1.1: Contextualizing Period 1

• The US now is a combination of people around the world

  • The indigenous people arrived at least 10,000 years ago and they lived there peacefully until the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492, sparking European exploration in the Americas

• Columbus’ first voyage is significant because it initiated lasting contact between two groups of people

• Across the Atlantic Ocean

  • his voyages had profound results on how people on each continent lived

• 1607: Founding of the first permanent English settlement in Jamestown, Virginia

  • Marked the beginning of the framework of a new nation

Cultural Diversity in the Americas

• When Columbus arrived in the Americas, there was already a great variety of culture

  • Partially due to geography and climate

    • Each culture developed certain practices and traits to adapt to their environment, like the crops they grew or the materials they built their homes from

  • Native Americans had also transformed their environments

    • Ex. building irrigation systems in dry climates or clearing out forests for agriculture

Motives for Exploration

• European explorers competed for land in the Americas

  • First Spanish and Portugal, then France and the Netherlands, then Great Britain

• Some were motivated to spread the word of God

• Some wanted to become wealthy by

  • Establishing an all water trade route

  • Establishing fur-trading posts

  • Operating gold and silver mines

  • Developing plantations

• Europeans used violence to drive away native inhabitants

Transatlantic Exchange

• This contact between the Europeans and the Native Americans sparked a transatlantic trade of animals, plants, and germs

  • Known as the Columbian Exchange

• This trade altered the lives of many around the globe

• Crops from the Americas (maize, tomatoes, potatoes, etc.) revolutionized the diet of the Europeans

• The transfer of germs from the Europeans, however, caused epidemics along the Native American populations

  • After the arrival of Europeans, a region’s native population will decline by 90%

Addition of Enslaved Africans

• Enslaved Africans added to the diversity of the Americas

• They were brought to the Americas as low-cost laborers by the Europeans

  • They worked in mines and plantations

• Africans, just like Native Americans, resisted European domination by maintaining elements of their culture

• The three groups influenced each others’ ideas and ways of life

European Colonies

• Spanish and Portuguese explorers developed colonies in the Americas

  • They depended on the physical labor of Native Americans and enslaved Africans for agriculture and mining of precious metals

• Mines in South America and Mexico produced vast amounts of silver

  • Made Spain the wealthiest European empire in the 16th and 17th centuries

1.2: Native American Societies Before European Contract

• Original settlement of North and South America began at least 10,000 years ago

  • Theorized that it could’ve been up to 40,000 years ago

• Possibility that migrants from Asia crossed a land bridge that once connected Siberia and Alaska

  • Submerged under the Bering Sea

Cultures of Central and South America

• They all built highly organized societies, carried on extensive trade, and created calendars based on accurate scientific observation

• Cultivated crops that were based on a stable food supply

  • Corn (maize) for the Aztecs and Mayas

  • Potatoes for the Incas

Cultures of North America

• 1490: The population north of Mexico (present-day United States and Canada) ranges from under one million to more than ten million

General Pattern

• Native societies in this region included fewer people and their societies weren’t as highly organized as those down south

• Reason for this: the spreading of cultivation of corn (maize) from Mexico to the North

  • Nutrition of corn allowed populations to grow and to become highly organized and socially diversified societies

  • People specialized in their trade in this society

• By 1500, some of the most populous societies in North America had died down and disappeared

  • Reasons are still unknown to this day

• During the time of Columbus’ arrival, Native Americans lived in semipermanent settlements

  • Men made tools and hunted for game

  • Women gathered plants and nuts or grew crops such as corn (maize), beans, and tobacco

Language Differences

• Cultures were diverse within the Native Americans

• English, Spanish, and any other European language has one language family, but Native American languages have more than 20 language families

• Largest language families included

  • Algonquian in the Northeast

  • Siouan in the Great Plains

  • Athabaskan in the Southwest

• Together, these 20+ language families included more than 400 languages

Overall Diversity

• Variety of landforms and climate allowed for tremendous diversity in cultures in North American Natives (prior to 1492)

