New World Beginnings and the Foundation of the American Nation

The Transformation of American Identity and the Revolutionary Epoch

Initial Identity of Colonists: European explorers and the original settlers of the thirteen colonies (seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) did not intend to found a new nation; they viewed themselves as subjects of the English king and America as the western rim of the transatlantic European world.]
Evolution of “American” Ideals: Life in the New World fostered common bonds and a departure from European norms. Colonists grew to cherish: * Reverence for individual liberty. * Self-government. * Religious tolerance. * Economic opportunity.
Social and Ideological Structures: The common values were offset by the subjugation of outsiders, including the near-annihilation of Native Americans and the enslavement of Africans for plantation labor (tobacco, rice, and indigo).
Regional Differences within the Thirteen Colonies: * New England: Pious, democratic, homogeneous communities of small family farms carved by Puritans. * Southern Colonies: Dominated by large Anglican landholders with a heavy reliance on black slave labor and a social hierarchy looking down on backcountry white farmers. * Middle Colonies (New York to Delaware): Known for diversity; merchants in New York, Quakers in Philadelphia, and a mix of sprawl and modest homesteads.
Imperial Crises and the Path to Independence: * Stability before 1760: Colonists generally profited from British trade and exercised significant self-rule. * French and Indian War ( $1756-1763$ ): The British victory removed the French threat but made the British military presence feel less indispensable. * Taxation and Conflict: Post- $1763$ , the overstretched British government imposed taxes directly on the colonies. * The Revolutionary War: Lasted eight years; forced national unity through comradeship and the creation of a national government. * Internal Strife: One in five colonists were "Loyalists," making the Revolution a form of civil war. * Ideology: Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence articulated the "unalienable rights" of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

The Shaping of North America and Geological Foundations

Cosmic and Geological Timeline: * The Earth was formed several billion years ago. * Recorded history began approximately $6,000$ years ago. * European discovery of the Americas occurred roughly $500$ years ago.
Continental Drift and Pangea: Approximately $225$ million years ago, a single supercontinent (Pangea) existed. It broke into chunks that drifted to form the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and the current continents. Evidence includes nearly identical species of freshwater fish in now-separated lakes on different continents.
Mountain Formation: * Appalachians: Formed approximately $350$ million years ago. * Western Ranges: The Rockies, Sierra Nevada, Cascades, and Coast Ranges formed between $135$ million and $25$ million years ago.
Major Geological Features of North America: * Canadian Shield: A massive zone of ancient rock, the first part of the landmass to emerge above sea level. * Tidewater Region: A narrow eastern coastal plain sloping to the Appalachians. * Midcontinental Basin: The area between the Appalachians and the Rockies, including the Mississippi Valley. * Great Basin: Located between the Rockies on the east and the Sierra/Cascade ranges on the west.

The Great Ice Age and its Environmental Impact

Glacial Coverage: Beginning approximately $2$ million years ago, two-mile-thick ice sheets covered parts of Europe, Asia, and North America (as far south as Pennsylvania, the Ohio country, and the Dakotas).
Post-Glacial Landscape ( $10,000$ years ago): * The weight of the glaciers depressed the level of the Canadian Shield. * Glacial melting scoured the topsoil and created thousands of lakes. * The Great Lakes: Formed by glacial action. Originally drained via the Mississippi system, they eventually found an outlet through the St. Lawrence River when the ice unblocked it. * Lake Bonneville: A massive glacial lake covering much of present-day Utah, Nevada, and Idaho. It eventually lost its outlet to the Snake River, evaporated, and left the mineral-rich desert and the relic Great Salt Lake.

The Peopling of the Americas: Migration and Diversification

The Bering Land Bridge: Roughly $35,000$ years ago, the Ice Age lowered sea levels, exposing a land bridge connecting Siberia and Alaska. Nomadic Asian hunters crossed this bridge for approximately $250$ centuries.
Isolation: About $10,000$ years ago, the glaciers melted, raising the sea level and inundating the land bridge, marooning populations in the Americas.
Population at First Contact ( $1492$ ): * Estimated total population: $54$ million people. * Linguistic diversity: Over $2,000$ separate languages.
Advanced Civilizations of Mexico and South America: * Incas (Peru), Mayans (Central America), and Aztecs (Mexico) developed sophisticated cultures. * Agriculture: Based on maize (Indian corn); sustained populations up to $20$ million in Mexico. * Achievement: Mathematical skills, astronomical observations, and city-building without the wheel or large draft animals. * Aztec Practices: Massive human sacrifice (sometimes over $5,000$ people for a single event) to favor gods.

Early North American Societies and the Role of Maize

Development of Corn: Developed from wild grass in highland Mexico around $5000$ B.C.
Pueblo Culture (Southwest): Corn reaching the Southwest around $1200$ B.C. led to the creation of irrigation systems and multistoried, terraced buildings.
Societal Organization: North of Mexico, societies were generally less dense which facilitated European conquest.
Notable Settlements: * Mound Builders (Ohio River Valley) and Mississippian Culture: Cahokia (near East St. Louis) housed up to $25,000$ people. * Anasazis (Southwest): Built Chaco Canyon with over $600$ interconnected rooms. Most of these cultures declined by A.D. $1300$ due to drought.
Three-Sister Farming: Occurring around A.D. $1000$ in the southeast Atlantic seaboard. Beans grew on cornstalks, and squash covered the mounds to retain moisture. This sustained high-density populations like the Creek, Choctaw, and Cherokee.
Iroquois Confederacy: Inspired by the leader Hiawatha in the $16th$ century; a robust military alliance with political organizational skills.
Cultural Trends: North American groups were often matrilineal (power/possessions pass down the female line). Unlike Europeans, they did not seek global dominion but did use fire to manipulate forest habitats for deer hunting.

