Download Early European Explorers

Chapter 3, Section 1
Early European
Explorers
The Vikings
are believed to be
the first Europeans
to set foot in
North America.
They were from
Scandinavia, a region
in northern Europe.
They were skilled sailors
and arrived in Canada
about 1000 A.D.
The Viking settlement in Canada was called Vinland.
Its purpose was to grow grapes for making wine.
Unfortunately, the climate was too cold to grow grapes successfully.
Also, the Native Americans did not approve.
After 25 years, the Vikings abandoned their settlements.
The Heavener Runestone
was discovered by the
Choctaw Indians in 1830.
It was originally thought to be
the date “November 11, 1012 A.D.”
Lost Vikings may have sailed around Florida,
then up the Mississippi River,
up the Arkansas River, and then the Poteau.
The stone is a mile from the river.
But current research shows that the “language”
may be much earlier, perhaps around 800 A.D.
In the
earlier script,
it might read
GLOMEDAL
which loosely
translates as
“Glome Valley.”
“Glome” was
either a man’s
name or a
variation of the
Viking word
for “Gloomy.”
There is no other evidence that the Vikings
traveled across the Atlantic before 1000 A.D.
The origin and true meaning of the Runestone may never be known.
The Vikings stopped further travels to the west.
European exploration started again in the 1400s
as merchants sought new trade routes.
Products that traveled to Europe from India and China had to go through
middlemen, traders who bought at a low price and sold at a higher price.
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China ~ 25 cents
India ~ 50 cents
Persia ~ $1.00
Jerusalem ~ $2.00
Venice ~ $4.00
London ~ $8.00
A young merchant
named Marco Polo began
the Age of Exploration
in 1295 with an overland
expedition to China.
As an ambassador and trader for
the Chinese emperor Kublai Khan,
he worked in Asia more than 20 years
before returning home to write
tales of his great adventures.
The Travels of Marco Polo,
his book about his journey
to Cathay (the medieval
name for China), was
translated into many
languages and sparked
further explorations.
He also described an island
kingdom east of Cathay
called “Cipangu.”
Legend says that Christopher Columbus
carried a copy of the book in his pocket.
This was “The World,” before the Age of Exploration.
Most sailors believed Asia was only 3,000 miles west of Europe.
Christopher
Columbus,
an Italian sea captain,
set out in 1492
to reach India
by sailing west
across the Atlantic.
His expedition
(a journey for a specific
purpose such as exploration)
had been financed by the
King and Queen of Spain.
Columbus returned to the Spanish Court,
with gifts – including people he called “Indians.”
Columbus would make four voyages in all:
in 1492, in 1493, in 1498, and in 1502.
The first Europeans
in America were explorers.
The “second wave”
were conquistadors,
Spanish warriors
who defeated the
native Central and
South Americans
and took control
of their lands
and resources.
Conquistador is Spanish for “conqueror.”
Hernando Cortes
landed in Mexico
in 1519. His army
destroyed the native
Aztecs and killed their
leader, Montezuma.
In 1535,
Francisco Pizarro
crossed Panama and
marched southward
to defeat the empire
of the Incas.
Spain now controlled
a major portion
of the New World.
The lands
north of Panama
were called New Spain,
with Mexico City
as their capital.
The lands
south of Panama
were called Peru,
with Lima
as their capital.
In 1527, Panfilo Narvaez set out to conquer the lands
of the Gulf Coast. The expedition ended badly.
The terrain was extremely difficult and the Natives resisted fiercely.
All but four men in the
Narvaez expedition died.
One survivor was
Alvar Nunez
Cabeza de Vaca.
His account of the
disastrous expedition
nevertheless sparked
Spanish interest in
acquiring native lands.
Reports of great cities of gold and turquoise,
known as The Seven Cities of Cibola,
led to even more Spanish expeditions.
In 1540,
Francisco Coronado
led a long but
ultimately
disappointing
expedition
to find Quivira,
rumored to be
one of the
lost cities.
A captured
Pawnee Indian
called El Turco
first led the
Spanish
expedition
through
Arizona and
New Mexico.
Coronado became the
first European to see
the Grand Canyon.
The trek across Texas and Oklahoma and into
the Great Plains exhausted the Spanish soldiers.
• The water they found
was muddy.
• There was no wood for
fires, so they had to
burn cow dung.
