Transcript (C) the Renaissance.

America: Pathways to the Present
Chapter 1
The Atlantic World, to 1600
Copyright © 2003 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as
Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. All rights reserved.
America: Pathways to the Present
Chapter 1: The Atlantic World, to 1600
Section 1: The Native American World
Section 2: The European World
Section 3: The World of West Africans
Section 4: The Atlantic World is Born
Copyright © 2003 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as
Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. All rights reserved.
The Native American World
Chapter 1, Section 1
• How did people settle the Americas and adapt to the
environment of North America?
• What customs and beliefs did the early Native
Americans share?
• How did trade and beliefs about land affect the Native
American economies?
?
•
•
•
•
•
•
Where does U.S. History begin?
1492?
1607?
1620?
1776?
How about way back to BC (prehistoric) times?
Settlement of the Americas
Chapter 1, Section 1
• “History in North and South America did not begin
with the coming of Europeans. The New World was
new to Europeans but an ancient homeland to those
who already lived there.” (GML, p.3)
• The earliest Americans came from the continent of
Asia.
• A “land bridge” between Asia and North America
allowed migration, the movement of people for the
purpose of settling in a new place.
• That land bridge, now covered with water, is known
as the Bering Strait.
The “First” Americans
Settlement of the Americas
Chapter 1, Section 1
• Some experts believe that people migrated to the
Americas before the land bridge was exposed,
entering from more than one point.
• These ancient Americans and their descendants are
known as Native Americans, or Indians. Over time,
Native American societies settled in different areas
and developed a variety of languages and customs.
North American Life
Chapter 1, Section 1
• The North American environment varies greatly from
region to region. The first inhabitants had to adapt
their way of life to fit their environment.
• Many early Americans were nomads, people who
move their homes regularly in search of food.
• In the Americas, farming practices that began in
Mexico, spread to the Southwest region of North
America, where corn, squash, beans, and peppers
were grown.
The First Americans
• “The most striking feature of Native
American society at the time Europeans
arrived was its sheer diversity.
• Each group had its own political system
and set of religious beliefs, and North
America was home to literally hundreds
of mutually unintelligible languages…”
The First Americans
• “[Native Americans] did not think of
themselves as a single unified people, an
idea invented by Europeans and only many
years later adopted by Indians themselves.
Indian identity centered on the immediate
social group – a tribe, village, chiefdom, or
confederacy.” (GML, pgs.7-8)
• Is this concept any different then that of
Europeans and Africans? (Was there any
sense of “racial solidarity”?
North American Life
Chapter 1, Section 1
The Far North
•
•
The Inuit and Aleut peoples were skilled at hunting on ice and
snow.
Other nomadic groups hunted, fished, and gathered food in
present-day Canada and Alaska.
The Northwest
Coast
•
Waterways were the primary source of food for the Native
Americans of the Northwest Coast.
California
•
The Chumash, Yurok, and other Native American groups ate
deep-sea fish, food products made with flour from acorns, and
beans from the mesquite plant.
The Plateau
•
The Chinook and Cayuse survived on salmon and edible roots.
They built villages on high riverbanks.
The Great
Basin
•
People worked together in small groups to hunt and gather
food, including roots, pine nuts, rabbits, and insects.
North American Life
Chapter 1, Section 1
The Southwest
•
The Hopis and Zuñis farmed this dry region.
The Plains
•
Mandans, Wichita, Pawnee, Sioux and other groups farmed
corn, beans, and squash, and hunted buffalo.
They used dogs as pack animals when they traveled.
•
The Eastern
Woodlands
•
•
•
The
Southeast
Native Americans in this region fished, hunted, and farmed.
Iroquois groups formed an alliance—the Iroquois League—to
settle tribal matters. Ex. Seneca, Mohawk, Pequot, Huron,
Miami
Inhabitants of the Southeast region hunted and grew corn for
survival. Ex. Chickasaw, Cherokee, Creek, Yamasee, Seminole
Shared Customs and Beliefs
Chapter 1, Section 1
Despite their different lifestyles, early Native Americans shared
a culture that included a common social structure and religion.
• Social Structure — Family relationships, called kinship,
determined the social structure. Kinship groups provided
medical and child care, settlement of disputes, and education.
Kinship groups were organized by clans. A clan is made up of
groups of families who are all descended from a common
ancestor.
