Three Worlds Collide Peopling of America Chapter 1 Section 1

Three Worlds Collide

Peopling of America

Chapter 1

Section 1

Peopling of America

• Ancient People

–Crossed into Alaska from Asia during the Ice Age 20,000+ yrs ago

–Looking for food

Peopling of America

• Asia

• Present sea level• America

• Sea level 20,000 years ago

Beringia Land Bridge

Hunters and Gatherers

• Nomadic people moved from location to location looking for food

• They could find bird eggs in 1 location, fish in another, grasses in still another


• The food supply for these people was uncertain

• As the climate warmed, the large game died out, which were needed for food, shelter, tools and clothes


• As the climate warmed, game got smaller and faster.

• Ice melted and sea levels rose causing the land bridge to disappear

• Weapons changed accordingly

• Some seeds were planted

Agriculture

• Between 10,000 and 5,000 years ago people began to plant seeds

• Eventually, they saw that most of their food came from crops and their nomadic ways could end

Agriculture

• With a more dependable food supply, populations increase, permanent houses are constructed and need for pottery begins.

Empires of Latin America

Inca – Andes Mts.

Olmec – on the Gulf of Olmec – on the Gulf of MexicoMexico Maya – in the Maya – in the

YucatanYucatan

Aztec – Central Aztec – Central MexicoMexico

Ancient Desert Farmers

• The desert dwellers built homes in the sides of steep cliffs

• Though water is not plentiful in the Gila and Salt River Valleys, these people grew corn, squash, and peppers

Ancient Desert Farmers

• The Hohokam and Anasazi settled here about 1000 BC

Mound Builders

• People near the Mississippi River, the Adena, Hopewell and Mississ- ippian, made mounds shaped like animals and birds.

Their fate?

• These Indian groups were the ancestors of the Indians who were here when European explorers and colonists arrived.

Three Worlds Collide

North American and West African Societies – 1492

Chapter 1

Section 2 and 3

Diverse Societies

• California’s varied geography and climates led to a variety of cultures, from mountain dwellers to those dependant upon the ocean.

Diverse Societies

• The people of the Pacific Northwest depended upon the ocean for food.

• The made totem poles and canoes from the large trees

• They held potlatches, where they gave all their possessions away.

Diverse Societies

• The Kwakiult, Nootka, and Haida of the Pacific Northwest, collected shells and used whales for food and shelter.

Diverse Societies

• The Indians of the Southwest faced a harsh climate dominated by drought.

• They built pueblos from desert sand and irrigated their fields using advanced systems

Diverse Societies

• The Indians of the Eastern Woodlands, like the Iroquois, had a varied diet, depending on the forest for food

• In the southern area, they grew corn and squash.

• These are the Indians who met the first English colonists.

Culture Patterns

• Using materials or crafts from their areas, the Indians developed trade routes that went as far as New England to Mexico.

• Page 11 of your text lists many items used by different Indian cultures.

Culture Patterns

• Indians did not believe it was possible to “own” land any more than it was possible to own the air.

• Land was not a commodity to be bought or sold, but life itself.

• This attitude was very different from the Europeans who plowed and fenced everything.

Culture Patterns

• Indians lived close to the land and their religion reflected that.

• Their religion was filled with spirits and passed generations ‘lived’ to guide present generations.

Sun Kachina

Culture Patterns• Indians formed strong family ties,

kinship, among its tribal members

• Tasks were divided between men and women, but differed depending on the tribe

• Many were matriarchal, or kept ties through the mother’s family

• Others were patriarchal

West African Societies

• Although geographically isolated, Western Africa was connected to the world through trade.

• Trade routes led across deserts to port cities and then to Asia and Europe


• Timbuktu was the trading hub where the Sahara meets the Niger.

• Islam was also spread along trade routes in northern and western Africa.


• The Portuguese traded with Africans along the west coast

• By the 1470, the Portuguese had established a trading post near the goldfields of Akan

• They began trading for African slaves


• After claiming 2 small islands off the coast of Africa, the Portuguese brought slaves to work the plantations.

Three African Kingdoms

• The Songhai flourished from about 600-1600 AD.

• They controlled all trade going through their lands, charging taxes to use trade routes.

• With their vast wealth, they could raise large armies


• The forested areas of Benin were never overtaken by the Songhai

• They carried out trade on the rivers along the southern coast of west Africa

• Their great walled city exchanged ambassadors with Portugal


• Within the rainforests of Kongo in western central Africa was an empire of over 4 million people

• The Portuguese were amazed at the similarities between the Kongo of the 1400’s and their own country

West African Culture

• Family ties within African communities were strong, many matrilineal, following the mother’s line

• Often, the eldest male controlled and made all decisions for all of his descendants, including his extended family


• Their religions remained predominately animist, belief in animal spirits.

