Early Americas and European Contact
First Peoples in the Americas
Little is known about the first peoples in the Americas; knowledge is based on archeological discoveries.
Early migrations were believed to have occurred approximately 11,000 years ago across the Bering Strait land bridge into Alaska.
Migrants traveled through an unfrozen corridor between ice sheets to reach non-glacial lands.
Migrations were likely driven by the development of new stone tools for hunting large animals.
Migrants are believed to have come from Mongolian stock related to modern-day Siberia.
Known as the "Clovis" people, named after a town in New Mexico.
The Clovis people established one of the first civilizations in the Americas around 13,000 years ago. They were among the first to make tools and hunt animals.
Recent evidence suggests some migrants settled as far south as Chile and Peru before land migration into North America.
These early South Americans may have arrived by sea, indicating long ocean voyages.
Migrants were capable of making long ocean voyages to populate Japan, Australia, and other Pacific areas.
The early population of the Americas was more diverse and scattered than previously believed.
Some people may have come from Polynesia and Japan.
DNA evidence suggests a population group without Asian genetic markers, possibly indicating migration from Europe or Africa.
Most Native Americans today share similar genetic characteristics linking them to modern Siberians and Mongolians.
This suggests Mongolian migrants eventually dominated or eliminated earlier population groups.
Archaic Period
The "Archaic" period refers to the history of humans in America beginning around 8000 BCE, lasting about 5,000 years.
Early in this period, humans supported themselves through hunting and gathering using stone tools brought from Asia.
Some of the largest animals hunted by the earliest humans in America became extinct during the Archaic period.
Archaic people continued to hunt bison (buffalo) with spears in the Great Plains.
Bows and arrows were unknown in most of North America until 400-500 CE.
Later in the Archaic period, new tools were developed for fishing, trapping, and gathering plants.
Examples are nets, hooks, traps, and baskets.
Some groups began to farm, with corn being the most important crop.
Other crops included beans and squash.
Agricultural areas saw the formation of the first sedentary settlements, creating the basis for larger civilizations.
The most elaborate early civilizations emerged south of the United States in South and Central America and Mexico.
In Peru, the Incas created the largest empire in the Americas.
They started as a small tribe in Cuzco in the early fifteenth century, led by Pachacuti.
Pachacuti's empire stretched along almost 2,000 miles of western South America.
The empire was created through persuasion and innovative administrative systems, including a large network of paved roads.
Another great civilization emerged from the Meso-Americans, in what is now Mexico and Central America.
Organized societies existed as early as 10,000 BCE.
The Olmec people established the first truly complex society in the Americas around 1000 BCE.
Mayan civilization emerged around 800 CE in Central America and the Yucatán peninsula of Mexico.
Developed a written language, a numerical system (similar to Arabic), an accurate calendar, an advanced agricultural system, and trade routes.
Mayan regions were followed by other Meso-American tribes, collectively known as the Aztec (though inaccurately).
The Mexica (Aztecs) established the city of Tenochtitlán in 1300 CE on an island in a lake in central Mexico (present-day Mexico City).
The Mexica incorporated other tribes into their society.
Tenochtitlán became the greatest city in the Americas, with a population of 100,000 by 1500.
It was connected to water supplies by aqueducts.
Residents created public buildings, schools for male children, an organized military, a medical system, and an enslaved workforce from conquered tribes.
Other Indigenous Groups
Other indigenous groups spread through arid regions of the Far West, developing communities based on fishing, hunting, and gathering.
Societies in the Southwest built large irrigation systems for farming and constructed towns as centers of trade, crafts, and ritual.
Settlements like Chaco Canyon consisted of stone and adobe terraced structures (pueblos).
In the Great Plains, most groups engaged in sedentary farming and lived in permanent settlements.
Some small nomadic groups hunted buffalo.
Buffalo hunting supported a large population only after Europeans introduced the horse in the eighteenth century.
The Mexica dominated central Mexico through a tribute system enforced by military power.
The peoples ruled by the Mexica maintained independence but considered the Mexica tyrannical.
The Mexica developed a religion based on human sacrifice, sacrificing prisoners captured in combat on a scale unknown in other American civilizations.
North American Civilizations
Meso-American civilizations were the center of civilized life in North and Central America for many centuries.
They lacked crucial technologies like wheeled vehicles.
Peoples north of Mexico did not develop empires or political systems as elaborate as those of the Incas, Mayas, and Mexica.
They built complex civilizations based on hunting, gathering, and fishing.
Indigenous peoples of the Arctic Circle fished and hunted seals, traversing frozen lands by dogsled.
Big-game hunters of the northern forests led nomadic lives based on moose and caribou.
