Chapter 1 New World Beginnings33,000 B.C. – A.D. 1783

225 Million Years Ago –

Pangaea started to break apart

Geological Changes• 10 million years ago North America was shaped by nature• 2 million years ago Great Ice Age• 35,000 years ago the sea level dropped leaving an isthmus connecting Asia

and North America (Bering Strait)• 10,000 years ago ice started to retreat and melt which once again covered

the land bridge from the Old World to the New World

Evidence suggests that early people may have come to the Americas in crude boats or across Bering Strait

• Maybe 50 million people arrived

• Incas in Peru• Mayans in Central

America• Aztecs in Mexico• Pueblos in Southwest

America

Other “Native” groups: Mound Builders, Anasazi, Iroquois

Confederacy (Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas) Led by

Hiawatha

Aztec cultural characteristics

• Maize cultivation• Mathematicians• Human sacrifice

The Vikings

• 1000 AD Norsemen land at New Found land

Leif Ericson

ChristianCrusaders

• How to get the goods to Europe and around Arab

Middlemen?On their way to conquer the Holy Land, the Crusaders discovered many goods not found in Europe. (Silks, perfumes, spices, sugar, drugs)

Marco Polo and his exploration of China?

Book of Marco Polo

Europeans Enter Africa• People of Europe were

able to reach sub-Saharan Africa around 1450 when the Portuguese invented the caravel, a ship that could sail into the wind. This ship allowed sailors to sail back up the western coast of Africa and back to Europe.

The Portuguese set up trading posts along the

African coast trading with slaves and gold,

trading habits that were originally done by the Arabs and Africans.

The Portuguese shipped the slaves back to Spain and Portugal

where they worked on the sugar plantations.

Portuguese slave trade begins modern plantation labor system, begins African

Diaspora

Early Portuguese Explorers

• 1488 Bartholomeau Dias rounds the tip of Africa

• Dias’s trip

Vasco de Gama

• In 1498 reaches India

Meanwhile the nation state of Spain was united by the marriage of

Ferdinand and Isabella, and with the expulsion of the Moors. Spain wanted to challenge Portugal for exploration

and colonization supremacy.

Christopher Columbus

• From Italy, by way of Portugal, Columbus gets leaders of Spain to finance voyage of discovery. In his three ships, Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, Columbus sails west to get east.

• He lands in the Bahamas in 1492.

Columbian Exchange

• As a result of Columbus’ voyages four continents are impacted. Old World provided the markets, capital and technology (printing press, mariner’s compass and caravel.

Columbian Exchange

• Europe provides the markets, capital, mariner’s compass, caravel

Columbian Exchange

• Africa provided the labor while the New World offered raw material….especially the soil

Columbian Exchange

New World • Gold / Silver• Corn /potato / pineapple /

tomato / tobacco /beans / vanilla / chocolate

• Syphillis

Old World• Wheat / sugar / rice / coffee• Horses / cows / pigs• Smallpox / measles /

bubonic plague / influenza / typhus / scarlet fever

Spain v. Portugal• With the Treaty of

Tordesillas (Papal Line of Demarcation) in which Spain and Portugal divided up “their claims” to the known world, Spain claimed land to the West of Europe while Portugal claimed East towards Asia and Africa. Portugal also had a claim to what would be modern day Brazil.

Spanish conquistadors

• Conquistadors search for power and glory.

• Vasco Nunez Balboa discovers Pacific Ocean.

• Ferdinand Magellan is first to circumvent the globe, actually only his ship Victoria makes it back.

Spanish conquistadors

• Juan Ponce de Leon searches in Tierra Florida, or land of the flowers.

• Think Fountain of Youth

Spanish conquistadors

• Francisco Coronado explores in Southwest America searching for fabled seven cities of gold (Cibola)

Spanish Conquistadors

• Hernando de Soto explores the Mississippi River while Francisco Pizarro (pictured) conquered the Incas of Peru

Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortes conquered Aztecs, who were

led by Emperor Montezuma

Spanish Conquistadors(continued)

Don Juan de Onate searched in the New Mexico area

Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo searched in the California area

The Spanish in the New World

St. Augustine 1565 Sante Fe New Mexico 1609

All a Black Legend?

Positives • Hundreds of cities /

cathedrals / spread of religion

Negatives• Pope’s Rebellion• Genocide?