Download Middle Ages

Collision of Cultures – Chapter 1
England and Its Colonies –
Chapter 2
Americas Before 1500s
• Prehistory – before written
records
• Nomadic people traveled across
Bering Land Bridge about
30,000 years ago – one possible
theory
• Americas became diverse and
well-populated
• Farming = more settled life and
time to cultivate other interests
Pre-Columbian Indian
Civilizations
• Mayas
• Incas
• Aztecs
North American Native
Civilizations
• Hopewell – Ohio
Valley (800 B.C. 600 A.D.)
• Anasazis –
Southwest
– Lacked class
structure
– Warfare only selfdefense
Why were the Native tribes
vulnerable to conquest?
• Large and fatal gaps in
knowledge and
technology
• Disunity
Early European Contact
• Vikings
–Leif Erickson
and Erik the Red
• Greenland
• Newfoundland
Europe Before 1500s
Middle Ages – Medieval Period – Dark Ages
5th-14th Centuries
– Fall of the Roman Empire
– Unstable
– Feudalism
– Crusades -military expeditions to recover
Palestine from Muslims exposed Europe
to silks and spices, ancient Greek and
Roman texts, technical innovations
(movable type)
– Black Death – 1/3 of Europeans died
Europe Before 1500s
Late Middle Ages
– Growing commerce stimulated growth of new
towns and markets
Renaissance – “rebirth” 14th-17th Centuries
– Time of inquiry
– Reformation – Martin Luther posted Ninety-Five
Theses 1517
Portuguese Exploration
• Established themselves as the leaders in
seafaring technology
• Prince Henry the Navigator – established
an academy for exploration
Portuguese Exploration
• Bartolomeu Dias
rounded the tip of
Africa
• Vasco de Gama –
reached India
Portuguese Exploration
• Bartolomeu Dias
rounded the tip of
Africa
• Vasco de Gama –
reached India
Columbus
• Italian
• Won support from
King and Queen of
Spain
• 87 men – 3 ships
(Santa Maria, Pinta,
Nina)
• Oct. 12, 1492 –
reached San Salvador
(Bahamas)
• Cuba, Haiti,
Dominican Republic
• Returned home with natives as
gifts to monarchs
• Irony – New World named after
Amerigo Vespucci
Impact of Columbus
The Columbian Exchange – transatlantic trade
brought on by Columbus’s journeys.
Native Americans – devastated by disease
(smallpox, typhus, measles, chicken pox,
whooping cough)
Europeans – wealth (gold, silver, cash crops)
Africans – enslaved (9 to 11 million West Africans
taken to North and South America)
Conquistadors
• Cortes
– Conquered the Aztecs
Empire – smallpox and
uniting Aztec enemies
– “We Spaniards have a
disease of the heart that
only gold can cure.”
• Pizarro
– Subdued Incan Empire
Spanish America
• First to dominate
• Stumbled into regions that proved most
immediately profitable
• Encomienda – landowners controlled
native population
• Native population drop -> slaves imported
from Africa
• Christian Empire
• Treaty of Tordesillas – divided areas
between Portugal and Spain for exploration
and settlement orchestrated by Catholic
Pope.