U.S. History 10
Unit One: “The New World”
Note Packet 1-3
Coach Styles
Unit One: “The New World”—N.P. 1-3
• For hundreds of years, great
civilizations were abounding in the
Americas without the knowledge of
the Europeans.
• The Europeans themselves were, for
much of the time (500 to 1400),
isolated from the rest of the world.
• This period of time is referred to as
what?
• Middle Ages
• There were, however, some
Europeans who did break out of the
isolationist shell and search beyond
their present borders.
Unit One: “The New World”—N.P. 1-3
• The Vikings
(Norsemen) were
the first European
explorers.
• Around 500 yrs.
Before Columbus
set sail
• It is likely that the
Vikings reached
the Faeroe Islands
by 800 and
Greenland around
the year 870.
Unit One: “The New World”—N.P. 1-3
• But the very first “Old World”
dweller to lay eyes on the North
American continent was most
likely a Norseman named Bjarni
Herjulfsson in 986.
• Probably a mistake in navigation
as he had no real interest in
exploring the land he sighted.
But in the next decade, the son
of the notorious Viking known as
“Eric the Red” …
• In 1000, Norse captain Leif
Eriksson—known as “Leif the
Lucky”—led an expedition to
3 main locations:
Unit One: “The New World”—N.P. 1-3
1. Helluland (meaning “flat land”): Baffin Island (Canada)
2. Markland: Labrador (Canada)
3. Vinland: Newfoundland (so named because Eriksson and
his men spent a winter there in crude Viking huts erected
on a spot abundant with berries and grapes.
Unit One: “The New World”—N.P. 1-3
• Although “Leif the Lucky” left
Vinland, his brother, Thorvald, came
again about 4 years later.
• In about 1010, Norseman Thorfinn
Karlsefni attempted to establish a
permanent settlement at Vinland.
• Thorfinn and his crew carried on a
lively trade, but also fought fiercely
with the Native Americans of the
region. After 3 lethal winters…
• The Native Americans, known by the
Vikings as “skraelings” (meaning
“savages” or “screechers”)
repeatedly attacked, forcing the
Vikings to abandon Vinland forever.
Unit One: “The New World”—N.P. 1-3
• Ultimately, the Viking expeditions to the New World led to
nothing.
• For almost 500 years, no further European contact was
made in the New World across the “Ocean Sea” of the
Atlantic Ocean.
• Consider the long timeline of European history:
• The expansiveness of classical Greek and Roman civilization—when
great minds (Plato, Aristotle, Socrates) speculated freely on the open
nature of the entire universe—and the armies of empire ranged
across the known world—followed by an era of contraction.
• The Middle Ages (sometimes referred to as the “Dark
Ages”): Period of time between the fall of the Roman
Empire and the Renaissance—marked by European
seclusion and isolation.
Unit One: “The New World”—N.P. 1-3
Unit One: “The New World”—N.P. 1-3
• Questions from Video Clip:
1. Black Death: (Bubonic Plague): Wiped out 25% of Europe’s
population, resulting in a labor shortage that led to the decline
of feudalism (def): Economic and political system in which
leaders gave land to nobles in exchange for loyalty, and serfs
working the land in exchange for a share of the crops.
• The decline of feudalism led to the period known as…
2. Renaissance: Period of “rebirth” (14th-16th century), in which
Europeans were filled with a new curiosity of the outside
world and intense desire for knowledge.
•
One of the most important inventions of the period was
Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press, enabling the cheap
mass production of books and unleashing the progress of
expanded thought and exchange of information.
Unit One: “The New World”—N.P. 1-3
• Questions from Video Clip (cont):
• Four main factors leading to the Age of
Exploration:
1. Increase in trade
2. Increase in the desire to learn about the outside
world
3. Important inventions
4. Rapid flow of ideas and information
• These developments would eventually
transform life in all parts of the world.
Unit One: “The New World”—N.P. 1-3
• Following Gutenberg’s printing press (first used to mass
produce the Holy Bible, the progress of thought was
unstoppable.
• But there was another explanation for the desire of
Europeans to seek to venture beyond their borders: Europe
was getting cramped.
• Renaissance Europeans wanted to get out into a bigger world.
• Whereas traditional European society had been divided into a
tiny aristocracy and vast peasantry, a new middle class of
merchants appeared on the scene.
