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Exploration, Discovery and

Settlement1492-1700

Introduction

• First migrations: 40,000 years ago

• Beringia: land bridge that connected Siberia and modern Alaska

• Native population in the 1490s: 50 to 75 million

Cultures of North America

• semipermanent

• population under 300

• Men: hunting and toolmaking

• Women: growing crops

• some nomadism--ex. Sioux and Pawnee

SMALL SETTLEMENTS

Cultures of North America

• complex cultures

• Pueblos: multistory buildings and irrigation

• Mound builders: hunting, fishing, agriculture led to permanency

• League of the Iroquois: political confederation > successful resistance

LARGE SETTLEMENTS

Cultures of Central and South America

• as many as 25 million people

• Maya: Yucatan Peninsula

• Aztec: central Mexico

• Inca: modern Peru

• highly organized societies, including trade, calendars and science

• Aztec captial Tenochititlan was as large as largest European cities

Europe Moves Toward Exploration

• Vikings come to North America in 1000--no lasting impact

• WHY DID IT TAKE EUROPE SO LONG?


• classical learning

• scientific and artistic activity burst

• late 1400s

• Tech change: gunpowder, compass, shipbuilding, map making, printing press improvements

The Renaissance > Technology


• Catholic church threatened by: Ottoman Turks (outside) and Protestant revolt (inside)

• Spain: Catholic Isabella and Ferdinand defeat the last of the Muslim Moors in Grenada > sign of renewed Catholic hope

• Northern Europe: Protestant Reformation threatens authority of Rome > all want their own version of Christianity adopted elsewhere

Religious Conflict


• Competition among Europeans for trade with Africa, India, China

• Land route blocked by Turks in 1453 > search for sea route

• 1st success: Cape of Good Hope to Africa and India

Expanding Trade


• Politics: monarchs build nation-states--common culture and loyalty

• depended on trade for revenue, and Church for their rule

• Spain: Ferdinand and Isabella Portugal: Prince Henry the Navigator

• Both want to spread Catholicism

Developing Nation-States

Early Explorations

• 8 years of trying, and Ferdinand and Isabella give him 3 ships and total control of new lands

• Believed he landed in Asia, never realized the true impact of his voyages

Columbus

Early Explorations

• Many believed he failed for not finding Asia and its riches

• Even named America for a competitor!

• Many injustices done to natives

• However, skilled navigator and daring to try the untried

• Also responsible for permanent interaction

Columbus’ Legacy

Blog It

Over the centuries, Columbus has received both praise for his role as a “discoverer” and blame for his actions as a “conqueror.” In the United States, he has traditionally been viewed as a hero. As early as 1828, Washington Irving wrote a popular biography extolling the explorer’s virtues. The apex of Columbus’ heroic reputation was reached in 1934 when President Franklin Roosevelt declared October

12 a national holiday.

In recent years, however, revisionist histories and biographies have been highly critical of Columbus, especially those written on the occasion of the 1992 quincentennial of Columbus’ first voyage. His detractors argue that Columbus was simply at the right place at the right time. Europe at the end of the 15th century was ready to expand. If Columbus had not crossed the Atlantic in 1492, some other

explorer—perhaps Vespucci or Cabot—would have done so a few years later. According to this interpretation, Columbus was little more than a good navigator and a self-promoter, who exploited an opportunity.Some revisionists take a harsh view of Columbus and regard

him not as the first discoverer of America but rather as its first conqueror. They portray him as a religious fanatic in the European Christian tradition who sought to convert the Native Americans to Christianity and liquidated those who resisted.

The revisionist argument has not gone unanswered. The historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., for example, has argued that the chief motivation for Columbus’ deeds was neither greed for gold nor ambition for conquest. What drove him, in Schlesinger’s view, was the challenge of the unknown. Columbus’ apologists admit that thousands of Native Americans died as a result of European exploration in the Americas, but they point out that thousands had also suffered horrible deaths from Aztec sacrifices. Moreover, the mistreatment of Native Americans was perhaps partially offset by such positive developments as the gradual development of democratic institutions in

the colonies and later the United States.The debate about the nature of Columbus’ achievement is unresolved. As with other historical questions, it is sometimes difficult to

distinguish between fact and fiction and to separate a writer’s personal biases from objective reality. One conclusion is inescapable: As a result of Columbus’ voyages, world history took a sharp turn in a new direction. His explorations established a permanent point of

contact between Europe and the Americas, and we are still living with the consequences of that fact.