Groups in the Pacific Northwest fished for salmon, creating permanent settlements and competing for resources.
The eastern third of the United States, known as the Woodland Indians, had the greatest food resources.
Many groups farmed, hunted, gathered, and fished.
The South had substantial settlements and trading networks based on corn and other grains in the Mississippi River valley.
Cahokia, near present-day St. Louis, had a population of about 10,000 in 1200 CE and contained large earthen mounds.
Cahokia was a major city that emerged as a result of trade.
Agricultural societies of the Northeast were more nomadic.
Farming was newer and less established.
Groups combined farming with hunting.
Farming techniques were designed to exploit the land quickly.
Land was cleared by burning forests or killing trees, then crops were planted among the dead trunks. After a few years, they moved on.
Many groups east of the Mississippi River were linked by common linguistic roots.
The largest language group was Algonquian, dominating the Atlantic seaboard from Canada to Virginia.
Another important group was Iroquoian, centered in upstate New York.
The Iroquois included the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk nations and had links with the Cherokees and Tuscaroras.
The third-largest group was Muskogean, including the Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles in the southernmost region of the eastern seaboard.
Alliances among Native American societies were fragile because they did not see themselves as a single civilization as there was diversity in their economic, social, and political structures.
In the centuries before European arrival, Native Americans were experiencing an agricultural revolution.
Groups were becoming more sedentary and developing new food sources, clothing, and shelter.
Most regions experienced population growth and developed social customs and rituals.
Religion was important to Native American society and closely tied to the natural world.
Native Americans worshiped many gods associated with crops, game, forests, and rivers.
Some groups created totems and staged festivals for harvests or hunts.
Tasks were divided by gender.
Women cared for children, prepared meals, and gathered foods.
The allocation of other tasks varied.
Some groups (Pueblos) reserved farming for men.
Others (Algonquins, Iroquois, Muskogees) had women tending fields while men hunted or cleared land.
Iroquois women controlled social and economic organization within settlements and played powerful roles within families.
European Awareness of the Americas
Europeans were largely unaware of the Americas before the fifteenth century.
Leif Eriksson and others had glimpsed parts of the Americas, but their discoveries did not become common knowledge.
Europe in the Middle Ages (500-1500 CE) was not an adventurous civilization.
It was divided into small kingdoms with a provincial outlook.
Subsistence agriculture predominated, and commerce was limited.
The Roman Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire provided limited authority.
Gradually, conditions in Europe changed, leading to interest in overseas exploration.
Population growth in the fifteenth century followed the Black Death.
The Black Death killed over a third of the population and debilitated the economy.
Land values rose, commerce reawakened, and prosperity increased.
Affluent landlords sought goods from distant regions.
Trade increased, and advances in navigation made long-distance sea travel more feasible.
Interest in new markets and trade routes grew.
New, more united governments arose.
Strong monarchs emerged and created centralized nation-states.
These monarchs consolidated power, increased their wealth, and sought to enhance commercial growth.
Europeans had dreamed of trade with the East since Marco Polo's travels.
Trade was limited by the arduous overland journey to Asia.
Increased maritime capabilities and Muslim control of eastern routes led to talk of a sea route to Asia.
Some monarchs were ready to finance voyages of exploration.
The Portuguese were the preeminent maritime power, largely due to Prince Henry the Navigator.
Henry sought to explore the western coast of Africa, establish a Christian empire, and find gold.
Henry's mariners reached Cape Verde.
Bartholomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488.
Vasco da Gama proceeded around the cape to India in 1497-1498.
Pedro Cabral reached the coast of Brazil in 1500.
Christopher Columbus sought to reach Asia by going west.
He believed the world was smaller than it is.
He failed to win support in Portugal and turned to Spain.
Columbus's Voyages
Spain, with the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella in the fifteenth century, had the strongest monarchy in Europe which led to them being eager to sponsor commercial ventures.
Columbus appealed to Queen Isabella for support.
In 1492, Isabella agreed to Columbus's request.
Columbus left Spain with ninety men and three ships: the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María.
He sailed west into the Atlantic, thinking he was heading to Japan.
He landed on an island in the Bahamas and assumed he had reached his target.
He encountered Cuba and assumed he had reached China.
Columbus returned to Spain with captured indigenous people.
He called them "Indians" because he believed they were from the East Indies.
Columbus tried again with a larger expedition, heading into the Caribbean and leaving a colony on Hispaniola.
On a third voyage in 1498, he reached the mainland of South America.
He concluded that he had discovered a separate continent.
He remained convinced that Asia was nearby.
Columbus failed to sail around the northeastern coast of South America to the Indies.
