“OLD WORLD” ROUTE to ASIA
2
VOYAGES of DISCOVERY
3
Spanish Conquests & Explorations
4
DISCOVERIES of AMERICA



Vikings (10th C.)
Columbus 1492 (x4)
John Cabot (pre-1500) Italian for the English


Amerigo Vespucci (pre-1500)



St. Lawrence River in Canada
Amazon in South America
Pedro Cabral (pre-1500) Portuguese
John Smith (1607) Jamestown #1
5
EUROPEAN SPRAWL

1492-1542 (50 yrs.)



east coasts of both continents
interior regions traversed
most powerful empires = overthrown


(Aztecs, Incas)
European infiltration
6
EUROPEAN SPRAWL




Columbus: mainland South America 1498, Central America 1502
Cabot & Portuguese Corte-Real brothers: coast of North America 1502
Cabral & Vespucci: east coast of South America 1502
1515-1520s: Spain (Charles V) = aggressive



1520s-1540s:




Gulf of Mexico
Florida, Panama, Yucatan Peninsula
deep into North America
Florida, Kansas, California
Portuguese in Brazil
French up St. Lawrence to “Montreal”
7
CONQUESTS

over Aztecs, of Mexico



1519-21
Hernan Cortes vs. Montezuma
over Incas


1532-33
Francisco Pizarro
8
England & France: NEW BLOOD

England –






1570s+
QE1, Bloody Mary, Sp. Armada, …. Prosperity
public support, political sanction  curiosity, investment
Bad Luck: 1580s Roanoke Island’s “Lost Colony” (SW
Raleigh)
 20 yrs. of fizzle
1606: James I, 2nd Virginia Colony, Jamestown






shipwreck in Bermuda
starvation
riots
clashes w/locals
Richard Hakuyt’s The Principall Navigations (1598-1600)
Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1610-11)
9
England & France: NEW BLOOD

France –




1603
late but more successful
Samuel de Champlain – St. Lawrence
settlements, pushed westward
while English struggled in Virginia & just landed
in Plymouth
10
COLUMBUS
(1) left



Palos, Spain (Ferdinand & Isabella)
August 6, 1492
arrived



San Salvador (their name), Bahamas
October 12, 1492
La Navidad settlement


1.
2.
3.
4.
1492-93
1493-96
1498
1502-04
from Santa Maria
returned


with 7 natives (Taino Indians from Bahamas)
Diego Colon (“Colon” = Spanish “Columbus”)

captured, Christianized/baptized, displayed, translator
11
COLUMBUS

(2) left


1493
arrived





November 1493
17 ships
1500+ men
Diego Colon as translator
European food:


La Navidad
settlement =
•wiped out
•like Jamestown,
later
wheat, onions, melons, radishes,
grapevines, sugar cane, fruit tress
12
DOUBLE-SIDE DISCOVERY


“wonder” at new world
Europeans of Natives (by Columbus)


trees, people, foods,….
Natives of Europeans (by Diego)





cities, fortresses, churches
horses, animals
nobility & wealth of leaders
foods
tournaments, bull-fighting
The Tempest 5.1
MIRANDA
O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't!
PROSPERO
'Tis new to thee.
13
EUROPEAN-IZATION of the AMERICAS







fortresses, churches
foods (see above)
textiles
tools
weapons
religion
slavery

= change for the West Indie Natives

reshape identities, reorganize lives
14
MELTING POT

ATLANTIC BASIN = melting pot




1492-1650
European colonists
Natives
African slaves



new set of social relationships
cultural & social relations





influence & exchange
went BOTH ways
“a many-sided process of influence & exchange”
“that ultimately produced a hybrid cultural universe of the Atlantic
world” (5)
15
from WONDER to VIOLENCE



the “wonder” or awe of Columbus & Colon
replaced by
violence, struggle


to endure – conquer – outwit (Survivor)
“Indian Wars” = violent recoil to Eur. influx
16
from WONDER to VIOLENCE

death to Europeans:


frontier wars with Natives
political in-fighting (Columbus, James Smith)



dissension
mutiny
riots
17
from WONDER to VIOLENCE

death to Natives:


wars, clashes
disease





small pox, measles, typhus
epidemics
microbes that Europeans = inured/accustomed to
Caribbean 1st, then mainland of Central & South
America
slavery
18
from WONDER to VIOLENCE

slavery


“the institutional disease of slavery” (6)
encomienda





instituted by Spanish crown in 1503 (1503-42)
attempt to define the status of American Indians (Natives)
based on its previous practice of exacting tribute from Muslims & Jews
during the Reconquest of Muslim Spain
land-grant system
that gave a tract of land to Spanish colonist (conquistador, chosen by crown)