• Europeans often grouped these varied cultures together when each tribe had its different systems and traditions

  • They soon developed a shared identity as Native Americans

1.3: European Exploration in the Americas

• Up until 1400s, people of the Americas traded amongst each other, but had no connection to the rest of the world

  • Starting in the 1400s, Europeans started to explore more for religious and economic purposes, which brought the two worlds into contact

The European Context for Exploration

• Vikings from Scandinavia had visited Greenland and North America years prior, but these voyages had no lasting impact

• Columbus’ voyage brought people into lasting contact with the Atlantic

• Many factors that made exploration desirable in late 15th century

Changes in Thought and Technology

• Renaissance: rebirth of classical learning which promoted an outburst of scientific and artistic activity in the 15th and 16th centuries

• Several of the technological advancements made during this time were improvements of inventions made by others

  • Gunpowder (originally invented by the Chinese)

  • Sailing compass (originally made by the Chinese, adopted by Arab merchants)

• Europeans made major improvements in shipbuilding and mapmaking

• Invention of printing press in the 1450s helped spread knowledge across Europe

Religious Conflict

• Later years of Renaissance were a period of intense religious zeal and conflict

• Roman Catholic Church and its leader, the pope, dominated western Europe for a long time

  • Power was threatened by Ottoman Turks in 15th and 16th centuries (Muslims)

  • Also threatened by rebellious Christians who challenged the Pope’s authority

• Catholic Victory in Spain

  • 8th century: Moors (Islamic invaders from North Africa) quickly conquered most of modern-day Spain

  • Over the next centuries, Spanish Christians reconquered much of the land and set up independent kingdoms

  • 2 of the largest kingdoms merged when Isabella (queen of Castile) and Ferdinand (king of Aragon) married in 1469

  • 1492: Spanish conquered the last Moorish stronghold in Spain (Granada) under the leadership of Isabella and Ferdinand

    • They also funded Christopher Columbus on his historic first voyage

  • These events signaled new leadership, hope, and power for Europeans that followed the Roman Catholic faith

• Protestant Revolt in Northern Europe

  • Early 1500s: certain Christians in Germany, England, France, Holland, and other Northern European countries revolted against the authority of the pope in Rome

    • Known as the Protestant Reformation

  • Conflicts between the Protestants and the Catholics led to a series of wars that killed millions in the 16th and 17th century

    • Also caused Roman Catholics of Spain and Portugal and Protestants of England and Holland to want to spread their version of Christianity to countries in Africa, Europe, and Asia

      • Religious motive to explore and colonize was added to political and economic motives

Expanding Trade

• Economic motives grew from a fierce competition among European kingdoms for increased trade with Africa, India, and China

• In the past route, there was a land route from Venice and Constantinople all the way to eastern China

  • This land route becomes blocked in 1453 when the Ottoman Turks seized Constantinople

• New Routes

  • Challenge: finding a new way to Asian trade appeared by sailing either south along the West African coast and then east to China, or sailing west across the Atlantic ocean

  • Voyages were sponsored by Portugal’s Prince Henry the Navigator

    • Eventually succeeded in opening up a long sea route around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope

  • 1498: Portuguese sea captain Vasco da Gama was the first European to reach India via this route

  • By this time, Columbus had attempted what he thought would be a shorter route to Asia

• Slave Trading

  • Since ancient times people in Europe, Africa, and Asia had enslaved war prisoners and other people captured in wars

  • 15th century: Portuguese began trading for enslaved people from West Africa

    • They used the enslaved workers in sugar plantations on the Madeira and Azores islands on the island coast

  • Producing sugar with enslaved labor was so profitable that Europeans used a similar system when they made colonies in the Americas

