User:Atcovi/VA and US History/The World in 1500s

See also: User:Atcovi/Native American Cultures (summary)

The World in 1500s

 * Humanism - Emphasis on the human being (oneself)/individualism
 * Push for conversion to Christianity
 * Protestants looking for religious freedom
 * Henry the Navigator – Portuguese explorer (put a cartographer in every ship); led to map improvements.

Age of Exploration
•	Joint Stock Companies – Elizabeth I used these companies in order to get money. The middle class and upper middle-class citizens made these companies. The amount of money you gave determined how many shares you get. These citizens got money, went to the queen, and asked permission to create a colony in her name. She would get colonies and be able to tax the shareholder companies.
 * Mercantilism – 1700s idea where you need to be wealthier than your neighbors, preferably with gold and silver. Spain with conquests while the Dutch, British, and France colonize. Spain and the English explored the Americas the best. North America did not have much gold, so instead, they colonized it for resources.
 * A colony exists for the benefit of the home country.
 * England is near bankrupt due to the foolish wars perpetrated by King Henry. His son, Edward, dealt with more of the religious freedom.

Civilizations

 * Olmec: 1200-400BCE
 * Yucatan peninsula (Mesoamerica)
 * Big stone heads (generally believed to be leaders of the Olmecs)
 * Mounds
 * San Lorenzo - Oldest known building sites in Americas
 * Cascajal stone dates - Oldest writings found in Americas
 * Influence ceased to exist in Mesoamerica
 * Mayan: 250-900CE
 * Yucatan peninsula (Mesoamerica)
 * Sophisticated, written language, number system, pyramids, and irrigation systems were advanced (engineering)
 * City states (government; resulted in rival Mayan cities fighting each other), theocracies (church and state combined).
 * Varieties of linguistical dialects
 * Seems to have abandoned their civilization
 * Cortes and the Aztecs (1500s - 1600s)
 * 1519 by Cortes
 * Expedition from Cuba
 * Advantages of Spanish: Better militaristic weapons, immunity to diseases that can infect the inhabitants, horses (better travel), intimidation, a lot of the tribes he comes across don’t like the Aztecs (these tribes have to pay a lot of money to the Aztecs).
 * Disadvantages of Spanish: No clue where they’re going, don’t speak the language, limited food, no way home.

Cortes buys a couple of ships and pays the crew with his new money. He is looking for a wealthy city to the west of Cuba. Cortez was unpopular with his men when he landed in South Mexico, he claims the land for Spain and proceeds to destroy his ships. He is removing the option to chicken out of the new exploration. Cortez takes advantages of the unpopularity of the Aztecs and makes alliances. He is informed about this through a female slave who was a slave of the Spanish in Cuba.

A god in mythology named Quetzalcoatl is pale with a lot of colorful feathers will come from the East and have “god-like” powers. Montezuma allows Cortez and his men into Tenochtitlan, which Cortez later starts sacking Tenochtitlan.

In the fall of 1520, the Spanish were expelled by Aztec warriors. He spends his time afterwards pulling warriors from tribes that dislike the Aztecs.

In the summer of 1521, he has gained about 20,000 tribal warriors to invade the Aztecs. He doesn’t really need to fight as smallpox went rampant in the Aztec empire. He makes Mexico City (Spanish empire) right on top of Tenochtitlan.

He betrays the tribes that he was allied with after his conquest.

In a caste system, you are born in a class that you can’t leave (percentage of Spanish heritage).
 * Peninsulares (born in Spain, but came into the new world; 100% Spanish)
 * Criollos (100% Spanish but born in the New World)
 * Mestizos (50% Spanish; 50% Native American) and its following subsets
 * Indios (100% Native American)
 * Mulattos (50% Spanish 50% Africans)
 * Zambos (50% Native American 50% African)
 * African slaves (100% African)

Trade between the New and the Old World

 * Old to New
 * Slaves
 * Diseases
 * Domesticated Animals
 * Ideas
 * Citrus fruits
 * New to Old
 * Sugar
 * Tobacco
 * Squash
 * Corn
 * Chocolate

Bartolome De Las Casas

 * Franciscan missionary
 * Mission system to establish colonies (establish churches which work on converting).
 * Observed poor treatment of the Natives
 * Petitioned for “New Laws”
 * Far from a Human Right Advocate, but he had elements of it.

