Please switch off or put to sleep all of your electronic

mobile devices.

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 Questionsor, 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 BasicsUS 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.Major Regions of the U.S.

Topography of the USTopography of the US

The Contour of the USThe 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 LibertySlavery and Imperial Rivalries

Perspective Mattersin History

Eurasia Beringia America

Origins of the Native Peoples

Location of Various Indian Tribesin North America

WHY?

Historians know almost nothing about the Native

Peoples.

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 millionAs of July 1, 2013, the estimated population of American. They make up 1.5 percent of the total population.

689,120The 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).

146,500The 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

Mesa Verde, Colorado

The Pequot in Massachusetts

A Mayan Complex in Southern Mexico

Sustainability as an Achievement

The Europeans and Indians shared a common humanity – lest we forget.

Similarities

ReligionAgricultureImportance of TradeOne god rules allPatriarchy

Differences

Private PropertyTradeMaterial possessionsGod is a jealous God:

intoleranceMissionary 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

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32

The World Known to Europe, 1492

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?

GreedGod

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?

Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

37

Map 1.4: Trade Routes with the East

Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

38

Principle Voyages of Discovery

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. 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.

2. Spain: reach the Spice islands by crossing the Atlantic (see Columbus); one problem = the New World; hence, settlement. Moving in and taking over.

3. 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.

4. 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 PeoplesGlobal 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 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.”

The Colombian Exchange:

ACCULTURATION

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 peoplesPolitical 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

Viceroys Cathedral in Mexico City

The Spanish Empire: about 1550

The Encomienda, orExploiting 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 – 1608The 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

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.