Discovering

A New World

Pre-Colonial America

Lecture Expectations• Write on loose-leaf paper (no curly edges)• Use blue/black ink or pencil; no marker• Raise your hand if you have a question• Draw a star in your notes if you need

further explanation• Do not disturb your neighbor

*You are creating an outline with Roman Numerals (just as you see the information in the presentation)*You will decide which parts are important information; write down key terms/dates/facts, NOT every word!

I. Introduction: America, Land of Immigrants

A. Modes of transportation

1. by foot

2. by wooden sailing ships

3. by steerage ships

4. by flimsy rafts

II. The First Migration: Ice Age Travelers

A. Migrants 1. hunters crossing the Bering land

bridge

2. traveled from Siberia to Alaska, migrating southward

3. 20-40,000 years ago

B. Inhabitants 1. Over 300 Native

American culturesby 15th century

2. European diseases killed

up to 90% of some tribes, thus destroyingtheir culture and history.

3. Descendants remain, spread throughout the nation.

C. Native American Culture and Literature

• Native Americans told their stories of creation and their people in what is known as the oral tradition

• One of the most common stories was the origin myth, which explained the creation of the earth and its people

• These stories would be verbally passed down to future generations, instead of written down because they had no written language.

III. The Europeans Arrive: The Explorers

A. Importance of Arrival1. Written observations by French and Spanish sailors/explorers during the 15-16th centuries

2. eyewitness accounts of the “discovery” of the New World are considered to be the first literature of the Americas

3. Provided insight into the personal challenges and moral conflicts that shaped so much of our colonial culture

“Europeans did not find a wilderness here; rather, however involuntarily, they made one. Jamestown, Plymouth, Salem, Boston, Providence, New Amsterdam, Philadelphia—all grew upon sites previously occupied by Indian communities…the so-called settlement of America was a resettlement, a reoccupation of a land made waste by the diseases and demoralization introduced by the newcomers.”

~Francis Jennings, The Invasion of America (1975)

B. Prominent Explorers/Writers 1. Christopher Columbus

2. Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca 3. John Smith

4. William Bradford

C. Purposes for Explorationa. Godb. Goldc. Glory

Christopher Columbus“Columbus did not discover a new world; he

established contact between two worlds, both already old”

(Parry, The Spanish Seaborne Empire 1966)

http://www.bestscalemodels.com/santamaria.html

“They willingly traded everything they owned…they were well-built,

with good bodies and handsome features…They do not bear arms…

they would make fine servants.”(from the journal of Columbus)

D. Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca*landed in 1528 on the West

Coast of what is now Florida, marching inland

*fleet waited for an entire year for them, then sailed to Mexico

*thought to be dead, de Vaca & companions wandered 8 years in Texas Gulf area

*later wrote a first-hand account of the indigenous people & local flora/fauna

*spent most of his last years fighting for the just treatment of Native Americans.

“He undertakes an inward journey transforming himself from a competent conquistador and

gentleman into a new American who sympathizes with, and appreciates, the native people he

encounters” (Holt 8).

E. Thomas Harriot• Wrote A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia• Described beautiful natural resources and Native American life.

• Illustrations and descriptions gave English readers their first glimpse of daily life in North America.

» » http://uh.edu/engines/epi2267.htm

F.John Smith"I call them my children," he says of

the American settlements, "for they have been my wife, my hawks, my hounds, my cards, my dice and in

total, my best content." ~from 1922 New England Trials`

http://www.preservationvirginia.org/rediscovery/page.php?page_id=25

Smith boasts, “… here in Florida, Virginia, New England, and Canada, is more land than all the people in Christendom can manure (cultivate)." And he adds , "for a copper knife and a few toys, as beads and hatchets, they will sell you a whole Country (district); and for a small matter, their houses and the ground they dwell upon; but those of Massachusetts have resigned theirs freely". ~Advertisements

http://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/jamestown.htm

G. William Bradford

*1620: left Holland on the ship, the Mayflower*1621: landed at Plymouth on the dunes of Cape Cod*seeking a community free to worship according to their beliefs*suffered loss, hardship and terrible conditions while on the voyage to

the New World*1622: elected Governor (30 different times during his life)*made with contact with native peoples, bartering for supplies and

food*Mayflower Compact: outlined government in an agreement, which

prepared the grounds for American constitutional democracy*1630: began writing the account of the Plymouth settlement,

attempting to inspire future generations to carry on Pilgrim’s ideals