• “[Native Americans] did not think of themselves as a single
unified people, an idea invented by Europeans and only many
years later adopted by Indians themselves. Indian identity
centered on the immediate social group – a tribe, village,
chiefdom, or confederacy.” (GML, pgs.7-8)
Shared Customs and Beliefs
Chapter 1, Section 1
Despite their different lifestyles, early Native Americans shared
a culture that included a common social structure and religion.
Religion — Early Native Americans believed that the most
powerful forces in the world were spiritual. They believed
that a spirit force was found in all things – living and
inanimate.
• “Their lives were steeped in religious ceremonies often
directly related to farming and hunting. Spiritual power,
they believed, suffused the world, and sacred spirits could
be found in all kinds of living and inanimate things –
animals, plants, trees, water, and wind. Their religious
ceremonies recognized the power of those forces…”
Shared Customs and Beliefs
Chapter 1, Section 1
Despite their different lifestyles, early Native Americans shared
a culture that included a common social structure and religion.
• “Most Indians held that a single Creator
stood atop the spiritual hierarchy.
Nonetheless, nearly all Europeans
…concluded that Indians were in dire need of
being converted to a true, Christian faith”
(GML, p.9)
Shared Customs and Beliefs
Chapter 1, Section 1
Despite their different lifestyles, early Native Americans shared
a culture that included a common social structure and religion.
• Preserving Culture — Early Native Americans
relied on oral history to keep their beliefs and
customs alive. Through oral history, traditions
are passed from generation to generation by
word of mouth.
Native American Trade
Chapter 1,
• All Native American groups carried out barter, both within
their group and outside it. Trading food and goods was
seen as a show of hospitality, friendship, and respect.
• Native American trading routes crisscrossed North
America.
• Native Americans used natural trade routes, like the
Mississippi River and the Great Lakes, but they also built
a network of trading paths.
• These routes often led to centers where Native Americans
held trade gatherings during the summer.
Native Americans and Land
Chapter 1,
• Native Americans did not trade, buy, or sell land. They believed
that land was part of nature and could not be owned.
• “Indians saw land, the basis of economic life for both hunting
and farming societies, as a common resource, not an economic
commodity…There was no market for real estate before the
coming of the Europeans.” (GML, p.9)
• “Nor were Indians devoted to the accumulation of wealth and
material goods.” (GML, p.9)
• The Europeans who arrived in North America in the 1400s did
not understand these Indian attitudes about land.
• Fundamental differences in beliefs about land would have
lasting consequences for both the Native Americans and the
European settlers.
Indian Freedom, European Freedom
• How did Native Americans understand liberty?
• “Many Europeans saw Indians as embodying
freedom…But most colonizers quickly concluded that the
notion of ‘freedom’ was alien to Indian societies.”
• “Europeans considered Indian barbaric in part because
they did not appear to live under established government
or fixed laws, and had no respect for authority…In a
sense, [Indians]were too free, lacking the order and
discipline that Europeans considered the hallmarks of
civilization.”
Indian Freedom, European Freedom
Some Europeans even wrote that slavery was preferable
to the Indians ‘condition’ before contact.
“The familiar modern understanding of freedom as
personal independence, often based on ownership of
private property, had little meaning in most Indian
societies.”
Indian Freedom, European Freedom
“Although individuals were expected to think for
themselves and did not always have to go along with
collective decision making, Indian men and women judged
one another according to their ability to live up to widely
understood ideas of appropriate behavior. Far more
important than individual autonomy were kinship ties, the
ability to follow one’s spiritual values, and the well-being
and security of one’s community.”
“In Indian culture, group autonomy and self-determination,
and the mutual obligations that came with a sense of
belonging and connectedness, took precedence over
individual freedom.” (GML, pgs.13-14)
Christian Liberty
• “On the eve of colonization, Europeans held numerous
ideas of freedom…Freedom was not a single idea but a
collection of distinct rights and privileges, many enjoyed
only by a small portion of the population.”
• “One conception common throughout Europe understood
freedom less as a political or social status than as a moral
or spiritual condition. Freedom meant abandoning the
life of sin to embrace the teachings of Christ…In this
definition, servitude and freedom were mutually
reinforcing, not contradictory states, since those who
accepted the teachings of Christ simultaneously became
‘free from sin’ and ‘servants to God.’”
Freedom and Authority
• “In its secular form, the equation of liberty with
obedience to a higher authority suggested that
freedom meant not anarchy but obedience to
law…The identification of freedom with the rule of law
did not, however, mean that all subjects enjoyed the
same degree of freedom.”