For the rest of his life, Columbus continued to believe that he had explored at least the fringes of the Far East.
Columbus's accomplishments made him a hero for a time, but he later died in obscurity.
The New World was named after Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine merchant who recognized the Americas as new continents.
Columbus was a deeply religious man who saw himself as fulfilling a divine mission.
"God made me the messenger of the new heaven and the new earth," Columbus wrote.
Spain began to devote greater resources to maritime exploration.
The Spanish replaced Portugal as the leading seafaring nation.
Vasco de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama in 1513 and was the first known European to see the Pacific Ocean.
Ferdinand Magellan found the strait at the southern end of South America.
Magellan's expedition completed the first circumnavigation of the globe (1519-1522).
Magellan died in the Philippines.
By 1550, Spaniards had explored the coasts of North America, as well as some of the interior regions
Spanish Expansion
Spanish explorers began to consider the Americas a source of wealth rivaling the Indies.
The Spanish claimed the Americas, except for Brazil, which was reserved for the Portuguese.
By the mid-sixteenth century, the Spanish were establishing an American empire.
The first Spanish colonists settled on the Caribbean islands, attempting to enslave the indigenous people and find gold.
In 1518, Hernando Cortés led a military expedition into Mexico.
Cortés had achieved little success prior to this.
He encountered strong resistance from the Aztecs and their emperor, Montezuma.
Cortés exposed the Aztecs to smallpox, which decimated the population.
The Spanish saw the epidemic as a vindication of their efforts.
Cortés established a reputation as the most brutal of the Spanish conquistadores.
The discovery of silver in Mexico attracted other Spaniards.
Conquistadores descended on the mainland in search of fortune.
Francisco Pizarro conquered Peru (1532-1538) and revealed the wealth of the Incas.
Hernando de Soto led expeditions through Florida west into the continent and crossed the Mississippi River (1539-1541).
Francisco Coronado traveled north from Mexico into what is now New Mexico (1540-1542).
The Spanish Empire
The story of the Spanish warriors is one of military daring and brutality.
The conquistadores exterminated indigenous populations through warfare and disease.
Spanish explorers, conquistadores, and colonists established a vast empire for Spain in the Americas.
The history of the Spanish Empire spanned three periods:
The age of discovery and exploration (beginning with Columbus).
The age of conquest, in which Spanish military forces established dominion.
The phase beginning in the 1570s, when new Spanish laws banned brutal military conquests.
From that point on, the Spanish expanded their presence through colonization.
The first Spaniards were interested in getting rich which they did.
For 300 years, the mines in Spanish America yielded more than ten times as much gold and silver as the rest of the world.
These riches made Spain the wealthiest nation for a time.
After the first wave of conquest, most Spanish settlers came to create a profitable agricultural economy.
These settlers helped establish elements of European civilization that altered the landscape and social structure.
Another important force for colonization was the Catholic Church.
Commercial lives existed within missions.
But their primary purpose was to convert Native Americans to Catholicism.
Military garrisons protected the Europeans from attacks, and presidios (military bases) grew up nearby.
The missionary impulse became one of the most important motives for European emigration.
Priests accompanied colonizing ventures, and Catholicism spread throughout South and Central America, Mexico, and the South and Southwest of the present United States.
Colonization Efforts
The Spanish fort established in 1565 at St. Augustine, Florida, became the first permanent European settlement in what is now the United States.
It served as a military outpost and administrative center for missionaries.
A more substantial colonizing venture began thirty years later in the Southwest.
In 1598, Don Juan de Oñate traveled north from Mexico with 500 men and claimed lands of the Pueblo Indians.
The Spanish migrants established a colony in what is now New Mexico.
Oñate distributed encomiendas, licenses to exact labor and tribute from Native Americans.
The Spanish demanded tribute and commandeered Native Americans as laborers.
Santa Fe was founded in 1609.
Oñate's harsh treatment of Native Americans led to his removal as governor in 1606.
Relations between the Spanish and Pueblos improved over time.
Many Pueblos converted to Christianity and entered into trading relationships.
Raidings from the Apache and Navajo continued.
The New Mexico settlement grew and by 1680, there were over 2,000 Spanish colonists living among about 30,000 Pueblos.
The economic heart of the colony was cattle and sheep.
In 1680, the colony was nearly destroyed when the Pueblos rose in revolt.
The Spanish priests and the colonial government attempted to suppress tribal rituals.
A major drought and raids by Apache groups created instability.
Pope, led a Native American religious leader and killed hundreds of European settlers, captured Santa Fe, and drove the Spanish from the region.
Twelve years later, the Spanish returned, resumed seizing Pueblo lands, and crushed a revolt in 1696.
