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Please switch off or put to sleep all of your electronic
mobile devices.
Be present.
Eric Foner – Historian and Public Intellectual
If you would know history, know the
historian first.
The Foner Preface
Focus: American History and Freedom
Central Theme: the changing contours of American Freedom.
History: What the present chooses to remember about the past.
Foner’s Central Thesis/Point
Freedom is not a fixed, timeless category with a single unchanging definition.
…the history of the U.S. is, in part, a story of debates, disagreements, and struggles over
freedom.
Foner’s Questionsor, the Three Dimensions of Freedom
1. What have been the various meanings of freedom embraced by Americans?
2. What were and are the social conditions that make freedom possible?
3. What were and are the boundaries of freedom that determine who is entitled to enjoy freedom and who is not?
Other U.S History Surveys
On the Right:
Paul Johnson, A History of the American People (1999)
On the Left:
Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States
Question are Good.Always.
Geography is Destiny:Welcome to the World
US Geography BasicsUS Geography Basics
The U.S. is the third largest country in the world.
It is half the size of Russia.
It is one third the size of Africa.
…and half the size of South America.
It is 2 ½ times the size of Western Europe.
Major Regions of the U.S.Major Regions of the U.S.
Topography of the USTopography of the US
The Contour of the USThe Contour of the US
Native Americans
When we think of Native American
peoples in North America, what instantly comes
to mind?
Chapter 1: Give Me LibertySlavery and Imperial Rivalries
Perspective Mattersin History
Eurasia Beringia America
Origins of the Native Peoples
Location of Various Indian Tribesin North America
WHY?
Historians know almost nothing about the Native
Peoples.
There are Artifacts and Paintings
Artifacts = Evidence
John White, 1585-86 – “Indians Fishing”
Powhatan Indians
In place of facts, Americans often created myths about what America
was like before Columbus.
Myth #1 : When Europeans came to America, it was wild and untamed – a ‘virgin’ country. There were no cities, roads, or trade in the Americas.Myth #2: No one owned anything in the Americas: it was there to be taken, no charge. Myth 3: The “Indians” were savages.Myth 4: The “Indians” were innocent children, free of sin. “Noble Savages.” Children require guardians….Myth 5: The “Indians” lacked civilization, religion, the arts. (that is, they were savages or primitives)
Facts About Native Americans in the U.S: 2010
4.5 millionAs of July 1, 2013, the estimated population of American. They make up 1.5 percent of the total population.
689,120The American in California as of July 1, 2013, the highest total of any state. California is followed by Oklahoma (393,500) and Arizona (335,381).
146,500The number of American in Los Angeles County, Calif., as of July 1, 2013. Los Angeles led all of the nation’s counties in the number of people of this racial category.
25.3%The 2013 poverty rate of people who reported they were American Indians..
The Achievements of the Native Peoples
Mesa Verde, Colorado
The Pequot in Massachusetts
A Mayan Complex in Southern Mexico
Sustainability as an Achievement
The Europeans and Indians shared a common humanity – lest we forget.
Similarities
ReligionAgricultureImportance of TradeOne god rules allPatriarchy
Differences
Private PropertyTradeMaterial possessionsGod is a jealous God:
intoleranceMissionary work
Differing Definitions of Liberty
European definitions of liberty
• Native Americans’ definitions of liberty
Part Two: Chapter 1 – Imperial Rivalries
The Age of European Expansion: 1440-1800
Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
32
The World Known to Europe, 1492
Columbus and 1492
Colonial America – the so-called “New World” settled by European in the Western
hemisphere – mirrored the conflicts, cultures, and aims of European nations. It had to.
Starting in the 1440s with Portugal, and then Spain, France, and the Dutch, Europeans
imported key institutions of European culture.
Like what?
Why did Europe finally expand beyond its borders
after 1492?
Why European Expansion in 1492?
GreedGod
Glory
Is Wanting More Bad?Is Greed is Good
Greed or the desire for more – more resources, more food, more
fuel, more luxuries – fueled European expansion.
The resources in question were spices, silks, and porcelains, all luxury goods that gave a large
return.
But there was a distribution problem.
What was it?
Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
37
Map 1.4: Trade Routes with the East
Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
38
Principle Voyages of Discovery
What They Came With:(Conceptual Capital)
Capitalism = commercial expansion = Columbian exchange
Science and technology – materialism – nature as object
Religious conflicts: Protestants v. Catholics; Protestants v. Protestants.
The notion of private property; that land can be owned.
Christianity (the soul, redemption, an afterlife, missionizing, sin, etc.)
Eurocentrism: the idea of European superiority in culture, politics, religion.
Strategies for Getting the Goods
Each nation had its own strategy for tapping into the distant spice and silk trade in the Far East.