Developing Nation-States

• Europe was also changing politically in the 15th century

  • Small kingdoms were uniting to form larger kingdoms

    • Ex. Castile and Aragon to form the core of the modern country of Spain

  • Enormous multiethnic empires were beginning to break up

    • Ex. Most of the states that formed modern-day Germany were once part of the Holy Roman Empire

• Replacing these small kingdoms and multiethnic empires were nation-states

  • Nation states: countries in which the majority of people shared both a common culture and common loyalty to a certain government

• The monarchs of the emerging nation-states depended on trade to bring in needed revenues and on the church to justify their right to rule

  • Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain, Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal, and similar monarchs of France, England, and the Netherlands

Dividing the Americas

• Western European monarchs used their power to search for riches abroad and spread their version of Christianity to new land

  • Led to competition for control of land in the Americas

• Spanish and Portuguese Claims

  • Spain and Portugal were the first kingdoms to claim territories in the Americas

    • Their claims overlapped, causing disputes

    • Catholic monarchs of the two nations turned to the pope to resolve their issues

  • 1493: The pope drew a vertical, north-south line on a world map (line of demarcation)

    • Granted Spain all lands to the west of the line and Portugal all lands east of the line

  • 1494: Treaty of Tordesillas: treaty where Spain and Portugal moved the pope’s line a few degrees west

    • Line passed through modern-day Brazil

    • This treaty, along with Portuguese exploration established Portuguese claim to Brazil while Spain claimed the rest of the Americas

      • Other European countries soon challenged these claims

• English Claims

  • Earliest claims to territory were based on the voyages by John Cabot

    • He explored Newfoundland in 1497

  • England didn’t follow up with voyages for exploration and settlement

    • Other problems that they had to sort through

  • Queen Elizabeth I encouraged exploration and settlement during in the later 16th century

  • The English challenged the Spanish shipping in both the Atlantic and Pacific

  • Attempted to establish the Roanoke Island colony but the venture failed

• French Claims

  • Showed interest in exploration in 1524

    • Sponsored a voyage by an Italian navigator Giovanni da Verrazano

      • Trying to find the northwest passage from Americas to Asia

  • Also based on the voyages of Jacques Cartier in1534-1542

    • Explored the St. Lawrence River

  • Like the English, the French were also slow to develop colonies in the Atlantic

  • Also occupied with other things

1.4: Columbian Exchange, Spanish Exploration, and Conquest

• Purpose of Columbus’s voyage: finding a sea route the lucrative trade with Asia which has been limited by long and dangerous land route

  • What Columbus found was of far greater importance

Christopher Columbus

• Social, economic, and political conditions allowed for the idea of exploration to be supported by many in Europe

• Exploration was supported by the improvements in shipbuilding and in navigations with better compasses and mapmaking

• Plans to Reach Asia

  • One of the explorers from the Italian coast of Genoa was Christopher Columbus

  • Spent 8 years seeking financial support for his plan to sail West from Europe to the “Indies”

  • 1492: (Isabella and Ferdinand) 2 Spanish monarchs who were at the height of their power defeated the Moors in Granada

    • Agreed to outfit 3 ships and to make Columbus governor, admiral, and victory of all the land that he would claim for Spain

  • After sailing from the Canary Islands on Sept. 6, Columbus landed on an island in the Bahamas on October 12

  • His success on reaching land brought him a burst of glory in Spain

    • The subsequent voyages across the Atlantic were disappointing

      • He found little gold, few spices , and no route to China and India

The Columbian Exchange

• With the maintained contact between the Europeans and the original inhabitants of the Americas, we see something called the Columbian Exchange occurring

  • Columbian Exchange: the trade and transfer of plants, animals, and germs from one side of the Atlantic to the other for the first time

• Europeans learned about many new plants foods such as beans, corn, sweet and white potatoes, tomatoes, and tobacco

  • Transformed the diet of many in Eurasia

  • Sparked rapid population growth within Eurasia and Africa

• Europeans also contracted a new disease called syphilis

• People in the Americas learned about sugarcane, bluegrasses, pigs, and horses

• They also learned about the wheel, iron implements, and guns

• While the Columbian Exchange was beneficial to the Europeans, it was not the same way for the Native Americans

