Of the People
Chapter 1:
Worlds in Motion
1450–1550
Common Threads
>> What role did the colonies play in imperial
conflict? That is, how did they shape that conflict
and how were they shaped by it?
>> How were Native Americans drawn into
imperial conflict? To what extent were they able
to shape it for their own purposes?
>> What did it mean for the American colonies to
be peripheral— literally— to the British Empire?
>> How did the colonists adapt the available
political theories to their purposes? What in the
American experience made those theories
attractive to the colonists?
Worlds in Motion
1450-1550
• Overview
– The World of the Indian Peoples
– The Worlds of Christopher Columbus
– Worlds in Collision
– The Biological Consequences of Conquest
– Onto the Mainland
Worlds in Motion
1450-1550
• The World of the Indian Peoples
– The Archaic Indians
– The Indians of the Eastern Woodlands
– The Indians of the Plains
– The Indians of the Deserts
– The Indians of the Pacific Coast
– The Great Civilizations of the Americas
Worlds in Motion
1450-1550
• The Worlds of Christopher Columbus
– European Nations in the Age of Discovery
– The Political Economy of Europe
– The World of the West African Peoples
– Slavery Before 1500
– The Golden Age of Spain
Worlds in Motion
1450-1550
• Worlds in Collision
– Christopher Columbus Finds a Patron
– Columbus Finds a New World
– Tainos and Caribs
– The Origins of a New World Political Economy
– The Requerimiento and the Morality of
Conquest
Worlds in Motion
1450-1550
• The Biological Consequences of
Conquest
– Demographic Decline
– The Columbian Exchange
Worlds in Motion
1450-1550
• Onto the Mainland
– The First Florida Ventures
– The Conquest of Mexico
– The Establishment of a Spanish Empire
– Gender and Conquest
– The Return to Florida
– Coronado and the Pueblo Indians
Worlds in Motion
1450-1550
• Conclusion
AMERICAN PORTRAIT
Malinche: Cultural Translator
“In the long period of encounter and conquest initiated by
the Spanish arrival in the new world, cultural
translators…would possess unique power. In translating
one world to the other, they helped create a new world,
one very different from any that had ever existed before.”
– What “new world” did Malinche help create?
• What does this story reveal about the relative powers of the
Spanish and the indigenous peoples in this new world?
• What unique power did cultural translators, such as
Malinche, wield in this arrangement?
The World of the Indian Peoples
– The Archaic Indians
• What general changes occurred to early Native
American societies as they spread across the
Western Hemisphere between 10,000 BCE –
3,000 BCE?
– Population
– Industry
– Social Structure
– What factors led to Native Americans’ cultural
diversity?
• What economic complexes emerged that
counteracted this cultural diversity and isolation?
The World of the Indian Peoples
• Native American Economic Complexes:
– Four Geographic-Cultural Domains in North America:
• Eastern Woodlands: horticulture and hunting
– Mississippian mound builders
» City center: Cahokia
– Iroquois
– Algonquians
• Plains: maize and buffalo hunting
– Buffalo hunters
• Deserts: maize horticulture
– Anasazi pueblos villages
» Chaco Canyon
» Mesa Verde
• Pacific Coast: fishing and hunting
– The Great Civilizations of Mesoamerica
• Mayas and Toltecs
The Worlds of Christopher
Columbus
“The traders and the warriors set the world in motion…”
– European Nations in the Age of Discovery
• How was power distributed within Europe prior to the age of
discover?
– The Political Economy of Europe
• How did Europe’s role change in the world economy after 1450?
• What factors drove Spanish and Portuguese exploration?
– Economic
– Technological
– Political
– The World of the West African Peoples
• Complex kingdoms
• Simple villages
The Worlds of Christopher
Columbus
– Slavery Before 1500
• Ancient slave institutions
– Roman Empire
– Europe
– Africa
• Transformation of slavery in Africa
– Muslim traders
– Portuguese traders
– The Golden Age of Spain
• What was the social and intellectual impact of the Muslim
invasion and control of Spain before 1492?
• What was the meaning and legacy of the reconquista?
Worlds in Collision
• These explorers…were propelled by an
expanding Europe’s desire for trade and for
spreading the Christian religion.”
– Christopher Columbus Finds a Patron
• How was Columbus able to persuade the Spanish monarchy
to finance his 1492 voyage?
– Columbus Finds a New World
• How did the industries of the Tainos and Caribs compare?
– Why does it make sense that the Spanish got along with the
Tainos as compared to the Caribs?
Worlds in Collision
– The Origins of a New World Political Economy
• How did Columbus and his crew compensate for
their failure to find the expected gold treasures in
the New World?
– What role did native peoples now play in European quest
for wealth?
– What role did Christian conversion play in the
subjugation of native peoples?
» The Requerimiento
• The encomienda system
The Biological Consequences of
Conquest
– Demographic Decline
• What was the scale and scope of the rapid decline
of native populations?
– Why did the introduction of small pox, typhus, and
influenza have such a devastating impact?
– The Columbian Exchange
• What constituted the so-called Columbian
Exchange?
Onto the Mainland
– The First Florida Ventures, 1513, 1521
• Juan Ponce de León
– What did the Calusa take away from their encounter with the
Spanish?
– The Conquest of Mexico, 1519
• The Aztec Empire before conquest
– City capital: Tenochtitlán (pop. 200,000)
– Ruler: Moctezuma
• Hernán Cortés’s bloody conquest
– The Establishment of a Spanish Empire
• Center
– The transformation of Tenochtitlán to Mexico City
• Expansion
– Takeover of the Incan Empire in Peru
– Borderlands outposts in present-day New Mexico
Onto the Mainland
– Gender and Conquest
• What role did gender play in organizing Native American,
African, and European societies?
• What role did gender play in conquest?
– The Return to Florida
• Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón, 1526
• Pánfilo de Narváez, 1528
• Hernando de Soto, 1539-1542
– How did de Soto’s actions reflect that of a classic
conquistador?
– Coronado and the Pueblo Indians, 1539-1541
• How did Coronado and his men’s expectations of finding gold
set the stage for a violent confrontation with Native
Americans?
Worlds in Motion
1450-1550
• Revisiting The Common Threads:
>> What role did the colonies play in imperial conflict? That
is, how did they shape that conflict and how were they
shaped by it?
>> How were Native Americans drawn into imperial
conflict? To what extent were they able to shape it for
their own purposes?
>> What did it mean for the American colonies to be
peripheral— literally— to the British Empire?
>> How did the colonists adapt the available political
theories to their purposes? What in the American
experience made those theories attractive to the
colonists?