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Notes: The New World (Chapter 1) - The American Yawp

I. Introduction

  • Europeans called the Americas “the New World,” but for Native Americans it was a living, dynamic reality with long histories and rich diversity. Native Americans lived in the Americas for more than 10{,}000 years, spoke many languages, and built settled communities, seasonal migration patterns, alliances and conflicts, self-sufficient economies, vast trade networks, distinctive art forms, spiritual values, and kinship-centered social structures.
  • The arrival of Europeans and the global exchange of people, animals, plants, and microbes—the Columbian Exchange—bridged more than 10{,}000 years of geographic separation, unleashed centuries of violence, and sparked what many scholars call the greatest biological terror the world had seen; it also revolutionized world history.
  • The Columbian Exchange marked the beginning of a long, consequential chapter in American history, often framed as the first chapter in the long American yawp.

II. The First Americans

  • Native American stories of origins span creation and migration; these oral traditions reveal diverse beliefs:
    • Salinan people (present-day California): a bald eagle formed the first man from clay and the first woman from a feather.
    • Lenape tradition: Sky Woman fell into a watery world and, with help from muskrat and beaver, landed safely on a turtle’s back, creating Turtle Island (North America).
    • Choctaw tradition: origins inside Nunih Waya, the great Mother Mound earthwork in the lower Mississippi Valley.
    • Nahua: origins in the place of the Seven Caves, before migrating to central Mexico.
  • Archaeologists and anthropologists study migration histories through artifacts, bones, and genetic signatures to construct narratives about how the Americas became populated.
  • Ice-age migrations and land connections:
    • During the last global ice age, sea levels were very low and a land bridge connected Asia and North America across the Bering Strait. Between 12{,}000 and 20{,}000 years ago, Native ancestors crossed into the Americas in small bands, exploiting plants, animals, and marine resources in the Beringian tundra.
    • DNA evidence suggests a pause of roughly 15{,}000 years in the expansive region between Asia and America.
    • Some ancestors crossed the seas along the Pacific coast and settled where environments allowed.
    • Glacial sheets began to recede around 14{,}000 years ago, opening broader routes to warmer climates and resources; some groups moved southward and eastward.
  • Early site evidence:
    • Monte Verde (Chile) shows human activity at least 14{,}500 years ago, with similar early coastal evidence in the Florida panhandle around the same time.
  • Across the continent, diverse groups settled and migrated over millennia, sharing broad traits but varying in spiritual beliefs, property concepts, and kinship structures.
  • Regional patterns of life before contact:
    • Northwest: salmon-rich rivers; religious and cultural associations with salmon; sustained harvests and First Salmon ceremonies; large cedar canoes and totem poles; seafaring and fishing technologies.
    • Plains and Prairie: hunting communities followed bison herds with seasonal movements.
    • Mountains, deserts, forests: a rich tapestry of languages and cultures.
  • Agriculture emerged between 9{,}000 and 5{,}000 years ago in both hemispheres; Mesoamerica relied on domesticated maize to develop the hemisphere’s first settled populations around 1200 ext{ BCE}.
  • The Eastern Woodlands and Mississippi River valleys saw a flourishing of agriculture, particularly the Three Sisters—corn, beans, and squash—which supported city-building and state-like societies.
  • Agricultural methods:
    • Woodland communities used shifting cultivation (cut, burn, plant, allow regrowth) in challenging soils; in fertile Eastern Woodlands, permanent, intensive agriculture developed using hand tools rather than plows.
    • Women typically tended agriculture; men hunted and fished; agriculture allowed some members to pursue other roles such as religious leadership, skilled warfare, and arts.
  • Health and social change:
    • Transition to agriculture often correlated with weaker bones and teeth in skeletal remains, suggesting health trade-offs for higher food production.
    • Social changes accompanied by increased population growth and diversification of labor and specialization.
  • Social organization and belief systems:
    • Native North American kinship often emphasized matrilineal lines (ancestry through mothers); women could wield significant influence in marriages, households, and production.
    • Property concepts emphasized personal use and usufruct rather than permanent possession; land rights were tied to use and stewardship rather than outright ownership.
  • Cultural and communicative technologies:
    • Ojibwe, an Algonquian-speaking group, used birch-bark scrolls for recording medical treatments, recipes, songs, and stories.
    • Eastern Woodland peoples wove plant fibers, embroidered skins with porcupine quills, and arranged ceremonial earthworks.
    • Maya, Zapotec, and Nahua ancestors in Mesoamerica painted histories on plant-derived textiles and carved them in stone; In the Andes, the Inca used knotted strings (khipu) to record information.
  • Major prehistoric culture groups (roughly $0$2,000 years ago):
    • Puebloans in the Southwest; Mississippians along the Mississippi and its tributaries; Mesoamerican groups in central Mexico and the Yucatán.
    • Notable sites include Cahokia near present-day St. Louis (Mississippi River valley), which became one of the largest urban centers of the pre-Columbian Americas.
  • Cahokia and the Woodland worlds:
    • Cahokia grew rapidly after around 1050 CE, entering a period some archaeologists call a “big bang” with rapid political, social, and ideological changes and a population surge of about 500{,}000 ext{%}? (Note: Population growth is described as “almost 500 percent in only one generation”).
    • By 1300 CE Cahokia collapsed due to a combination of ecological stress, warfare, and political factors, though revised explanations emphasize internal tensions and external threats rather than ecological disaster alone.
  • Cahokia’s scale and connectivity:
    • The city covered about 2{,}000 acres with Monks Mound rising over 10 stories tall.
    • Cahokia functioned as a hub in a broader trade network that stretched from the Great Lakes to the American Southeast; artifacts from far away regions (e.g., seashells from the Gulf Coast, mica from the Alleghenies, obsidian from Mexico, turquoise from the Greater Southwest) show long-distance exchange that linked disparate communities.
  • Lenape (Delaware) social organization:
    • The Lenape lived in dispersed communities across the Hudson/Delaware River basins; kin-based, matrilineal society with sachems (speaking for the people in councils).
    • Authority was distributed and consent-based; occasional tensions with-Iroquois to the north or Susquehannock to the south; little evidence for defensive fortifications in Lenape areas, suggesting lower levels of large-scale warfare.
    • Lenape women influenced marriages, households, and agricultural production; they supported a stable, prosperous, and flexible society that could adapt to seasonal cycles and migrations.
  • Pacific Northwest cultures:
    • Kwakwaka’wakw, Tlingits, Haidas, and many others thrived in a region with abundant salmon, rivers, and forests.
    • Salmon imagery and totem poles symbolized prosperity and renewal; the First Salmon Ceremony marked seasonal salmon runs and ensured sustainable harvesting practices.
    • Cedar plank houses could be very long (e.g., up to 500 feet) and housed large groups; navigational and artistic traditions included large masks and complex woodcarving (totems, masks, drums, rattles).
  • By the time Europeans arrived, Native peoples spoke hundreds of languages and lived in cities or small bands across varied climates; diverse cultures existed, but they shared long histories and sophisticated knowledge systems that differentially reflected local environments.