1. Portugal: run around Africa and land at India, then sail on to Spice Islands. Set up military and trading posts and make alliances with the native population. Don’t mess with them.
2. Spain: reach the Spice islands by crossing the Atlantic (see Columbus); one problem = the New World; hence, settlement. Moving in and taking over.
3. France: aim for luxury goods and gold by crossing the Atlantic to the Northern part of North America and struggle with Spain for strategic colonies. No settlement needed: trading posts. Alliances with Indians essential.
4. The Netherlands: ditto the French. The goal: the creation of a commercial empire based on the pelts, fur, and skin of animals. Good relations with the Native Peoples is essential.
First Contact
Theodor de Bry, 1594
Columbus Meeting Natives
Columbus: 1492-1506
Cortez, Pizarro, and the Conquest of the Aztecs and Incas. 1519-1540
Spanish Colonization / Imperialism
The Years of Spanish Colonization in the New World: 1492 to 1763
Spain offers a case study of key themes that apply to all of the European colonizing powers. Suchthemes as:
Relations with the Native PeoplesGlobal trade
Imperial Rivalries (Grand Armada, Drake, loss of slave trade, loss of Florida, Philippines, Cuba, etc.)Religion and Its Spread as a Justification for
Colonization
The Columbian Exchange – The spread of animals, plants, and disease from the old
world to the new.
“The cultural modification of an individual, group, or people by adapting to or borrowing traits from
another culture; also : a merging of cultures as a result of prolonged contact.”
The Colombian Exchange:
ACCULTURATION
Spanish Colonization / Imperialism
The Years of Spanish Colonization in the New World: 1492 to 1763
Spain offers a case study of key themes that apply to all of the European colonizing powers. Such as:
Relations with the native peoplesPolitical control of the colonies (command and
control)Labor, Resources, and exploiting both.
Governing the Spanish Empire in the New World
King of Spain
Council of the Indies
Viceroys Cathedral in Mexico City
The Spanish Empire: about 1550
The Encomienda, orExploiting the Cheap Native Labor
Spaniards settled the New World in part to exploit the cheap native laborers by using them in Spanish mines and
on Spanish haciendas or large landed estates.
Under the Encomienda – a work arrangement the Spanish imposed on the native peoples – several things happened:
The natives were considered attached or a part of a Spanish settlers land grant. More land = more laborers.
In return for this labor, the Spanish settler was expected to feed, clothe, and Christianize his workers. To hispanicize
them. The Encomienda didn’t work well.
Consequences:Las Casas and the Destruction of the Indies
A Quotation from Las Casas
“"The reason the Christians [Spanish] have murdered on such a vast scale and killed anyone and everyone in their way is
purely and simply greed. . . .
Their insatiable greed and overweening ambition know no bounds….
The Spaniards have shown not the slightest consideration for these people, treating them (and I speak from first-hand
experience, having been there from the outset) not as brute animals - indeed, I would to God they had done and had
shown them the consideration they afford their animals - so much as piles of dung in the middle of the road. They have had as little concern for their souls as for their bodies...”
Colonization and Empire Building were too profitable to be left to Spain
The French – 1608The Dutch – 1609
The English -- 1607
French and Dutch Empires in the New World
Jean de Brebeuf, French Jesuit
Samuel Champlain, 1608 and the Company of New France
Imperial Rivalries: France v. Spain in the New World.
France and the Jesuits – a Catholic Missionary Order.
Jean de Brebeuf (1593-1649) and the Hurons in 1625. “Echon” –
Healing Tree.Brébeuf’s martyrdom at 55.
The Dutch
New Amsterdam (aka Manhattan)
Trade Fueled the Rise of New Netherland
• Pieter Schaghen, a Dutch representative of the Dutch West India Company, wrote this document, date Nov. 5, 1626, to the shareholders of the Company.
• The Schaghenbrief was the foundation of the Dutch Commercial Empire in the New World.
• 7, 246 beaver skins, 178 ½ otter skins, 48 mink skins, 36 lynx skins, 33 minks, 34 muskrat skins and oak timbers and nutwood.
• In the letter, he noted the Company had “purchased the island of Manhattes” – for 60 guilders.
Key Points for Chapter 1
1. The Native Peoples probably came to the New World as early as 60,000 years ago using Beringia, the land bridge connecting Eurasia and North America.
2. Most of these peoples in North America were hunters and gatherers with extensive trade networks.
3. The coming together of Native Peoples and Europeans led to the Columbian Exchange, to commercial globalization, to the decimation of 90% of the native population in the New World.
4. Each European nation -- seeking god, glory, and profit – exported to the New World not simply themselves and their technology, but their religions and cultures and prejudices.
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