(land + Indians on it)
plantations & mines
Indians = labor, gave tribute to their new lord….slavery
like feudalism:


they serve the lord
the lord instructs (Christianity) & protects them
19
from WONDER to VIOLENCE

slavery



African slaves
1501 (Hispaniola)
declining numbers of Natives

“Thus the destruction of one people [Natives] was
accompanied by the displacement and enslavement
of another [African slaves]. By that point, the naïve
‘wonder’ of discovery was all but unrecoverable.” (6)
20
Indians of North America, c. 1500
21
NATIVES = no angels



just as violent, mean, savage as Europeans
quick to adopt European weapons & tactics
not just victims




forwarded their own aims/agendas
Aztecs: 1519, threw in with Cortes to overthrow overlord Montezuma
New England Pequot Wars: 1637, Mohegans & Narragansetts join w/English
against Pequots
Iroquois: used Europeans means to solidify power they had before


“means of consolidating advantages gained before the arrival of the colonists.
The Iroquois had begun to organize their famous League of Five Nations before
European settlement, but they solidified their earlier victories over other Native
peoples by forging canny alliances with the Dutch and then the English in New
York.” (6)
“[…] they showed themselves resourceful in resisting, transforming, and
exploiting” the European culture (7)
22
ORAL LITERATURE







EUROPEANS 1492
centralized nation-states
agricultural economies
2-3 dozen languages
languages = related (lang.
tree)
written alphabet
Gutenberg’s bible (145255)
Caxton’s printing press
(1476)


(print culture)
genres: comedy, tragedy,
epic, ode, lyrics,…







NATIVES 1492
diversely structured
societies (econ. & pol.)
hunting & gathering,
agriculture
hundreds of languages
languages = not related
diverse religious beliefs
no written alphabets
no writing technologies


(oral culture)
“genres”: chants, rituals,
songs, tales
23
ORAL LITERATURE

ORAL =



no written alphabet
at least 8 different Creation Myths
oral =


oxymoron –



chanted, sung, presented in lengthy narratives
“oral literature”
“literature” = “littera” = letter
“orature”
24
ORAL LITERATURE
ORAL =

“genres”:





Winnebago trickster tales, Apache jokes, Hopi personal naming & grievance chants,
Yaqui deer songs, Yumi dream songs, Piman shamantic chants,
Iroquois condolence rituals, Navajo curing & blessing chants,
Chippewa songs of great Medicine Society
some WRITTEN traditions:



visual records
Aztecs: shellwork belts & painted hides, tepees, shields
literary?:




1778 Romanticism
redefine literature
from medium of expression
to kind of expression


from print
to creative, imaginative, emotional language
25
ORAL LITERATURE

translations:

troubles


moving from foreign language to another
moving from oral tradition to print tradition










oral = performance-based
dramatic
acting, voice modulation, gesture, pace, pause
all these affect understanding, interpretation
difficult to transcribe into writing
live audience
reaction to/from audience
known audience
author sees/knows audience
(Scop of Anglo-Saxon literature)
26
LITERARY CONSEQUENCES of 1492

literature  expansionism
PRINTING PRESS


integral role in European colonialism
Columbus’ 1493 letter to court (official Luis de Santagel)



narrates voyage
describes vernal West Indies
“…the printing press and the European expansion into
America were reciprocal parts of a single engine. Without the
ready dispersal of text rich with imagery that stirred
individual imagination and national ambition in regard to the
West Indies, Europe’s movement westward would have been
blunted and perhaps thwarted. The sword of conquest found
in the pen, & in the printing press, an indispensable ally.”
(11)
Caxton’s printing press (1476)
27
LITERARY CONSEQUENCES of 1492

2 sides to the conquests


1528
Aztec writing in Spanish lamenting Cortes’
conquest & fall of city
28
LITERARY CONSEQUENCES of 1492

POLICY vs. PRACTICE:


atrocities = due to miscommunication rather than policy
policy:





practice:


made in Spain
took long time to get to West Indies
disconnected to the realities of the situation
often outdated/moot by the time they arrived
done in Americas
 LITERATURE
29
LITERARY CONSEQUENCES of 1492

3 functions of this LITERATURE:
1.
to inform, influence political policy back home