Early Explorations

• New to Old World: beans, corn, potatoes, tomatoes, tobacco, syphillis

• Old to New World: sugar, pigs, horses, wheel, iron, guns, smallpox and measles

• Diseases in the New World > 90% mortality rate

• Permanently changed the world

Exchanges

Early Explorations

• Spain and Portugal argued over ownership, Pope drew a line: Spain to the west, Portugal to the east

• Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) moved the line west, gave Portugal rights to Brazil

Dividing the New World

Early Explorations

• Spain dominates with conquistadores (conquerors)

• Balboa: crosses Panama to Pacific

• Magellan’s crew: circumnavigates

• Cortes: conquer of Aztecs

• Pizzaro: conquer of Incas

• Increased Spanish gold supply by 500% > other nations want in

Spanish Exploration and Conquest

Early Explorations

• encomienda: land grants and “ownership” of Indians given to individuals

• Indians farmed and mined until disease and brutality took their numbers

• asiento: Spanish paid a tax to import slaves from Africa

Spanish Exploration and Conquest

Early Explorations

• Cabot: explored Newfoundland

• no follow-up--King Henry VIII preoccupied with divorces, and church reform

• Elizabeth I: sent Sir Francis Drake to plunder Spanish ships and seize wealth (WIN), sent Sir Walter Raleigh to found Roanoke (FAIL)

English Claims

Early Explorations• French slow to develop, too--

preoccupied with wars and religious conflict

• Verrazano: looked for NW water passage to Asia (New York)

• Cartier: St. Lawrence River

• Champlain: Quebec, first permanent French settlement

• Jolliet and Marquette: Mississippi River

• La Salle: Mississippi Basin (Louisiana)

French Claims

Early Explorations

• Henry Hudson (English) hired by Dutch: sailed the river that would later have his name looking for a NW passage

• Dutch claimed surrounding area: New Amsterdam

• Dutch West India Company given control and directive to make money

Dutch Claims

Early English Settlements

• Defeat of Spanish Armada opens the way

• Population growing, economy suffering > better opportunity in New World

• jo int-sto ck companie s : pooled savings of average people who hoped to invest and make money

HOW??


• 1607: King James charters Virginia Company as join-stock (for profit)

• Famine: “gentlemen” who never worked and gold-seekers who refused to work > dwindling food supply

• Disease: location chosen was a swamp--dysentery and malaria

• Indian attacks: relationship w/Indians ran hot and cold

Jamestown--Search for Wealth

Early English Settlements• John Smith’s leadership > overcoming

the selfishness

• John Rolfe’s tobacco blend > economic prosperity

• Indentured servants come first, leads to attempts at combo of ind. serv. plus slaves from Africa

• Despite tobacco, Virginia Company goes into debt -- charter revoked in 1624, and it becomes a royal colony (under monarchial control)

• House of Burgesses = 1st rep. assembly in America

Jamestown


• Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay: both Calvinist (including predestination)

• Anglican Church is Protestant instead of under the control of Rome--but the rituals were still very Catholic

• Puritans want to “purify” the church of all Catholic tenets

• James viewed them as a threat and ordered them jailed > they begin to look to the New World for relief

Puritan Colonies--Religious Motivation

Early English Settlements• “Separatist” Puritans want to

separate from Anglicans--these are the “Pilgrims”

• Mayflower: the boat Mayflower Compact: the government = will of majority

• blown off course, and settled in MA instead of VA

• half died first winter (famine, late arrival)

• first Thanksgiving (never repeated)

• fish, furs, lumber = economy

Plymouth Colony


• non-seperatist Puritans, royal colony

• 1630, founded Boston

• Great Migration: 15,000 settlers come to MA Bay in the 1630s due to the English Civil Wars

• limited rep. gov’t: all male Puritan church members participated in elections

Massachusetts Bay Colony

Spanish in North America• 1565: Spanish settle permanently in

St. Augustine FL

• Harsh efforts to “christianize” in NM > Pueblo Revolt, 1680: drove the Spanish out of the area for over 20 years

• Settlers tossed from NM settled in Texas

• San Diego and San Francisco CA settled by 1776 to keep Russians at bay -- coastline missions added by the Franciscan Order

European Treatment of Native Americans

• Spain: conquer, rule, intermarry

• England: occupy and force west

• France: form alliances

• All three viewed natives as inferior who could be exploited

• 2 long-term effects: destruction by disease and war, and establishment of a permanent legacy of subjugation

Spanish Policy• conquistadore s : methods of war,

enslavement and diseases led to massive native death rate

• few families came from Spain, so intermarriage was common

• rigid class system developed...

• peninsulares-upper class, leaders, born in Spain

• creoles-middle class, professionals, born in America and had some wealth

• mestizos-working class, skilled laborers, often mixed race

English Policy

• initially, traded and shared ideas with the natives

• BUT:

• English had little respect for “primitive” culture

• natives saw their way of life threatened by westward movement

French Policy

• always maintained fairly good relations

• helped the Huron fight their Iroquois enemy

• built trading posts along the St. Lawrence, Great Lakes and Mississippi

• few in number, and posed little threat

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