possible uprisings)

  • Slaves ended up on sugar plantations set up by the Portuguese on islands off the coast of Africa

Columbus Comes Upon A New World

• Christopher Columbus convinced the King and Queen of Spain, Isabella and Ferdinand to fund his expedition

  • Columbus’s goal was to reach the East Indies by sailing west

• Columbus misjudged the size of the earth (thought it to be a third of the size it is in reality)

• After about 30 days at sea, Columbus struck land and mistakenly assumed he had made it to the East Indies and mistook the people there as “Indians”

• This discovery led to a system which consisted of Europe providing market, technology and capital, Africa providing the labor, and the New World providing raw materials such as gold and soil

When Worlds Collide

• Columbian Exchange: New World (America) supplied corn, potatoes, beans, peppers, pumpkin, tobacco, squash, tomatoes, wild rice, and syphilis to the Old World and the Old World (Europe) supplied cows, horses, pigs, wheat, apples, cabbage, sugar canes, citrus, carrots, and diseases such as yellow fever, malaria, and smallpox to the New World

• Indians had no immunity to Old World diseases leading to an estimated 90% of all the pre-Columbus Indians to die

The Spanish Conquistadores

• The Treaty Line of Tordesillas (1494) was put in place due to Portugal and Spain fighting over who got what piece of land, leading the Pope to draw this line seeing as both sides respected him

• This Treaty Line ran from North to South, cut off the Brazilian coast of South America

• Portugal got land east of the line (Brazil and land that was around and under Africa) and spain got land west of the line (turned out to be much more than they originally thought)

• The conquistadors were “conquerors” such as Ferdinand Magellan who was the first to circumnavigate the globe and Francisco Pizarro who conquered the Incan Empire of Peru and shipped gold/silver back to spain, leading to inflation in Europe

• The Encomienda System was a system in which Indians were given to landlords

  • Slavery of Native Americans on sugar plantations under the guise of missionary work as the idea was that Indians would work and be slowly converted to Christians

The Conquest of Mexico

• Hernan Cortes conquered the Aztecs at Tenochtitlan

  • Cortes marched over mountains to the Aztec capital

• Montezuma, the Aztec King thought Cortes to be the god Quetzalcoatl who was supposed to reappear the very year and welcomed Cortez into Tenochtitlan

• Lust for gold led Montezuma to attack but the Cortes and his men found their way out

• Smallpox devastated the Indians

• Spanish destroyed Tenochtitland and built the Spanish capital (Mexico City) on top of the Aztec city with these leading to the emergence of a new race, mestizos (Spanish and Indian blood)

The Spread of Spanish America

• Spanish society spread through Peru and Mexico

• The English and French were a threat leading to Spain setting up forts all over the California coast and cities like St. Augustine in Florida

• Don Juan de Onate conquered Indians ruthlessly in New Mexico

• Despite the efforts of missions, the Pueblo Indians revolted in Pope’s Rebellion

• The Black Legend was a concept that suggested that Spainiards only brought terrible things with them such as disease, murder and slavery

  • The Black Legend was true but there were good things as well, such as systems of law, architecture, language, and civilization