• The survival and prosperity of the merchants depended on
new and greater sources of import goods as well as markets
for domestically produced goods.
• Supply and demand within Europe was limited.
Unit One: “The New World”—N.P. 1-3
• Since the days of the Crusades, Europeans demand grew for products
they could not produce for themselves.
• Demand grew for products such as: Sugar, glass, and steel from
Damascus; rugs from Persia; pepper from India; clove, cinnamon,
and nutmeg from the Spice Islands
• To pay for these goods, Europeans sent wool, tin, gold, and silver
along the old trade routes.
Unit One: “The New World”—N.P. 1-3
• The old trade routes had always been very difficult, dangerous,
expensive, and time-consuming.
• Months and even years passed before a box of spices or a bole
of cloth reached Europe from Asia.
• Camel caravans carrying products over land from China and
central Asia crossed vast desert wastelands and high mountain
passes.
Unit One: “The New World”—N.P. 1-3
• Goods moving from the East Indies along the sea-land route made a
long sea voyage across the Indian Ocean—then goods were carried
over the burning Arabian desert by camel caravans. Next came
another sea voyage , this time across the Mediterranean Sea on ships
bound for Italy. Italian merchants had a monopoly on trade between
the eastern Mediterranean and Europe.
Unit One: “The New World”—N.P. 1-3
• Monopoly (def): Exclusive control over the supply of a
product or service—free from competition.
• Finally, Asia’s highly demanded products reached Europe’s
markets.
• Many European merchants wanted to get Asia goods cheaper
and end the monopoly of the east-west trade held by the
Italians in Genoa and Venice.
• Consequently, the growing demand for products from the Far
East had a direct bearing on the arrival of European explorers
in America.
• WHAT WAS THE MAIN FACTOR LEADING TO THE DISCOVERY
OF AMERICA?
• The main factor leading to the discovery of America was
the search for new trade routes between Europe and Asia.
Unit One: “The New World”—N.P. 1-3
• The Portuguese, the Spanish, and the Dutch began to search
for new ocean routes to Asia.
• So, while the now-famous Christopher Columbus was still a
young boy in Genoa, Italy, the search for a new, all-water
route between Europe and Asia was already well under way.
• Portugal began the search for an all-water route to Asia.
• Portuguese sailors, were financed by Prince Henry of Portugal
(known as Prince Henry the Navigator).
• On the coast of Portugal, Prince Henry built a shipyard (which
constructed ships seaworthy enough to brave the open
waters of the Atlantic Ocean) and a school for navigators.
• Portuguese sailors focused on the African shoreline for
their sea route to the Far East…and with every expedition,
pushed further and further south until in…
Unit One: “The New World”—N.P. 1-3
• 1488: Bartholomew Diaz
rounded the tip of southern
Africa—his crew refused to
go further.
• 1498: Vasco de Gama,
following the route of Diaz,
rounded the Cape of Good
Hope and continued across
the Indian Ocean to Calcutta,
India.
• Voyages of Diaz and de Gama
important to Portugal and the
world.
• Within a few years, Portuguese
vessels sailed back and forth
along this new, all-water route to
India and the Spice Islands.
Unit One: “The New World”—N.P. 1-3
• While the Portuguese sailors were
exploring the coast of Africa in search
of a shorter trade route to India,
Spain had something different in
mind.
• Columbus falsehoods
• The idea of a round earth was hardly
new by the end of the 15th century.
• Ancient Greeks (Pythagoras/Aristotle)
noted that the earth was a sphere
and even in the 3rd century, B.C.,
Eratosthenes of Cyrene performed a
remarkably accurate measurement of
the earth’s circumference.
Unit One: “The New World”—N.P. 1-3
• Christopher Columbus (Native
Italian—Christoforo Columbo
• Born in Genoa, Italy in 1451
• Illiterate until adulthood, but had a
curious, open mind
• As a youth, he took to the sea.
• In 1476, shipwrecked off Portugal,
he went to Lisbon, then sailed as far
as Ireland and England—claimed to
have sailed from England to Iceland,
where he heard stories of an
ancient place called Vinland, far
across the “Ocean Sea.”
Unit One: “The New World”—N.P. 1-3
• Columbus married at 30, but wife died giving birth to his son,
Diego.
