"I have come to believe that this is a mighty continent which was hitherto unknown. . . . Your Highness have an Other World here." - Christopher Columbus, 1498
Planetary Perspectives:
Recorded history began 6000 years ago.
People from the Middle East developed a primitive culture.
500 years ago, Europeans discovered America.
The US was eventually formed, and its liberal ideas shook the rest of the world.
People from everywhere were given opportunities.
Science and technology developed rapidly in the US.
The US will enjoy its glory for some time, but it will eventually fade, as have all great empires in the past.
The Shaping of North America:
225 million years ago all land was in one continent.
It drifted, forming the 5 separate landmasses that exist today.
Super-continent theory was proven in part because identical species of fish swim in lakes worldwide.
Mountains formed when tectonic plates shifted, from 350 million (Appalachian) to 25 million (western US mountains) years ago.
The basic shape of North America is 10 million years old.
The Great Ice Age began 2 million years ago.
Ice 2 miles thick covered Canada, the top third of the United States, and much of Europe and Asia.
10,000 years ago, the Great Ice Age ceased, leaving the land as we know it today.
The receding ice filled the pits it formed in Canada and the US, forming many lakes (including the Great Lakes).
Lake Bonneville covered Utah, Nevada, and Idaho. It evaporated, unable to continue draining into the pacific, leaving mineral rich desert and Great Salt Lake.
The First Discoverers of America:
35,000 years ago, the sea level was low enough to expose a land bridge between Asia and the Americas because the water was frozen in glaciers during the Great Ice Age. People came over this bridge, probably following game, for 25,000 years.
10,000 years ago, when the land bridge was again submerged, people could no longer come to America. The people in America were isolated from the rest of the world for thousands of years.
72 million people existed in the Americas before Columbus arrived. These people had developed over 2000 separate languages.
The Incas, Mayans, and Aztecs had advanced agriculture, build large cities, maintained distant commerce, and made accurate astronomical observations.
The Aztecs made human sacrifices to their gods.
The Earliest Americans:
Civilizations formed around corn. Hunting and gathering tribes became civilizations because they had enough food to settle in one location. This process happened randomly and over long periods of time.
Pueblo people developed irrigation systems to water their corn.
When corn was discovered by a culture determined when that culture turned into a society for most of the tribes in the Americas.
"Three-Sister" planting techniques were developed (corn planted, beans planted in the stalks, and squash planted on the mounds of dirt to retain moisture in the soil) and used especially by the Creek, Choctaw, and Cherokee, producing high density populations.
Iroquois people (North American above Mexico), inspired my Hiawatha, a legendary leader, developed political and organizational skills enough to maintain a military.
Most of the tribes north of Mexico were small and scattered until the arrival of the Europeans. They divided into groups as small as three families in the winter to survive. Since the women did most of the work, they had a greater deal of power than the women did in the rest of the world.
Though they didn't have the desire to manipulate nature as the Europeans did, the natives did torch thousands of acres of land at a time to create better hunting habitats. The open woods shocked the European explorers.
The natives hardly altered the land. They had no idea what existed in the rest of the world.
Indirect Discoverers of the World:
The Norse, from Scandinavia, landed near or in Newfoundland around A.D. 1000. They named it Vinland for all of the wild grapes that grew there. They had no real interest in the place, and thus it was abandoned. Saga and Song are our best records of them having been there.
The Christian Crusades in the Middle East brought a craving for Asian products home to Europe. People sought paths to Asia to acquire these goods. Cost kept these products from reaching Europe en masse, so the Europeans searched for alternate routes to get them there.
Europeans Enter Africa:
Marco Polo returned to Europe in 1295 after his 20-year visit to China. His tales created in Europe a craving for Asian and Chinese treasures.
The Portuguese (Vasco da Gama) sailed around Africa to get to China, a risky feat because it was difficult to return home.
The entire African coast was now known, and thus it became easier to transport gold and slaves.
The slave trade existed in Africa long before the Europeans arrived, but 40,000 slaves were carried to the sugar islands before the 16th century.
The Portuguese started large plantations, the idea of which were transported into the New World.
Spain became united through the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, and they too wanted a route to the Indies.
Columbus comes Upon a New World:
Columbus received 3 tiny ships from Ferdinand and Isabella. He took a crew of criminals to find a route westward to the Indies. He discovered the New World on October 12, 1492, when he landed in the Bahamas. He thought he had landed in the Indies, and thus called the natives Indians.
Thanks to Columbus' discovery, a global economic system developed that no one could have dreamed of. Europe provided the markets, the capital, and the technology; Africa provided the labor; and the Americas provided the raw materials (especially sugar cane).
When Worlds Collide:
The sights of the New World shocked the explorers, because it had been allowed to grow naturally without industrialization.
New crops such as maize, tomatoes, potatoes, beans, and tobacco were introduced to the Europeans. In turn, the Europeans introduced new crops and animals to the Americas.
As well as new plants and animals, the Europeans carried in their immune bodies smallpox, yellow fever, and malaria.
