Download First Americans

Contact and Exploration
Units 1 and 2
First Americans
• First Americans - approximately
35,000 years ago – long before
Neolithic revolution
• Date subject to debate
• First Americans were huntergatherers
• Crossed land bridge at Beringia
• Gradual migration over
thousands of years  NAs
throughout North and South
America 14,000 years ago
• Cultural differences -different
ecological regions
• diversity - 2000 languages
spoken in the Americas
• 1491: 50 to 100 million Native
Americans (as many as
Europeans), maybe 10M north
of Mexico, 700,000 on coastal
plain and piedmont
Native American Unity
• NO MORE UNITED THAN
EUROPE WAS!!! NO UNITY TO
RESIST EUROPEANS. SOME SAW
EUROPEANS AS POSSIBLE ALLIES
AGAINST ENEMIES
Native American World View
• Animists: every part of the natural world was sacred and world
inhabited by beings with spirits linked together into a sacred whole
• Land should not be exploited.
• Land not privately held. Territorial boundaries existed but within
these limits land held in common.
• The collective not the individual was emphasized. No emphasis on
private accumulation.
Note: Be sure to take good notes on the Native
American culture groups shared in class!!!
Regional Cultures – VERY IMPORTANT!!
Pueblo People of Southwest (Hopi, Pueblos)
• Noted for: arid environment  smaller populations, intricate irrigation
systems and hillside terracing to work dry environment, ceramics and cotton,
use of adobe, a Spaniard wrote in 1559 wrote, “they live very much the same
as we do”
Great Plains: Lakota (Sioux), Comanche, Crow
• Noted for: originally hunter-gatherers, and farming BUT Columbian Exchange
transformed these tribes. Horses led to more success in buffalo hunting AND
expansion into lands held by others. Some small farming communities
remained.
• Pacific Coast – generally rejected agriculture due to abundance of
food resources
• California - home of localized groups many groups remained hunter gatherers
• Northwest – Chinooks, Tlingits: use of ocean going dugout canoes, stratified
societies governed by wealthy families, expert woodcarvers – ceremonial
masks
• Potlaches: winter gatherings sponsored by leading families gave away possessions to
satisfy tribe members
Atlantic Coast – Iroquois, Coastal Tribes
• Iroquois: 5 nations. matrilineal,
the Iroquois Confederation,
reciprocity, shaming and
communalism
• Coastal Indians – including
Powhattan and Pequot
• hunting, fishing and farming
supported small villages often
surrounded by wooden stockades as
well as smaller mobile communities,
• Many different nations which
prevented unity and was exploited
by European conquerors.
Factors Contributing to
European Expansion
• 1. Significance of the Catholic
(universal) Church. Protestant
Reformation not until 16th Cent.
• Envy of Muslim lands/ trade
routes
• 2. Ottoman Empire cut
Europeans off from land based
trade in spices and luxury goods
with Asia!
• 3. New routes to Asia were
Needed!
• 4. New technologies,
geographical knowledge and
cartographical skills
• Caravel and triangular sails for
ocean voyages
• Gunpowder and steel
• Astrolabe and Compass
• The shape and size of world had
been known! Columbus using
Biblical ideas refused to accept the
distance to Asia was 12000 miles;
he thought it was 3500!
5. More powerful nation states
• England and France slowly
developing following the Hundred
Years’ War (1337 – 1453).
• Spain:
• Aragon and Castile merged when
Ferdinand and Isabella married in
1469.
• In 1492, their armies defeated
Muslims at Granada; Muslims and
Jews expelled from the land
Columbus
• Hoped to convert Asians to
Christianity and find wealth to
assist Europeans in struggle with
Islam
• Pope recognized conquest –
1494 Treaty of Tordesillas gave
Spain newly discovered western
lands and Portugal newly
discovered eastern lands
• 1492 - “I found very many
islands filled with people
innumerable, and of them all I
have taken possession for their
highnesses”
Columbus
• Treated people of Caribbean
horrifically! (as non-Christians
they could be exploited). Took
slaves to return to Europe.
• Ideas spread rapidly due to
newly invented printing press.
Columbus (2)
• 1493 Columbus returned to
found colony - base of further
exploration, and gain wealth
• (gold, furs, sugar, slaves)
• War of Conquest – using horses,
canon, steel and trained dogs hundreds of Taino killed on
Hispaniola
• Coumbus and Indians as
envisioned in “the Black Legend”
told by rival English
• Slaves taken to work on plantations ( it was legal to take slaves in a
“just war”)
• Inspiration for other Spanish and European conquerors.