• Having finally learned to read, he devoured every available
account of westward voyages.
• Refused funding voyages by rulers of Portugal/Medina
• Persuaded King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain to
fund his voyage westward in search of a better trade route
to the Far East and “earnestly desirous of taking
Christianity to heathen lands.”
• Under the flag of Spain, Columbus set sail on August 3,
1492, commanding 3 ships:
1. Nina
2. Pinta
3. Santa Maria (Columbus’s flagship)
Unit One: “The New World”—N.P. 1-3
• During its first month and a half, the voyage went well, as the
3 ships were propelled by very favorable winds.
• However, between September 20th and 30th, the winds turned
bad and the ships were pummeled by storms.
• Food and water scarce, the crews began to doubt the success
of the voyage.
• By the end of the second week of October, Columbus’s crew
verged on mutiny.
• Mutiny (def): Revolt against a commanding authority.
• Columbus begged for another day of sailing west.
• October 12, 1492: A lookout aboard the Santa Maria
spotted land (not the expected Asia, but an island in the
Bahamas that Columbus named San Salvador, meaning
“Holy Savior”).
Unit One: “The New World”—N.P. 1-3
• Columbus and his crew were greeted by friendly Arawak
tribes people.
• Believing he had reached Asia (the Indies), Columbus called
these people “Indians.”
Unit One: “The New World”—N.P. 1-3
• Columbus tried again and again and still again (a total of 4 voyages) to
find an all-water route to Asia, but he failed.
• He returned from his 4th voyage a poor, lonely, broken-hearted man—
dying in 1506 without the knowledge that his voyages would, in time,
have a deep and lasting impact on the entire world.
• Columbus’s journeys began a new era of transatlantic trade
known as the Columbian Exchange (def): The exchange of
goods, foods, and technologies between Europe and the
Americas.
• New foods from America: peanuts, pineapples, tomatoes, cocoa, and
potatoes (which quickly became the new food for Europe’s poor,
saving a vast number of lives in times of famine).
• Native Americans began raising animals brought from Europe, such as
chickens, cattle, and horses; They also learned how to work with iron
to make tools.
Unit One: “The New World”—N.P. 1-3
• The “Indians” taught Europeans hunting skills suitable to the
American land and Europeans benefitted from learning about
Native American medicine.
• The Columbian Exchange was far from being all positive:
• Native Americans had no resistance to the diseases the
Europeans brought to the Americas, such as typhus,
smallpox, and measles.
• Disease spread rapidly along the extensive Native American
trade network, killing thousands of Indians.
• Europeans were initially unaware they were passing the
diseases.
• Many Europeans believed that the massive death of Native
Americans was a sign that God favored Europeans over Indians
and that they had the right to conquer the new land.
Unit One: “The New World”—N.P. 1-3
• Following the voyages of Columbus, the Portuguese
launched a series of expeditions to the New World.
• Even though the Portuguese crown failed to bankroll the
voyages of Columbus, they believed it was Portuguese
technology that made his voyages possible, thereby feeling
they should have claims to his discoveries.
• European Catholics believed the Pope had the authority to
divide any newly-conquered, non-Christian lands.
• 1494: Under pressure from Pope Alexander VI, Portugal
and Spain sign the Treaty of Tordesillas, which established
the Line of Demarcation (def): An imaginary line around
the world that divided the New World between Spain and
Portugal.
Unit One: “The New World”—N.P. 1-3
• Spain was
granted all land
west of the line
(included most of
the Americas)
• Portugal was
granted all land
east of the line
(included part of
Brazil and the sea
route to Asia)
Unit One: “The New World”—N.P. 1-3
• Why are we not called the United States of Columbia?
• 1501: A Florentine explorer, Amerigo Vespucci (on
behalf of Portugal), discovered what is now Brazil and
Venezuela.
• Vespucci claimed to have made 4 Atlantic voyages
between 1497 and 1504, though only 2 have been
confirmed.
• Following the 1501 voyage, Vespucci coined the phrase
“Mundus Novus,” meaning “New World.”
• In 1507, a German map maker published an account of
Vespucci’s voyages, along with a map.
• He then used a Latinized form of Vespucci’s first name
to label the region Vespucci explored— “America.”