Introduction

State of Europe

on the verge of

Exploration and Colonization

But FIRST—a few questions

• What constitutes culture?

• What constitutes a “civilization”?

• Why was Europe so backward in 1200?

• What caused it’s sudden leap forward by 1600? (Renaissance, Enlightenment, Humanism, Scientific Revolution, etc.)

• What caused the “Age of Discovery”?

What do they all have in common?Write your 4 answers down

1. __________________________________

2. __________________________________

3. __________________________________

4. __________________________________

• Domesticate Millet (grain)• Domesticate pigs, cattle, camel,

horses• Things get BETTER!!!!• What’s the first thing people do

during GOOD times?

Answer this on your paper

• What are the consequences?• What must people do after?

1300 AD

Early World Powers: Portugal

• Portugal – Prince Henry the Navigator– Discovers Brazil sailing

south around tip of Africa to find India (Vasco de Gama)

– Pays for voyages through slave trade

– Dominant force in Indian Ocean

– Early Monopoly on oceanic Spice Trade

Early World Powers: Spain• Reconquita caused Spain to

become:– Catholic protectorate

– Most powerful monarchy

– Earliest Nation State

• Shifted attention westward b/c – Italy controlled land access to riches

– Portugal controlled African route

• Reconquista ended in 1492

• What to do with all those Conquistadores? They refuse to go to work or become merchants and bankers.

Early World Powers: France

• Great Climate

• Great Soil

• Small population

• Religiously homogeneous

• Stable monarchy (oxymoron?)

• So why leave?

Which of the following creates technological advancement the

MOSTA. Rivers

B. Domesticatable plants

C. Population pressure

D. Domesticatable plants

E. Confining natural barriers

F. Temperate climates

Early World Powers: Dutch/Netherlands

• Long history of trade with Russia, Norway, Sweden, etc. (but not westward)

• Financiers

• Guilds

• Strong merchant class

• Mercantilism

Early World Powers:Italy

• Not a country/nation state, but dozens of principalities and kingdoms that constantly squabbled for dominance of:

• Early wealth due to position b/w Arab world (supply) and Europe (growing demand)

• Controls the Vatican and therefore the Pope

• Will be the financier of Joint Stock companies, and voyages of exploration.

Factors in Exploration Accidental discovery. Desire to bypass Moslem world’s monopoly on trade

(luxury?) goods. Disruptions of overland routes (somewhat overrated). Intra-European rivalry. Curiosity. Rebirth of science and medicine due to contact with

Muslim world (their Golden Age) led to vastly increased life span and population growth.

End of Black Death 1350 (further Population Pressure—what do people do during GOOD times?)

End of Reconquista

Innovations that aided exploration

Caravel (Lateen and square sails in combination)

Compass Discovery of Trade Winds Stern-post rudder

Innovations derived from exploration New foodstuffs: coffee, tea, potatoes, tomatoes,

chocolate, squash, maize (yet another increase in lifespan and population pressure.

• Improvements in shipbuilding, charting, navigation.

• General stimulus to math, chemistry, astronomy, optics, physics, medicine, etc.

• Further Nation building

• Growth of towns, Middle Class, AND Mercantilism

• Decline of Aristocracy

• Beginning of the end of feudalism

• QUESTIONING OF LONG HELD CONSERVATIVE BELIEFS

Slave Trade• Slaves captured or

bought in Africa

• Shipped to Northern Africa and Caribbean to work on Sugar plantations

• Slaves traded for sugar

• Sugar turned into rum

• rum traded in Europe for manufactured goods

• European manufactured goods traded in Africa for slaves

Slave Triangle

Slave Trade

Caribbean

Protestant Reformation: 16th century

• Germany, Netherlands, England– Freedom from authority of

Church– Reading Bible in common

language– New thought and science were

triggered– Where the industrial revolution

began. Intelligence leads to questioning???

Martin Luther

Counter Reformation• Spain, Portugal, Italy

– Repression of new ideas– Banning foreign books,

education– Heresies punished to

preserve Church– Inquisition: Protestants,

Jews, Moslems– Fell behind in technology

Why Early Leaders Declined• Spain and Portugal very wealthy in

16th century from New World gold– Spent money on wars and luxuries– Did not have to make things: could

buy them– Did not have to improve

agriculture: could buy food– Eventually money ran out

• Italy was a renaissance center of trade and manufacture– But no colonies in New World– Old power structures prevented

change

Why early failures advanced• Netherlands

– Half the population lived in cities: industrial– Prosperous shipping, trading: Middlemen– Money lending allowed– Protestant

• Spain wages war on Protestantism in Netherlands• Dutch send own ships to Indian Ocean: Dutch East

Indies Company• Soon dominant in Spice Trade• Dutch East Indies Company had virtual Monopoly

on spice Islands of Indonesia

       

                                                                                                                                                                  

Dutch East Indies

British Rise• British pirates: better ships, guns• American Colonies: settled by dissidents to start a new

life • Britain ahead of Europe in

– Textiles (sheep)

– Iron

– Coal

– Agriculture

– Roads

– Freedoms

British Industrial Revolution

Population 1701 Population 1911

Europe Overview:

1. Socially

2. Politically

3. Religiously

4. Intellectually

5. Technically

6. Economically

7. Environmentally

I. Socially

• Very Hierarchical society• Emergence of a new

“middle class”• Increasing Social

Tensions between classes ENCLOSURE movement.

