-
Home
- Us history to 1877
- Us history to 1877
- Ch. 2 when cultures collide (1
This chapter examines the clash of Indian and European cultures in the Americas from 1492 to roughly 1600.
Who was first?
Some people like to say that the United States is a country of immigrants. As you know from the previous chapter people were not indigenous to the Americas, rather people migrated here from Asia tens of thousands of years ago. And until around the year 1000 AD, Amerindians had the place to themselves. Around the year 1000 AD Vikings had extended their colonies from Europe (Iceland and Greenland) to present-day Labrador, Canada. The expedition was led by Leif Erickson. The Vikings were Catholics and they lived in caves dug into the side of hills, supported by rocks. Their colonies flourished until the last Viking died in 1470. We believe he was the last Viking because he was not buried and according to Catholic belief, burial was a prerequisite for entering Heaven. The next group that wondered over here were the Chinese around 1421. See the map. It is clearly a map of the world because the Chinese underwent an around-the-world venture in the 1420s. While the Chinese made it to the West Coast and Central America, and the East Coast, they did not leave behind settlements. They just made maps. So the first group to come here and stay were the Spanish around October of 1492.
Motives behind exploration
Towards the end of the fifteenth century, European nations began exploring down and up the coasts of Africa (Bartolome Dias 1588) and even made it around Africa to India (Vasco de Gama, 1498). One reason why exploration exploded at this time was that technology advanced to the point where ocean-going travel became readily safe. For example, the astrolabe was fine tuned that it could be used at all latitudes in the fifteenth century. Sail technology made sailing relatively safe and efficient. Another reason behind this push for exploration was due to nationalism. Our country wants to be the first to explore ___________, to trade with _____________, or to claim _____________ in the name of our country. National pride was at stake. So too was the economic theory of the day: mercantilism. According to mercantilism, there existed in the world a finite amount of valuable resources and whichever country corners the market on that resource sets the price of that resource. Meaning, you become rich. So national leaders supported exploring as a way of cornering the market on valuable resources such as Asian silks and spices. Now, according to the theory of mercantilism, you were not simply engaged in trade, but rather you would create colonies of people from your mother country and those people would collect the raw resources, ship them back to the mother country, where they would be turned into finished products, finished products that would then be sold in the foreign colonies thus creating new markets. The Portuguese were the first ones to begin exploring, which meant there was pressure on its neighbor countries (such as Spain) to begin exploring. Which brings us to the story of Cristobol Colon, or Chris Columbus (his name was Anglicized to sound more English). Colon was a sailor and a map maker from northern Italy. He worked in Lisbon, Portugal with his brother. Now Colon believed that he had discovered a faster way to China -by heading west from Europe. He came to this conclusion because he believed the world was a lot smaller than it is and he disregarded those Vikings' rumors of a land to the west. In 1484 he tried to get the KIng of Portugal to financially support his westward trip to China, but the king would have no part of it, thus Colon moved to Spain where he talked the twin Catholic leaders Ferdinand and Isabella into supporting his trip ostensibly to get slaves and to bring back Chinese spices and silks. Colon and his fleet departed Spain in the summer of 1492. Two months later he arrived on land, somewhere in the Bahamas. But, he believed to be on an uncharted island off the coast of India, so he named the area the West Indies and the people he called Indians.Colon dies, penniless, in 1506 going to his grave believing that he discovered a faster route to Asia. He brought back some Taino Indians to be used as slaves, but he never found silks, or spices, or gold. After three relatively unsuccessful journeys, the Spanish crown decided to switch from an exploration party to an invasion force.
Questions & Answers
material that allows electric current to pass through
material which don't allow electric current is called
Deng
how to study physic and understand
what is conservative force with examples
Moses
the transfer of energy by a force that causes an object to be displaced; the product of the component of the force in the direction of the displacement and the magnitude of the displacement
AI-Robot
why is it from light to gravity
difference between model and theory
Esther
Is the ship moving at a constant velocity?
The full note of modern physics
introduction to applications of nuclear physics
the explanation is not in full details
I need more explanation or all about kinematics
Moses
I need more explanation or all about nuclear physics
aluet
Show that the equal masses particles emarge from collision at right angle by making explicit used of fact that momentum is a vector quantity
A wave is described by the function D(x,t)=(1.6cm) sin[(1.2cm^-1(x+6.8cm/st] what are:a.Amplitude b. wavelength c. wave number d. frequency e. period f. velocity of speed.
what is frontier of physics
A body is projected upward at an angle 45° 18minutes with the horizontal with an initial speed of 40km per second. In hoe many seconds will the body reach the ground then how far from the point of projection will it strike. At what angle will the horizontal will strike
Suppose hydrogen and oxygen are diffusing through air. A small amount of each is released simultaneously. How much time passes before the hydrogen is 1.00 s ahead of the oxygen? Such differences in arrival times are used as an analytical tool in gas chromatography.
what's the definition of physics
the science concerned with describing the interactions of energy, matter, space, and time; it is especially interested in what fundamental mechanisms underlie every phenomenon
AI-Robot
Got questions? Join the online conversation and get instant answers!
Source:
OpenStax, Us history to 1877. OpenStax CNX. Jan 20, 2013 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col11483/1.1
Google Play and the Google Play logo are trademarks of Google Inc.
