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Be present.
Eric Foner – Historian and Public Intellectual
If you would know history,
know the historian first.
The Foner Preface
Focus: American History and Freedom
Central Theme: the changing contours of
American Freedom.
History: What the present chooses to
remember about the past.
Foner’s Central Thesis/Point
Freedom is not a fixed, timeless category with a
single unchanging definition.
…the history of the U.S. is, in part, a story of
debates, disagreements, and struggles over
freedom.
Foner’s Questions
or, the Three Dimensions of Freedom
1. What have been the various meanings of
freedom embraced by Americans?
2. What were and are the social conditions that
make freedom possible?
3. What were and are the boundaries of freedom
that determine who is entitled to enjoy freedom
and who is not?
Other U.S History Surveys
On the Right:
Paul Johnson, A History of the American People
(1999)
On the Left:
Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States
Question are Good.
Always.
Geography is Destiny:
Welcome to the World
US Geography Basics
The U.S. is the third largest country in the world.
It is half the size of Russia.
It is one third the size of Africa.
…and half the size of South America.
It is 2 ½ times the size of Western Europe.
Major Regions of the U.S.
Topography of the US
The Contour of the US
Native
Americans
When we think of
Native American
peoples in North
America, what
instantly comes to
mind?
Chapter 1: Give Me Liberty
Slavery and Imperial Rivalries
Perspective Matters
in History
Eurasia  Beringia  America
Origins of the Native Peoples
Location of Various Indian Tribes
in North America
Historians know almost
nothing about the Native
Peoples.
WHY?
There are Artifacts and Paintings
Artifacts = Evidence
John White,
1585-86 –
“Indians
Fishing”
Powhatan
Indians
In place of facts, Americans often
created myths about what America
was like before Columbus.
Myth #1 : When Europeans came to America, it was
wild and untamed – a ‘virgin’ country. There were no
cities, roads, or trade in the Americas.
Myth #2: No one owned anything in the Americas: it
was there to be taken, no charge.
Myth 3: The “Indians” were savages.
Myth 4: The “Indians” were innocent children, free of
sin. “Noble Savages.” Children require guardians….
Myth 5: The “Indians” lacked civilization, religion,
the arts. (that is, they were savages or primitives)
Facts About Native Americans in the U.S: 2010
 4.5 million
As of July 1, 2013, the estimated population of American. They
make up 1.5 percent of the total population.
 689,120
The American in California as of July 1, 2013, the highest total of
any state. California is followed by Oklahoma (393,500) and
Arizona (335,381).
 146,500
The number of American in Los Angeles County, Calif., as of July 1,
2013. Los Angeles led all of the nation’s counties in the number of
people of this racial category.
 25.3%
The 2013 poverty rate of people who reported they were American
Indians..
The Achievements of the Native Peoples
The Pequot in Massachusetts
A Mayan Complex in Southern Mexico
Mesa Verde, Colorado
Sustainability as an Achievement
The Europeans and Indians shared a
common humanity – lest we forget.
Similarities
Differences
 Religion
 Private Property
 Agriculture
 Trade
 Importance of Trade
 Material possessions
 One god rules all
 God is a jealous God:
 Patriarchy
intolerance
 Missionary work
Differing Definitions of Liberty
 European
definitions of
liberty
• Native
Americans’
definitions
of liberty
Part Two: Chapter 1 – Imperial Rivalries
The Age of European Expansion: 1440-1800
The World Known to Europe, 1492
32
Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin
Company. All rights reserved.
Columbus and 1492
Colonial America – the so-called “New World”
settled by European in the Western hemisphere
– mirrored the conflicts, cultures, and aims of
European nations. It had to.
Starting in the 1440s with Portugal, and then
Spain, France, and the Dutch, Europeans
imported key institutions of European culture.
Like what?
Why did Europe finally
expand beyond its borders
after 1492?
Why European Expansion in 1492?
Greed
God
Glory
Is Wanting More Bad?
Is Greed is Good
Greed or the desire for more –
more resources, more food, more
fuel, more luxuries – fueled
European expansion.
The resources in question were
spices, silks, and porcelains, all
luxury goods that gave a large
return.
But there was a distribution
problem.
What was it?
Map 1.4: Trade Routes with the East
37
Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin
Company. All rights reserved.
Principle
Voyages of
Discovery
38
Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin
Company. All rights reserved.
What They Came With:
(Conceptual Capital)
 Capitalism = commercial expansion = Columbian





exchange
Science and technology – materialism – nature as object
Religious conflicts: Protestants v. Catholics;
Protestants v. Protestants.
The notion of private property; that land can be
owned.
Christianity (the soul, redemption, an afterlife,
missionizing, sin, etc.)
Eurocentrism: the idea of European superiority in
culture, politics, religion.