Freedom and Authority
• “Early European societies were
extremely hierarchal…and
patriarchal…”
• Under English women held very
few rights and were submissive
to their husbands… (GML,
pgs.14-15)
Liberty and Obedience
• Freedom was a function of social class,
and so a well-ordered society depended
on obedience.
• Liberty was understood as formal
privileges enjoyed by only a few –
“masterless men.”
The Native American World - Assessment
Chapter 1, Section 1
The movement of people for the purpose of settling in a new place is
(A) allocation.
(B) transportation.
(C) integration.
(D) migration.
People who move regularly in search of food are
(A) clans.
(B) nomads.
(C) explorers.
(D) immigrants.
Want to link to the Pathways Internet activity for this chapter? Click Here!
The Native American World - Assessment
Chapter 1, Section 1
The movement of people for the purpose of settling in a new place is
(A) allocation.
(B) transportation.
(C) integration.
(D) migration.
People who move regularly in search of food are
(A) clans.
(B) nomads.
(C) explorers.
(D) immigrants.
Want to link to the Pathways Internet activity for this chapter? Click Here!
The European World
Chapter 1, Section 2
• What was life like in Europe during the early Middle
Ages?
• What changes took place during the late Middle
Ages?
• What was the Renaissance?
The Early Middle Ages
Chapter 1, Section 2
The era in European history from about A.D. 500 to 1300 is known
as the Middle Ages, or the medieval period.
European Invasions
 Germanic tribes
settled across much
of Europe.
 Viking warriors
attacked from the
north and caused
great destruction to
parts of Europe.
 The Muslim empire
spread across North
Africa and into Spain.
Feudalism
 Under the political and
economic system of
feudalism, powerful
nobles divided their
landholdings among
lesser lords.
 Peasants, called serfs,
worked the land, and
gave the lord a portion
of the harvest in
exchange for shelter
and protection.
Medieval Religion
 The Roman Catholic
Church governed the
spiritual and daily lives
of medieval Christians.
 The Pope had authority
over rulers and often
appointed them.
 The clergy were
virtually the only
educated people in
medieval Europe.
The Late Middle Ages
Chapter 1, Section 2
The Crusades — From 1096 to 1291, the Church organized a series of military
campaigns, known as the Crusades, to take Jerusalem from the Turks. The
Crusades failed, but they increased Europeans’ awareness of the rest of the
world and accelerated economic change.
The Growth of Cities — Centers of trade grew into towns and cities, especially in
northern Italy and northern France. This growth had three major effects:
• It created a new middle class, a social class between the rich and poor.
• It revived a money economy.
• It contributed to the eventual breakdown of the feudal system.
“Black Death” — In the 1300s, the bubonic plague, carried by fleas and rats,
destroyed one third of Europe’s population. From the devastation came a loss
of religious faith and doubts about the Church.
The Late Middle Ages
Chapter 1, Section 2
The Rise of Monarchs
• Europe’s growing wealth increased
the power of monarchs..
• Monarchs, those who rule over a
state or territory, sometimes
clashed with each other and with
their nobles.
• In 1215, England’s King John was
forced by his nobles to sign a
document, the Magna Carta,
granting them various legal rights.
• The Magna Carta would become the
foundation for American ideals of
liberty and justice.
The Rise of Universities
• Nobles and wealthy men began
enrolling in the universities that
arose in the 1100s.
• Ancient Greek and Roman writings
were translated into Latin and
became available in Europe.
• Arab knowledge of math and science
intrigued Europeans.
• Latin literature was translated into
languages more commonly
understood.
• Roman architecture inspired the
builders of Europe’s cathedrals.
Key Events in Europe, circa 500–1600
Chapter 1, Section 2
Breakup of the Roman Empire
opens Europe to invasions
1455
Gutenberg prints Bible text using
movable type
600s
Rise of the Muslim empire
1469
700s
Feudal system evolves; trade
and money economy dissolve
Marriage of Isabella and Ferdinand
unites kingdoms in Spain
1488
Norman Conquest leads to blending
of Anglo-Saxon and French cultures
Portugal’s Bartolomeu Dias sails
around the tip of Africa
1492
Muslims and Jews driven from Spain
circa
500–1000
1066
1096-1291
1100s
Crusades draw Europe from
isolation and help revive trade
Rise of universities
1215
King John signs the Magna Carta
1275
Merchants including
Marco Polo arrive in China
1347
Bubonic plague reaches Europe
1300s
1418
Renaissance begins in Italy
Prince Henry of Portugal starts
navigation school
1500s
1517
Northern Renaissance begins
Reformation begins
The Renaissance
Chapter 1, Section 2
The Renaissance, an era of enormous creativity and rapid change, began in
Italy in the 1300s and reached its height in the 1500s.
