Transcript Document 7231104

2: When Worlds Collide,
1492-1590
In 1580 essayist Montaigne talked with several
American Indians at the French court who "noticed
among us some men gorged to the full with things of
every sort while their other halves were beggars at
their doors, emaciated with hunger and poverty," and
"found it strange that these poverty-striken halves
should suffer such injustice, and that they did not
take the others by the throat or set fire to their
houses." [Text on internet]
“I remember in the plaza where some of their oratories
stood, there were piles of human skulls so regularly
arranged that one could count them, and I
estimated them at more than a hundred thousand.
I repeat again that there were more than one hundred
thousand of them. And in another part of the plaza
there were so many piles of dead men's thigh bones that
one could not count them; there was also a large number
of skulls strung between beams of weed, and three priest
who had charge of these bones and skulls were guarding
them. We had occasion to see many such things later on
as we penetrated into the country for the same custom
was observed in al the towns, including those of
Tlaxcala.” Bernal Diaz del Castillo:
The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico (1520s)
“When the Caciques, priests, and chieftains were silenced, Cortés ordered
all the idols which we had overthrown and broken to pieces to be taken
out of sight and burned. Then eight priests who had charge of the idols
came out of a chamber and carried them back to the house whence they
had come, and burned them. These priests wore black cloaks like
cassocks and long gowns reaching to their feet, and some had hoods like
those worn by canons, and other had smaller hoods like those worn by
Dominicans, and they wore their hair very long, down to the waist,
with some even reaching down to the feet, covered with blood
and so matted together that it could not be separated, and their ears
were cut to pieces by way of sacrifice, and they stank like sulphur, and
they had another bad smell like carrion, and as they said, and we learnt
that it was true, these priests were the sons of chiefs and they abstained
from women, and they fasted on certain days, and what I saw them eat
was the pith of seeds of cotton when the cotton was being cleaned, but
they may have eaten other things which I did not see."
Bernal Diaz del Castillo
Chapter Focus Questions
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Discuss the roles played by the rising merchant class,
the new monarchies, Renaissance humanism, and the
Reformation in the development of European
colonialism.
Define a frontier of inclusion. In what ways does this
description apply to the Spanish empire in the
Americas?
Make a list of the major exchanges that took place
between the Old World and the New World in the
centuries following the European invasion of America.
Discuss some of the effects these exchanges had on
the course of modern history.
In what ways did colonial contact in the Northeast
differ from contacts in the Caribbean and Mexico?
The Invasion of America
Intercontinental Exchange
New World foods -- potatoes, maize, squash, pumpkins, and beans
Western Europe in the Fifteenth Century
European Exploration, 1492–1591
European Exploration, 1492–1591
European Exploration, 1492–1591
Introduction
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Alfred W. Crosby’s “ecological imperialism”
Colombian [intercontinental] exchange
Bartolome de las Casas
Inner light, predestination, original sin, the elect
Headright, enclosure
Movie: The Mission
Encomienda, “frontier of inclusion”
Ignacio Bernal, Los Folkloristas, Nuevo Canto
Bartolome de las Casas [1474 – 1566]
"The Cruelties used by the Spaniards on the Indians," from a 1599 English
edition of The Destruction of the Indies by Bartolomé de las Casas. Las
Casas passionately denounced the Spanish conquest and defended the
rights of the Indians. These images were copied from a series of
engravings produced by Theodore de Bry that accompanied Las Casas's
original edition.
"[The Indians]. . . have no religion, at least no temples.
They live in large communal bell-shaped buildings,
housing up to 600 people at one time . . .made of very
strong wood and roofed with palm leaves. . . . They prize
bird feathers of various colors, beads made of fishbones,
and green and white stones with which they adorn their
ears and lips, but they put no value on gold and other
precious things. They lack all manner of commerce,
neither buying not selling, and rely exclusively on their
natural environment for maintenance. They are extremely
generous with their possessions and by the same token
covet the possessions of their friends and expect the
same degree of liberality. . . . “
Bishop Las Casas
". . . while I was in Cuba, 7000 children died in
three months. Some mothers even drowned their
babies from sheer desperation. . . . In this way,
husbands died in the mines, wives died at work,
and children died from lack of milk..... and in a
short time this land which was so great, so
powerful and fertile..... was depopulated. . . . My
eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human
nature, and now I tremble as I write. . . . “
“. . . . the entire human race is one.”