• Although Islam and Christianity were brought to Africa, they were not widely accepted.


• People made livings farming, mining, herding and trading.

• On the savannah, farmers made rice paddies, a skill that will make these people a desired commodity in the Americas


• Slave labor existed in Africa, as well as in many other societies.

• It was not a class that one was born into and freedom was available to most slaves

• Slavery that developed in the Americas was unlike anything seen anywhere in the world.

Three Worlds Meet

European Societies by 1492

Chapter 1

Section 4

Renaissance

• The Renaissance began in Europe by the 1300’s.

• This rebirth of learning caused a new social class, the middle class, to emerge

• The desire for new goods will transform Europe

Social Order

• People were divided by social class and organized according to rank

• Nobility was at the top and peasants at the bottom

• The concept of divine right meant that God chose a person’s status

Social Order

• The new middle class allowed people to gain wealth and social mobility, never before possible

Social Order

• The family was made up of the nuclear family – father, mother and children

• Labor was divided based on age and sex

Christianity Shapes Europe

• The Catholic Church was the dominate religion in Europe and controlled all aspect of people’s lives

• Heresy was a crime which warranted death by torture.


• The Catholic Church was responsible for most religious, social and political decisions

• They administered the sacraments, important rituals, to save people’s souls from eternal damnation.


• Once explorers found new lands, The Catholic Church also began spreading their faith to new people.


• In the 1400’s, Isabella of Castile married Ferdinand of Aragon

• Their joined kingdoms took in most of northern Spain

• Their goal was to rule all of Spain


• Southern Spain was controlled by the Moors (Muslims) and Jews

• The Spanish Inquisition forced the Moors and Jews to leave or convert to Catholicism

• Any hint that they had not converted would result in torture until they “confessed”


• The Crusades had ended 2 centuries before

• From 1096-1270, European armies tried to free the Holy Land from the Seljuk Turks

• They failed in this attempt, but their travels brought trade (and disease) to Europe.


• It was the desire for this trade that motivated Europe to seek water routes to Asia

Decline in Church Authority

• After the Crusades, the authority of the pope declined

• Fought as a religious war, called for by Pope Urban II, the Crusades were a European failure

• European kings gained prominence over the lives of the population


• Corruption within the Church was widespread

• Lack of training among the Church hierarchy, selling of indulgences and mandated tithing all took power from the Church

• Other faiths arose that met the religious needs of ex-Catholics


• Protestants dominated in some countries, such as Britain

• Many came to America seeking religious freedoms

Changes in Europe

• Bubonic Plague, Black Death, was equally important in medieval Europe

• Trade ships brought infected rats through Italian ports.

• Millions of people, mostly peasants, died of plague or the famine that followed

Changes in Europe

• This created a shortage of labor

• The remaining peasants demanded wages for their work, creating a new social class

Changes in Europe

• The Crusaders returned to Europe with goods beyond imagination.

• Silks, spices, perfumes and, ideas

• Anyone who could be a part of trade with Asia would be wealthy beyond belief

Changes in Europe

• The Crusades weakened the monarchies and bankrupted lesser nobles.

• Monarchs allied themselves with merchants, the new ruling class, power based on money rather than birth.

Changes in Europe

• Four nations rose to great power in the late 1400’s.

• France

• Spain

• Portugal

• England

Changes in Europe

• Only rich nations could fund voyages of exploration

• Portugal and Spain will lead the way to overseas land and trading routes

Changes in Europe

• The Renaissance changed how Europeans thought about the world

• They studied old writings from ancient Greece

• Scientists studied the world on which they lived.

• They came to seek even more

Age of Expansion

• Marco Polo traveled through Asia to China in the 1200’s

• When he told of his trip upon his return, he was not believed as the stories were too fanciful.

• Not until 1477 will his book gain interest

Age of Expansion

• Europeans learned of the compass and astrolabe from Asian sailors

• They developed the caravel, a lighter ship with triangular sails

• They are very aware that the earth is round but the seas are very dangerous and many ships do not return to port

Age of Expansion

• Portugal’s Prince Henry ‘the Navigator’ took the lead and set up as sailing school at Sagres

• Not a sailor himself, he used his resources to attract the best cartographers, captains and ship builders

Age of Expansion

• For 40 years he encouraged sailors to sail around Africa, encouraging each crew to go farther south

• Finally, after Henry’s death, Bartolomeu Dias made it to the top of Africa, which he called the Cape of Storms.