• His men frequently got
lost.
• They would find no
gold or other treasures
• Outraged, they killed
their guide and
returned to Mexico.
A priest named Juan de Padilla traveled back
to Quivira after Coronado left. As a missionary,
he preached Christianity to the natives.
He lived in the Wichita village in Kansas for two years.
Unfortunately, he was killed in an ambush by another tribe.
• Juan de Onate was
given the task of
settling New Mexico.
• He also searched for
treasure – but didn’t
find it.
• Santa Fe was founded
in 1607.
• Despite their failures,
these expeditions
increased interest in
the lands of
Oklahoma.
While the Spanish came looking for gold,
the French came looking for fur.
The French weren’t interested in taking land.
Instead, they treated the natives with dignity.
France sent explorer Louis Joliet and
Father Jacques Marquette down the Mississippi
from their colony in Canada.
They were looking for a passage across the continent.
When it became obvious they hadn’t found it, they returned home.
Rene Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle
owned a trading post in Canada.
He hoped to expand his business southward.
With a small party,
he sailed down
the Mississippi.
Reaching the mouth
of the river,
he claimed all the land
surrounding it
for King Louis XIV.
La Salle marked
the event with a
large wooden cross.
The land was
named for the king
and would be
called “Louisiana.”
French traders later
established the
the city of
New Orleans
in 1718.
Bernard de La Harpe explored eastern Oklahoma
and was impressed with the land and its people.
The Indians welcomed the trading partnership with the French and made
an alliance, or close association to advance their common interests.
Other French explorers entered the territory
from the north and established trade routes
along the Canadian River.
This early influence is still evident today in the names of
rivers, geographical features, communities, and family names.
In 1588,
an English fleet
defeated the
Spanish Armada,
and England
became the most
powerful country
in Europe.
They finally
began sending
explorers to the
New World.
The first permanent English settlement
was Jamestown, Virginia ~ May 14, 1607.
One of the Native Americans living nearby was a young girl named Pocahontas.
The descendants of Pocahontas and John Rolfe:
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John Rolfe and Pocahontas
Thomas Rolfe and Jane Poythress
Jane Rolfe and Robert Bolling
John Fairfax Bolling and Mary Kennon
John Kennon Bolling and Elizabeth Blair
Robert Bolling and Susannah Watson
Rebecca Bolling and Joseph Cabell
Benjamin Cabell and Sarah Doswell
William Lewis Cabell and Harriet Rector
John Cabell and Phoebe Lee
Shingo Cabell and Richard Lemin
Joseph Lemin and Violet Mansfield
Richard Lemin II
By the late 1600s,
England had
established 13 colonies
along the
Atlantic coast.
Their influence
would change
the lives of the
Native Americans
forever.
Chapter 3, Section 2
European-Indian
Contact
Most Natives
had developed
economies based
on barter.
An economy includes the
production, distribution,
and consumption of
products and services.
Many tribes had
extensive trade networks,
and often were
dependent on the items
they traded for:
food, tools, and weapons.
The natives used
the fur trade as a
way to get guns
and ammunition
for protection
and fighting.
There was a great
European demand
for fur,
which was very
fashionable.
The European trade item
with the most significant
impact on Indian life
was the horse.
It would become
an essential
part of
life on the
Great Plains.
A horse could transport many times
what a person or a dog could carry.
Tribes could venture further in search of food
before returning to their villages.
It also led to more intertribal wars.
The natives acquired other domestic animals:
pigs, chickens, sheep, and goats.
They reduced the Natives’ reliance on wild game.
Explorers brought
“New World” foods
back to Europe.
Potatoes, corn, squash,
tomatoes, and turkey
were unknown in Europe,
as was a new dessert
made from the cacao plant:
Chocolate
“Old World” plants were brought
to America, where they adapted well.
These included sugar cane, peaches, oats, onions, coffee, and wheat.
This back-and-forth trade was known as the Columbian Exchange.
Another native tradition brought to Europe
was the use of tobacco.
The natives used a long pipe called a calumet in many of their ceremonies.
Tobacco quickly became the number one
non-food export from the New World.
It would later be overtaken by cotton.
European illnesses killed millions of natives.
They had no immunity, or resistance,
to diseases like Smallpox.
By some estimates, 9 out of 10 Indians may have been killed.
The Indians continued to bury their dead,
and became a minority in their own lands.