Copyright ©2000 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.1 Chapter One: The Meeting of Cultures 16,000...

Copyright ©2000 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 1

Chapter One: The Meeting of Cultures

16,000 BC 1492

Brinkley, THE UNFINISHED NATION, 3/e


TIMELINE

16,000–14,000 B.C.

1492 1497 1502 1518–1530 &1519–1522

Asians migrate to NorthAmerica

ColumbusdiscoversAmerica

Cabot exploresNorth America

African slavesarrive inSpanishAmerica

Smallpoxravages Indians

Magellancircumnavigatesglobe

THE AMERICAS

• The discovery of America did not begin with Christopher Columbus.

• It started many thousands of years earlier when human beings first crossed an ancient land bridge from eastern Siberia across the Bering Strait into what is now Alaska.

• These early migrants, thought to be mostly of Mongolian stock, were truly the first Americans.


BEFORE COLUMBUS

• The first migrations into the Americas began; recent estimates suggest that they started between 14,000 and 16,000 years ago.

• Perhaps as early as 8,000 B.C., the migrations reached the southern tip of South America.

• By the end of the fifteenth century A.D., when the first important contact with Europeans occurred, America was the home of many millions of men and women.


BEFORE COLUMBUS

• Scholars estimate

• that well over 50 million people—and perhaps as many as 75 million—

• lived in the Americas by 1500 and that perhaps 10 million lived in

• the territory that now constitutes the United States.



• America Before Columbus – The Civilizations of the South – Elaborate societies emerged in South and

Central America and in Mexico.– In Peru, the Incas created a powerful empire of

perhaps 6 million people.


Civilizations of the Americas

• In Central America and on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, the Mayas built a sophisticated culture with a written language, a numerical system similar to the Arabic, an accurate calendar, and an advanced agricultural system.

• They were succeeded by the Aztecs.


Aztecs

• In the late thirteenth century, the Aztecs established a precarious rule over much of central and southern Mexico and built elaborate administrative, educational, and medical systems. They also developed a harsh religion that required human sacrifice.

• Their Spanish conquerors discovered the skulls of 100,000 victims in one location when they arrived in 1519.

Central and South America

• The economies of these societies were based primarily on agriculture, but there were also substantial cities. Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital built on the site of present-day Mexico City, had a population of over 100,000 in 1500.

• The Mayas (at Mayapan and elsewhere) and the Incas (in such cities as Cuzco and Machu Picchu) produced elaborate settlements with striking religious and ceremonial structures. These civilizations accomplished all this without some of the important technologies that Asian and European civilizations possessed.

• As late as the sixteenth century, no American society had yet developed wheeled vehicles.



America Before Columbus-

The Civilizations of the North

•The peoples north of Mexico developed less elaborate but still substantial civilizations. Inhabitants of the northern regions of the continent subsisted on some combination of hunting, gathering, and fishing.


North American Indian Cultures

• Other societies in North America were agricultural. Among the most developed were those in the Southwest.

• The people of that arid region built large irrigation systems, and they constructed towns of stone and adobe structures.

• In the Great Plains region, too, most tribes were engaged in sedentary farming (corn and other grains) and lived in large permanent settlements.


The East Coast

• The eastern third of what is now the United States—much of it covered with forests and inhabited by the Woodland Indians—had the greatest food resources of any area of the continent.

• Most of the many tribes of the region engaged in farming, hunting, gathering, and fishing simultaneously.


Cahokia

• In the South there were permanent settlements and large trading networks based on the corn and other grains grown in the rich lands of the Mississippi River valley.

• Cahokia, a trading center located near present-day St. Louis, had a population of 40,000 at its peak in A.D. 1200.

Native American Culture

• Religion was usually closely linked with the natural world on which the tribes depended.

• All tribes assigned women the jobs of caring for children, preparing meals, and gathering certain foods.

• Some tribes men farmed but for many “The Great Hunt” was their way of life.

• This would leave the women to management of the land and resources, hence power.

EARLY ENCOUNTERS

• Over the course of many centuries, migrants from Russia and probably also from other areas of Asia and from the Pacific Islands spread out through the lands of North and South America and created great civilizations.

• But beginning in the fifteenth century A.D., Europeans began to encounter the Americas as well—and began to launch their own great migrations into what they called the New World.