Bishop Las Casas
Marriage laws are nonexistent: men and women
alike choose their mates and leave them as they
please, without offense, jealousy or anger. They
multiply in great abundance; pregnant women
work to the last minute and give birth almost
painlessly; up the next day, they bathe in the river
and are as clean and healthy as before giving
birth. If they tire of their men, they give
themselves abortions with herbs that force
stillbirths, covering their shameful parts with
leaves or cotton cloth; although on the whole,
Indian men and women look upon total nakedness
with as much casualness as we look upon a man's
head or at his hands." Bishop Las Casas
New Spain / Mexico
Olmec, Monte Alban
 Maya, Yucatan
 Teotihuacan, Quetzalcoatl
 Tula, Tezcatlipoca/Quetzalcoatl
 Aztlan, Chichimecas
 Aztec, Tenochtitlan, Huitzilopochtli
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Bibliography
Michael D. Coe, The Maya (1987)
 Alfred W. Crosby: Ecological Imperialism, The
Biological Expansion of Europe 900 - 1900 (1986)
 Bernal Diaz: The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico
(1520s)
 Alvin M. Josephy Jr., 500 Nations (1994)
 Friar Diego de Landa, Yucatan Before and After the
Conquest (1566)
 Gary B. Nash. Red, White, and Black: The Peoples of
Early America (1982)
 William H. Prescott, The Conquest of Mexico and the
Conquest of Peru (1843)
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Bibliography
Kirkpatrick Sale: The Conquest of Paradise (1990)
 Linda Schele and David Freidel, A Forest of Kings: The
Untold Story of the Ancient Maya (1990)
 John L. Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Central
America, Chiapas and Yucatan (1841)
 Alan Taylor, American Colonies (2001)
 J. Eric S. Thompson, The Rise and Fall of the Maya
Civilization (1954)
 Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States
(1980)
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Chronology
1000 Norse settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows
1347-53 Black Death in Europe
1381 English Peasants' Revolt
1488 Bartolomeu Días sails around the African continent
1492 Christopher Columbus to the Caribbean
1494 Treaty of Tordesillas
1497 John Cabot explores Newfoundland
1508 Spanish invade Puerto Rico
1513 Juan Ponce de León lands in Florida
1514 Bartolomé de las Casas preaching against conquest
1516 Smallpox introduced to the New World
1517 Martin Luther breaks with the Roman Catholic
Church
Chronology
1519 Hernán Cortés lands in Mexico
1534 Jacques Cartier first explores the St. Lawrence River
1539-40 Hernán de Soto & Francisco Vásquez de Coronado
expeditions
1550 Tobacco introduced to Europe
1552 Bartolomé de Las Casas's Destruction of the Indies
1558 Elizabeth I of England begins her reign
1562 Huguenot colony on mid-Atlantic coast
1565 St. Augustine founded
1583 Humphrey Gilbert attempts to plant a colony in
Newfoundland
1584-87 Walter Raleigh colony, Roanoke Island
1588 English defeat the Spanish Armada // John White
returns to find Roanoke colony abandoned
“No laws and ordinances, sheriffs and
constables, judges and juries, or courts or jailsthe apparatus of authority in European societieswere to be found in the northeast woodlands
prior to European arrival. Yet boundaries of
acceptable behavior were firmly set. Though priding
themselves on the autonomous individual, the Iroquois
maintained a strict sense of right and wrong. He who
stole another's food or acted invalourously in war was
"shamed" by his people and ostracized from their
company until he had atoned for his actions and
demonstrated to their satisfaction that he had morally
purified himself. “
Gary Nash [Iroquois culture]
The English and
Algonquians at Roanoke
The Roanoke Area in 1585
Roanoke, 1585 - CROATOAN on a tree in 1591
The First Colony of Roanoke
Colony off the North Carolina coast founded by Sir
Walter Raleigh in 1585.
 Goal was to find wealth-- furs, gold or silver, plantation
agriculture Indians seen as laborers.