The Pursuit of
Learning
•
•
This period produced many great figures of Western
civilization: Michelangelo, Da Vinci, and Shakespeare.
European thinkers began using reason and
experimentation to understand the physical world.
Cultural Change in
Italy
•
•
Wealthy merchants became supporters of the arts.
The Medici family became the most famous Renaissance
patrons of the arts.
A Golden Age
•
The core philosophy of this era was humanism, which
explored the physical world and the individual’s role in it.
Artistic subjects were treated more realistically.
•
The Renaissance
Chapter 1, Section 2
The Northern
Renaissance
•
•
The Printing
Press
•
•
The Reformation •
•
By the late 1500s, the Renaissance had spread to the
Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, England, and Germany.
This cultural period was known as the Northern Renaissance.
German Johann Gutenberg produced a Bible made on a printing
press in 1455.
This invention meant books could be mass produced, rather
than copied by hand.
The Reformation, a revolt led by Martin Luther, declared that
the Bible, not the Church, was the true authority.
Luther’s followers called themselves Protestants, because they
protested Church authority.
The Renaissance—Sea Travel
Chapter 1, Section 2
• New technologies developed by Renaissance
scientists made long-range sea travel
possible.
– Compass: used to determine direction
– Astrolabe and quadrant: used to determine
approximate location
– Caravel: this ship could travel further and
maneuver better in shallow waters.
The Renaissance—Sea Travel
Chapter 1, Section 2
• Prince Henry of Portugal, later called Prince Henry
the Navigator, established a mariners’ school in
Portugal. His seamen developed the caravel, a ship
that could sail against the wind as well as with it.
Portuguese mariner Vasco da Gama sailed from
Portugal to India, opening the first sea route from
Europe to Asia.
• Spain became determined to surpass Portugal in the
race to explore new sea routes and to bring
Christianity to new lands.
The European World - Assessment
Chapter 1, Section 2
Under feudalism, who farmed the land?
(A) monks
(B) lords
(C) serfs
(D) nobles
The holy war to take Jerusalem from the Turks, which started in 1096, was
known as
(A) the Reformation.
(B) the Crusades.
(C) the Renaissance.
(D) Protestantism.
Want to link to the Pathways Internet activity for this chapter? Click Here!
The European World - Assessment
Chapter 1, Section 2
Under feudalism, who farmed the land?
(A) monks
(B) lords
(C) serfs
(D) nobles
The holy war to take Jerusalem from the Turks, which started in 1096, was
known as
(A) the Reformation.
(B) the Crusades.
(C) the Renaissance.
(D) Protestantism.
Want to link to the Pathways Internet activity for this chapter? Click Here!
The World of the West Africans
Chapter 1, Section 3
• How did West Africans and Europeans first meet?
• What are some key features of early West African
cultures?
• How did a trading relationship develop between
Europe and the kingdoms of West Africa?
• What was the role of slavery in African society?
West Africans and Europeans Meet
Chapter 1, Section 3
• Europeans had been trading with North Africans since
ancient times. The North Africans traded gold which
came from their West African trading partners.
• Europeans decided to bypass the North Africans and
go straight to the West Africans for gold.
• In the 1400s, Spain and Portugal competed for that
gold as they explored Africa’s Atlantic Coast.
• Early relations between the two cultures were mostly
peaceful.
• The Portuguese began trading for slaves with West
African kingdoms in the 15th century.
West African Cultures
Chapter 1, Section 3
Geography and
Livelihoods
•
•
•
Family Life
•
•
•
Religion
•
•
•
In the rainforest region, Africans hunted, fished, mined, and
farmed.
Nomads hunted and raised livestock on the savanna, a region
near the equator with tropical grasslands and scattered trees.
The deserts remained largely uninhabited. Some towns sprang up
around watering holes, where camel caravans stopped to rest.
Societies were organized according to kinship groups.
A kinship group that can trace its line of origin to a common
ancestor is called a lineage.
West Africa’s ruling classes generally came from powerful lineage
groups.
Africans worshipped a Supreme Being as well as many lesser
gods and goddesses, or spirits.
Spirits were thought to inhabit everything in the natural world.
Humans were thought to be living spirits both before and after
death.
Kingdoms and Trade
Chapter 1, Section 3
Benin
• The coastal kingdom of Benin
arose in the late 1200s.
• Benin’s great wealth came
from trading in such goods as
palm oil, ivory, and beautiful
woods.