Disease killed more natives than enslavement and battles. They did, however, transmit Syphilis to the explorers, a sexually transmitted disease that unleashed its wrath throughout Europe.
The Spanish Conquistadores:
The New World was divided between the Spanish and the Portuguese. The Spanish got the better deal, but the Portuguese got some land in Africa and Asia to compensate.
Vasco Nu�ez Balboa discovered the Pacific Ocean near Panama in 1513.
Ferdinand Magellan made it most of the way around the world, until he was slain in the Philippines. His one remaining ship finished the trip back to Europe.
Juan Ponce de Le�n explored Florida in 1513 and 1531 seeking gold, not the fountain of youth. A native shot him with an arrow.
Francisco Coronado searched for cities of gold from 1540-1542, and found the pueblo cities. He continued exploring and found the Grand Canyon and herds of buffalo.
Hernando de Soto from 1539-1542 took 600 armor-plated men to look for gold. He mistreated the natives (metal collars, dogs) but eventually died. His body was disposed of in the Mississippi so that it could not be mutilated.
Francisco Pizarro crushed the Incas in 1532.
1600 - Spain had major inflation from New World silver. Prices rose almost 500%, fueling capitalism.
Spanish invasion of mainland Americas came from the Caribbean islands (West Indies).
The vulnerable natives in the West Indies were given to the exploring Spaniards legally to be Christianized, but were used as slaves. Spanish missionary Bartolom� de Las Casas said this "encomienda" system was, "a moral pestilence invented by Satan."
The Conquest of Mexico:
1519 - Hern�n Cort�s rescued a European slave of the Mayan-speaking Indians. He got an Indian slave named Malinche who knew both Mayan and the language of the Aztec rulers, Nahuatl. Cort�s now had firepower and translators. Malinche became Do�a Marina.
Cort�s marched on Tenochtitl�n, after hearing about the gold there, with 20,000 native allies. He burned his ships to keep his troops from retreating.
Cort�s told the Aztecs that they suffered a strange disease of the heart, which could be cured only by gold.
Montezuma, the Aztec ruler, believed that Cort�s was the god Quetzalcoatl.
He allowed Cort�s to approach unopposed.
Cort�s got greedy, so the Aztecs attacked on "noche triste," 1521. Cort�s countered, and combined with smallpox, he defeated them, building Catholic cathedrals where the temples were, destroying the Indian capital.
The Mestizos were the race formed between the Spaniards and the Indians, a completely new race.
The Spread of Spanish America:
Battle of Acoma - 1599 - The Spanish severed one foot of each Pueblo survivor. The conquered area was called New Mexico.
It became a center of Catholic conversion. The Indians rebelled in Pop�'s Rebellion in 1680. The Pueblo's destroyed every Catholic Church in the area and killed priests and settlers.
1716 - Spanish began settlements in Texas.
Though the Spanish killed, enslaved, and infected the Indians, they did erect an empire that spanned from California to Florida to Tierra del Fuego.
The Spanish eventually opened up to the Indians, intermarrying with them and including them in their culture.
Chronology:
c. 33,000 - 8,000 B.C.: First humans cross into Americas from Asia.
c. 5,000 B.C.: Corn is developed as a staple crop in highland Mexico.
c. 4,000 B.C.: First civilized societies developed in the Middle East.
c. 1,200 B.C.: Corn planting reaches present-day Southwest.
c. A.D. 1,000: Norse voyagers discover and briefly settle in northeastern North America. Corn cultivation reaches Midwest and southeastern Atlantic seaboard.
c. A.D. 1,100: Height of Mississippian settlement at Cahokia.
c. A.D. 1,100 - 1,300: Christian crusades arouse European interest in the East.
1295: Marco Polo returns to Europe.
Late 1400's: Spain becomes united.
1488: D�az rounds southern tip of Africa.
1492: Columbus lands in the Bahamas.
1494: Treaty of Tordesillas between Spain and Portugal.
1498: da Gama reaches India. Cabot explores northeastern coast of North America for England.
1513: Balboa claims all lands touched b the Pacific Ocean for Spain.
1513, 1521: Ponce de L�on explores Florida.
1519 - 1521: Cort�s conquers Mexico for Spain.
1522: Magellan's vessel completes circumnavigation of the world.
1524: Verrazano explores eastern seaboard of North America for France.
1532: Pizarro crushes Incas.
1534: Cartier journeys up the St. Lawrence River.
1539 - 1542: de Soto explores the Southeast and discovers the Mississippi River.
1540 - 1542: Coronado explores present-day Southwest.
1542: Cabrillo explores California coast for Spain.
1565: Spanish build fortress at St. Augustine.
Late 1500's: Iroquois Confederacy founded, according to Iroquois legend.
c. 1598 - 1609: Spanish under O�ate conquer Pueblo peoples of Rio Grande Valley.
1609: Spanish found New Mexico.
1680: Pop�'s rebellion in New Mexico.
1680's: French expedition down Mississippi River under La Salle.
1769: Serra founds first California mission, at San Diego.
CHAPTER COMPLETE