Age of Expansion

• The site was re-named the Cape of Good Hope

• In 1498, Vasco da Gama sailed around Africa to India.

• Portugal could trade directly with Asian and increase their profits.

Age of Expansion

• During this time, Ferdinand and Isabella were involved in the Spanish Inquisition and had no time for a sailor named Columbus who sought their financial assistance on numerous occasions.

• In 1492, they would agree to fund his plan to sail west.

Three Worlds Meet

Transatlantic Encounters

Chapter 1

Section 5

Christopher Columbus

• The Spanish Crown agreed to finance Columbus and 3 ships

• On Oct. 12, 1492, they sighted land

• They found peaceful people, the Taino, who they sought to enslave within days of their arrival


• Columbus took 10-25 Indians back to Spain with him, only 7-8 arrived alive

• Ferdinand and Isabella awarded Columbus with 17 ships, over 1000 men, cannon, crossbows, guns, cavalry and attack dogs.


• The following year, Columbus sailed to Haiti and demanded food, gold, spun cotton, and sex with their women

• He punished by example, cutting off ears and noses.


• Bartolome de Las Casas wrote that using the above weapons, when subduing the Arawak they, “…in addition to the horses: this was 20 hunting dogs, who were turned loose and immediately tore the Indians apart.”


• On future trips, Columbus brought hildalgos, minor royalty, who wanted to improve their lives

• Not finding gold, the Spanish went on slave raids

• 500 went to Spain and 500 were kept with the Spaniards remaining in the Caribbean


• The death rate for slaves going to Spain was high but Columbus was optimistic when he stated, “Although they die now, they will not always die. The Negroes and Canary Islanders died at first.”

Christopher Columbus• He set up a tribute system when gold

was exchanged for a token.• Any Indian found without a current

token (they were good for 3 months) would have their hands amputated.

• He later formed the encomienda system, duplicated by Cortes in Mexico


• Pre-Columbian Haiti was lush and capable of supporting up to an estimated 3 million people

• Once the Spanish used slaves to grow a single crop and introduced non-native animals, the land soon was eroded – a condition seen today

Impact on Native Americans• The Indians died from European

diseases. • It is estimated of the original 3 million

Arawak in 1493, only 12,000 remained after Columbus’s policies.

• Las Casas reported that fewer than 200 Indians were alive in 1542 and none by 1555

Impact on Native Americans

• Smallpox, measles, whooping cough, mumps, chicken pox and typhus killed Indians, who had no immunity to these diseases

Slave Trade Begins• To replace the dead and dying labor

force, Spaniards captured more Indians from neighboring islands and Africans from Africa.

• As more Indians died, the demand for Africans grew.

Slave Trade Begins

• Since they had more contact with Europeans, they were immune to diseases which killed Indians

Slave Trade Begins

• It is estimated that by the time the African slave trade ended in the 1800’s, about 12 million people were taken from the continent.

Impact on Europeans

• Many Europeans found the Americas a place to increase their wealth

Impact on Europeans

• Plants and animals, new to Europeans, were sent to Europe.

• The potato will become a staple in many diets and results in a population increase.

• Syphilis followed the Spaniards home to Europe

Impact on Europeans

• Ideas were also generated• Religious beliefs faced

contradictions: How could Noah have 2 of every animal on the ark when new animals were just discovered? How could Indians be called “infidels” when they did not reject Christianity, they just had never heard of it?

Impact on Europeans• Political ideas were challenged

• The Indians did not have a monarch, a ruler chosen by god through birth.

• The finding of Indians showed the difference between them and European cultures.

• It helped Europeans to see similarities among themselves, not as Tuscan or French.

Impact on Europeans

• Spain and Portugal argued over what land “belonged” to them.

• Pope Alexander VI made the decision with the Treaty of Tordesillas

Treaty of Tordesillas

New Society is Born

• Columbus and Spain benefited from the “discoveries”

• In 1499, Columbus found gold in Haiti and made the Indians mine the gold for them.

• Future conquistadors make Spain even richer

New Society is Born

• Europeans will continue to attempt to erase all hints of Indian and African culture

• They will not be entirely successful

Is Columbus a Hero?

• Every year, we celebrate Columbus Day in memory of his “discovery” of America?

• How would your perception change if you were an Indian?

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Three Worlds Collide Peopling of America Chapter 1 Section 1