The Settling of Native Americas

Jorge Florentino Garcia

Mr. Fernandez

History 1301

June 01, 2018

Chapter 1: A New World

The Settling of Native Americas

• Indians settled in America between 15,000 and 60,000 years ago.
• North and South Native American build trade roads and irrigation systems between them.
• Native Americans from central America and south America were bigger than the north America.
• The north American Indians were lacked of metal tools, literacy and scientific knowledge necessary for long distance navigation.

Western Indians

• Hopi and Zuni natives settled were in the present we know as Arizona and New Mexico.
• They build large planned towns with multiple family dwellings.
• They trade their resources with natives from central Mexico

Eastern Indians

• Indians from the east part of America sustained themselves with a diet of corn, squash and beans. Also by fishing and hunting.
• The tribes frequently get in conflict with each other. Because of that they loose may alliances
• Indians saw themselves as one group between many tribes.

Native American Religion

• Religious ceremonies were often directly related to farming and hunting
• People who were believed to hold special spiritual powers held respect and authority on the tribes.

Gender Relations

• They could engage any gender (Men with men, women with women, or men with woman).
• Since men were often away on hunts, women attended to do the agriculture and household duties.

The Expansion of Europe  

• The Chinese admiral Zheng He led seven naval expeditions into the Indian Ocean, between a 1405 and 1433.
• The caravel, compass and quadrant travel along Africa coast for the Portuguese in the early fifteenth century.
• The Portuguese stablished trading post factories, along western coast of Africa.
• Portugal began by colonizing Atlantic islands and established plantations worked by slaves.
• Christopher Columbus, an Italian, got financial support form King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain.

Age of Discovery

• On 1492 Christopher Columbus led three ships, the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. His objective was to sail west until he reached Asia. The Indies where riches of gold, pearls and spice awaited.
• The trip gets longer of the anticipated by either Colombus or his crew. In order to mollify his crew’s apprehensions, Columbus kept two sets of logs. One showing the true distance traveled each day, and one showing a lesser distance.  The first log was kept secret.
• By October 10 Colombus promise his crew that if land was not sighted in two days, they would return home. The next day land was discovered.

Colonization

• After landing many of the island habitants assembled on the beach and Columbus gave them gifts of red hats and beads.
• The Native American reciprocated with gifts of parrots, cotton and other goods.
• The Americas were incorporated into the Spanish Empire, with the exception of Brazil, Canada, and several other small countries from South America.
• The crown created civil and religious structures to administer the region.
• The goals for colonial expansion were trade, and spread catholic faith through indigenous conversions.
• Spanish Empire would expand across the Caribbean islands, half of South America, most of Central America, and much of North America.

Governing Spanish America

• Spain established a stable government modeled after Spanish home rule and absolutism.
• Power flowed from the king to the Council of the Indies to viceroys to local officials.
• The Catholic Church played a significant role in the administration of Spanish colonies.

Colonists and Indians in Spanish America

• Gold and silver mining was the primary economy in Spanish America.
• Mines were worked by Indians.
• Many Spaniards came to the New World for easier social mobility.
• Indian inhabitants always outnumbered European colonists and their descendants in Spanish America.
• Spanish America evolved into a hybrid culture-part Indian, part Spanish, and, in places, part African.
• Mestizos are persons of mixed Indian and Spanish origin.

Justifications for Conquest

• To justify their claims to land that belonged to someone else, the Spanish relied on cultural superiority, missionary zeal, and violence.
• A missionary element existed from the church's long holy war against Islam, and was renewed with the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century.
• A primary aim of the Spaniards was to convert the Indians to the "true faith."

Piety and Profit

• The souls to be saved could also be a labor force in the gold and silver mines.
• Bartolomé de Las Casas wrote about the injustices of Spanish rule toward the Indians.
• He believed that "the entire human race is one," but favored African slavery.

Reforming the Empire

• Las Casas's writings encouraged the 1542 New Laws, which forbade the enslavement of Indians.
• The Black Legend was an image, put forth in part by Las Casas, that Spain was a uniquely brutal and exploitive colonizer.

Exploring North America

• Spanish explorers migrated into what is now the United States in search of gold; first was Juan Ponce de León in Florida (1513).
• Large Spanish expeditions traveled through Florida, the Gulf of Mexico region, and the Southwest (1520s-1540s).
• These expeditions, particularly Hernando de Soto's, brutalized Indians and spread deadly diseases.

Spain in Florida and the Southwest

• Florida, the first present-day U.S. area colonized by Spain, had forts as early as the 1560s to protect Spanish treasure fleets from pirates.
• As late as 1763, Spanish Florida had only 4,000 inhabitants of European descent.
• Juan de Oñate led settlers into present-day New Mexico (1598).
• Oñate destroyed Acoma, a centuries-old Indian city, in response to an attack.

The Pueblo Revolt

• In 1680, Pueblo Indians, led by Popé, rebelled against the Spanish colonists in present-day New Mexico for forcing the Indians to convert to Christianity.

French Colonization

• Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec in 1608, and others explored and claimed the entire Mississippi Valley for France.
• Relatively few French colonists arrived in New France. The white population in 1700 was only 19,000.

New France and the Indians

• With few settlers, friendly relations with the Indians were essential for France.
• The French prided themselves on adopting a more humane policy toward the Indians than Spain, yet their contact still brought disease and their fur trading depleted the native animal population.
• métis were children of Indian women and French men.

The Dutch Empire