He was horrified at how the Natives were being treated: enslaved, exploited. Encomiendas were land-grants given by the Spanish king to nobles in the New World. The person who gets the land receives ownerships of the Indians there (slaves). The payback was that they would teach them Christianity. Las Casas is claiming that the “Christians” are working the Indians to death.

Africans were imported as slaves (Asiento System). Mission System: Purpose is to convert the Native American population to Christianity. Presidios (defense mechanisms) were added to the churches to protect it from the local Native Americans.

1565 – St. Augustin, Florida by the Spanish. The French tries to colonize but is unable to find a permanent settlement. The English are too busy dealing with their religious conflicts.

1580s – Joint-stock companies are created in England for colonization.

Earliest English colonies are charter colonies, established by joint-stock companies. They’re covered by a charter which the joint-stock company drafts up. Massachusetts and Virginia were charter colonies in the beginning.

Proprietary Colonies – Sole ownership of that colony. They were gifted by the king/queen to certain people. These colonies can be run by any way the person wants to rule it like. Maryland and Pennsylvania used to be proprietary colonies. By the 1750s, the colonies would all become royal colonies (run by a governor appointed by the king).

1624 - Virginia becomes a royal colony. Queen Elizabeth I is interested in weakening the Catholic country of Spain. She is going to authorize privateers, Englishmen with personal ships. She authorizes privateers, like Francis Drake, to go to the Caribbean to attack the Spanish for slaves, gold, silver, etc. She maintains plausible deniability even though she is the one authorizing these attacks. The hardest part of the journey is coming back to England with no breaks and with limited supply.

Sir Walter Raleigh pays for a colony (a pitstop for British privateers along the East Coast) in response to this problem. He buys a couple of ships with 80 men with some notable metal workers to gain some money. He lands in Dare County, North Carolina.

They become under the control of Richard Grenville/Ralph Lane, who weren’t the best leaders. A copper pot went lost and Grenville blame and attack the Native Americans, who were initially ok with them. They kill the chief in an attack against them. Colonists couldn’t get enough supply as food supply was gone when they attacked the Indians. They left in the spring of 1586 (failure) when they arrived there in the spring of 1585. English colonists colonized any place and named it “Virginia”.

Second try: June, 1587 by Raleigh. It is led by John White and they establish the city of Raleigh today. This expedition is not all men. John White’s family and many other families are included in this ship. This colony is more developed and well thought of.
 * Algonquian language = Iroquoian

Eleanor, John White’s daughter, gives birth to the first British child born in the New World: Virginia Dare. John White returns to England to gain some food supply, who is caught up in the English-Spanish tensions. Elizabeth I confiscates John White’s ship who is unable to return until 1590. When he returns, a fort is created with the words “CROATOAN”. The fort is totally abandoned with no evidence of violence. John White spends the next 2 years searching the entirety of North Carolina for his family.

Jamestown, 1607

 * Virginia Company of London, 1607 : Aim is to settle in VA to find gold and water route to Orient (east).
 * Queen Elizabeth dies so King James takes over.
 * Charter is set over the new colony. Leaders of Jamestown: John Smith and Christopher Newport (don’t cooperate).
 * 3 ships to colonize: Discovery, Godspeed, Susanne Constant. Ships of about 105 colonists arrive, with only 38 surviving by January of 1608. The Powhatans were initially helpful, but the Europeans rely too much on food from them and have no work-ethic to save themselves. Relations decrease between the Indians and malaria is also rampant. Newport returns to England by the end of the winter.


 * “If you didn’t die in the first 2 years, you most likely lived your natural life there”.
 * Newport believed that the citizens should have freedom, unlike Smith who takes a more hardline approach. In 1608, Smith sets up a policy in which one must work in the garden to eat food.
 * John Smith maintains positive relations with the Indians. He treats them with respect.
 * Late 1608, bad times returned as Smith returns back to England for medical treatment due to a gun malfunction. Leads to “Starving Time” = Winter 1609-10. Only 60/500 remain. Native Americans refused to share crops with the colonizers, in which raids followed after the colonizers tried to steal the food from the Native Indians.
 * Lord De La Warr brings in more supplies and more colonizers.

John Rolfe

 * Was in Bermuda before he arrived in Virginia. In Bermuda, he begins collecting tobacco seeds. Rolfe brings in tobacco seeds in Virginia, in which he is successful in harvesting them. It becomes a mode of currency and a source of great wealth.
 * Pocahontas was kidnapped in Jamestown for ransom by the settlers (food). Pocahontas converts to Christianity and attends church during imprisonment. New name becomes Rebecca. At church, she meets John Rolfe. They got married, got two children and returns to England. She dies in London in the 1620s due to a raspatory illness.
 * Virginia Company of London begins to see profit.
 * England establishes a successful colony in North America.