 1580s - English & Algonquians at Roanoke
 1584 Chief Wingina sent Manteo + Wanchese to GB
 CROATOAN – 50 miles south, no cross as warning
 John White, Frances Drake, Virginia Dare
 1588 Armada
 1590 “The Lost Colony”
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Sir Humphrey Gilbert [1537 – 1583]
Sir Walter Raleigh [ca.1554 – 1618]
Spanish Armada – Protestant Wind, 1588
Sir Frances Drake [1540 – 1598]
Drake attacks Cartegena, Colombia 1586
“Drake’s Bay” from a 1590 map
Richard Hakluyt’s map of the Americas, 1587
The Expansion of Europe
Western European
Communities
Agricultural, peasants, water mills, iron
plows, bread, porridge
 Feudalism, dowry, noble, serf, Roman
Catholic
 33% dead before age 5, 50% reached
adulthood
 1347-1353, Black Death [bubonic plague]
 Spanish Inquisition, Moors driven out
1490s
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Merchant Class & New Monarchies
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Late Middle Ages expansion of commerce -minerals, salt,
timber, fish, cereal, wool, wine
City-states of Venice, Genoa, Pisa in Italy
The Crusades - silk, spices [cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg,
pepper]
Muslim libraries of Alexandria and Baghdad
Growth of universities, postal service
Gothic medieval cathedrals [followed by styles from
Greeks & Romans]
New focus on the human body [Humanism, a revolt
against religious authority, less emphasis on afterlife]
The Renaissance
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The Crusades stimulated Italian trade with Asia.
Compass, gunpowder, movable type were
introduced to Europe. [Francis Bacon: “the
three greatest inventions known to man.”]
Muslims reintroduce Greek and Roman learning
to Europeans.
The Renaissance resulted, with humanistic view.
Inquisitive and acquisitive spirit of Renaissance
helped motivate exploration.
Portuguese Explorations
Prince Henry the Navigator establishes academy
to train seafarers at Sangres Point.
 Portuguese trading voyages try to reach Indies
by sailing around Africa.
 1488: Portuguese establish several colonies;
begin slave trade; reach southern tip of Africa.
 1498: Vasco Da Gama sails around Africa to
Indies.
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A caravel similar to Columbus’s Niña
Columbus Reaches Americas
Had sailed from Iceland to the middle of Africa prior to
"discovery of New World"
 Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon [Spain just
completed Reconquista - Moors driven from Grenada]
 Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States on
the conquest of Cuba, etc.
 Discovered the clockwise circulation of Atlantic
winds and currents [Mission San Diego, 1769!]
 1493, 17 ships and 1,500 men to New World [found
outpost at Hispaniola destroyed]
 After his 3rd voyage, ordered home in leg irons but later
made a 4th voyage [died in Spain in 1506]
 Amerigo Vespucci of Florence who sailed to Caribbean in
1499 1st to describe mundus novus
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The Spanish in the
Americas
Invading the New World
Initial violence, destruction of Aztec religion
Sacrifices, Quetzalcoatl/Cortes, cosmology /
paradigm
 Encomienda system - Indian community as labor
[reciprocal, protection, Catholicism]
 Invasions - Puerto Rico & Jamaica (1508); Cuba
(1511); Panama (1513); Central America (1513)
Mexico (1517)
 1519 Hernan Cortes - Aztecs, Tenochtitlán
(300,000), smallpox, Malinche, horses,
bloodhounds, Moctezuma, allies
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The Spanish New World Empire
By 1600, approximately 200,000 settlers (10%
women), 125,000 Africans, cattle/horses/pigs
 "Frontier of inclusion" - mestizo, mulatto
 Council of the Indies, Portuguese Brazil [Movie:
The Mission]
 Jesuits, Franciscans, Augustinians ,
Dominicans
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Pieces of 8 and gold bar from the Atocha – 1622 [1985]
Castillo de San Marcos, at St. Augustine, Florida [started 1672]
Fray Bernardino de Sahagun [ca. 1500 – 1590] recorded Indian practices
Decline of Indian Population
The population of Mexico fell from 25 million in
1519 to one million a century later.
 Diseases were the greatest killers of Indians.
 The “Black Legend” – disinformation?
 “We Spaniards suffer from a disease of the
heart, the specific remedy for which is gold.”
Hernan Cortez
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Smallpox -- from Aztec drawings
Intercontinental Exchange
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Exchanges between Old and New Worlds
included:
 European diseases that decimated Indian
populations;
 American precious metals that caused
inflation in Europe;
 American crops to Europe-- corn, potatoes,
cotton, chocolate; and
 European crops to America-- wheat, sugar,
rice, horses, cattle.
