US history, 2nd class

Western Europeans before & during

exploration and colonization

Portuguese peasants

15 & 16th c peasant life

Pieter Bruegel (1525 – 1569)Flemish painter & printmaker

Pieter Aertsen, mid – late 16th c.

What’s happening in Europe?

• 1492 – 1501 – Spanish Inquisition requires conversion or departure of Jews & Muslims. Sephardic Jews depart & many settle in Izmir.

• 1517 – Martin Luther writes 95 Theses & nails to church door in Wittenberg. He breaks with Rome & begins the Protestant Reformation.

• 1558 – 1603 -- Elizabeth I rules England. • 1588 – England defeats the Spanish Armada.

Christopher Columbus

• “All the inhabitants could be made slaves.”

Within one generation of CC…

• exchanges of– people– crops– animals– germs

profoundly changed the Atlantic world. • Voyages were financed by funds confiscated

from Spanish Jews, forced out by Inquisition.

Spanish & Portuguese exploration

Treaty of Tordesillas (1494)

• also known as Papal Demarcation Line of 1494• divided the “New World” between Spain &

Portugal• results today– Brazilian speak Portuguese– countries where Spain maintained control speak

Spanish

Portuguese empire

Spanish Empire

Bartolome de las Casas

• Destruction of the Indies (1552)• denounced conquerors.• goal was to Christianize –• “not to rob, to scandalize, to capture or

destroy them, or to lay waste their lands.”• reported huge population losses. • One century after 1519, Mexico had decline

from 25 million to 1 million.

decline of Indian population until 1900

• Warfare• Famine• Lower birth rate• Epidemic diseases• 90% decline.• Major difference with European colonialism in

Africa & Asia – not a radical reduction of native population.

Northern America

• French – commerce rather than conquest. • Furs traded for textiles, glass, copper,

ironware. • St. Lawrence River & Great Lakes

French colonialism

By 1600, 1,000 ships annually trading for furs.

English colonialism

• 1562 – John Hawkins transported African slaves to Caribbean, violating Spanish law.

• Walter Raleigh – “he that commands the sea commands the trade.”

• Francis Drake – raids against Spanish New World ports & fleets.

• Slavery & plunder began English involvement.• Spain & England main rivals in

Catholic/Protestant confrontation.

Francis Drake (English)

• 1577 – 1580 – 2nd circumnavigation of globe

Pt. Reyes, north of San Francisco, explored by Drake