Lesson 1: Foundations (Where We Began) and Colonization

Tip: This Lesson was built for a group setting where members of the class could cover the information from their individual experiences—with the prof’s help. If you are interested in our trying Blackboard Collaborate with this, just email me.

Caution: Do the 1st 3 Learning Quizzes before you use Lesson 1.  For most students, they are better off if they use the 1st 3 Learning Quizzes before they look at the Lesson 1.  Why?

·        They introduce you to the vocabulary of this very different time.

·        They also cover the location of the newly developed nations in 1492.

Lesson 1—unlike the other Lessons--states page numbers from The Brief American Pageant. Why? Because the information in this chapter cannot be easily found in the index, but that information is in the textbook. Lesson 1—like the other Lessons—provides a copy of the section of the Study Guide for this lesson.

Lesson 1 –Use its 3 Learning Quizzes 1st

1.      Portuguese- plantation system and slave trade

2.      Spanish - Christopher Columbus

3.      Columbian Exchange

4.      Treaty of Tordesillas (Line of Demarcation) – parts to Portugal and to Spain

5.      Spain and the Aztecs

6.      Spain and the encomienda system

7.      Representative Native Americans encountered:

  • Aztecs
  • Algonguin and Iroquois

8.      Traits of earliest wave of exploring nation states:

9.      Protestant Reformation-what it was and these religions with consequences on North America:

  • Roman Catholicism
  • Calvinism (in England Separatists and Puritans)
  • Anglicanism (Church of England)

10.   Location of colonization in the Americas, response to Native Americans, and who will win:

  • the Spanish (Spain)
  • the French (France)
  • the English (England)
  • the Dutch (the Netherlands)

Table of Contents

About the Eras Before the Age of Exploration a. 2

Major Events in the Age of Exploration. 4

Related Topics. 4

Changes in Religion from Roman Catholicism to the Protestant Reformation. 4

Comparing Broad Patterns of Religion with Consequences on the English Colonies. 5

Representative Native Americans before Columbus arrived (thus the term Pre-Columbian) 5

Columbian Exchange (A term your prof has trouble with) 5

Spanish Conquistadores in the Americas. 5

Spain in the Americas in the Years That Follow.. 6

Major Issues in Colonization – An Aid You Will Need. 6

French beginnings. 6

Dutch (the name for people from The Netherlands) beginnings. 6

English beginnings and the end of Spanish dominance. 6

If You Want More about Native Americans – as with other things in this course I had a student ask for this. 6

 

Tip: Why all the tables (also called charts) in these Lessons? You can compare related information before your learn it and frequently you can understand it more accurately and quickly once it is in a table.

About the Eras Before the Age of Exploration a

You need to recognize the past enough to notice how hard the eras are for ordinary people and the words we still use... For example, you must realize this is a different world. If you (or I) were sent back in time, the odds are you would be in a world:

·        Where your birth determined your importance and safety in the world—and you could not change that status

·        Where someone owns you and you get nothing for your labor except a chance to live another day

·        Where you would believe in the god or the religion of your owner or your king

 

Do not memorize this. You do need to read with attention so you begin:

·        To introduce yourself to words used here (and highlighted) that are still part of our national experience.

·        To realize many people since about 1600 paid a great price for you (and me) to have a better chance today

 

Eras in Order

Why You Want to Know About This

Roman Republic

The Merriam Webster Online Dictionary defines a republic as “a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law.” 

The Romans had Senators—a familiar word—and a republic. As its public buildings and terminology in the Constitution reveal, the U.S. was created as a republic with its people electing representatives who wrote the laws.

Roman Empire – The adjective for the era is classical. It is associated with Rome and also with Greece.

Rome had an empire and colonies (words that go together and that you need to recognize because they keep showing up over time) to the late 400s AD when their empire collapsed. Empires relied on servitude (forms of forced labor where the person is forced to work for no pay except survival for another day).

They are fine (no guilt at all) and most of the list below stays the same in each era:

·        with slavery for those they conquered

·        with demanding tribute and slaves from those conquered

·        with war to take riches and raw materials

·        with colonies (peoples who were not Roman) governed by the Romans to enrich the Romans

·        with government controlling religion (If the emperor thinks he is a god, the monotheistic religions will have difficulty in accepting they have to worship the emperor. Among the monotheist religions are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Islam however develops after the Roman Empire is gone.)

Middle Ages - It is associated with feudalism. The adjective for the period is medieval.

Circa 500 AD to 1300 in the Italian city states and to 1500 in England and northern Europe.

They are fine (no guilt at all) and most of the list below stays the same in each era:

·        with slavery (those in bondage as forced labor but could be sold anywhere)

·        with serfdom (those who were landless and in bondage as forced labor and bound to the land and listed like the cattle on the manor)

·        with levels of nobility who were bound to an upper noble as subjects or vassals (concepts you need to think about)

Key concept: Vassal or Subject (a term still in use) Tip: A subject of the king not only owed the king, but the king owed the subject protection. We are still calling ourselves subjects of the king until just before the revolution.

·        with land ownership determining power because land meant people had a place to grow food and have animals for food

·        with land being passed down to the 1st born male only (primo-geniture) so that the estates remained large (They were not split among the sons.)

·        with the pope at Rome as the head of the Church and with:

o   Bishops and other levels

o   Two paths: in a parish as a priest or in a monastery as a monk

Looking ahead: Feudalism is attempted in the Americas by:

·        The Spanish (North, Central, and South America)

·        The French (in Canada and the Mississippi Valley)

·        The Dutch (in New Amsterdam)

·        The English (in Maryland, the Carolinas, and New York).

 

Pause and think a second. Feudalism’s laws about land ownership and having any power in decisions (voting) will be applied in the new world by the nations above in the late 1500s and early 1600s.

·        In the old world, land was scarce and people were surplus. Tip: In your changing times, you never want to be surplus.

·        In the new world, it reversed and land was surplus and labor was scarce.

 

In those early years in the Americas, what that shift meant was more people had a chance.

Renaissance - It is associated with rebirth of the classical world (Greek and Roman) and the rise of nation-states and the rise of science.

Circa 1300 in the Italian city states and to 1500 in England and northern Europe.

The rebirth of the classical world means the rebirth of values of the Roman Empire. What you will have is new nation states (Spain and Portugal initially and later England and France and the Netherlands) rising up and trying to create their own empires. Other traits are:

·       Rebirth – science, art,  (and the vision of that rebirth is Roman Empire)

·        Rise of nation-states (with a people that were homogeneous and with a government that was sovereign)

·        Slow rise of a “middle class” involved in trade in towns and cities

Protestant Reformation - It is an era of protests against the Roman Catholic Church. It begins with a few new forms of Christianity but results in many new forms.

1500s on with continued splintering by the Protestant faiths through today.

Nation states (notice the term) will have not just a national language but a national religion. They will go to war to suppress another nation’s religion or keep their own religion.

They are fine (no guilt at all) and most of the list below stays the same in each era:

·        with slavery (those in bondage as forced labor but could be sold anywhere)
FYI: Slavery will be fine (no guilt at all) for a long time.
Example: the British won’t stop slavery in their colonies until the 1830s.

·        with serfdom (those who were landless and in bondage as forced labor and bound to the land and listed like the cattle on the manor)

·        with servants (those who were landless and officially free but with limited chance of improving their condition—unless they went to the new areas of the Americas)

·        with levels of nobility or with individuals being born into the status of their fathers

·        with land ownership determining power because land meant people had a place to grow food and have animals for food – with a few exceptions with the Pilgrims and the Puritans in the new world.

·        with government controlling religion

o   With Roman Catholics believing the head of the church is the pope at Rome

o   With Protestants believing the head of their religion is the king himself (England) or the church group’s leader

 

Major Events in the Age of Exploration

1.      European events with Spain and Portugal

·        Portugal – sails East and also develops:

·         the plantation system

·         the slave trade – pages 12-13

·        Spain – 1492 – the Italian Christopher Columbus sails west expecting to reach India, thus naming the people Indians – page 14
Tip: Think about why the Italian Columbus (and many others) were willing to sail for another country?