2.
to justify actions




3.
description of the situation – accounts, “postcards”
real power in those who could grab it
time lag of policy
(easier to ask forgiveness than permission)
Cortes’ 1519 invasion of Mexico to Charles V
to document



to describe, to testify to
to play witness to the events/atrocities
“reveal the bloody truths of Europe’s colonial dreams” (12)

Literature & History
30
LITERARY CONSEQUENCES of 1492

SUBVERSIVE (to document)


critical of Europe’s treatment of Natives
not swayed by the slogans of empire, faith,
wealth



(ad populum)
written by non-nobles, lower born
New World, not just dependent province of
Europe, but could inform Europe too

new ways of living, thinking, believing
31
PILGRIMS & PURITANS

Puritan vs. Pilgrim –


Puritan = change from within the Church of
England
Pilgrim = separatists, break from COE


thought COE = completely corrupt
SCROOBY, Nottinghamshire: secret congregation
(Scrooby Separatists)
32
PILGRIMS & PURITANS

Puritan = Pilgrim –



sought to purify Christian belief & practice
agreed w/ Martin Luther’s belief that no pope or
bishop had a right to impose any law on a
Christian w/o consent
accepted John Calvin’s point in predetermination
– election by God of saved & damned
33
PILGRIMS & PURITANS

Pilgrims’ Route to New World –


persecution, imprisonment in England
 1608: to Holland, Netherlands




foreigners, poverty, language, no agriculture but weaving,
loss of religious identity)
 petition to settle in America, to England’s Virginia
Company
 English investors
commercial as well as religious venture

3x as many secular settlers as Separatists on Mayflower
34
PILGRIMS & PURITANS

1620:





Pilgrims land in Plymouth Rock, Plymouth
Plantation
William Bradford
Mayflower
November 1620
1st winter: Wampanoag Indians, leader =
Massasoit
35
PILGRIMS & PURITANS

1630:





Puritans land in Massachusetts Bay
John Winthrop
well-financed trip
Arbella
1691:

Pilgrim = Puritan



synonymous
see similarities above
by the time of the New Charter
36
PILGRIMS & PURITANS

RELIGION:





Calvinist doctrine of ELECTION
God had chosen/elected who will be saved,
damned long before we’re born
not that we’re all born damned
but that since Adam broke “Covenant of Works”
(live forever in GOE as long as…)
saved by “Covenant of Grace”
37
PILGRIMS & PURITANS

RELIGION:

“Covenant of Grace”






sermons = not to the hopeless unregenerate but to the indifferent
emotional appeals



(Christ’s redeeming bargain, sealed with His blood)
root of the JOY
celebration of Incarnation
strict requirements of Eucharist (Lord’s Supper) – more important than
Baptism
rational understanding vs. emotional saving faith
heart vs. mind
rigorous, strict – to be an example to others, to set themselves apart

“city on the hill”
38
N. AMERICAN LANGUAGES

English = late to the game







Massachusetts settlements = younger than
Saint Augustine, Jamestown, Santa Fe, Albany, New York
French in Canada
Spanish in Florida
Dutch in New York (New Netherland, New
Amsterdam before 1664)
German in Pennsylvania
Scandinavian, Irish, Scottish, African, West
Indian,…
39
N. AMERICAN LANGUAGES

English & Boston:





the large initial immigration of the 1630s
the high articulation of the Puritan cultural ideals
the early establishment of a college in Cambridge
the early establishment of a printing press in
Cambridge
 eventually English as the language of literature
& the vernacular
40
AMERICAN LITERATURE, 1700


last half of the 17th century (1600s)
ENGLISH:




British America, their colonies
inter-colonial tool
as “13 Colonies” took shape
printing press
41
AMERICAN LITERATURE, 1700

PRINTING PRESS:



printing of colonial writings – here & in Europe
Cambridge, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Annapolis
“printing was established in the American colonies
before it was allowed in most of England, where
restrictive laws, the last of them repealed as late as
1693,had long confined printing to four locations:
London, York, Oxford, and Cambridge. ” (16)

see what books = printed  insight into literature
42
AMERICAN LITERATURE, 1700

COTTON MATHER:




most prolific colonial writer
biographies, propriety, histories (“tearful decade” 1688-98 of
New France vs. New England)
Puritan
RELIGION:


dominant theme
Puritanical



self-regarding
strict
social issues


against executions (Quaker Dissenters in Boston)
earliest antislavery tract (Sewell’s The Selling of Joseph)
43
AMERICAN LITERATURE, 1700

cross-cultural interactions:




rich array of purposes, varied main ends
relations with the Indians (Iroquois)
MELTING POT
adventure & exoticism
almanacs, governmental publications
44
END
46