• Benin’s artisans were known
for producing unique
sculptures of human heads;
those sculptures with beards
and helmets are believed to
represent the Portuguese.
Songhai
• The Songhai empire, which
stretched across much of West
Africa, existed from the mid-1400s
to the late 1590s.
• Songhai had a complex government
with departments for defense,
banking, and farming.
• Its capital city, Timbuktu, was an
important center of learning.
• Songhai was made a Muslim empire
under the famed monarch Askia
Muhammad.
• Traders paid heavy fees to move
their goods across Songhai.
Slavery in Africa
Chapter 1, Section 3
• Europeans placed a high value on land because it was so
scarce (in short supply). Because land was plentiful in
Africa, Africans valued labor more than land. The power of
African leaders was judged by how many people they
ruled, rather than how much land they controlled.
• Slaves provided the labor needed to work the land, and
also became valuable as items of trade. Slaves in Africa
tended to be people who had been captured in war,
orphans, criminals, and other rejects of society.
Slavery in Africa
Chapter 1, Section 3
• African slaves became adopted members of the kinship
group that enslaved them. They frequently married into a
lineage and could move up in society and out of slave
status.
• Children of slaves were not slaves themselves. Slaves
carried out roles that were not limited to tough physical
labor. Some slaves became soldiers and administrators.
The World of the West Africans - Assessment
Chapter 1, Section 3
Which of the following best describes a feature of the Songhai empire?
(A) Its capital, Timbuktu, was an important center of learning.
(B) It arose in the late 1200s.
(C) It stretched across the northern part of Africa.
(D) It was a Christian empire.
Why did Africans value labor more than land?
(A) Slaves were valuable as items of trade.
(B) The power of African leaders was determined by how many people
they controlled.
(C) Land was plentiful in Africa.
(D) All of the above.
Want to link to the Pathways Internet activity for this chapter? Click Here!
The World of the West Africans - Assessment
Chapter 1, Section 3
Which of the following best describes a feature of the Songhai empire?
(A) Its capital, Timbuktu, was an important center of learning.
(B) It arose in the late 1200s.
(C) It stretched across the northern part of Africa.
(D) It was a Christian empire.
Why did Africans value labor more than land?
(A) Slaves were valuable as items of trade.
(B) The power of African leaders was determined by how many people
they controlled.
(C) Land was plentiful in Africa.
(D) All of the above.
Want to link to the Pathways Internet activity for this chapter? Click Here!
The Atlantic World Is Born
Chapter 1, Section 4
• What is known about the early life of Christopher
Columbus?
• What events occurred on Columbus’s expeditions?
• Describe the debate concerning the impact of
Columbus’s voyages.
Christopher Columbus
Chapter 1, Section 4
• Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1451.
His father was a merchant. His mother was the daughter
of a wool weaver.
• After spending some time as a mapmaker and a trader, he
traveled to Portugal for navigator training.
• He honed his navigational skills on journeys to Iceland,
Ireland, and West Africa.
• Columbus was ambitious and stubborn. He was highly
religious and believed that God had given him a heroic
mission: to seek a westward sea route to the “Indies,”
meaning China, India, and other Asian lands.
A Daring Expedition
Chapter 1, Section 4
•
In 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain granted
Columbus the title of noble and agreed to sponsor his journey.
Spanish nobles and clergy wanted his mission to succeed for
several reasons:
– The people of any new non-Christian lands would be ripe for
conversion to Catholicism.
– Wealthy merchants and royalty wanted a direct trade route that
bypassed the existing Muslim-controlled and Italian
middlemen routes.
– An easier western route to Asia would give Spanish traders an
advantage over Portuguese traders.
A Daring Expedition
Chapter 1, Section 4
• In 1492, Columbus set off with three ships,
the Niña, Pinta, and Santa María. His goal
was a shorter western route to the riches of
Asia. He had underestimated the distance of
his journey. Two months after setting sail, he
and his crew landed in the Bahamas, instead
of Asia.
A Daring Expedition
Chapter 1, Section 4
•
•
•
•
•
The Native Americans welcomed Columbus and gave him gifts:
parrots, cotton thread, and spears tipped with fish teeth.
Columbus traveled to other islands and collected more gifts—
often by force—including Native Americans, to present to the
rulers of Spain.
Columbus returned to Spain and was awarded the governorship of
the present-day island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean.
Columbus made four more trips to the Americas. When Spanish
settlers complained about his governing of Hispaniola, Columbus
lost his position.
