Album of the American

ColoniesBy Beth Darrow

The Aztecs were a tribe that had a huge empire in what is modern day Mexico.

They had distinct religious practices and traditions.

Their religion involved human sacrifices to subjugate inferior tribes and the poor.

They had complex and accomplished calendrical and agricultural systems.

In 1521they were conquered by the Spaniards led by Hernan Cortes in Tenochtitlan.

Many were enslaved by the Spanish and then had to work on plantations.

The Aztecs

The Iroquois are a group that has members in Canada and what is now the United States.

The Iroquois are Native Americans that have many members that speak different languages.

This made the life of the Iroquois even harder when the settlers from New France arrived.

Beginning in 1609 the Iroquois engaged in the Beaver Wars with the French and their Iroquoian-speaking Huron allies. They also often fought with the English colonies.

The Iroquois

The French Catholic Church wanted to create a large Christian community in the Americas, so they took advantage of this by sending the Jesuit missionaries to New France.

The Jesuits converted many Huron natives throughout the 1640’s.

The missionaries were frequently attacked by the Iroquois.

Almost all of their transportation was done by thin canoes.

The Jesuits in New France

Here is a glimpse inside the life of one of the Native American slaves.

She lived during 1739. She lived in Brazil close to the

Amazon River. She was indigenous Brazilian. She made a trial to try to free

her and almost won, but her owner appealed and she was obliged to remain a slave. She had a rare case because she was not sick, constrained, and overwhelmed enough to be able to fight for her own case. This was because most slaves died just a few months after they were captured.

Francisca: An Indian Slave

In order to pay back the debts of the Spanish government the Spanish governors awarded their men grants of slave labor from the indigenous people that they owned.

This policy showed the oppression that the Natives had to endure.

Sadly, for a long period of time, a lot of the new Spanish economy was supported through the slave labor of the indigenous of Mexico and the African slaves.

The Spanish American elite controlled a lot of their economy through the ports along their coasts including Acapulco and Veracruz.

The Spanish Economy

The Spanish Crown granted the Catholic Church a huge role in the politics and society of New Spain.

Missionaries that arrived in New Spain with the conquistadores converted many indigenous people.

The Catholic Church, in efforts to obliterate the native religions of the Amerindians, forbade any foods, prayers, or customs associated with their former religions.

The Catholic Church did this because it claimed that all of this was associated with human sacrifices.

The Spanish and the Catholic Church

The discoveries made in ship making were used to kidnap Africans and sell them as slaves in the American colonies, islands, and countless other places.

Most emigrants came to America out of force-these were the enslaved Africans forced across the Atlantic.

They worked on plantations raising American crops for the European market.

There were more than three times Africans that free emigrants.

The Africans in the Colonies

African slaves were not captured by Europeans usually but were captured and sold by African middle-men.

Many of the slaves deliberately starved themselves, because they believed that they would be able to go back to their families after they died. The captors often forced the slaves to eat.

The slaves were deliberately separated from their families upon arrival in the colonies.

A lot of the times the slaves could not even understand each other because they were from different tribes including: Ashanti, Fulani, Ibo, Malagasiy, Mandingo, and Yoruba.

The Africans, cont.

The Export of Slaves from Africa, 1821-1843 David Eltis pgs. 409-433. Published by Cambridge University Press

Struggle and Survival in Colonial America Edited by David G. Sweet and Gary B. Nash

American Colonies: The Settling of North America by Alan Taylor

The Aztecs: Rise and Fall of an Empire by Serge Gruzinski

The Jesuit Relations Reports written by Jesuit missionaries at the posts in New France

Works Cited