Results of the Age of Exploration

About 200 common words in English have been adapted from Native American languages; about 80 from North American Languages. Altogether, 2,200 words in the English dictionary are American Indian in origin. These words include, from the Taino alone: Canoe, Tobacco, Barbecue, Hammock, Maize, Yucca, Paw Paw [Papaya], Tuna [Edible fruit of cactus], Cayman, Savannah, Hurricane [God; shared with the Mayan language], Carib [Cannibal], and Manatee.

Natural resources were carried back to Europe, such as gold, silver, copper, and other minerals; corn, beans, squash, tapioca, cocoa, tomatoes, potatoes, fur, and timber. Meanwhile, the Spanish brought horses, cattle, pigs, sugar cane, wheat, and metal goods to the Americas.

There were negative impacts as well. Between 1492 and 1514, as a result of disease and persecution, the native Taino population of the Island of Hispaniola shrank from an estimated 8 million to 28,000. By 1560, the Taino were extinct. Today there are only 3,000 full-blooded Caribs living. Pre-Columbian population figures of the Carib people are unknown. Europeans caused extinctions of six native bird species, 34 mammals and 10 reptiles in the Caribbean.

How many came after Columbus?8 - 11 million Africans

2,000,000 British200,000 Germans

150,000 Spanish (between 1509-1740)

By 1950, 85% of the population of the Americas was from Europe; this is the greatest legacy of the Columbian exchange.

During the 1500s, there were 320 major expeditions to the New World. The frontier had changed direction from north-south to east-west. The new business opportunities and trade generated caused the rise of the merchant class, and the drift of the population to the cities of Europe, which became manufacturing centers. The balance of political power shifted and became a concern for the first time among the Christian nations. This constant effort to preserve a "balance of power", which can be seen in terms of economic preservation as well, continued in a series of progressively bloody wars between nations from the 1500s to the present.

During the 1500s, there were 320 major expeditions to the New World. The frontier had changed direction from north-south to east-west. The new business opportunities and trade generated caused the rise of the merchant class, and the drift of the population to the cities of Europe, which became manufacturing centers. The balance of political power shifted and became a concern for the first time among the Christian nations. This constant effort to preserve a "balance of power", which can be seen in terms of economic

preservation as well, continued in a series of progressively bloody wars between nations from the 1500s to the present. Our lives today are still heavily affected by the legacy of 500 years of colonialism touched off by Columbus.

In the year 1500 Pedro Alvarez Cabral claimed Brazil for Portugal. By 1503 African slaves were being imported to the Americas, and legislation was passed against runaway slaves, prohibiting them from living in Indian communities. Native Americans were not particularly exploitable as slaves, since they died very quickly in captivity; so Africans were brought in to do the work. In 1513 Balboa crossed Panama and claimed the Pacific Ocean for Spain. That same year Ponce de Leon landed in Florida. In 1519 Magellan circumnavigated the globe, while Cortes entered Tenochtitlan, Mexico. Alonso Alvarez de Pineda explored the Gulf Coast, encountering the mouth of the Mississippi River. In 1526 the first African slaves were brought to what is now the U.S. by a Spanish expedition to Florida. Spanish slavery was different from that which the English later employed. The Spanish system was taken from Roman law. Slaves had the right to own property, and were allowed to work for themselves on feast days and holidays, earning money which they could use to eventually buy their freedom. Their slavery was not perpetual bondage, and they had access to the courts and to the church. The English employed a system of chattel slavery, and considered people as property; these people had little hope for freedom under the law.

Colonialism comes from the Latin word COLONOS. These were farmers in the Roman Empire who were sent out beyond the boundaries to settle and start farms. When the Empire moved forward and caught up with the Colonos, they were able to impose their sovereignty over the entire region. In Pre-Columbian America, the Incas and Aztecs used the same system.

One of the most extreme examples of colonial rivalry was that between the British and the Spanish. By 1585 privateering had reached intolerable levels. Sir Francis Drake burned Santo Domingo, sacked Cartagena, and attacked St. Augustine. King Philip II of Spain, with reduced resources, mounted the Spanish Armada, which was defeated by Britain in 1588.

THE SPANISH FRONTIERS

Once begun on their track of exploration, conquest and administration, the Spanish found that owning a vast empire came at a price. Constant challenges to Spanish authority and claims came from Native American tribes and European powers like England, France, Portugal and Russia. The Spanish found that several specific areas of their empire became established, often unconnected by easy overland routes to one another.

The most important of these was the Florida Frontier - St. Augustine was established in reaction to French Huguenot Colony at Fort Caroline [1565]. The first permanent city in what is now the U.S. was founded as direct result of colonial competition. Spain claimed all of New World, up both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of North America. Florida was important as a defensive area.