He died in 1506, never accepting that he had discovered a new
continent.
Columbus’s Impact
Chapter 1, Section 4
The Colombian Exchange
• Columbus’s journeys launched a new era of transatlantic trade.
• The Colombian Exchange allowed Europeans and Native
Americans to exchange goods, weapons, and culture.
Unfortunately, Native Americans became exposed to Europe’s
most deadly diseases; they had no resistance to these germs,
and many perished.
Treaty of Tordesillas
• European Catholics believed that the Pope had the authority to
divide up any newly conquered non-Christian lands. In 1494,
Portugal and Spain signed the Treaty of Tordesillas, under which
the two countries divided all lands on Earth not already claimed
by other Christians.
Columbus’s Impact: Africans Enslaved
Chapter 1, Section 4
• Portugal and Spain established plantations or large farming operations
that produced crops for sale. Such crops are called cash crops. The
plantations supplied the American foods, such as sugar and pineapple,
that Europeans demanded.
• At first, Native Americans were kidnapped and forced to work the
plantations. But their lack of resistance to many European diseases
made them an unreliable work force. Millions eventually died.
• Because so many Native Americans died, Europeans began bringing
enslaved Africans to the Americas.
• Europeans regarded slaves as property, and as such, many slaves
were mistreated.
• Estimates of the total number of West Africans abducted and taken to
North and South America range from about 9 million to more than 11
million.
Columbus’s Impact
• Columbus’s journeys forever connected the “Old”
World (Europe, Africa, Asia) w/ the “New” World
(North and South America) and both worlds were
changed.
• The transformations that occurred in Europe over the
course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
provided the essential backdrop for the contrasting
human groups in the Americas, Africa, and Europe to
collide—and, as a result, all of them would be forever
changed. In time, settlers from England would bring
their culture to North America. These colonies later
became the United States of America.
Columbus’s Impact: The Spanish Empire In
America
• As Spanish conquistadors vanquished the Aztec and
Inca empires (and the subsequent combination of the
kingdoms of Spain and Portugal), Spain emerged as
one of the wealthiest and most powerful nations in
the world.
• Hernan Cortes, aided by Indian enemies of the
Aztecs and most of all by disease, conquered the
Aztec Empire by 1521.
Columbus’s Impact: The Spanish Empire In
America
• Spanish efforts to extract as much
wealth as possible led to the
enslavement of the Native American
populations—who were already
decimated by disease.
The Spanish Empire: Las Casas’s Complaint
• In response to the Indians’ conditions,
Pope Paul III, hoping to make them
devout subjects of Europe’s Catholic
monarchs, outlawed Indian enslavement;
in 1542, Spain’s “New Laws” officially
outlawed Indian slavery.
The Spanish Empire: Las Casas’s Complaint
•
The Dominican priest Bartolemé de Las Casas
criticized his fellow Spaniards for their shocking
atrocities and cruelties against native peoples,
opposed their enslavement, and insisted that
Indians were rational beings, not savages, who
could not be denied their freedom and lands—
even while he suggested that the importation of
African slaves might protect Indians from
exploitation.
The Spanish Empire: Las Casas’s Complaint
• Las Casas’s criticisms helped spread
throughout Europe the “Black Legend”
of Spain as an exceptionally brutal and
exploitative colonial power.
Columbus’s Impact
• Las Casas and other Spaniards
believed that colonists’ cruel
treatment of the natives undermined
their empire’s mission to convert and
assimilate them. But some Spanish
colonists resisted imperial reforms,
such as the outlawing of Indian
slavery, by rebelling against the
crown.
Columbus’s Impact
• In 1550, the Spanish abolished the encomienda
system, in which Spanish colonists had the right to
rule over conquered Indian lands and force Indians to
work, and replaced it with the repartimiento system,
in which Indians were legally free and entitled to
wages, but still required to annually perform a fixed
amount of labor. No longer slaves, Indians were still
exploited by landlords and priests.
• The first area to be colonized
by the Spanish in what
became today’s United States
was Florida, where the
Spanish wiped out French
settlers in their hopes of
preventing further French
colonization and ending piracy
in nearby waters. Despite
considerable Spanish efforts
to build towns and forts and
convert Indians, the Spanish
presence in Florida remained
small.
The Spanish Empire
• In the southwest in 1598, the first major Spanish
expedition in the area, led by Juan de Onate,
searched for fabled minerals, but when attacked by
natives of Acoma in present-day New Mexico, they
retaliated by killing and enslaving thousands of native
inhabitants. Onate was recalled by Spanish
authorities and a period of more stable colonial rule
was initiated with the establishment of New Mexico
and its capital, Santa Fe.