  • They had no immunity to the germs brought by the Europeans, which resulted in many of them dying from diseases such as smallpox and measles

    • As a result, the native population severely declined

The Rise of Capitalism

• Population growth and and access to new resources caused an increase in trade which further caused social, political, and economic changes to occur

  • The system of feudalism was declined and replaced by capitalism

• Capitalism: an economic system where the control of capital (money and machinery) became more important that the control of land

• As trade increased the political power moved from wealthy landowners to merchants

• One reason for the rise of trade was because of the eagerness of the Europeans being able to possess riches from the Americas, Africa, and Asia

• However, these voyages were expensive and dangerous

  • To fund these expeditions in a safer way, the Europeans came up with a safer method : the joint-stock company

• The joint-stock company worked like this

  • It was owned by many businesses as investors

  • If an expedition failed, the investors only lost the amount they invested in the voyage

• The joint-stock company encouraged more investors, promoting economic growth

1.5: Labor, Slavery, and Caste in the Spanish Colonial System

• Spanish dominance was based on papal ruling (ruling made by the Pope) rather than a treaty

• Led by Ferdinand and Isabella

• The Spanish wealth and power increased through the explorers and conquistadores, as well as the physical labor of the enslaved Africans and Native Americans

Spanish Exploration and Conquest

• Spanish supremacy and domination in the Americas was secured by

  • The journey across Isthmus of Panama to the Pacific Ocean by Vasco Núñez de Balboa

  • Circumnavigation of the world by one of Ferdinand Magellan’s ships

  • Conquests of Aztecs in Mexico by Hernán Cortés

  • Conquests of the Inca in Peru by Francisco Pizarro

Indian Labor

• Encountered indigenous population in Mexico and Peru

• Even after diseases like smallpox killed off a majority of the Native American population, millions managed to survive

• Spanish took the remaining native populations into their empire

  • They controlled them using the encomienda system

    • Spain’s king granted natives who lived on a certain part of the land to individual Spaniards

    • Forced to work in farmlands or mines

    • Their efforts and products from their labor were shipped off to Spain and given to the Spanish

    • In return, the Spaniards would have to “take care” of the Native Americans

Enslaved African Labor

• Portuguese had already proved that using enslaved Africans to grow crops was profitable

  • The sugar plantations on islands off the African coast was where this was proved

  • This provided a model for other Europeans looking for a way to strengthen their labor force

• The Spanish needed to add to their labor force as enslaving Native Americans did not prove to be successful

  • They died from disease and brutality in slavery

• The Spanish imported enslaved Africans through the asiento system

  • Required colonists to pay a tax to the king for each enslaved person imported to the Americas

• Other Europeans also established the use of enslaved Africans as a labor force

  • During the colonial era, more Africans came to the Americas than Europeans

• Up until the late 1800s, 10-15 million Africans were put on ships and shipped off to the Americas

  • 10-15% died on the voyage to the Americas

• This voyage was called the Middle Passage

African Resistance

• Despite being transported many miles away from home and being brutally repressed, Africans resisted slavery in many ways

  • They would run away, sabotage work, or revolt

• They would also retain aspects of African culture

  • Music, religion, and folkways

Spanish Caste System

• The combination of Native Americans, Spaniards, and Africans created ethnically diverse colonies

• Many people were also of mixed heritage

• The hierarchy in this society

  • Pure blooded Spaniards at the top

  • People of mixed heritage in the middle

  • People of pure Native American or Black descent on the bottom

1.6: Cultural Interactions in the Americas

• There are many recorded interactions between various ethnic groups in history

  • Romans and Africans in Classical Era

  • Christians and Muslims in Middle Ages

• These conflicts were often violent, but small in regions and didn’t last that long

• Contact between Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans in the Americas was violent and lasted for a longer time. it was also on a larger scale