The Spanish empire
• Conquests:
• Lured first by desire for slaves in
the Caribbean, later a lust for gold
• Conquistadors – victorious due to
use of steel weapons, use of
frightening horses and war dogs,
boldness, dishonesty but mostly the impact of disease which
weakened and demoralized
Indians
• Conquistadors:
• First Caribbean, Mexico and
Peru,
• Ponce de Leon: Florida (1513
– 1521)
• Hernando de Soto:
Mississippi Valley (1539 – 42)
• Mostly met by gift bearing
Indians, he still destroyed
villages and tried to enslave
them
• First Permanent Settlement
in America – St. Augustine –
1565
The Spanish in North
America – mostly looking for
gold or riches
The Spanish Conquest and Columbian
Exchange
• Columbian Exchange = the
interchange of diseases, plants
and human cultures between
the New and Old Worlds after
1492
• Completely remade North
American environment!
• Introduction of new crops (sugar),
new animals (horses, sheep, cattle
and pigs), and new pathogens.
Columbian Exchange in the New World:
Epidemics  A Holocaust
• On Hispaniola: From 300,000 in
1492  33,000 in 1510 and 500 in
1548.
• Diseases spread rapidly people had
no immunities and were
overworked by conquerors
• GENERALLY a 90% drop in population
• Large tracts of land now open to
European settlement. In many
cases like New England already
cleared!
Columbian Exchange in Old World : A
population explosion!
• Cassava transported to Africa,
potatoes and corn to Europe led
to rapid population growth
• Europe 1492 = 80M; 1650 = 105M
• African population growth made
slave trade easier.
The Spanish In the New World –
The Black Legend
Spanish church and rulers committed to bringing Indians freedom through Christianity
Colonizers interested in wealth to free Spain from conflicts
Colonists and Indians
• Conquistadors rewarded with
grants known as encomiendas –
the right to forced labor in return
for “Christianizing” Indians
• Indians conscripted, exposed to
disease, and overworked on large
plantations
• EVENTUAL ASSIMILATION WAS
GOAL!
New Spain
• Colonists mostly young men
resulted in intermarriage with
Native Americans and a new
caste system
• New Spain became rich as a
result of sugar plantations and
silver mines.
Bartolome de Las Casas
• Las Casas, Spanish priest, wrote
of mistreatment of Indians, and
pleaded for intervention by
Spanish authorities.
• Although he later changed his
mind, he called for use of African
Slavery to spare the Indian
population
• Recognized as a hero by
indigenous peoples of Mexico
• His work contributed to Black
Legend
New Mexico and Pope’s Revolt II
• Spanish ruled harshly – demanding
labor and attempting to crush Pueblo
traditional practices.
• 1680 Pope, pueblo leader, led revolt
of 17,000 the greatest defeat of
Europeans in American history
• Pope urged Pueblo to restore traditional
practices and reverse baptisms. Built
kivas on church sites.
• Spanish forced back to Mexico! Complete
rejection of Spanish influence!
• Spanish did not regain control for a
dozen years but repealed ecomiendas,
accepted religious compromises
• Tremendous wealth!
• Spain became the dominant power AND a perceived threat to other European
nations
New France
• Original goal: Northwest Passage
and to find gold  failure. Fur
trade became motivation of
French efforts
• Quebec 1608,
• Sieur de La Salle claimed
Mississippi Basin
• Sparsely settled – only 19,000 by
1700, unable to defend!
• King opposed settlement
• Numbers not needed for beaver
trade
New France and Indians
• Emphasis on trade  a generally
better relationship, alliances
with various tribes
• Did not appropriate land or force
labor
• Generally promoted Indian
assimilation, however many
French became assimilated into
Indian cultures
The Dutch in North America (New
Netherlands)
• By 1614 Dutch settled Albany New
York; 1624 purchased Manhattan
(named New Amsterdam)
• centered on fur trade
• Very tolerant and diverse communities
• Colony governed as a harsh military
outpost
• Large estates offered to patroons on
Hudson River to attract wealthy
investors who would transport
servants – not generally successful
• Only 9000 lived in New Netherlands
when Britain seized it in mid 1600s,