European Colonization& Conquest

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.