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Introduction: The Worlds That Were Lost.

The interaction between First Peoples and European colonists is a major theme of American history, and we'll be examining these interactions at various points over the course of this class.  Sometimes these interactions between the two groups were relatively peaceful, but more often they were not peaceful, as European colonists employed violence and terror to dispossess First Peoples.  And then Europeans also brought with them a variety of lethal pathogens that had a devastating effect upon the Native-American population.  It is generally accepted that approximately 90% of the Native Americans who lived in North and South America succumbed to these diseases, a development that would have profound consequences for the subsequent course of American history.  This is a story that many of you already know.

The story that is not told so often is the story of Native-American civilizations before the first Europeans arrived. All too often the story focuses on the very violent and tragic encounter with Europeans, but less is said about how Native-Americans lived before their worlds were turned upside down.  In this presentation, I shall try to sketch out some basic features of Native-American life before the first Europeans arrived.  It is, of course, a tremendous challenge to do this in the course of one lecture, because there was so much variety among First Peoples in terms of how they lived, how they interacted with the land, and how they governed themselves.  My decision to refer to "Native-American Societies" in the title of this lecture is very deliberate, as I would like for the class to understand that First Peoples built many different worlds throughout the Americas. These worlds deserve our attention because in them we will see how people organized their lives under circumstances very different from our own.  These worlds deserve our attention, because these are the worlds that were lost. 

Migration Across the Bering Land Bridge.

America did not begin on the banks of the James River in 1607, the site of the first permanent English settlement.  American history began some 20 or 30 thousand years before that when people from Asia crossed the Bering Straits into Alaska and then moved southward through Canada and then throughout the rest of the continent.  Archaeologists have argued that at the time of these migrations, the earth's climate was considerably colder than it is today, and that huge glaciers, some of them more than a mile thick, once covered much of the world.  These glaciers held so much of the earth's moisture that the oceans were several hundred feet lower than they are today.  It would be difficult to imagine what this landscape looked like during the Ice Age, but I might suggest that if you think about what the beach looks like during a minus tide--say, a 6-feet minus tide--then imagine how it might have looked with a 200-feet minus tide.  Think about how much more of the ocean floor was exposed and you probably have a image of how the landscape might have looked at this time.

The Americas were the last continents to be populated by the human species, Homo Sapiens Sapiens.  This hominid species first emerged in Africa, and then dispersed throughout the Eurasian land mass and some of the nearby island groups.  The Ice Age made it possible for the species to move into the Americas long after the species had come to occupy other lands.  The fact that so much of the ocean floor was exposed during the Ice Age made it possible for human beings to cross from the Eurasian land mass into North America over what's called the Bering Land Bridge.  As herds of game moved across the Bering Land Bridge, they were pursued by hunters who followed them into North America.  Over the course of time, the descendants of these migrants moved into other parts of North America, Central America and South America.  And as they moved into different regions with different climates and ecosystems, they developed different languages and different ways of living, depending on the food resources available to them.  To give you some idea of this diversity, it has been estimated that prior to the arrival of the first Europeans, there were well over 300 different languages among the First Peoples who lived in North America. 

Settlement Patterns.

One important fact to keep in mind about pre-colonial America would be this: population density had always been rather low in the Americas.  Even before the first Europeans arrived with their diseases and their guns, the Americas were sparsely populated, compared to other regions of the world.  One geographer has estimated that population density in the Americas might have been as low as one person per square mile.  This means that in the Americas, land and resources existed in abundance compared to other regions where population density was much higher.

Of course, individual Native Americans generally didn't live in isolation, on their own square mile; they tended to congregate in groups, or villages, or towns, or cities of various sizes.  The largest of these pre-colonial Native-American cities was Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec empire, located in the vicinity of what is today Mexico City.  Before the first Spanish conquistadors arrived, the Aztecs had succeeded in building a phenomenally powerful state that ruled over a variety of outlying groups and settlements.  It has been estimated that as many as 250,000 people lived in Tenochtitlan at the peak of its growth in the 15th century, which would have made it one of the largest cities in the world at that time.

