James L. Roark Michael P. Johnson Patricia Cline Cohen Sarah Stage Susan M. Hartmann CHAPTER 2 Europeans Encounter the New World, The American Promise A History of the United States Fifth Edition Copyright 2012 by Bedford/St. Martin's I. Europe in the Age of Exploration A. Mediterranean Trade and European Expansion 1. Discovery of new trade routes and new lands From the twelfth through the fifteenth centuries, goods traveled overland from Asia and Africa and then funneled into Europe through Mediterranean trade routes dominated by Italian cities; the vitality of these routes offered few incentives to look for alternatives. 2. Bubonic plague (Black Death) 3. European Exploration Black Death caused some people to take greater risks; exploration promised fame and fortune; monarchs sponsored journeys in hopes of gaining territory and subjects; innovations like movable type and navigational instruments like compasses, hourglasses, the astrolabe, and the quadrant were known by many people but first used by Portuguese. B. A Century of Portuguese Exploration 1. Reconquest cooperated with Spain to expel Muslims from Iberian Peninsula; religious zeal justified expansion into what the Portuguese viewed as heathen lands. 2. Prince Henry the Navigator most influential advocate of expansion; collected information on sailing techniques and geography and pushed explorers to find new trade routes to find gold and items for trade. 3. Caravel 4. Discovery of new sea route to Asia Bartolomeu Dias sailed around the Cape of Good Hope in 1488; ten years later, Vasco da Gama sailed all the way to India; this allowed the Portuguese to obtain goods from the East Indies and sell them at lower prices since they did not have to pay Mediterranean merchants; broke the old monopoly. II. A Surprising New World in the Western Atlantic A. The Explorations of Columbus 1. Christopher Columbus and Felipa Moniz married Moniz; her father had been raised in the household of Prince Henry the Navigator Columbus gained access to maps and information about sailing the Atlantic; believed Earth was round, but he dramatically underestimated the distance west to Asia (2,500 miles vs. 11,000 miles). 2. Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand Spanish monarchs financed Columbuss voyage west after Portugal, Spain, England, and France turned him down they saw small potential loss, but big potential gain in financing the trip. 3. San Salvador and the Tainos ships the Nia, Pinta, and Santa Maria landed on a Caribbean island about 300 miles north of Cuba in 1492 Columbus claimed it for Isabella and Ferdinand; named it San Salvador in honor of Jesus Christ called people Indians, believing he was in the East Indies the people called themselves Tainos; Columbus knew he made a monumental discovery but was disappointed by the Tainos lack of riches; Ferdinand and Isabella, however, were overjoyed with the news of Columbuss discovery, and he joined the ranks of the nobility. 4. Treaty of Tordesillas Portuguese and Spanish monarchs negotiated the treaty in 1494 drew an imaginary line 1,100 miles west of the Canary Islands land discovered west of the line belonged to Spain, land to the east belonged to Portugal; Spain sent Columbus back, and he found his sailors had terrorized the Tainos and sexually abused their women; the Tainos killed the sailors in response; foreshadowed what would happen between Native Americans and Europeans in the future. II. A Surprising New World in the Western Atlantic B. The Geographic Revolution and the Columbian Exchange 1. Further exploration after Columbus monarchs hurried to claim new land; John Cabot sailed to find a Northwest Passage to the Indies in 1497 landed at Newfoundland, went back to England, but was never heard from again after he returned to the New World Spanish expedition accompanied by Italian businessman Amerigo Vespucci landed on the northern coast of South America in 1499 Portuguese Pedro lvars Cabral accidentally made landfall in Brazil while en route to the Indian Ocean. 2. Ferdinand Magellan Sponsored by King Charles I of Spain, Magellan led an expedition to circumnavigate the globe in 1519; crossing the Pacific took four months Magellan was killed by Philippine tribesmen, but a remnant of his expedition made it back to Spain left no doubt that America was separated from Asia by the Pacific Ocean and that sailing west to India was inefficient. 3. Columbian Exchange Transatlantic trade of goods launched by Columbuss expedition Spaniards brought to the New World Christianity, iron, horses, firearms, sailing ships; also unknowingly brought smallpox, measles, and deadly diseases; ancient American goods (corn and tobacco), people, ideas, and even diseases (syphilis) made the return trip back. III. Spanish Exploration and Conquest A. The Conquest of Mexico 1. Hernn Corts Had experience in the New World fighting in the conquest of Cuba and elsewhere in the Caribbean in 1504, he led an expedition of about six hundred men to investigate rumors of a wealthy kingdom on the mainland. 2. Malinali (Marina) A gift to Corts from a Tobasco chief; she spoke several languages and served as Cortss translator; Corts would not have been able to communicate without her; Spaniards called her Marina; she knew many languages because her step-father had sold her as a slave to Mayan- speaking Indians. Malinali was also Cortss mistress and bore him a son. 3. Emperor Montezuma and the riches of Tenochtitln emperor Montezuma feared the Spaniards were led by the god Quetzalcoatl Marina told Corts this so they dressed in regalia, played horns, and displayed swords Corts marched inland to find Montezuma, who welcomed him on November 8, 1519 Montezuma showed Corts the riches of the city; Corts took Montezuma hostage and hoped to rule through a puppet government Montezuma was killed by an unknown assailant during a revolt; the Mexica mounted a ferocious assault on the Spaniards, who fled to Tlaxcala, a stronghold of enemies of the Mexica. 