Government

 * Headright System: 1 ticket to Virginia = 50 acres of land; They want more people to come to the New World.
 * Tobacco is labor-intensive, so owners look for laborers. This is where the indentured servitude system comes in. Servants get a place to stay and free boat ticket to the new world. Work for 4-7 years.
 * Many families buy hundreds of tickets, in which they gain a lot of lands because they buy indentured servants tickets. With these rich landowners buying a lot of wealth and 4-7 years of servant work passed and they want servants, they have to move west into unknown land (bad conditions).

1619

 * Elected General assembly/house of Burgesses: You must be white, male and landowner.
 * Women arrive to marry rich men.
 * Virginia relying on indentured servants & African slaves.

Relations with Native Americans = 1622

 * Opechancanough organizes raids on all settlements up and down the James River. Only 25% of colonists were killed and seed reserves and warehouses with food were all burned. 75% of colonizers die as a result.
 * The VA Company is ripping people off, constant conflict, mortality rate, tobacco growing on the same soil is detrimental to the growth of tobacco as it steals too much nitrogen and it must be grown next to beans all contribute to James I revoking the charter of Virginia, making VA the first royal colony.

Relations with Native Americans = 1644

 * Opechancanough coordinates another attack which kills only about 400/8,000 colonizers. He is captured and killed and the Indian resistance movement ends.

Roanoke Colony
1.	What are some of the theories which might explain the disappearance of the Roanoke settlers? 2.	What do some of the newly discovered archaeological remains suggest? What evidence do they cite? 3.	Where did historians learn about Site X? What evidence has been found over there?
 * Killed by the Native Americans
 * Moved in with the friendly Native Americans in North Carolina
 * The group split up and were absorbed into different Native American communities.
 * The 10-carat gold ring engraved with a lion/horse from the 16th century in Cape Creek, a major trading center for the Croatoans, suggests that the settlers absorbed themselves with the Croatoans.
 * A light sword was found, possibly suggesting fighting.
 * An iron bar was found, which might suggest that they traded frequently but kept their goods to themselves.
 * La Virginia Pars map, 1585-93.

Plymouth

 * Puritan Separatists – They want to purify the Anglican Church of all its Catholic characteristics. They lived in Holland to escape religious persecution from England, but they moved to NA due to their success in Jamestown. They emphasize that they are pro-king (King James I)… money is from joint-stock company: Merchant Adventurers (majority pilgrim and some strangers: Non-church members) and the charter is from the king. They send furs and timber back to the merchant adventurers as they were in high demand. England needs big trees to big huge warships and there aren’t a lot of trees back in England as they are an island country.
 * Travel in Mayflower, 1620 – from the beginning, families come, unlike Jamestown where it was just men. They are blown off course and they land in Massachusetts. They planned to be in northern Virginia. The pilgrims draft a document, Mayflower Compact, in order to establish a government (cubanet community = community that makes the Mayflower Compact promise) – Landed way north of Virginia, and out of necessity, they enact a new government. They make just and equal laws.
 * You must be a white, male and a Puritan in order to vote. Elements of theocracy.
 * Survival helped with Squanto (Pawtuxet), who was enslaved years before. Their first winter was still of great suffering.
 * William Bradford lead the colony in 1621 (after the first rocky winter) from Christian communal living to “capitalism”. Each family unit gets enough land to support themselves. Bradford makes people more successful in terms of maintaining their own survival. Colony profits with individual farms and immigration increases (1623).
 * Thanksgiving – First thanksgiving in Plymouth is giving thanks to God for allowing them to survive.
 * Massachusetts Bay Colony is a joint-stock company that is created to finance these trips to Massachusetts. Colony used for Non-separatist Puritans. Much less radical number so they have more numbers and they outnumber the pilgrims.
 * “City On a Hill” – What God wants them to do in the New World. Organized by John Winthrop (1630) and is accompanied with 700 passengers to Boston. Winthrop is very prepared as he brings a bigger population and enough food to survive for 2 winters. Smoothest start yet. They have a theocracy and public schools (Puritans emphasize literacy). First college, Harvard, in 1636 is to produce Protestant ministers. The only problem is that they have Native American conflicts over land.