Chapter 1Contact, Conflict,

and Exchange in the Atlantic World to 1590

Natives Harpooning WhalesAn illustration from the Flemishengraver Theodor de Bry’s America (1590) of Native Americans pulling harpooned whales to shore as Europeans look on.

The Granger Collection

Moravian GirlPortrait by John Valentine Haidt of a young Moravian girl c. 1760. Haidt was born in Germany and in 1754 settled in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania with his family. He painted many portraits and Biblical scenes for Moravian congregations.

Art Resource/ Smithsonian

The Arrival of the First AmericansThe first inhabitants of North America probably migrated from Asia by boat and across the Bering land bridge (Beringia), which was created when sea levels dropped during the last Ice Age. Archaeological evidence from coastal sites such as Monte Verde in South America and inland sites such as Cahokia in North America provide important information about Native American societies before 1492.

Hohokam Vessel, 900–1100 A.D.A fine example of Hohokam pottery from present-day Arizona, this Sacaton red-on-buff jar dates from a period in Hohokam history when crafts flourished in jewelry, sculpture, textiles, and pottery.

Corbis

Anasazi Dwellings at Mesa VerdeThe Anasazis established agricultural towns in the area extending from the Grand Canyon in what is now Arizona into suothern Utah and Colorado.At Mesa Verde, by 1150 A.D.,they built large multiroomed houses in caves near the top of canyon walls, probably for protection against enemies.

© Craig Aurness/CORBIS

Prehistoric Cahokia Mounds, ca. 1100–1150 A.D.Drawing by William R. Iseminger based on archaeological evidence. Monks Mound dominated the palisaded area, which had at its center a rectangular ball court with two poles.

Depiction of Cahokia Mounds 1150 A.D. by William R. Iseminger. Courtesy of Cahokia Mounds Historic Site.

Great Serpent MoundThis is an aerial photograph of the Great Serpent Mound in southern Ohio, which was probably built by the Adena or Hopewell people sometime between 500 B.C. and 500 A.D. The Hopewell people had trade networks extending to the Gulf Coast, Rocky Mountains, and Lake Superior. Archaeologists digging at Hopewell sites have recovered copper, quartz, shark and grizzly bear teeth, and silver from distant areas. Artisans created jewelry, smoking pipes, musical panpipes, and other art from these materials...

Courtesy, National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution #P18523

North American Peoples Before Columbus’s ArrivalThis map shows the approximate locations of some Native American groups in North America in 1492. Because disease often preceded French, Dutch, and English colonization, many native people had moved from earlier settlements by the time of European contact.

Woman and Girl of PomeiocThe Englishman John White painted this watercolor in 1585, during his stay in theRoanoke colony on the coast of what is now North Carolina. It is one of a series ofillustrations, also including Secotan Village and Man with Body Paint, that providesome of the best evidence about the Algonquians of eastern North America in thelate sixteenth century...

© British Museum, London, UK/Bridgeman Art Library

Europe, Africa, and Southwest Asia, c. 1500Exploration of North and South America was an outgrowth of trade in the Eastern Hemisphere. Europeans delivered cloth and other manufactures to northern Africa; then camels carried the cargoes across the Sahara to cities such as Timbuktu, Gao, and Djenné. There they loaded gold, ivory, and kola nuts for return to the Mediterranean. Africans also traded with Asia to obtain cloth, porcelain, and spices.

European Map of Northwest AfricaThis 1375 European map of northwest Africa shows an Arab trader approaching Mansu Musa of Mali, who is holding a large nugget of gold.

The Ganger Collection

Benin Bronze PlaqueThis sixteenth-century plaque of a Portuguese servant carrying chickens provides an African sculptor’s perspective on European contact.

Bridgeman Art Archive

The Atlantic Slave TradeTheodor de Bry’s illustration of a Dutch ship trading on the coast of West Africa. The people in the canoe, indicated with “B,” represent African merchants who traded human beings to the Europeans for cloth, rum, firearms, and other goods.

New York Public Library/ Art Resource, NY

Columbus Taking Possession of New CountryA late nineteenth-century image of Columbus’s first contact with Native Americans in the Bahamas.

Library of Congress

European Exploration, 1492–1542Before 1542, Spain and Portugal dominated European exploration. Generally conforming to the 1494 Line of Demarcation, Portugal’s sphere of influence extended over Brazil (in eastern South America), Africa, and South Asia. Spain claimed the rest of South and Central America. France and England sent out explorers but did not establish permanent colonies in North America until the early seventeenth century.

Aztecs Defending TenochtitlanThis drawing depicts Aztecs defending the temple of Tenochtitlán, which was overthrown by the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés in 1519–1521. The city’s main temple was the site of ritual human sacrifices.

© ARPL/ HIP/ The Image Works

Silver Mining, 1600Drawing of Indians working in a silver mine, from Samuel de Champlain’s Narrative of a Voyage to the West Indies and Mexico.

The Granger Collection

Queen Elizabeth IThe queen sat for this portrait at about the time of the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, as suggested by the naval scene in the upper left. The artist depicted her interest in exploration in North America by resting her hand on that part of the globe.

By kind permission of His Grace the Duke of Bedford and the Trustees of the Bedford Estates, © His Grace the Duke of Bedford and the Trustees of the Bedford Estates