• Europeans and Native Americans had conflicting worldviews

  • Monotheism VS polytheism

    • Most Native Americans believed in multiple deities while Europeans believed in one god

  • The roles of women in each society

    • Women had a limited role in European society while some tribes had leadership positions that women took up

  • The use of legal documents VS tradition for making land decisions

European Treatment of Native Americans

• Europeans generally viewed Native Americans as inferior people that could be exploited for economic gain, converted to Christianity, and used as military allies

• Various approaches were used for ruling Native Americans and operating colonies

Spanish Policy

• Subjugated Native Americans, however, the treatment of Native Americans was debated by Spanish scholars

Bartolomé de Las Casas

• Spanish priest who dissented from the views of most Europeans towards Native Americans

• Though he had owned land and slaves in the West Indies and fought wars against the Native Americans, he eventually advocated for better treatment of the Native Americans

• Persuaded the king to pass the New Laws of 1542

  • These laws ended slavery for the Native Americans, halted forced Native American labor, and started to put a stop to the encomienda system

  • However, conservative Spaniards, who profited off of this system, successfully got the king to repeal certain parts of these new laws

Valladolid Debate

• Debate of the role of Native Americans was a formal debate in 1550-1551 in Valladolid, Spain

• Two sides to this debate

  • Las Casas argued that Native Americans were humans as well, so enslaving them was morally wrong and unjustified

  • Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda believed that Native Americans were less than human, which meant that they benefitted from the encomienda system

• Neither side was able to convince the audience well

• Las Casas was unable to gain equal treatment for Native Americans, but he was able to establish the basic arguments for the justice of Native Americans

English Policy

• The English settled in areas with no large native population that could provide forced labor

• When the English arrived on the scene in the 1600s, most of the Native population was already killed off by various diseases

• Many English colonists came in families rather that single young men

  • marriage with natives was less common

• In Massachusetts, the English and the Native Americans coexisted and shared many things and ideas with each other

  • Natives taught the English how to grow new crops

  • Also showed them how to hunt in the forests

  • Traded furs for English manufactured goods such as iron tools and weapons

• These peaceful relations soon gave way to issues and warfare

  • Most Europeans showed no respect towards the Native American culture, viewing their cultures as “savage”

  • Native Americans felt threatened by the English taking their land and supporting their growing population

• They expelled the natives rather than subjugating them

French Policy

• The French viewed the Native Americans as potential economic and military allies

• Compared to the English and Spanish, the French seemed to have a better relationship with the Native Americans

• They built trading posts throughout the St. Lawrence Valley, the Great Lakes region, and the Mississippi river

• They exchanged French goods for furs at these posts

• The French posed less threat to the native population due to the fewer number of colonists, farms, and towns

• The French soldiers also assisted the Hurons to fight against the Iroquois, their traditional enemy

Survival Strategies by Native Americans

• As European settlements began to increase in number, Native Americans responded to protect themselves and their cultures

• One strategy was to ally with a European power

  • Ex. several tribes in Mexico allied with Spain to help them win their freedom from the Aztecs in the 1500s

• Other tribes migrated west to get away from settlers, which would further lead to conflict between other Native Americans living in that area already

  • Native Americans did not identify as a larger group that included all tribes

• Regardless of how each tribe dealt with European invasion, they would never return to their life prior to 1492

The Role of Africans in America

• They contributed a third cultural tradition in the Americas

• Their experience growing rice made rice an important crop in the South Carolinian and Louisiana colonies

• Musical rhythms and singing styles that shaped the development of American music

  • The banjo would be closely associated with the American culture in the southeast by the 19th century

• Europeans justified slavery in many ways

  • Some used religion to justify slavery, excerpts from the Bible

• Slavery soon became exclusive to Africans, which lead to Europeans arguing that Africans were biologically inferior, which gave them a “justification” for slavery

  • Similar to the argument Sepúlveda used regarding Native Americans