The Empire Dies:In 1810 a movement began in Mexico for independence from Spain. By 1821 the Republic of Mexico was established. The Mexicans sought three basic liberties: Political Independence, Religious Independence, and the Union of disparate areas. They also abolished slavery. Between 1833 and 1855, Mexico had 55 presidents. With the new government in place in Mexico, the American trader William Becknell was able to open the trade route later called the Santa Fe Trail, between Santa Fe and St. Louis. This route had already existed for many years, but was not used during the years after the United States took over Louisiana.

The Spanish Empire, once huge and encompassing nearly all of North and South America, was reduced during the early 19th century to a few small colonies, primarily in the Caribbean. Revolutions swept Spanish territories, and the overextended Spanish Army was powerless to prevent them. During 400 years of rule, the Spanish made many lasting contributions in language, religion, political administration, laws, and other areas of endeavor. Although their empire was never populated with large numbers of Spaniards, they were able to colonize and missionize native populations to create Spanish citizens from Native Americans and even former African slaves. Spanish colonies were "melting pots" where there was a great deal of intermarriage between a polyglot population. The final and most lasting legacy of Spanish exploration and rule is seen in the faces of the inhabitants of North and South America.

CHANGES BROUGHT ABOUT BY ENCOUNTERBETWEEN "OLD" AND 'NEW' WORLDS

INTRODUCED TO THE AMERICAS:

DISEASES: rapidly devastated human populations that had no resistance to Old World Diseases, killing 50-90% of native populations; 50 epidemics in Valley of Mexico 1519-1820 often carried to villages by other natives, arriving before actual contact with Spanish

smallpox, measles, whooping cough, bubonic plague, malaria, yellow fever, diphtheria, influenza

ANIMALS: no large mammals in Middle America; introduced new means of transportation/labor horse became indispensable to plains Indians; new food sources

horses, pigs, sheep, goats, cattle, rats (spread disease, decimated native small animals)

adapted quickly competed with Indians for food destroyed vegetation

PLANTS:

sugar cane - harmed both man and environment; forbearer of plantation system with slave labor and the initial assault on tropical rainforests;

o from 1650 until beginning of 20th century, Caribbean region was the world's center of cane sugar; worldwide demand

o changed ethnic make up of much of Latin America grains - wheat, millet, barley, sorghum, rice; adapted well to many areas,

enhanced native diets chick peas (garbanzos), soybeans fruit - peaches, pears, oranges, melons, limes, bananas vegetables - onions, radishes, salad greens, yams, peas, leeks, parsley European clover, grasses, many other plants widely used in our modern American

landscape weeds - Kudzu (lagume brought for forage from Japan - has taken over in the

Gulf and South Atlantic US)

INSECTS:

Asian cockroaches, Japanese beetle, Dutch elm disease, Killer bees, Gypsy moth

TECHNOLOGIES:

alphabet, writing iron-edge tools; didn't shatter like those made of obsidian by Indians farming equipment - plow; drastically changed agricultural practices wheel gunpowder ranching - changed landscape; walled ranches with tile roofs, adobe brick

buildings surrounded by corrals and pastureland; cowboys, gauchos creation of new institutions

o towns - relocated Indians from their land into villages and towns; changed building patterns that used wood and charcoals; led to more deforestation

o government structures/policies; encomienda - system that gave the right to a conquistador to collect tribute from Indians

o religion (Catholic)

PEOPLE:

Spanish, Portuguese - main colonizers of Middle and South America Africans - necessary as native population decreased; worked on plantations;

eventually replaced Indians as the dominant ethnic group in the Caribbean; infused much of their culture into many areas of the Americas

British, Irish, French, Germans, Dutch, Asians, Indians (from India)

CHANGES BROUGHT ABOUT BY ENCOUNTERBETWEEN "OLD" AND 'NEW' WORLDS

INTRODUCED TO THE EUROPE:

PLANTS:

maize (corn) from Mexico o introduced in Africa and south of equator as early as 1550o fed Africans that provided the manpower for American plantationso grows where rainfall was sufficient in S. Europe, especially important to

Greeks and Serbso led to population growth necessary to provide labor for industrializationo China

potato from Peru o basic food for people all over the world; no other single crop has played

such a decisive roleo N. Europe potatoes dominated the diet of the poor in the 19th/20th

century. This in turn contributed to population growth which led to industrialization of Germany and Russia

o China

Maize (corn) and potatoes had a fundamental advantage over the different sorts of grain in Europe - they produced more calories per acre, feeding up to 4 times as many people.

sweet potatoes o China - 1986 raised 80% of world's sweet potatoes

tomatoes o adapted well to Mediterranean climateo vitamin content supplemented dieto today Europe raises more tomatoes than any other continento what would Italian food be without tomatoes?

healing plants o quinine from Peruvian barko Ipecac from Amazon rootso today some 500 prescription drugs derived from American herbs, other

plants