North of Tenochtitlan, Native-American cities were typically much smaller.  One of the largest of these settlements in North America was Cahokia, located in what is today East St. Louis, Illinois. Cahokia was the site of a large settlement between 1100 and 1350 CE; it seemed to reach its peak sometime during the 1200s.  It has been estimated that at its peak, as many as 30,000 people lived in Cahokia.  The settlement was spread out over about 2000 acres, with most of the people living in small housing clusters.  The residents of Cahokia built a number of small, earthen mounds which they used to elevate their buildings; they might have done this to keep their dwellings above the Mississippi River flood plain.  Some of these mounds were quite high, well over 100 feet, and some are still visible today.  Archaeological evidence suggests that there was a fair degree of occupational differentiation between the residents; some residents were farmers, others were craftsmen, and some were political leaders. There also appears to have been some economic differentiation among the residents of Cahokia; in other words, some residents possessed more wealth than others. 

Cahokia was a major population center for many years, but the settlement appears to have declined over the course of the 14th century.  It's not clear what exactly happened at Cahokia to bring about its decline, but there's evidence that there might have been political turmoil among the settlements leaders.  There is also evidence to suggest that the settlement had grown to a point where the surrounding farmland could no longer support such a large population--a problem that confronts all agricultural societies, then and now, to some extent. Skeletal records from the period indicate that many residents perished from disease and poor nutrition, and this would seem to confirm that the population had expanded beyond the carrying capacity of the land. What is clear is that, as a result of one problem or another, people started to move out of Cahokia and into other parts of the Mississippi River Valley and there built settlements that replicated Cahokia on a smaller scale.  Indeed, throughout the Mississippi River Valley Native Americans built dwellings on elevated earthen mounds, much as people did at Cahokia.

Native-Americans altered the landscape to suit their social and economic needs.  There has often been a tendency among some to think of Native-Americans as people who merely inhabited the land, passively living "in harmony with nature." This is a caricature of how they lived, of course. Native-Americans, particularly those who relied upon agriculture, transformed the land the suit their needs.  Of course, they did not transform the land as dramatically as some of the European settlers who would soon arrive, but Native-Americans left their mark upon the earth nonetheless.  They built farms, used fire to clear forests, and even built dams and canals to provide irrigation.

One of the most notable examples of this might be the Hohokam, a Native-American group that inhabited a region near what is today Phoenix, Arizona.  Although this area is very hot and dry, the land can provide a fair amount of food if the water resources are conserved and controlled.  Toward this end, the Hohokam built a number of dams and canals on local creeks to channel the water toward their fields.  Some of these canals were more than 15 miles long. One geographer has estimated that the network of canals and ditches built by the Hohokam provided enough water to suit the agricultural needs of more than 75,000 people.  This particular system of irrigation allowed Hohokam society to thrive and flourish, with much of the growth occurring between the 12th and 13th centuries.  By the middle of the 14th century, however, it appears that the resources of this region had been stretched to the limit.  It appears that a series of floods destroyed many of the canals upon which their fields depended.  As the irrigation system began to collapse, and as people began to move to other areas, it is likely that the culture and social structure of the Hohokam people changed as well.

Native-Americans left their imprint on the landscape in other ways as well.  Many of the Native-Americans who lived east of the Mississippi River typically used fire to clear forests so they could farm the land.  Clearing land with fire was far easier than clearing with tools.  Using fire this way also facilitated the absorption of nutrients into the soil, making the land more fertile.  Finally, the grasses and shrubs which grew back after the field had been cleared provided excellent food and cover for a variety of birds and mammals which the Native-Americans then hunted.  It was common for Native-Americans who cleared these fields to use them for some time until the soil began to lose its fertility.  As this happened, they would simply pack up and move on to a new area, set fire to the forest, and begin planting a fresh, fertile field.  The ability to do this was a function of the low population density.  So much land was available to them.

