Native Americans Pre-Contact (before 1492)

• Over 10,000 years before Columbus, people came to the Americas via the Bering Strait

  • Aka Native Americans

• Native Americans developed a wide variety of social, political, and economic structures based upon interactions with each other and the environment.

• Native American religion was very often connected to their relationship with nature.

  • Aminism: belief that non-human things (plants, animals) possess a spiritual essence

Native American Culture

• They developed different and complex societies that both transformed and adopted to their diverse environments

• Examples:

  • Southwest (Pueblo): lived in arid land and relied on irrigation to grow maize & other agricultural products

  • Great Basin & Great Plains (Lakota Sioux): lack of natural resources led to growth of nomadic lifestyle & the importance of hunting buffalo

  • Atlantic coast & Northeast (Iroquois): mix of agricultural & hunter-gatherer society. Established permanent villages

    • Iroquois Confederation.

Colonization of the “New” World

• Why European come to Americas?

  • 3 G’s

    • Gold: New sources of wealth & easier trade with China

    • Glory: power & status

    • God: convert natives to Christianity

• The arrival of Columbus in 1942 (& other Europeans after) led to massive demographic and social changes on both sides of the Atlantic

• Columbian Exchange: Trans-Atlantic exchange of people, diseases, food, trade, ideas, etc. between the Western Hemisphere, Africa, and Europe.

  • Horses (from Europe) dramatically change Native life.

  • Diseases such as smallpox (from Europe) lead to massive population decline as deadly epidemics spread (90% death rate)

  • Maize/corn (from America) fueled population increase in Europe

Early Colonization: Spain & Portugal

• Treaty of Tordesillas:

  • Spain & Portugal agree to divide up the Western Hemisphere

    • East for Portugal

    • West for Spain

• Spain was the earliest to colonize North America (St. Augustine, 1565)

• Encomienda System: Spanish colonists received land with native people

  • Native SLAVE LABOR in mining (silver) or agriculture (sugar)

  • Spanish sought to convert Native people to Catholicism.

• Racially mixed populations of European, Native, and African descent

  • Mestizo: people of mixed Indian and European heritage

  • Mulatto: people of mixed white and black heritage

Pueblo Revolt (1680)

• Attempts to change Native American beliefs led to resistance and conflict

• Native people strove to maintain their political and cultural autonomy

• Pope’s Rebellion(aka Pueblo Revolt):

  • In 1680 leads to the death of hundreds of Spanish colonists and the destruction of Catholic churches in the are

  • Led by Po’ Pay

Debatin Spanish Colonization

• During early colonization, debates over how to treat Natives started, comparing to ideals already in Europe

  • Debates were mostly within Spaniards

• Juan de Sepulveda wrote “Just Cases for War Against the Indians” that justified Spanish colonization of the Americas

• Bartolome de las Casas published in 1552 “A short Account of the Destruction of the Indies” that criticized Spanish treatment of the natives

Comparing European Colonization

• Protestant England will soon challenge Spanish colonization of North America

• Unlike the English colonist, the Spanish, French, and Dutch are going to attempt to exploit new world resources AND form more complex relationships with natives

  • Spanish and Portugal formed colonies that used Native and African SLAVE LABOR in agriculture and mining

  • France, Holland, Spain will trade, intermarry with Natives

• Reasons for colonization:

  • Mercantilism:

    • Colonies exist to enrich the Mother country

      • Access to raw materials

      • Provide gold an silver

End.