Pope’s Revolt/The Pueblo Revolt
• By 1680, a small number of mostly mestizo Spanish colonists
ruled over the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico. Tensions arose
over the colonists’ exploitation of the Indians’ labor and their
increasingly harsh efforts to convert Indians and eliminate
indigenous religious practices and beliefs. Among other factors,
this led to a revolt that year to drive the Spanish from New
Mexico and restore native autonomy.
• Led by Popé, a religious leader who had earlier been arrested
by the Spanish for “sorcery,” the Pueblos attacked and nearly
wiped out the entire population of Spanish colonists, destroying
in the process all the symbols and icons of Spanish culture and
Catholicism they could find. A dozen years later, the Spanish
reconquered New Mexico for good.
Columbus’s Impact
• Portugal sought to fill the void by trafficking in slaves
from Africa. The growing European demand for
African slaves destabilized the West African region to
such a degree that the Songhai Empire soon toppled,
following a similar pattern exhibited by the once
grand Aztec and Inca empires. As other European
nation-states sought to challenge Spanish
supremacy, new kingdoms—notably England under
the Tudor dynasty (1485–1603)—began to make
inroads against Spain’s New World dominions.
Columbus’s Impact
• Amid all of this devastation, something new emerged as a result
of a series of cultural transferences known as the “Columbian
Exchange.” The Spanish introduced a wide variety of
domesticated livestock to the Americas, including grazing cattle,
goats, swine, and horses; they also brought many new food
items, including grains such as barley, wheat, oats, rice, and
rye. Other crops included melons, olives, and coffee. The Native
Americans, in turn, introduced the Europeans to a variety of
beans and squashes, as well as the potato and tobacco.
Columbus’s Impact
• These positive aspects were muted, however, when biological
exchanges introduced the Americans to a host of diseases
previously unknown to them. European diseases decimated the
native populations as epidemics of smallpox, influenza, typhus,
malaria, measles, and pneumonia swept through their
communities.
Columbus’s Impact
• As West Africans were brought to the Americas as
slaves to replace the dwindling native population,
they also introduced new crops and farming
techniques that would contribute to the dramatic
transferences that were taking place. The combined
results of this dramatic convergence in the fifteenth
and sixteenth century established the foundations for
both cultural sharing and cultural conflicts that would
define the “American experiment.”
•
The French
• Even as other European powers disdained Spain’s treatment of
the Indians, they aspired to match the Spanish empire’s
incredible mineral wealth. During the seventeenth century, rival
French, Dutch, and English colonists established colonies in
North America.
• The French were first, hoping to find gold and locate a
Northwest Passage to the Pacific. Failed initial settlements were
followed by permanent settlements in the Mississippi River
Valley and along the St. Lawrence River in what became
Canada, then called New France. The French crown limited
migration, however, keeping the French colonists’ numbers
small.
New France and the Indians
• Few in number and embracing the fur trade rather than
agriculture, however, French colonists depended on friendly
relations with local Indians. Not interested in land as were
English colonists, or in exploiting Indian labor as had the
Spanish, the French created elaborate military, commercial, and
diplomatic connections with natives, creating alliances with
Indians unparalleled in North America in their durability.
Although French Jesuits sought to convert the Indians, the
French generally were more tolerant of Indian religions and
spiritual practices than rival European colonists, and in the
“middle ground” of the upper Great Lakes region, French and
Indians mixed in relative equality.
New France and the Indians
• But French colonialism all the same brought
disease and warfare to native populations,
especially as the fur trade and the
introduction of European commodities
intensified conflicts between native groups
and as wars between European colonists on
the continent embroiled natives allied to
different European powers.
The Dutch
• The Dutch first came to the New World with Henry
Hudson’s exploration of New York Harbor and the
river that would come to bear his name in 1609,
setting the stage for the establishment in 1624 of New
Amsterdam, the Dutch outpost on Manhattan that
became the basis for New York. Although small in
size and population, the Netherlands was the center
of a global maritime empire of trade, culture, and
enlightenment, and the Dutch invented practices, like
the joint stock company, that were critical to the birth
of modern capitalism.
Dutch Freedom
• Though the Netherlands was exceptional in its commitment to
freedom of the press and religious toleration, New Netherland
was hardly governed democratically. New Amsterdam was ruled
by the West India Company and lacked an elected assembly or
town council common in the Netherlands at the time. But Dutch
slaves here had some rights, women enjoyed more freedoms
than elsewhere on the continent, and religious toleration was
exceptionally broad, leading to the most religious and ethnic
diversity in the North American colonies.