Spanish exploitation of the Pueblos did not end, but colonists realized they could not prosper if they were constantly in conflict.
The Spanish intensified their assimilation efforts by baptizing Native American children and enforcing Catholic rituals.
They also permitted Pueblos to own land, stopped commandeering labor, replaced the encomienda system, and tolerated tribal religious rituals.
After a while, there was significant intermarriage between Europeans and Native Americans.
The Pueblos came to consider the Spanish as allies against the Apaches and Navajos.
By 1750, the Spanish population had grown to about 4,000, while the Pueblo population had declined to about 13,000.
New Mexico had become a stable, but weak and isolated, outpost of the Spanish Empire.
By the end of the sixteenth century, the Spanish Empire had become one of the largest in the history of the world.
This included the islands of the Caribbean and the coastal areas of South America that had been the first targets of the Spanish expeditions.
Most of all, the empire spread southward and westward into the vast landmass of South America - the areas that are now Chile, Argentina, and Peru.
In 1580, when the Spanish and Portuguese monarchies temporarily united, Brazil came under Spanish jurisdiction as well.
It was a colonial empire very different from the one the English would establish in North America beginning in the early seventeenth century.
The earliest Spanish ventures in the New World had been largely independent of the throne.
But by the end of the sixteenth century, the monarchy had extended its authority directly into the governance of local communities.
Colonists had few opportunities to establish political institutions independent of Spain.
The Spanish were far more successful than the British would be in extracting great surface wealth - gold and silver - from their American colonies.
They concentrated less energy on making agriculture and commerce profitable in their colonies.
The strict commercial policies of the Spanish government stifled economic development of the Spanish areas of the Americas.
To enforce the collection of duties and to provide protection against pirates, the government established rigid and restrictive regulations that required all trade with the colonies to go through a single Spanish port and only a few colonial ports, in fleets making but two voyages a year.
Demographic and Cultural Changes
The English, Dutch, and French colonies in North America concentrated on establishing permanent settlements and family life.
The Europeans in North America reproduced rapidly after their first difficult years and in time came to outnumber the Native Americans.
The Spanish ruled their empire but did not people it.
The number of European settlers in Spanish America remained very small relative to the indigenous population.
The Spanish imposed a small ruling class upon a much larger existing population; they did not create a self - contained European society in the New World as the English would attempt to do in North America.
The lines separating the races in the Spanish Empire gradually grew less distinct than they would be in the English colonies to the north.
Indigenous groups inhabiting some of the large Caribbean islands and some areas of Mexico were virtually extinct within fifty years of their first contact with Europeans.
The indigenous population of Hispaniola quickly declined from approximately 1 million to about 500.
In the Mayan areas of Mexico, as much as 95 percent of the population perished within a few years of their first contact with the Spanish.
Most areas of the Americas experienced a demographic catastrophe at least as grave as the Black Death.
Europeans were exploring the Americas as a result of their early contacts with Native Americans.
They first learned of the rich deposits of gold and silver.
After that, the history of the Americas became one of increasing levels of exchanges. This resulted in some beneficial incidents but some catastrophic ones.
The first and most profound result of this exchange was introducing European diseases to the Americas.
The exposure of Native Americans to illnesses such as influenza, measles, chicken pox, mumps, typhus, and smallpox caused for millions to die.
The decimation of indigenous populations was also a result of the conquistadores' deliberate policy of subjugation and extermination.
Cultural Exchange
Not all aspects of the exchange were disastrous to Native Americans.
The Europeans introduced important new crops to America (sugar and bananas), domestic livestock (cattle, pigs, and sheep), and the horse.
The exchange was at least as important to the Europeans.
The arriving Europeans learned new agricultural techniques from Native Americans.
They discovered new crops, above all maize (corn), which became an important staple among the settlers.
American foods such as squash, pumpkins, beans, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes also found their way back to Europe and revolutionized European agriculture.
Agricultural discoveries ultimately proved more important to the future of Europe than the gold and silver
The settlers lived in intimate, if unequal, contact with the Native Americans.
Native Americans gradually came to learn Spanish or Portuguese and created a range of dialects.
European missionaries spread Catholicism through most areas of the Spanish Empire.
But Native Americans tended to connect the new creed with features of their old religions and thus creating a hybrid of faiths.
Colonial officials were expected to take their wives with them to America, but ordinary settlers were mostly men outnumbered European women.
The Spanish immigrants had substantial sexual contact with Native American women.
Intermarriage became frequent, and before long the population of the colonies came to be dominated by mestizos.
The Spanish at the top, Native Americans at the bottom, and multi - racial people in between.
The wealth and influence of a family often came to define its place in the
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