Strategies for Getting the Goods
Each nation had its own strategy for tapping into the distant
spice and silk trade in the Far East.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Portugal: run around Africa and land at India, then sail on to
Spice Islands. Set up military and trading posts and make
alliances with the native population. Don’t mess with them.
Spain: reach the Spice islands by crossing the Atlantic (see
Columbus); one problem = the New World; hence, settlement.
Moving in and taking over.
France: aim for luxury goods and gold by crossing the Atlantic to
the Northern part of North America and struggle with Spain for
strategic colonies. No settlement needed: trading posts. Alliances
with Indians essential.
The Netherlands: ditto the French. The goal: the creation of a
commercial empire based on the pelts, fur, and skin of animals.
Good relations with the Native Peoples is essential.
First Contact
Theodor de Bry, 1594
Columbus
Meeting
Natives
Columbus: 1492-1506
Cortez, Pizarro, and the Conquest of the
Aztecs and Incas. 1519-1540
Spanish Colonization / Imperialism
The Years of Spanish Colonization in the New
World: 1492 to 1763
Spain offers a case study of key themes that apply to all of
the European colonizing powers. Suchthemes as:
Relations with the Native Peoples
Global trade
Imperial Rivalries (Grand Armada, Drake, loss of slave
trade, loss of Florida, Philippines, Cuba, etc.)
Religion and Its Spread as a Justification for Colonization
The Columbian Exchange –
The spread of animals, plants, and disease from the old world to the
new.
The Colombian Exchange:
ACCULTURATION
“The cultural
modification of an
individual, group, or
people by adapting to
or borrowing traits
from another culture;
also : a merging of
cultures as a result of
prolonged contact.”
Spanish Colonization / Imperialism
The Years of Spanish Colonization in the New
World: 1492 to 1763
Spain offers a case study of key themes that apply to all
of the European colonizing powers. Such as:
Relations with the native peoples
Political control of the colonies (command and
control)
Labor, Resources, and exploiting both.
Governing the Spanish Empire
in the New World
King of Spain
Council of the
Indies
Cathedral in Mexico City
Viceroys
The Spanish Empire: about 1550
The Encomienda, or
Exploiting the Cheap Native Labor
Spaniards settled the New World in part to exploit the cheap
native laborers by using them in Spanish mines and on Spanish
haciendas or large landed estates.
Under the Encomienda – a work arrangement the Spanish
imposed on the native peoples – several things happened:
The natives were considered attached or a part of a Spanish
settlers land grant. More land = more laborers.
In return for this labor, the Spanish settler was expected to feed,
clothe, and Christianize his workers. To hispanicize them.
The Encomienda didn’t work well.
Consequences:
Las Casas and the Destruction of the Indies
A Quotation from Las Casas
“"The reason the Christians [Spanish] have murdered on such a
vast scale and killed anyone and everyone in their way is
purely and simply greed. . . .
Their insatiable greed and overweening ambition know no
bounds….
The Spaniards have shown not the slightest consideration for
these people, treating them (and I speak from first-hand
experience, having been there from the outset) not as brute
animals - indeed, I would to God they had done and had
shown them the consideration they afford their animals - so
much as piles of dung in the middle of the road. They have
had as little concern for their souls as for their bodies...”
Colonization and Empire Building were too
profitable to be left to Spain
The French – 1608
The Dutch – 1609
The English -- 1607
French and Dutch Empires in the New World
Jean de Brebeuf, French Jesuit
Samuel Champlain, 1608 and the
Company of New France
Imperial Rivalries: France v. Spain in
the New World.
France and the Jesuits – a Catholic
Missionary Order.
Jean de Brebeuf (1593-1649) and the
Hurons in 1625. “Echon” – Healing
Tree.
Brébeuf’s martyrdom at 55.
The Dutch
New Amsterdam (aka Manhattan)
Trade Fueled the Rise of New Netherland
•
•
•
•
Pieter Schaghen, a Dutch
representative of the Dutch West
India Company, wrote this document,
date Nov. 5, 1626, to the shareholders
of the Company.
The Schaghenbrief was the
foundation of the Dutch Commercial
Empire in the New World.
7, 246 beaver skins, 178 ½ otter
skins, 48 mink skins, 36 lynx skins,
33 minks, 34 muskrat skins and oak
timbers and nutwood.
In the letter, he noted the Company
had “purchased the island of
Manhattes” – for 60 guilders.
Key Points for Chapter 1
The Native Peoples probably came to the New World as
early as 60,000 years ago using Beringia, the land
bridge connecting Eurasia and North America.
2. Most of these peoples in North America were hunters
and gatherers with extensive trade networks.
3. The coming together of Native Peoples and Europeans
led to the Columbian Exchange, to commercial
globalization, to the decimation of 90% of the native
population in the New World.
4. Each European nation -- seeking god, glory, and profit
– exported to the New World not simply themselves
and their technology, but their religions and cultures
and prejudices.
1.