Chapter
Chapter 1 1
When Old Worlds Collide: Contact,
Conquest, Catastrophe
(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved
Peoples in Motion:
From Beringia to the Americas
• Beringia –humans crossed over into the
Americas
• Three waves of migration
• Amerind
• Na-Dene
• Inuits
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The Great Extinction and the
Rise of Agriculture
• Climate Change (by 9000 B.C.)
– Glaciers receded
– Climate warmed
– Big game died off
• Northeastern U.S. Seaboard: Red Paint People
(Maritime Archaic) 5000-2000 B.C.
• Hunter-gatherers: Gender Division of Labor
– Men hunted & fished
– Women gathered
• Neolithic evolution: Farming extension of
gathering
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The Polynesians and Hawaii
• Tropical Island settlements
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–
–
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Fiji
Hawaii
Easter Island
No evidence of Western Hemisphere contact
The Norsemen
• Norse (Vikings)
–
–
–
–
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Iceland late 800s
Greenland late 900s
Vinland & Leif Erikson early 1000s
L’Anse aux Meadows
“Skrellings”
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China: The Rejection of Overseas
Expansion
• The Travels of Marco
Polo early 1300s
• Emperor Kublai Khan
• Cheng Ho’s fleets
explore East Indies,
East Coast of Africa
(1405-1434)
Contemporary depiction of caravans from the East
Europe versus Islam
• Ottoman Turks
– Constantinople 1453
– Balkans early 1500s
• 1340s Europe: Famine, Black Death
• European Renaissance
• Information Revolution I: Gutenburg’s
moveable type
• European military growth
(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved
The Legacy of the Crusades
• Europeans in Palestine: Kingdom of
Jerusalem
• Sugar Cane & Slavery
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The Unlikely Pioneer: Portugal
• Portugal’s advantages:
– Unity & Efficient government
– Geographic location
• King (Mansa) Musa & the Mandingo Empire
• Prince Henry
– Navigate the high seas beyond sight of land
– Defeat any non-European fleet on the world oceans
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Africa, Colonies, and the Slave
Trade
• Decline of Mali Empire
• Portuguese colonization of Africa
– Plantations (sugar, wine)
• Establishment of “factories” for slave trade
• 15th Century Slave Trade: Africans sell
Africans to Portuguese
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Portugal’s World Empire
• Bartolomeu Dias & Cape of Good Hope
1487
• Vasco da Gama circumnavigates Africa
1497-1499s)
• Pedro Cabral & Brazil
• Goa & Moluccas (East Indies)
(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved
Early Lessons
• Overseas Expansion required:
– Support of home government
– Ready access to what other states learned
• Economic impulse behind colonization
– Precious metals
– Staple plantation crops
• Social impulse behind colonization: “live
nobly” outside Europe
Spain
• Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile
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–
–
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Unified Kingdom of Spain 1469
Defeated Moors at Grenada 1492
Ends Islamic presence
Sponsor Columbus
Spain and the Caribbean
• Caribbean Colonies
• Hidalgos & exsoldiers
• “Living Nobly” with
Plantations worked by
enslaved natives
• Exploration &
Conquests
• Juan Ponce de León
• Vasco Núñez de
Balboa
• Amerigo Vespucci
• Ferdinand Magellan
• Hernán Cortés
The Rise of Sedentary Cultures
• Agriculture transformation of Indian
lifestyle from 4000BC
• “slash and burn agriculture”
• Indians did not own land as individuals –
but had “use rights”
• Large populations in the Americas – mostly
Stone Age cultures
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The Andes: Cycles of Complex
Cultures
• Intellectual
Achievement &
Technology
• Preliterate
• Irrigation Canals
• Monumental
Architecture
• Pre-Columbian
Andean Civilizations
• Chavin “Pre-Classic”
• Mochica “Classic”
• Tiwanaku “Classic”
• Nazca “Post-Classic”
Inca Civilization
• Cuzco, capital city high in the mountains
• Quipu: Inca record-keeping
• Inca empire = 8 to 12 million people in
1500
(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved
Complex Cultures of PreColumbian America
Mesoamerica: Cycles of
Complex Cultures
• Intellectual
Achievement &
Technology
• Literate
• Calendar
• Pyramids
• Irrigation Canals
• Monumental
Architecture
• Pre-Columbian
MesoAmerican Civs.
• Olmec
• Teotihuacan
• Mayan
– Tikal
– Chichén Itzá
The Aztecs and Tenochtitlán
•
•
•
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Chinampas – floating gardens
Tlacopan & Texcoco
Aztec dominance late 1400s
Human Sacrifice & the “Great Pyramid of
the Sun”
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North American Mound Builders
• Watson-Break, Louisiana (3400 B.C.)
• Adena-Hopewell, Ohio River Valley
(500B.C. – 400 A.D.)
• Mississippian (1000-1700 A.D.)
– Cahokia
– stinkards
– Great Sun
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Contact and Cultural
Misunderstanding
• Peoples of America and peoples of Europe
confront each other
• Neither side was prepared for the encounter
Religious Dilemmas
• Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda—Soulless Indians
• Bartolomé de Las Casas—Human Indians
• Europeans: Christians shocked by human sacrifice
and cannibalism of Indians
• Indians: no way to grasp distinctions between
human sacrifice and punishment for desecration
• Indians: Christian heaven separates Indians from
ancestors
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War as Cultural
Misunderstanding
• European War
– Kill enemy on battlefield
– Female & child casualties acceptable
• Indian War
– Capture enemy on battlefield, kill ritually later
– Enslave or adopt women & children
Gender and Cultural
Misunderstanding
• Europeans: men owned, ruled, and
performed public functions
• Indians: women owned movable property,
farmed, and could demand war
Conquistadores vs. Incas
•
•
•
•
•
•
Francisco Pizarro
Smallpox precedes Spaniards
Anti-Inca Indian allies
Capture of Inca Emperor Atahualpa
Ransom & murder
Lima
Why Spanish Won
• Smallpox & other diseases to which Indians
had no exposure
• Indian Allies
• Superior weapons technology
North American Conquistadores
• Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca’s tales of gold
• Hernando de Soto explores the southeast
• Francisco Vasquez de Coronado explores
the southwest
Spanish Missions in North
America
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•
•
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Jesuits
Franciscans
Royal Order for New Discoveries 1573
María de Jesús de Agreda 1631
The Spanish Empire and
Demographic Catastrophe
•
•
•
•
encomienda
hacienda
smallpox
Council of the Indies
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Brazil
• 14 “captaincies”
• Sugar plantations
• bandeirantes
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Spain: Global Colossus of a
Global Economy
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•
•
•
•
American Silver, Spanish Power
Philip II (1556-1598) – king of Spain
Philip claims throne of Portugal 1580
Free labor in “core” Europe
Unfree labor in periphery
– E. Europe & resurgent serfdom
– W. Hemisphere & slavery
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Vulnerabilities of the
Spanish Colossus
• Imperial overstretch
• Silver influx = inflation
• Silver influx creates import demand not
domestic economic development
• Spain becomes poorer & weaker
Explanations: Patterns of Conquest,
Submission, & Resistance
• East-West vs. North South human
interaction
• Western Hemisphere isolation
• Steel Technology
• Alfred W. Crosby--The Columbian
exchange
(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved
Conclusion
• In 40 years: European navigators joined the world
together and challenged Islam’s mediating role
• Intense and violent contact made throughout the
world
• Spain acquired a military advantage in Europe
• Millions suffered, especially in Africa and the
Americas
(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved