The First ContactTwo Worlds Meet

Starter – August 27th

•Some European settlers used the term “savage” to describe the indigenous peoples of North America. Use evidence from what you have learned to show how this label is untrue and unjust.

Old World DNA/New World Life

Old World DNA/New World Life

REVIEW

• People had originally spread from Asia to the Americas across a land bridge, which had long since been covered up by a post-ice age rise in sea level

• These places are often referred to as the

‘Old World’ = Europe, Africa, and Asia

‘New World’ = the Americas

Cultural Rebirth

• After the fall of the Roman Empire (in the 5th century AD, but you don’t have to know this) Europe experienced a period of relative backwardness

• think Middle Ages, Black Plague, castles, etc.

• Then, in the 14th century (1300s), Europe experienced a Renaissance

• Rebirth of culture

• In other words, because of a boom in trade and wealth, Europeans began to advance culturally (art, architecture, science, etc.)

• One important part of this cultural explosion was the Age of Exploration (Columbus, Magellan)

Reasons for Migration

• Explorers: began to search for new lands, wealth, power, fame, resources

• Many countries/monarchs sponsored these expeditions in hopes of dominance in a new world

• Political strife, overpopulation, turmoil, religious persecution often prompted people to seek out new lives elsewhere

First Contacts

• Initial contacts between the explorers and natives were peaceful

• Natives had quite complex societies and were very elaborate, the idea of the natives being “primitive” or “savage” was a European one.

• Most natives revered the explorers and showered them with gifts

• The Europeans did not view the natives as equals, but as conquests

Contact Brought Problems

• Diseases: smallpox, influenza, measles, and chicken pox (most of the time, the infected had no idea as to what their affliction was) This part of the problems that were brought was unintentional on the part of the Europeans, but, nonetheless, terribly destructive!

• Trade: great exchange of goods such as European rum, gunpowder, guns for animal pelts

• Onset of slavery in America that led to the plantation system in the South

Contact Brought Problems

• Willing Colonization Many of the Europeans who

came to the Americas were social outcasts

e.g., the poor or those who wanted to practice an unaccepted religion• Think about it: if you are

a wealthy person in Europe, you don’t leave to go to a frontier with hostile Indians and few modern luxuries

• Unwilling Colonization - Slavery Not a ton of slavery in Europe already crowded plenty of people willing to work for

cheap no need for slaves

• New World means land on an unimaginable scale

• Intense need for workers to do crappy jobs - clearing land, picking cotton, pulling weeds, etc.

The American Holocaust

• http://www.barrington220.org/cms/lib2/IL01001296/Centricity/ModuleInstance/10133/American%20Holocaust%20-%20Columbus.PDF

• Read pgs. 9 and 14

• 1. What motivated explorers to look for new lands?

• 2. Do you think the natives understood the demands Columbus was making of them?

• 3. What types of demands did he make of the natives?

• 4. What impact did disease have on the native populations?

• 5. Why did the Spanish act in such a barbaric manner? What must the situation at home have been like for the Spanish to instill in them such a disregard for life?

• 6. Why is this entitled The American Holocaust? Do you agree?

• 7. Was this the story of the ultimate quest for gold and greed or genocide on the part of the Spanish?

Columbian Exchange

Columbian Exchange

• Worldwide exchange of goods and people

• This “exchange” greatly increased knowledge between the continents such as food and skills

• This “exchange” also brought slavery to the Americas and would lead to a forced labor system used widely in the United States and brought diseases that often wiped out populations of natives

Writing Activity

• You are an eyewitness to an encounter between Columbus and his men and natives of Hispaniola in a first-time meeting. Write an account of what transpired between the two groups at this meeting. Be creative, but use facts from the reading selection.