America Before Columbus

• Geography determined how they lived

  • Fishing would be near the coast

  • Midwest would be mostly hunting

• The Civilizations of the South

  • Incas were known more for their intricate roads

    • Lived in the mountains and roads went up and down

  • Mayans were known for their very accurate calendars

  • The Aztecs were known for their big cities

  • Natives aren't savages like the Europeans thought, they had a civilization and was similar to the European lifestyle

• The Civilization of the North

  • Not as elaborate as those in the South

  • Complex and varied

    • Hunting, gathering, fishing

  • Tribal Culture

    • Agricultural Revolution and Gender Roles

Europe Looks Westward

• Commerce and Nationalism

  • Middle Ages

    • Feudalism

  • Reawakening of Commerce

    • After the Black Death

  • Shirt to Centralized Nation-States

• Nation-States wanted to get wealth and power from Asia

  • Got the info from Marco Polo

  • Because the Muslims seized control of land routes, so the Europeans wanted to find more sea routes

• Christopher Columbus

  • Got permission from Ferdinand and Isabella to sail to “Asia”

    • Ferdinand and Isabella formed the most powerful matrimony in Europe at the time

• Ferdinand Magellan was the first person to circumnavigate the globe

• God, Gold, and Glory were most of the motives for exploration

• The Conquistadores

  • Hernando Cortes conquered the Aztecs

  • Was an age known for its brutality and Greed

• The Ordinances of Discovery

  • Banned the most brutal military conquests

  • Began the era of Spanish colonization

  • Motivations were to get rich and spread the word of God

• St. Aguestine was the first European settlement in America

• Natives that were already in Santa Fe were forced to learn Christianity by the Spanish

  • Started the Pueblo Revolt, which was the native uprising against the Spanish

• Biological And Cultural Exchange

  • known as the Columbian Exchange

  • The biggest exchange was the diseases that transferred from the explorers to the natives and killed many natives

  • Natives were exterminated and subjugated to slavery

  • Because only Spanish men came over, they often had intermarriages with native women and thus produced mixed children (mestizos)

    • Introduced a complex racial hierarchy, Spanish men on top, then the mixed people and natives on bottom

  • Europeans brought over cattle and horses

• First African slaves were brought from west Africa to Spanish America

  • They were viewed on the same level as natives, they were viewed as barbaric and savages

  • This started the growth of african slave trade

The Arrival of the English

• Commercial Incentive (money)

  • The Enclosure Movement

    • Kicking farmers off the land and using it to herd and raise sheep

    • Wool market was very popular at this time

  • Chartered Companies

    • Enclosure movement lead to chartered companies

  • Mercantilism

    • Economic principle that guided the 1500’s and 1600’s

    • Stated wealth was limited, and the more gold that a country had, the more wealthy they were

    • piñata example

  • Richard Halkluyt

    • Win-win-win situation

    • England will get raw materials to produce goods, gonna create all these new markets to sell the goods, can get rid of the excess population (poor people) that’s dragging England down

• Religious Incentive

  • Protestant Reformation

    • Rome fell and split in 2 religions, roman catholicism and orthodow christianity

    • People were buying indulgences to cut down on their time in Purgatory, but Martin Luther was in protest of the church

      • Formed Lutherism, Calvinism, and the Church of England

    • King Henry VIII split from the Church so he could divorce his wife who couldn’t give him a son, so he formed his own church, the Church of England, and he was the head of it

  • Puritan vs. Separatist

    • Separatists wanted to completely separate from the church and form their own thing

    • Puritans wanted to purify the church and

• The English in Ireland

  • Used the plantation model which was creating their own mini England and trying to keep the Natives out of their land

• The French in North America

  • Landed in Quebec in 1608

  • Were different from other colonists because they befriended the Native Americans

• The Dutch in North America

  • Henry Hudson sailed through the Hudson and created New Amsterdam, which would turn into New York

• The defeat of the Spanish Armada gave England more confidence to settle in the New World

• Roanoke

  • Known as the lost colony because they disappeared after being left alone for only a few years