AS A RESULT OF EUROPE

• This early period of contact between American and European civilization was sometimes friendly and sometimes mutually beneficial. But mostly, it was catastrophic for the American natives (or “Indians,” as Europeans called them), both because they were not able to match European technologies in battle and because they were highly vulnerable to European diseases.

• Plagues from Europe decimated the native population in many parts of the Americas and made the European conquest of the continents much easier.

• By the late sixteenth century, Europeans had established a claim to all the lands of the Americas and actual control over much of it.



• Europe Looks Westward – Commerce and Nationalism

The Polos leave for the Far East


Tht The Meeting of Cultures-

Europe Looks Westward -Christopher Columbus

•It was all about finding a faster route to trade with East Asia.

•The Portuguese were the first and Columbus followed. He worked for the Portuguese and thought he could reach India faster by going west.

Columbus

• In the 14-16th centuries European nations sought westward expansion because of two reasons: population expansion and the rise of centralized nation states.

• These states had growing economies in demand for goods from the far east.

• Thanks to new navigation technology, and explorers like Marco Polo—European nations sought a faster trade route to Asia.

Columbus



• Europe Looks Westward – The Spanish Empire was ruled by Queen

Isabella and King Ferdinand: Columbus convinced them to fund a voyage to reach India by going across the Atlantic.

– In 1492 Columbus “sailed the ……..

AND MADE HISTORY. Next is a chart of his expeditions.

The Conquistadores

• As your book indicates--Cortés and Smallpox destroy the Aztec civilization and the same happens with Pizarro and the Inca in Peru.

• The Spanish system was called the “encomiendas.” In the encomienda, the Spanish crown granted a person a specified number of natives for whom they were to take responsibility. In theory, the receiver of the grant was to protect the natives from warring tribes and to instruct them in the Spanish language and in the Catholic faith: in return they could extract tribute from the natives in the form of labor, gold or other products. In practice, the difference between encomienda and slavery could be minimal. Many natives were forced to do hard labor and subjected to extreme punishment and death if they resisted.

Knowing all of the previous info; What would happen if…..

• If the U.S. encountered contact with an extraterrestrial, advanced culture?

• By studying the past, like the one we are currently examining, scientist Stephen Hawking predicted that if we met “aliens” the result would not be good.

• He basically stated the result of alien contact would be as disastrous for us as the Spanish was for Native Americans. Millions would die from war, disease, and enslavement.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ0PVkGj4bg

•

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ0PVkGj4bg



•With the Spanish the Catholic church and the economienda dominated Central and

South America. So they ventured into North American to pillage and conquer.

– Northern Outposts In 1565, the Spanish established the fort of St. Augustine

in Florida, their first permanent settlement

north of Mexico. But it was little more than a small military outpost.Promontory of Florida, 1565 (Library of Congress)


The Spanish

• A massive Pueblo revolt temporarily kicked the Spanish out of the Santa Fe colony. However, the Spanish returned with more guns, germs, and steel to decimate the local Indian population.

• What do you think killed more: guns or germs? Has anyone ever visited New Mexico?



• Europe Looks Westward – Biological and Cultural Exchanges: Basically – Smallpox annihilated millions.– n They had 0 resistance against it

–

Native American hammock as drawn by Oviedo, 1535 (Library of Congress)


Native American Populations

• From the 1490s when Christopher Columbus set foot on the Americas to the 1890 massacre of Sioux at Wounded Knee by the United States military, the indigenous population of the Western Hemisphere may have declined, the direct cause mostly from disease, to 1.8 from as many as 100 million.

• Epidemic disease was the overwhelming direct cause of the population decline of the American natives. After first contacts with Europeans and Africans, some believe that the death of 90 to 95% of the native population of the New World was caused by Old World diseases such as smallpox and measles.

Some estimates indicate case fatality rates of 80-90% in Native American populations during smallpox epidemics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sioux

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_population

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic



• Europe Looks Westward – Africa and America

Map of Africa and Americas (Library of Congress)


The Meeting of Cultures

• The Spanish intermarried with the Native American women, sometimes forcibly. All the while working them to death in mines and on plantations.

• Foods that we know of today originate from the exports of this period: corn (maize), sugar, bananas, potatoes, tomatoes, and peppers.