Indirect Discoverers and Early European Context

Norse Seafarers: Found Newfoundland around A.D. $1000$ , naming it Vinland. Their settlements were flimsy and soon abandoned.
Christian Crusaders: Between the $11th$ and $14th$ centuries, they developed a taste for Asian luxuries (silk, drugs, perfumes, and sugar).
The Cost of Eastern Goods: Goods traveled from the Spice Islands (Indonesia), China, and India through Muslim middlemen, making them prohibitively expensive for European consumers.
Marco Polo: An Italian adventurer who returned in $1295$ with tales of China, further stimulating desire for a cheaper route to the East.

Portuguese Expansion and the African Slave Trade

Technological Breakthroughs: Around $1450$ , the Portuguese developed the caravel (a ship that could sail into the wind) and learned to use westward breezes to return from the African coast.
Mali and Timbuktu: West African kingdom known for its Islamic university and gold supply.
The Slave Trade: Portuguese set up trading posts along the coast. They adopted the existing Arab and African practice of trading slaves, but expanded it into a massive commercial business to work sugar plantations on islands like Madeira, the Canaries, São Tomé, and Principe.
Plantation System Origins: Based on large-scale commercial agriculture and the wholesale exploitation of slave labor; roughly $40,000$ Africans were taken to Atlantic sugar islands in the late $15th$ century.
Water Route to Asia: Bartholomeu Días rounded the tip of Africa ( $1488$ ); Vasco da Gama reached India ( $1498$ ).

Columbus, Global Integration, and the Columbian Exchange

Spanish Unification: Marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile; expulsion of Muslim Moors from Spain (Granada).
Columbus’s Voyage: Persuaded Spanish monarchs to fund three ships; sighted an island in the Bahamas on October $12, 1492$ .
The Global System: Europe provided capital/markets; Africa provided labor; the New World provided raw materials (precious metals, soil for sugar).
Biotic Exchanges: * New World to Old: Tobacco, maize, beans, tomatoes, and the potato (which fueled a European population boom). Roughly three-fifths of modern global crops originated in the Americas. * Old World to New: Wheat, sugar, rice, coffee, horses, cows, and pigs. Horses transformed tribes like the Apaches, Sioux, and Blackfoot into mobile hunter societies.
The Demographic Catastrophe: Europeans brought smallpox, yellow fever, and malaria. Native populations, lacking antibodies, suffered mortality rates as high as $90\%$ . The Taino population in Hispaniola dropped from $1$ million to $200$ within $50$ years.

Spanish Conquistadores and the Silver Revolution

Treaty of Tordesillas ( $1494$ ): Spain and Portugal divided the "heathen lands"; Spain received the majority of the Americas, Portugal received territory in Africa, Asia, and Brazil.
Major Spanish Explorers: * Vasco Nuñez Balboa: Claimed the Pacific Ocean for Spain ( $1513$ ). * Ferdinand Magellan: First circumnavigation of the globe ( $1519-1522$ ). * Juan Ponce de León: Explored Florida ( $1513, 1521$ ). * Francisco Coronado: Explored Arizona, New Mexico, and Kansas ( $1540-1542$ ); discovered the Grand Canyon and buffalo. * Hernando de Soto: Discovered/crossed the Mississippi River ( $1539-1542$ ). * Francisco Pizarro: Crushed the Incas of Peru ( $1532$ ).
Economic Impact of Silver: Mines at Potosí and in Mexico increased European consumer costs by $500\%$ . This bullion fueled the rise of capitalism and modern commercial banking.
The Encomienda System: A legal system where the government "commended" Indians to colonists in exchange for Christianizing them; fundamentally it was slavery.

The Conquest of Mexico (Cortés vs. Moctezuma)

Hernán Cortés: Set sail from Cuba in $1519$ with eleven ships. He used interpreters (a Spanish castaway and the female slave Malinche/Doña Marina) to communicate with the Aztecs.
Tenochtitlán: The Aztec capital, an island city of $300,000$ people with complex aqueducts and causeways.
The Fall of the Aztecs: Moctezuma initially believed Cortés was the god Quetzalcoatl. Tensions over gold led to the noche triste (June $30, 1520$ ), where Aztecs drove the Spanish out. Cortés returned to besiege the city, which fell on August $13, 1521$ . A smallpox epidemic decimated the population from $20$ million to $2$ million in a century.
Cultural Legacy: The rise of mestizos (people of mixed Indian and European heritage). Mexico celebrates Columbus Day as Dia de la Raza ("the birthday of a new race").

Expansion and Imperial Rivals on the Frontier

Fortification and Settlements: Spain built a fortress at St. Augustine, Florida ( $1565$ ), the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the U.S.
New Mexico: Founded by Don Juan de Oñate in $1598$ ; the Battle of Acoma ( $1599$ ) saw the Spanish sever the feet of survivors. Proclaimed a province in $1609$ ; capital at Santa Fe ( $1610$ ).
Popé’s Rebellion ( $1680$ ): Pueblo rebels destroyed every Catholic church and killed hundreds of settlers; it took the Spanish nearly half a century to reclaim the province.
Texas and California: Settlements were established in Texas around $1716$ as a hedge against the French (Robert de La Salle). In California, Father Junipero Serra founded San Diego ( $1769$ ) and a chain of $21$ missions to Christianize native Californians.
The "Black Legend": The false concept that the Spanish only tortured and butchered Indians. In reality, they established a massive empire and incorporated indigenous culture through marriage, unlike the English who tended to isolate them.