The Dutch and the Indians
• The Protestant Dutch, interested in trade rather
than conquest and having recently liberated
themselves from Spanish rule over the
Netherlands, generally identified with the Indians
as fellow victims of Spanish and Catholic
oppression. They recognized Indian sovereignty
over the land and forbade Dutch settlement until
legal title to the land had been purchased from
the Indians. But the Dutch also required tribes to
pay them, and Dutch settlers provoked conflict
with local Indians.
• The West India Company gradually loosened its control
over New Netherland and offered incentives for settlement,
including large estates for patroons, shareholders who
agreed to transport tenants for agricultural labor. Several
patroons established large estates where they ruled
autocratically over their tenants, leading to rebellions in the
eighteenth century as freehold tenure became common.
Despite the best efforts of its rulers to attract settlers,
however, New Netherland remained a tiny outpost in a
global Dutch Empire.
Indian Freedom, European Freedom
• How did Native Americans understand liberty?
• “Many Europeans saw Indians as embodying
freedom…But most colonizers quickly concluded that the
notion of ‘freedom’ was alien to Indian societies.”
• “Europeans considered Indians barbaric in part because
they did not appear to live under established government
or fixed laws, and had no respect for authority…In a
sense, [Indians]were too free, lacking the order and
discipline that Europeans considered the hallmarks of
civilization.”
Indian Freedom, European Freedom
Some Europeans even wrote that slavery was preferable
to the Indians ‘condition’ before contact.
“The familiar modern understanding of freedom as
personal independence, often based on ownership of
private property, had little meaning in most Indian
societies.”
Indian Freedom, European Freedom
•
“Although individuals were expected to think for
themselves and did not always have to go along with
collective decision making, Indian men and women judged
one another according to their ability to live up to widely
understood ideas of appropriate behavior. Far more
important than individual autonomy were kinship ties, the
ability to follow one’s spiritual values, and the well-being
and security of one’s community.”
• “In Indian culture, group autonomy and self-determination,
and the mutual obligations that came with a sense of
belonging and connectedness, took precedence over
individual freedom.” (GML, pgs.13-14)
Christian Liberty
• “On the eve of colonization, Europeans held numerous
ideas of freedom…Freedom was not a single idea but a
collection of distinct rights and privileges, many enjoyed
only by a small portion of the population.”
• “One conception common throughout Europe understood
freedom less as a political or social status than as a moral
or spiritual condition. Freedom meant abandoning the
life of sin to embrace the teachings of Christ…In this
definition, servitude and freedom were mutually
reinforcing, not contradictory states, since those who
accepted the teachings of Christ simultaneously became
‘free from sin’ and ‘servants to God.’”
Freedom and Authority
• “In its secular form, the equation of liberty with
obedience to a higher authority suggested that
freedom meant not anarchy but obedience to
law…The identification of freedom with the rule of law
did not, however, mean that all subjects enjoyed the
same degree of freedom.”
• “Early European societies were extremely
hierarchal…and patriarchal…”
• Under English women held very few rights and were
submissive to their husbands… (GML, pgs.14-15)
Liberty and Obedience
• Freedom was a function of social class, and so a
well-ordered society depended on obedience.
• Liberty was understood as formal privileges enjoyed
by only a few – “masterless men.”
The Atlantic World Is Born - Assessment
Chapter 1, Section 4
The Columbian Exchange involved trade between what two regions?
(A) Europe and Australia
(B) Asia and the Americas
(C) Europe and the Americas
(D) Europe and Asia
In 1494, Spain and Portugal signed this treaty that divided all lands on Earth
not already claimed by other Christians:
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
The Columbian Treaty
The Treaty of Versailles
The Magna Carta
The Treaty of Tordesillas
Want to link to the Pathways Internet activity for this chapter? Click Here!
The Atlantic World Is Born - Assessment
Chapter 1, Section 4
The Columbian Exchange involved trade between what two regions?
(A) Europe and Australia
(B) Asia and the Americas
(C) Europe and the Americas
(D) Europe and Asia
In 1494, Spain and Portugal signed this treaty that divided all lands on Earth
not already claimed by other Christians:
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
The Columbian Treaty
The Treaty of Versailles
The Magna Carta
The Treaty of Tordesillas
Want to link to the Pathways Internet activity for this chapter? Click Here!