We see this way of living among the Agawam, a Native-American group that inhabited parts of what is today Massachusetts. The Agawam were a semi-nomadic people who combined settled agriculture with hunting, fishing and gathering. They would use fire to clear a section of forest, grow corn, beans and squash on the land, and supplement their agricultural production with hunting and fishing in the nearby areas. Because the soil was so fertile and rainfall relatively abundant, their fields were enormously productive.  Hunting was also good in some of the nearby fields that they had just finished using, as this area would be taken over by grasses and shrubs that attracted deer and other animals.  The Agawam moved from field to field every few years.  When the farmland began to lose fertility after so many years of use, the Agawam would pack up their belongings, move to another section of forest, burn it down, and start over again. In this fashion, the Agawam enjoyed a life of relative abundance.  In the words of one historian, they lived richly, with a minimum of labor.

First Peoples and Europeans: Conflicting Ideas on Property.

When some of the first Europeans arrived in North America in the early 1600s, they ventured into a landscape which had been visibly altered by Native Americans.  Many early European colonists commented upon finding a number of clearings in the forest where the sun shone through; one early explorer commented that some fields were so large as to accommodate an entire army.  Most likely, these would be the fields that Native-Americans had cleared with fire and then farmed for a period until the soil lost its fertility, at which point they packed up and moved to another section of forest.  When Europeans saw these fields, they believed that these fields were theirs for the taking, as they believed that these fields had been "abandoned."  This is certainly not how Native Americans understood it. 

First Peoples and Europeans had very different conceptions of property ownership and property use.  A Native-American group such as the Agawam might leave behind a field and move somewhere else, but they never understood this to mean that they had relinquished their claim to that land, as they might very return to that section of forest in 10 or 20 years, at which point it would have regained its fertility.  The Agawam most likely would have claimed a large swath of territory, even if they weren't necessarily farming all of it at once.  To return to an earlier point, low-population density in the Americas probably gave rise to these rather expansive claims to the land, as there was always enough land for everybody.  Europeans, on the other hand, would look at an open field and, if they saw no one planting it, believed that they could claim ownership of it. Coming from a society where land was rather scarce--indeed, a society where many peasants had no land to call their own at all--Europeans were more inclined to see land as something that was owned by an individual, to the exclusion of everyone else. 

In general, First Peoples did not understand land to be something that any individual could claim.  In general, First Peoples believed that land belonged to the group, or to the tribe, if you will. To put it another way, they might have believed that the land belonged simultaneously to no one and to everyone. Furthermore, Native Americans generally believed that people didn't claim the land so much as they claimed the things that were on the land, such as the fish, the game, the berries, the fruit, the crops, and so forth. An individual might claim ownership of a certain item, such as a blanket, or a tool, or a bow, but not the land.

These differences between Native American and European conception of land ownership are clearly visible in a negotiation which took place between some Agawam leaders and a fur trader named William Pynchon.  In 1636, the Agawam negotiated a deal with Pynchon to grant him certain rights to a large tract of land along the Connecticut River in what is today Massachusetts. What rights did the Agawam grant to Pynchon?  In exchange for some clothes and some metal tools, the Agawam granted Pynchon the right to use the land in pretty much the same way as the Agawam used the land; the Europeans could live on the land, hunt on it and farm it, as the Agawam had.  What's crucial here is this: the Agawam did not sell the land to Pynchon.  The terms of the deal did not grant Pynchon ownership of the land.