III. European Expansion

  • Norse exploration precedes Columbus: Leif Erikson reached Newfoundland around 1000 CE, establishing a short-lived colony that was later abandoned due to resource limits, weather, and Native resistance.
  • The European rediscovery of classical knowledge and Asian goods during the Crusades helped spark the Renaissance and European expansion: Greeks, Romans, and Muslim scholars influenced Europe’s knowledge base.
  • The Iberian rise and early Atlantic exploration:
    • The reconquest (Reconquista) culminated in 1492 with the expulsion of Moors and Iberian Jews from the Iberian Peninsula as Catholic monarchs consolidated power.
    • Portugal and Spain, seeking direct access to Asia’s wealth, invested in Atlantic exploration, challenging Italian middlemen who controlled Mediterranean trade.
    • Prince Henry the Navigator (the Sagres Peninsula) funded navigational research and technology; breakthroughs included the astrolabe (latitude calculation) and the caravel (a rugged, cargo-capable ocean-going vessel).
    • Portuguese forts along the African Atlantic coast facilitated extraction of wealth and sugar production on Atlantic islands; later Vasco da Gama opened routes to India and East markets.
    • Atlantic islands became early centers of plantation economies and slave labor, shaping later transatlantic patterns.
  • Early maps and expansion:
    • Cantino Map (1502) depicted Cantino planisphere holdings and supported Portuguese colonial claims, illustrating European expansion in the New World.
  • Columbus and the Spanish push into the Americas:
    • Columbus, funded by the Crown of Castile, believed he could reach Asia by sailing west; in reality, he landed in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492, with the Niña, Pinta, and Santa María.
    • The indigenous Taíno (Arawaks) of the Caribbean were described by Columbus as gentle, but his goal was wealth, gold, and labor; he left 39 Spaniards to establish forts and returned to Spain with captives.
    • Upon return, Spanish efforts intensified to extract wealth, leading to brutalities against Native populations and the establishment of forced labor systems (encomienda).
  • The Columbian Exchange and Indigenous demography:
    • Europeans introduced Old World diseases to the Americas, which Native populations had no immunity to, catalyzing demographic collapse.
    • Epidemics, alongside war and slavery, devastated indigenous communities; estimates of pre-contact populations vary widely, but many scholars emphasize dramatic declines following European contact.
    • Smallpox, typhus, influenza, diphtheria, measles, and other diseases spread rapidly across the hemisphere, contributing to vast depopulation.
  • The encounter also introduced Old World crops and animals to the Americas and Old World diseases to the Old World; the biological exchange reshaped global diets, populations, and ecosystems.

