Early European Exploration and Colonization
• The English settled in the American colonies
• The Spanish settled in the Caribbean, Central America, and South America.
• The French explored Canada but did not have large-scale immigration.
Early European Exploration and Colonization
• English and Spanish had violent conflicts with the American Indians (First Americans or Native Americans).
• Indians lost their traditional territories and fell victim to diseases (like Small Pox) carried from Europe.
• Unlike Europeans, Africans and American Indians did not believe in land ownership.
• French relations with native peoples were more cooperative.
“Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has
thought.”
Christopher Columbus, The Admiral who
changed the world
Impact of Columbus
• His voyages marked the beginning of lasting contact between Europe, Africa, and Americas.
• Devastated the Native American population.• Columbian Exchange: exchange of goods,
ideas, disease, etc. between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.
• Old World to New World New World to Old World
Disease Smallpox, Measles, Chicken PoxMalaria, Yellow Fever, Influenza, The Common Cold
Syphilis
Animals Horses, Cattle, Pigs, SheepGoats, Chickens
Turkeys, Llamas, Alpacas, Guinea Pigs
Plants Rice WheatBarleyOatsCoffeeSugarcaneBananasMelonsOlivesDandelionsDaisiesCloverRagweedKentucky Bluegrass
Corn (Maize)Potatoes (White & Sweet Varieties)Beans (Snap, Kidney, & Lima Varieties)TobaccoPeanutsSquashPeppersTomatoesPumpkinsPineapplesCacao (Source of Chocolate)Chicle (Source of Chewing Gum)PapayasGuavasAvocados
The “Columbian Exchange”The “Columbian Exchange” Squash Avocado Peppers Sweet Potatoes
Turkey Pumpkin Tobacco Quinine
Cocoa Pineapple Cassava POTATO
Peanut TOMATO Vanilla MAIZE
Syphilis
Olive COFFEE BEAN Banana Rice
Onion Turnip Honeybee Barley
Grape Peach SUGAR CANE Oats
Citrus Fruits Pear Wheat HORSE
Cattle Sheep Pigs Smallpox
Flu Typhus Measles Malaria
Diptheria Whooping Cough
Trinkets
Liquor
GUNS
Early European Explorationand Colonization
• Resulted in the redistribution of the world's population as millions moved from Europe and Africa voluntarily and involuntarily.
• Initiated worldwide commercial expansion as agricultural products were exchanged between the Americas and Europe *(Columbian Exchange).
Colonial Trade Routes - "triangular trade" between Europe, Africa, and North America, involving slaves, raw materials, and
manufactured goods
Cycle of Conquest & Colonization
Cycle of Conquest & Colonization
Explorers Conquistadores
Mission
arie
s
PermanentSettlers
OfficialEuropeanColony!
WHITE EUROPEANS
• Used the land for economic needs
• Clearing the land, destroying hunting areas and fencing it off into private property
• Divided the land and selling it for monetary value.
NATIVE AMERICANS
• Relationship with environment as part of their religion
• Need to hunt for survival
• Ownership meant access to the things the land produced, not ownership of the land itself.
Cultural Clashes
Harsh Life for Native AmericansIndians forced to work in Spanish mines
Most die so Spanish seek other labor sources
Atlantic slave trade begins
1. Crusades by-pass intermediaries to get to Asia.
2. Renaissance curiosity about other lands and peoples.
3. Reformation refugees & missionaries.
4. Monarchs seeking new sources of revenue.
5. Technological advances.
6. Fame and fortune.
Reasons for Exploration
EFFECTS of European Exploration
1400-1600• Europeans reach and settle Americas
• Expanded knowledge of world geography• Growth of trade, mercantilism and capitalism
• Indian conflicts over land and impact of disease on Indian populations• Introduction of the institution of slavery
• Columbian Exchange
Native American Culture at time of Conquest
• Spoke hundreds of different languages – Euro. spoke only a few dozen
• Some communities relied on hunting/gathering
• Others had highly developed agricultural economies
• Complex modes of political organization
Literature of the exploration period
• Printing press invented in early 1400s• Many explorers wrote down their travel tales• Columbus printed his travel letter in 1493
– Made printing press & exploration complimentary– Rich imagery of beautiful lands that stirred imagination helped keep
pushing exploration forward
• Most early American writings by Europeans, not natives from New World• Conquest narratives by Cortez, Diaz del Castillo, etc
Native responses to Conquest
• Some native peoples, like the Aztecs, had written languages, or appropriated Spanish and Roman alphabet
• Broken spears lie in the roads;we have torn our hair in our grief.The houses are roofless now, and their wallsare red with blood.
-anon Aztec writer, fall of capital to Cortez in 1528
A More Complicated Problem• Many Europeans committed the atrocities by
accident, miscommunication, or blunders• Great divide between European powers and
explorers in New World– Made intention and action complicated (time, etc)
•Great divide between European powers and explorers in New World.•Many letters written by explorers back to European powers
were working political angles (influence pol. at home, justification)
• Cortez wrote long letters to Charles V to “justify” his illegal invasion of Mexico, promising lavish returns if he could proceed
Oral literature
• Most Native Americans north of Mexico had no written alphabet
• Relied on spoken word – chanted, sung, presented in lengthy narratives– European (esp. English) literature was heavily oral until circa 1000
• Memory of spoken words preserved important cultural info
Europeans Native AmericansTragedies (such as Shakespeare)ComediesThe epic (such as Beowulf)The odesOther lyric forms (such as poetry)
Trickster tales (Winnebago)Personal naming/grievance chants (Hopi)Dream songs (Yuman)Shamanic chants (Piman)Condolence rituals (IroquoisCuring/blessing chants (Navajo)
Oral literature, cont.
• Had a different idea of literature/art/language• At time, explorers/conquerors/Europeans did not see their
modes of expression as “literature”
• Translations – What problems?– Language– Oral written
• Eight different types of creation stories– Most quite different from Christianity, Judaism, Islam
•Native American apologist•Believed Native Americans had been treated harshly by the Spanish.•Indians could be educated and converted to Christianity.•Believed Indian culture was advanced as European but in different ways.•Believed treatment of Indians was un-Christian; tried to get them to renounce Indian slavery•Suggested importing Africans, but later renounced as un-Christian
Father Bartolome de Las Casas
Cabeza de Vaca• Took leader of Apalachee Indians in Florida hostage. • Expelled and pursued by the Indians• Suffered from numerous diseases • Reduced to huddling in a coastal swamp and living off the flesh of their horses. • Tried to sail for Cuba, ended up in Galveston, Texas. • They were initially welcomed, but, as Cabeza de Vaca was to remember, "half the natives
died from a disease of the bowels and blamed us." • For the next four years he lived in the complex native world of what is now East Texas, a
world in which Cabeza transformed himself from a conquistador into a trader and healer.• He headed west and south in hopes of reaching the Spanish Empire's outpost in Mexico,
becoming the first men of the Old World to enter the American West. • As Cabeza de Vaca remembered, his countrymen were "dumbfounded at the sight of me,
strangely dressed and in company with Indians. They just stood staring for a long time."• Appalled by the Spanish treatment of Indians, in 1537 Cabeza de Vaca returned to Spain to
publish an account of his experiences and to urge a more generous policy upon the crown. He was soon accused of corruption, perhaps for his enlightened conduct toward Indians.