4. Cortes invades and conquers Mexica With the help of Indian allies, Corts returned to the Mexican capital in the spring of 1521 conquered Tenochtitln by August; succeeded due to several advantages: they were using weapons of iron and steel against weapons of stone, wood, and copper smallpox arrived with Corts and decimated the Mexican population Spaniards also sought total victory in war, while the Mexicans only sought surrender; key point is that Corts could exploit the tensions between the Mexica and the people they ruled in their empire; exploited Indians fought alongside the Spanish. III. Spanish Exploration and Conquest B. The Search for Other Mexicos 1. Tales of wealth 2. Francisco Pizarro Conquered the Incan empire in Peru in 1532; Pizarro and his men captured the Incan emperor Atahualpa, who gave the Spaniards a ransom of gold equal to half a century of precious metal production in Europe; the Spaniards killed Atahualpa in spite of the ransom. 3. de Soto, Coronado, and Cabrillo Tales of wealth attracted more conquistadors; in 1539, Hernando de Soto tried to find another Peru in the North landed in Florida and searched for riches in southeastern North America; died of a fever in 1542 Francisco Vsquez de Coronado searched for the mythical Seven Cities of Cbola, which turned out to be a small Zui pueblo of about a hundred families; Juan Rodrguez Cabrillo died in an attempt to find wealth along the coast of California in C. Spanish Outposts in Florida and New Mexico 1. Menndez and the founding of St. Augustine St. Augustine was founded in 1565, the first permanent European settlement in what became the United States; by 1600, it was the only remaining Spanish beachhead on the North American Atlantic shore. 2. Oate and the founding of New Mexico Oate and about 500 people settled present-day New Mexico in 1598 soldiers planned to mutiny, and relationships with Indians deteriorated; Indians in the Acoma pueblo revolted; Oate suppressed the rebellion, killing 800 men, women, and children; no peace or stability in region; many of his settlers returned to Mexico after another pueblo revolt in 1599. III. Spanish Exploration and Conquest D. New Spain in the Sixteenth Century 1. New Spain and Spanish domination of the Western Hemisphere New Spain was more interested in colonization than other powers that mostly wanted to trade or deal with domestic issues; allowed Spain to become the dominant European power in the Western Hemisphere during the sixteenth century. 2. The royal fifth and the system of encomienda monarchy allowed conquistadors to keep all loot, giving the crown one-fifth, the royal fifth, of what they confiscated; encomienda empowered conquistadors to rule Indians; Spanish encomendero owned the town and thus received the tribute the town previously paid to the Mexican empire; the encomendero was supposed to be responsible for Indians well-being, guarantee order and justice, and convince Indians to convert to Christianity. 3. Repartimiento replaces encomienda Encomenderos overworked and abused Indians believed they were superior and therefore had the right to use Indians as slaves; a few Catholic missionaries, including Friar Bartolom de Las Casas, protested the brutal treatment the Spanish monarchy replaced encomienda with the repartimiento limited labor an encomendero could command to forty- five days per year from each adult male did not, however, challenge the principle of forced labor or prevent encomenderos from cheating, mistreating, and overworking Indians. 4. Intermarriage creates sharp social hierarchy Most settlers were poor young men of common lineage who came directly from Spain men vastly outnumbered women, which meant that Europeans never made up more than 1 or 2 percent of the total population; also meant Spanish men often married Indian women or used them as concubines hierarchy; from highest to lowest: peninsulares (natives of Spain), creoles (children born in the New World to Spanish men and women, together with peninsulares constituted 1 to 2 percent of population), mestizos (children of Spanish men and Indian women, 4 to 5 percent of population), and Indians (the overwhelming majority) of the population. III. Spanish Exploration and Conquest E. The Toll of Spanish Conquest and Colonization 1. Demoralization of Indian society 1560, Indian civilizations had been conquered, their leaders overthrown, their religion held in contempt, and their people forced to work for Spaniards. 2. Virulent epidemics had no immunity to measles, smallpox, and respiratory illnesses; by 1570, the Indian population of New Spain had fallen about 90 percent from what it was when Columbus arrived. 3. Labor shortage and the importation of African slaves Indian deaths depleted the labor supply; in response, colonists began to import African slaves; only 15,000 slaves were imported from Africa before 1550; 36,000 imported from 1550 to1600. IV. The New World and Sixteenth-Century Europe A. The Protestant Reformation and the Spanish Response 1. Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation publicized his criticisms of the Catholic Church in 1517; he preached a doctrine known as justification by faith: Christians could only obtain salvation by having faith in God, not by giving money to the church, following orders of priests, or participating in church rituals also argued the Bible was more important than the Church; charged that Catholic Church was fraudulent. 2. Anti-Reformation monarchs Charles V and his son and successor Philip II pledged to exterminate Luthers Protestant heresies; they used wealth of Spains New World empire to defend orthodox Catholic faith against Protestants, Muslims, Jews, or other nations. 3. New Spains effect on the Spanish economy New Spains wealth made Spain rich and powerful, but the monarchs expenses for constant warfare outstripped their revenues they raised taxes, exempting the nobility and therefore putting the burden of taxation of the poor; they also borrowed heavily from European bankers. As a result, Spain ended up far in debt by the end of the century; B. Europe and the Spanish Example 1. Expansion of European influence 2. Failed expeditions 1524, France sent Giovanni da Verrazano to the Atlantic Coast to search for a Northwest Passage the search failed; in 1535, Jacques Cartier sailed up the St. Lawrence River; Cartier established a colony in 1541, but it came to nothing; England tried to find a Northwest Passage again in 1576 Martin Frobisher of the Cathay Company hoped to open trade with China he believed he found gold, but it was worthless ore; Cathay Company collapsed, and the English interests turned South Sir Walter Raleigh organized an expedition to settle Roanoke Island off the coast of present-day North Carolina; when he sent settlers to the area two years later, they all disappeared, leaving only the word Croatoan in a tree; by the end of the century, England had no New World beachhead.