IV. Spanish Exploration and Conquest

  • The Spanish empire followed the initial contact with a broader program of conquest and labor extraction:
    • Conquistadors pursued wealth, land, and titles; the encomienda system granted land and a specified number of Native laborers to encomenderos, leading to brutal labor exploitation.
    • Bartolomé de Las Casas documented abuses, prompting reforms (abolition of the encomienda in 1542; repartimiento), though exploitation persisted under new forms.
  • Encounters with major indigenous empires:
    • The Maya of Central America built large temples, sustained cities, and developed a written language, mathematics, and calendars; though Maya civilization declined before European arrival, its remnants persisted.
    • The Aztecs (Mexica) built a vast empire centered in Tenochtitlán (founded 1325 CE) on Lake Texcoco with chinampas (artificial islands) and a major temple complex (Templo Mayor). The Aztecs dominated a large region through a tribute-based network.
    • Cortés, aided by Doña Marina (La Malinche) and indigenous allies including the Tlaxcalans, defeated the Aztecs, captured Montezuma, and laid siege to Tenochtitlán in 1521, aided by smallpox among the population.
    • The siege and fall of Tenochtitlán were marked by disease and siege warfare; the Aztec empire collapsed within two years of Cortés’s arrival.
  • In the Andean region, the Incas ruled a vast mountain empire with roads spanning roughly 1{,}000 miles and a population of millions; smallpox arrived ahead of the Spaniards, contributing to a dynastic crisis and civil war, which Pizarro exploited to conquer the Inca capital of Cuzco in 1533. Epidemics and war devastated Inca society.
  • European colonization and demographic patterns:
    • The Spanish established a vast imperial structure with royal appointees controlling land, labor, and resources; Indian laborers and administrators managed extraction and transport of wealth across the Atlantic.
    • Large-scale European migration to the Americas occurred during the 16th century; thousands of Spaniards and other Europeans settled across the continent, while large indigenous populations remained in place but under new political and social systems.
  • The mixed-race and hierarchical social order:
    • The Sistema de Castas organized people by racial heritage, combining Spaniards, Indigenous peoples, and Africans into complex classifications that affected social and political advancement.
    • Peninsulares (Iberian-born Spaniards) held the highest offices; criollos (New World-born Spaniards) were wealthy but often treated as second-tier; mestizos (mixed Spanish and Indigenous heritage) formed a large middle group; Africans and Indians occupied lower rungs.
    • Casta paintings documented the degrees of mixture and social status; the church supported interracial marriages to prevent social instability, though significant social stratification persisted.
  • The Mexican and broader Spanish cultural synthesis:
    • Spanish settlement in Mexico City and beyond built on Indigenous foundations, including food, language, and family structures shaped by Indigenous cultures.
    • Our Lady of Guadalupe became a national symbol of mestizo identity, emerging from a vision reported by Juan Diego in 1531; the Virgen de Guadalupe became a unifying symbol in Mexican Catholic culture.
  • Northern expansion and further conquests:
    • Juan Ponce de León explored Florida in 1513; Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and the Narváez expedition traversed large portions of the Gulf of Mexico and the Southwest; Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founded St. Augustine (1565), the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in what is now the United States.
    • Francisco Vázquez de Coronado and Hernando de Soto led expeditions across the American Southwest and Southeast; the Spanish established footholds across much of the continent, though enduring settlements were uneven in North America.
  • The broader consequences of Spanish conquest:
    • The conquest produced profound demographic, cultural, and ecological changes; the colonial system integrated Indigenous and European populations through labor and cultural exchange, creating a distinctive hybrid society across the Spanish Empire in the Americas.

V. Conclusion

  • The “discovery” of the American continents unleashed horrors: disease, conquest, dispossession, and the coerced extraction of wealth through systems like the encomienda and repartimiento.
  • Disease was a primary killer, with estimates of Native American population losses ranging widely; some scholars argue that up to about 90\% of Indigenous populations died in the first century and a half after contact, though estimates vary by region and methodology.
  • The Columbian Exchange transformed global diets and populations: Old World crops (such as potatoes, tomatoes, chocolate, peppers, oranges) and New World crops reshaped global agriculture and cuisine; European livestock (pigs, horses) altered ecosystems and Indigenous livelihoods.
  • The Atlantic world became interconnected through trade, empire-building, and migration, reshaping political boundaries and cultural landscapes across the hemisphere.
  • The arrival of Europeans did not simply replace Indigenous ways of life; rather, it initiated lasting, profound changes in population dynamics, economics, technology, and cultural identities that would redefine the global order for centuries.

VI. Reference Material (Notes and Readings)

  • Chapter editors and contributors are listed in the chapter; the material is accompanied by a bibliography of foundational works on pre-Columbian North America, the Columbian Exchange, and the conquest of the Americas.
  • Key references include works on Cahokia, the Mississippian world, the Indigenous cultures of Mesoamerica and the Andes, and the long-term effects of European conquest and colonization.
  • Notable primary sources and historical analyses cited in the chapter cover topics such as Las Casas’s Destruction of the Indies, Columbus’s journals, the Cantino Map, and modern syntheses on the demographic impact of contact.