• Agricultural changes leads to excess population heading toward European towns and American colonies

II. Politically

• Medieval European Government

--Decentralized and Local

• New View of Politics during the Renaissance

--Machiavelli, The Prince

• Emergence of Centralized, Competitive Monarchies

III. Religiously

• Growing SECULARISM

• Protestant Reformation

• Division Breeds Dissent

• No sense of religious toleration or separation of church and state

• Dissenters need places of refuge = colonies

IV. Intellectually/Artistically• Renaissance (Rebirth) scholars emphasized concrete

experience over abstract theory and tried to observe the natural world carefully, completely, and without preconceived ideas. This spirit of impartial inquiry was more important to the future of science than any specific achievement. – Galileo – Sir Isaac Newton – Johannes Kepler – William Harvey – Leonardo da Vinci – Nicholaus Copernicus – Michelangelo Donatello, and the rest of the turtles

V. Economically• Increasing Secularism

--move away from “just price” theory• Emergence of Long-Distance Trade

--breaks monopoly of the guild system• Emergence of Middle-class capitalists

-- “New rich” = lots of $, wrong blood• Mercantilism and

the role of colonies• Joint Stock Co’s

Source of capital for colonial ventures

VI. Technologically (cont)• New Military

Technology

--Emergence of gunpowder weaponry

--The Rise of the “Standing Army”

--Royalized Warfare• Lots of imperial warfare

—competition for– Power

– Land

– pride

Patterns of Discovery

Rival European powers converge on a “New World” that isn’t really “new” at all—just “different”

I. European Background to Exploration

• Myth of the “West” goes all the way back to the Greeks—Atlantis

• Vikings discover Greenland around 1000 A.D.

• Africans to Central America?

• Columbus’ Voyage—1492

• Motivations for Exploration?

A. Pre-European Contact

• Mode and timing of arrival on the continent

• Not a “new world” but rather a “different” world when the Europeans arrive

• Great diversity among Native American tribal units

• Begin to farm as a early as 5000 B.C.

• Most advanced civilizations in Mexico and Central America

• Tribes of North America = less technologically accomplished

II. Native American

EXPLAIN

• Transhumance

• Exogamy

• Clan structure

• Tribal warfare

A. Pre-European Contact (cont.)• Moved from centralized societies

(Mississipian centers like Cahokia) to small villages linked by reciprocity

• Algonquian-speaking people inhabited the area from Maine to North Carolina

• Significance of Kinship and Reciprocity

• “Manitou” and other Spiritual Values

• Reciprocity as applied to land use• Warfare as ritual to restore order,

but often led to very bloody internecine warfare.

• Incorporated strangers far more thoroughly and enthusiastically than Puritans

The Other Immigrants• Rats and ships are synonymous• Dogs (for companionship) and pigs (for food)

were common passengers on early voyages• Rats, dogs and pigs wreaked havoc on many

island ecosystems• Horses were reintroduced to the Americas by the

Spanish and were utilized by Indians far outside the zone of immediate contact

• The most significant travelers were microscopic

B. European Contact

• Transitional phase with periodic contact during the 15th and early 16th centuries

• No sudden invasion, then, but a slow infiltration of men and microbes

The Course of One Epidemic

C. Results of European Contact

• Initial phase of mutual dependence

• Upsets balance between Native American tribes

• Epidemiological disaster--America = “widowed land”

• Inherent differences in value systems and land use patterns

• The “Columbian Exchange”• Some inter-marriage, mostly

with Spanish• Lots of Silver and Gold ruins

the Spanish economy

III. Spanish Pattern of Exploration and Settlement

• First ranking world power in the 1400’s and 1500’s

• The Reconquista of Spain—produces conquistadors

• The voyages of Columbus• The Treaty of Tordesillas

(1494)• Cortes’ conquest of the

Aztecs• Administration of New

Spain-- “encomienda”

3-G’s

III. Spanish pattern (cont.)

• Brought Catholicism to the New World

• More fluid racial categories than with other European settlement

• No real settlement in New Mexico and California until later

• Importation of precious metals leads to rampant inflation in Spain and the rest of Europe—also leads to piracy

IV. French Pattern of Exploration and Settlement

• Interest in New World developed more slowly

• Motivation for exploration = northwest passage

• No real success at first--Jacques Cartier

• Developed fur trade with Hurons and other Native American enemies of the Iroquois--Samuel Champlain

IV. French Pattern (cont)• Marquette and Joliet

traveled down the Mississippi River in 1670’s

• Catholic desire to save the heathens

• Indifference of French monarchy to colonization

• Individualistic trappers carve out isolated existence

V. Dutch Pattern of Exploration and Settlement

• Some Dutch settlement along the Hudson River Valley in 1624--Henry Hudson

• Nurtured a fur trade with the Iroquois confederacy

• Peter Minuet bought Manhattan Island from the natives in 1626 creating New Amsterdam

V. Dutch Pattern (cont)

• Beyond New Netherlands, no real Dutch presence in the New World

--No religious turmoil

--Booming commerce = plenty of jobs

--No surplus agricultural population

VI. English Pattern of Exploration and Settlement

• English fishermen explored the Grand Banks in the 1480’s

• First official visit = John Cabot in 1497

• English interest wanes for 75 years

• Elizabeth I merges English nationalism with Protestantism as she increasingly challenges the Spanish in Europe and in America

• Ireland = “Dress Rehearsal” for treatment of Native Americans

VI. English Pattern (cont.)• The glorious failures of Sir

Humphrey Gilbert

• The colonial vision of Sir Walter Raleigh

• The Lost Colony of Roanoke (1587-1590)

-- “Croatan”

• Propagandist Richard Hakluyt keeps English fascination with the New World alive through his writings

--Voyages, 1589

Indian village

VII. Settlement Patterns and Success Depended upon . . .

• Support of Mother Country• Characteristics and density of

Native American population where settlement was attempted

• Geography and climate of the land itself

• The abundance of game, timber, and/or precious metals

• All of these ingredients were, to a great extent, beyond the control of the actual explorers and colonists

Colonies: 1700s