It is doubtful that Pynchon understood the bargain in these terms.  Most Englishmen understood such property deals in light of English law, which would have granted a full transfer of rights to Pynchon.  It is worth nothing, for example, that many subsequent treaties with First Peoples in New England contained language which insisted upon the full and complete transfer of the land to European settlers.  When John Winthrop negotiated a land deal in Massachusetts with some Native American leaders, for example, he insisted that the Native Americans relinquish all rights to the woods, meadows, fields, and pastures.  The English settlers were not interested in acquiring rights from First Peoples; they were interested in acquiring the land and having absolute possession of it.  Many Native Americans were, at this time in history, willing to share the land and its bounty with these newly arrived colonists.  But this is not what European colonists wanted; this is not what the Europeans were looking for in the New World.  They wanted exclusive rights to the land; they didn't want to share it with Native Americans whom they regarded, for the most part, as "uncivilized savages." It's clear that when the Europeans saw how the Native Americans enjoyed a rather easy life--remember, they lived richly, with a minimum of labor--the Europeans quickly jumped to the conclusion that Native Americans were "lazy."  And such "lazy" people, they figured, could not possibly have a legitimate claim to the land. 

The Impact of Disease.

These conflicts over land and land rights reveal that there were major cultural differences between the Native Americans and the Europeans.  It is quite possible that the Native Americans could have effectively resisted these encroachments on their land had it not been for the fact that more than 90 percent of them died of the diseases which the Europeans had transmitted to them. The relations between the Europeans and the Native Americans would have been much different if the Native Americans had not succumbed to disease.  They would have been much stronger and much more formidable as a political force.  As it was, however, more than 90 percent of them perished from diseases such as smallpox, measles, yellow fever, and other plagues. These diseases began to spread among Native Americans not long after Columbus first arrived in 1492, and then again when subsequent explorers ventured to other parts of the New World.  These epidemics did not wipe out all Native Americans in a single swoop, but rather spread among various tribes over the course of many, many years. Some Native American groups didn't contract these diseases until the 19th century.

The spread of disease among First Peoples raises a question: Why didn't the Europeans suffer from these diseases as well?  Most historical epidemiologists agree that Native Americans had no immunity to these diseases because, prior to contact with the Europeans, they had had no contact with these diseases, which would have granted some level of immunity.  Europeans, on the other hand, seemed to have developed some degree of immunity to these diseases as a result of their exposure to them over the centuries.  For more than a thousand years, these diseases had moved along the trade routes than spanned the Eurasian land mass; wherever trade goes, so too does disease.  Because the Americas were, prior to 1492, isolated from these trade routes, Native Americans did not develop any immunity.  And so, when these diseases hit, they hit hard, sparing only a few. 

Most of the early explorers and settlers--both in North and South America--commented upon a phenomenon in which the Native peoples suddenly became sick and died.  In the 1630s, for example, William Bradford, an early New England settler, witnessed an outbreak of smallpox among the First Peoples there:

"They fell down so generally of this disease as they were in the end not able to help one another.  They could not make a fire, nor could they fetch a little water to drink, nor could they bury their dead. They would strive as long as they could, and when they could procure no other means to make fire, they would burn the wooden tray dishes they used for eating their meals, and then they would burn their bows and arrows.  Some would crawl out on all fours to get a little water, and sometimes die by the way."

Another European who visited the area around Boston in 1622 made this observation:

"The Indians died on heaps, as they lay in their houses; and the living, that were able to shift for themselves, would run away and let them die, and let their carcasses lie about the ground without burial.  The bones and skulls upon the several places of their habitations made such a spectacle after my coming into these parts, that as I travelled in the forest near Massachusetts, it seemed to be a new found Golgotha."

Note: "Golgotha" is a burial ground. 

Because these diseases had such an impact on Native American society, their spread would have tremendous implications for the subsequent course of American history.  As these diseases swept through villages, many tribes broke down as a result.  Some ran away from their village as these diseases took away family and friends, an act which signifies how social bonds were beginning to break down. Native Americans had lived through famine and diseases before, but they had never before experienced a catastrophe of this magnitude.  It was difficult for many of them to deal with the psychological impact of this catastrophe.

The massive depopulation of North America had other consequences.  It had been the hope of many European settlers that they could make the Native Americans work for them on their farms and plantations in more or less the same manner that European landlords had serfs and peasants working for them, but the loss of so many Native Americans to disease doomed this prospect.  And so, to secure the labor for their farms and plantations in the New World, settlers would bring over more servants from Europe, and slaves from Africa.