In 1502…

• Slaves were being imported from Africa. And With Native Americans slaves the masters had to worry about them running off or starting a rebellion. If you are a continent away…..

• http://exchange.smarttech.com/search.html?q=%22slavery%22

• http://exchange.smarttech.com/search.html?q=slave+trade&subject=All+subjects&grade=All+grades&region=en_US


Africans and the Americas

• Over half of all the immigrants to the New World between 1500 and 1800 were Africans, virtually all of them sent to America against their will.

• Most came from a large region below the Sahara Desert, known as Guinea.



• But most Africans were, in fact, civilized peoples with well-developed economies and political systems.

• The residents of upper Guinea had substantial commercial contact with the Mediterranean world—trading ivory, gold, and slaves for finished goods



• In upper Guinea, fishing and rice cultivation, supplemented by the extensive trade with Mediterranean lands, were the foundation of the economy. Farther south, Africans grew wheat and other food crops, raised livestock, and fished.


African Society

• As in many Indian societies in America, African families tended to be matrilineal: They traced their heredity through and inherited property from their mothers.

• Women played a major role, often the dominant role, in trade. In many areas, they were the principal farmers (while the men hunted, fished, and raised livestock), and everywhere, they managed child care and food preparation. Most tribes also divided political power by gender.

• Slavery arose in Africa as a result of war (POWs) or crime/debt owed. It was for a fixed amount of time and did not include their offspring.

• Significant demand for slaves arose in the 17th century as the result of the demand for sugar cane---sugar.



• The Arrival of the English-They were late to the scene – Incentives for Colonization

• Scarce land—population went up land went down

• Religion—The English had a long and bloody history of various Protestant groups versus a traditional Catholic monarchy and vice versa. The English and others wanted to practice religion freely

• Mercantilism--peddle European goods in new markets

British East India Ship Roster, London, 1766 (Library of Congress)


The French and the Dutch in America

• France founded its first permanent settlement in America at Quebec

• in 1608, less than a year after the English started their first at Jamestown.

New Amsterdam preacher in period dress (Library of Congress)


The French and the Dutch in America

• The French were different from the English and Spanish because they established partnerships and intermarried with the Native Americans. They established forts and outposts for the fur and pelt trade—especially along the Mississippi in Illinois, Minnesota, and Missouri.


The Dutch

• The Dutch, too, were establishing a presence in North America. Holland in the early seventeenth century was one of the leading trading nations in Europe.

• Henry Hudson sailed up the river that was to be named for him in what is now New York State. His explorations led to a Dutch claim on that territory.


The Dutch• In 1624, not long after the first two

permanent English colonies took root in Jamestown and Plymouth, the Dutch created a wedge between them when the Dutch West India Company established a series of permanent trading posts on the Hudson, Delaware, and Connecticut Rivers that soon became the colony of New Netherland. Its principal town, New Amsterdam, was on Manhattan Island.



• The Arrival of the English – The First English Settlements The first

permanent English settlement in the New World was established at Jamestown, in Virginia, in 1607.


English Settlements

• As you already ready, Spanish domination started to wind down after a storm sunk the Armada in 1588.

• With Spanish sea power and threat of invasion eliminated, the Queen Elizabeth commissioned Sir

• Humphrey Gilbert and his half-brother Sir Walter Raleigh to colonize land in North America.


English Settlements

• After the disaster and disappearance of Roanoke colony. Ultimately inn 1606 James I issued a new charter which divided North America between the two groups.

• The London group got the exclusive right to colonize in the south, and the Plymouth merchants received the same right in the north.


Conclusion

• Your book in the end brings up and interesting point, basically—Native Americans survived the Spanish colonization, but could not withstand the aggressive arrival of the English, French, and Dutch in the 17th and 18th centuries.


Quick Group Project

• Divide into groups of 3 or 4 and write a response to this question: Compare and contrast the Spanish and the English or French motives for colonization. How were their motives reflected in the organization of the colonies that each nation established?

• Answer and turn in within 20 minutes.

Copyright ©2000 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.1 Chapter One: The Meeting of Cultures 16,000...

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Transcript of Copyright ©2000 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.1 Chapter One: The Meeting of Cultures 16,000...