 Silver to Europe created inflation
Intercontinental Exchange
The First Europeans in North
America
In 1519, first of several unsuccessful
colonization attempts failed in Florida.
 In 1539, Hernan DeSoto traveled throughout
South, spreading disease that depopulated and
weakened Indian societies.
 In 1539, Francisco de Coronado searched for
lost cities of gold in Southwest – “shaggy cows.”
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Coronado’s March, ca. 1540
Juan de Onate [1549–1624] New Mex. – 10 Franciscans & 129 soldier colonists
Inscription by Oñate at Inscription Rock in 1605
The Spanish New World
Empire
By late sixteenth century, the Spanish had
a powerful American empire.
 200,000 Europeans and 125,000 Africans
lived in Spanish colonies.
 Population was racially mixed.
 Council of the Indies governed empire but
local autonomy prevailed.
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Northern Explorations
and Encounters
Fish and Furs
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Abundant fish in Grand Banks of North Atlantic led
Europeans to explore North American coastal waters.
French were first to explore eastern North American,
establishing large land claims.
European-Indian relations based on trade, especially
furs.
Disease and wars over hunting grounds reduced Indian
populations.
Indians became dependent on European manufactured
goods.
The Protestant Reformation
1517 Reformation in Germany, Luther
Salvation was a gift from God and not earned by
"good works" or service to the Church
 Emphasized individual Bible reading,
excommunicated in 1521
 1520s Catholic persecution of French Protestants
caused John Calvin to move to Geneva,
Switzerland
 Calvinism - predestination, God's "elect" and
"signs of election" [thrift industry, sobriety,
responsibility]
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Front: Philipp Melanchthon, Martin Luther, John Hus Middle: John Calvin,
Swedish King Gustavus II Adolphus, Ulrich Zwingli
Political Impact of Reformation
Henry VIII of England (1509-1547) - 1534
created Church of England (Anglican),
confiscated Catholic property
 Daughter Queen Victoria
 French Calvinists (Huguenots, merchants,
middle class) fought for power 1560 1600
 1598, Henry IV's Edict of Nantes (freedom
of worship and civil rights)
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Henry VIII of England [1491 – 1547]
Queen Elizabeth I, the first
English colonies, and Spain
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Rivalry with Spain led Queen Elizabeth I to found
colonies.
Brutal, vicious invasion led to conquest of Ireland,
setting English pattern of colonization.
Other colonization efforts failed including expedition to
Newfoundland and Roanoke.
Raiding by English privateers on Spanish ships and ports,
English colonization efforts angered Spanish King Phillip
II.
Spanish Armada defeated by English fleets, halting
Spanish monopoly on Americas.
Elizabeth I [1533 – 1603]
Elizabeth I at one of 13 sessions of Parliament
Elizabeth’s successor, son of Mary, Queen of Scots – King James I
The First French Colonies
Huguenots planted first French colonies in
South Carolina and Florida.
 French enjoyed good relations with
Indians.
 Spanish destroyed French colony in
Florida.
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A map of Jacques Cartier’s explorations
Champlain attacking an Onondaga village in 1615
Samuel de Champlain’s chateau at Quebec in 1608
La Terra de Hochelaga Nella Nova Francia – Cartier’s map of Huron-Iroquois
village
French at St. John’s River in Florida, May 1562
Rene De Laudonniere and Chief Athore at Ribaut’s Column [1591]
Fort Caroline on St. Johns River [Florida]
Fr. Jacques Marquette with Louis Joliet listening
European Exploration of the
Americas
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In the century after Columbus came to the
Americas, Europeans had explored:
 most
of the Atlantic coast of North America;
 much of the Pacific coast of North America;
and
 the interior of southeastern and southwestern
North America.
A model of the original Jamestown village, 1607
Pocahontas in 1616 England
". . . everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not
their own facts." Sen. Daniel Moynihan
"Each age writes the history of the past anew with
reference to the conditions uppermost in its own time. . .
. The aim of history, then, is to know the elements of the
present by understanding what came into the present
from the past. For the present is simply the developing
past, the past the undeveloped present. . . . The
antiquarian strives to bring back the past for the sake of
the past; the historian tries to show the present to itself
by revealing its origin from the past. The goal of the
antiquarian is the dead past; the goal of the historian is
the living present." Frederick J. Turner 1891