2.      1494 - Treaty of Tordesillas (also known as the Line of Demarcation) dividing the world – page 14-15 (map)—between two nations:

a.      Portugal – the East

b.      Spain – the West

 

Future:

c.      Portugal/slave trade in east and the seller of slaves in the west (for a while)

 

3.      The race by the nation-states that follows

Related Topics

Changes in Religion from Roman Catholicism to the Protestant Reformation

·        1500 and prior eras– Roman Catholicism dominant in Western Europe

·        1517 Martin Luther and Lutherans  – page 35

·        1530s King Henry VIII and Church of England (AKA Anglican) –page 22

·        Established church

·        John Calvin and Calvinism –page 22

Tip: For believers in a religion and for nation-states, religion was a reason:

·        To kill each other in Europe and in the New World

·        To try—for some nation-states--to try to convert Native Americans to their faith

Comparing Broad Patterns of Religion with Consequences on the English Colonies

·       The money?

·       The church hierarchy of that faith?

·       The desires of princes or kings for a nation-state?

·       The implications of some religions in the New World?

 

Optional and Hand-written per a student-request: content in the 4th column of the table as a hierarchical chart—something a student requested and I drew for him.)  Link Address: http://www.cjbibus.com/0500BC_1650s_Religious_Splintering.jpg

Representative Native Americans before Columbus arrived (thus the term Pre-Columbian)

·        Algonquians and Iroquois in North America

·        Location (Eastern Woodlands—where? Page 10, a map)

·        Economy

·        Government 

[1]Video:  A World Apart   Search Word:  Iroquois     Tip: This will also show Algonquians.

 

·        Aztecs  

·        Location

·        Economy

·        Government

Video: A World Transformed   Search Words:  Aztec and Columbus

 

If you want more information about Native Americans, there is an optional resource at the bottom of this webpage. Click Ctrl-End to move there quickly.

Columbian Exchange (A term your prof has trouble with)

-        Exchange: crops and foods and animals (and horses)

-        Reality: 90% death rate of Native Americans from disease -- and servitude

Spanish Conquistadores in the Americas

Spain in the Americas in the Years That Follow

Major Issues in Colonization – An Aid You Will Need

·        Without answers for self-testing: Major Issues in Colonization: Comparing Spain, France, England, and the Netherlands  Link Address: http://www.cjbibus.com/1500_1700_Major_Issues_Colonization_Answers_forselftesting.htm

·        With answers for observing patterns: Completed Table Comparing Spain, France, England, and the Netherlands Link Address: http://www.cjbibus.com/1500_1700_Major_Issues_Colonization_Answers.htm

French beginnings

·        When? 1608, with the first colony at Quebec - page 77

·        Where?

·        Role of religion in coming to the New World? –- page 77.

·        Relationship with the Native Americans, including in war (page 77)?   coureurs de bois (runners of the woods) – page 78

Dutch (the name for people from The Netherlands) beginnings

·        When? 1623-1624 at New Amsterdam - page 77

·        Where?

·        Role of religion in coming to the New World?  page 41-42

English beginnings and the end of Spanish dominance

·        When? 1585, with the failed colony of Roanoke - page 22

·        Where?

·        Role of religion in coming to the New World? Tip: late 1520s with Henry VIII – page 22—and continuing divisions at home – page 23

·        Role of “sea dogs”) – page 22

·        The shift -  1588 defeat of the Spanish Invincible Armada – page 23

 

If You Want More about Native Americans – as with other things in this course I had a student ask for this.

 

Copyright C. J. Bibus, Ed.D. 2003-2021

 

WCJC Department:

History – Dr. Bibus

Contact Information:

281.239.1577 or bibusc@wcjc.edu

Last Updated:

2021

WCJC Home:

http://www.wcjc.edu/

 



[1] One of two videos in the Video folder that can help you. The search words tell you how to find that content.