Summary The Unfinished Nation

THE COLLISION OF CULTURES America before Columbus Europe Looks Westward The Arrival of the English 1 2 he discovery of the Americas did not begin with Christopher Columbus. It began many thousands of years earlier, when human beings first crossed into the new continents and began to people them. By the end of the fifteenth century a.d., when the first important con- tact with Europeans occurred, the Americas were the home of millions of men and women. These ancient civilizations had experienced many changes and many catastrophes during their long history. But it is likely that none of these experiences was as tragi- cally transforming as the arrival of Europeans. In the first violent years of Spanish and Portuguese exploration and conquest, the impact of the new arrivals was profound. Europeans brought with them diseases (most notably small- pox) to which natives, unlike the invaders, had no immunity. The result was a great demographic catastrophe that killed millions of people, weakened existing societies, and greatly aided the Spanish and Portuguese in their rapid and dev- astating conquest of the existing American empires. But neither in the southern regions of the Americas nor in the northern areas, where the English and French even- tually created settlements, were the European immigrants ever able to eliminate the influence of the existing peoples (which they came to call “Indians”). In their many interac- tions, whether beneficial or catastrophic, these very different civilizations shaped one another, learned from one another, and changed one another permanently and profoundly. AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS We know relatively little about the first peoples in the Americas, but archaeolo- gists have continuously uncovered new evidence from artifacts that have survived over many millennia. We continue to learn more about the earliest Americans. The Peoples of the Precontact Americas For many decades, scholars believed that all early migrations into the Americas came from humans crossing an ancient land bridge over the Bering Strait into Time Line 16,000– ◗ Asians migrate to 14,000 North America B.C . 1492 ◗ Columbus discovers America 1497 ◗ Cabot explores North America 1502 ◗ African slaves arrive in Spanish America 1518– ◗ Smallpox ravages 1530 Indians 1519– ◗ Magellan 1522 circumnavigates globe 1558 ◗ Elizabeth I becomes English queen 1565 ◗ St, Augustine, Florida founded 1587 ◗ “Lost Colony” established on Roanoke Island 1603 ◗ James I becomes English king 1607 ◗ Jamestown founded 1608 ◗ French establish Quebec 1609 ◗ Spanish found Santa Fe T The Collision of Cultures 3 what is now Alaska, approximately 11,000 years ago. The migrations were probably a result of the development of new stone tools—spears and other hunting implements—used to pursue the large animals that regularly crossed between Asia and North America. All of these land-based migrants are thought to have come from a Mongolian stock related to that of modern- day Siberia. Scholars refer to these migrants as the “Clovis” people, so named for a town in New Mexico where archaeologists first discovered evidence of their tools and weapons in the 1930s. More recent archaeological evidence, however, suggests that not all the early migrants to the Americas came across the Bering Strait. Some migrants from Asia appear to have settled as far south as Chile and Peru even before people began moving into North America by land. These first South Americans may have come not by land but by sea, using boats. This new evidence suggests that the early population of the Americas was more diverse and more scattered than scholars used to believe. Recent DNA evidence has identified a possible early population group that does not seem to have Asian characteristics, suggesting that thousands of years before Columbus, there may have been some migration from Europe. Most Indians in the Americas today share relatively similar characteristics that link them to modern Siberians and Mongolians. But these similarities do not prove that Mongolian migrants were the first and only immigrants to the Americas. They suggest, rather, that Mongolian migrants eventually came to dominate and perhaps eliminate earlier population groups. The “Archaic” period is a scholarly term for the early history of humans in America beginning around 8000 b.c. In the first part of this period, most humans supported themselves through hunting and gathering, using the same stone tools that earlier Americans had brought with them from Asia. Later in the Archaic period, population groups began to expand their activities and to develop new tools, such as nets and hooks for fishing, traps for smaller animals, and baskets for gathering berries, nuts, seeds, and other plants. Still later, some groups began to farm. Farming, of course, requires people to stay in one place. In agricultural areas, the first sedentary settle- ments slowly began to form, creating the basis for larger civilizations. The Growth of Civilizations: The South The most elaborate early civilizations emerged in South and Central America and in Mexico. In Peru, the Incas created the largest empire in the Americas, stretching almost 2,000 miles along western South America. The Incas developed a complex administrative system and a large network of paved roads that welded together the populations of many tribes under a single government. Organized societies of Mesoamericans, the peoples of what is now Mexico and much of Central America, emerged around 10,000 b.c., and the first truly complex society in the region—of the Olmec people—began in approximately 1000 b.c. A more sophisticated culture emerged around a.d. 800 in parts of Central America and in the Yucatán peninsula of Archaeologists and Population Diversity The “Clovis” People The “Archaic” Period The Incan Empire 4 CHAPTER ONE Mexico, in an area known as Maya. Mayan civilization developed a written language, a numerical system similar to the Arabic, an accurate calendar, an advanced agricultural system, and important trade routes into other areas of the continents. Gradually, the societies of the Maya region were superseded by other Mesoamerican tribes, who have become known collectively (and somewhat inaccurately) as the Aztec. They called themselves Mexica. In about a.d. 1300, the Mexica built the city of Tenochtitlán on a large island in a lake in central Mexico, the site of present-day Mexico City. With a population as high as 100,000 by 1500, Tenochtitlán featured large and impressive public buildings, schools that all male children attended, an organized military, a medical system, and a slave workforce drawn from Mexica NORTH AMERICAN MIGRATIONS This map tracks some of the very early migrations into, and within, North America in the centuries preceding contact with Europe. The map shows the now- vanished land bridge between Siberia and Alaska over which thousands, perhaps millions, of migrating people passed into the Americas. It also shows the locations of some of the earliest settlements in North America. • What role did the extended glacial field in what is now Canada have on resi- dential patterns in the ancient American world? Canyon de Chelly Chaco Canyon Poverty Point Mesa Verde HOHOKAM MOGOLLON ANASAZI M i s si s s i p p i R . O h i o R . M i s s o u r i R . Bering land bridge Extent of ice cap during most recent glaciation Adena cultures Hopewell cultures Primary Mississippian cultures Possible migration routes of early Indians Adena/Hopewell site Mississippian site Mayan site Olmec site Southwestern site B e r i n g S t r a i t The Collision of Cultures 5 conquered tribes. A warlike people, the Mexica gradually established their dominance over almost all of central Mexico. Like other Mesoamerican societies, the Mexica developed a religion based on the belief that the gods could be satisfied only by being fed the living hearts of humans. The Mexica sacrificed people—largely prisoners captured in combat—on a scale unknown in other American civilizations. The Mesoamerican civilizations were for many centuries the center of civ- ilized life in North and Central America—the hub of culture and trade. The Civilizations of the North The peoples north of Mexico developed less elaborate but still substantial civilizations. Inhabitants of the northern regions of the continent subsisted on some combination of hunting, gathering, and fishing. They THE INDIAN VILLAGE OF SECOTON (ca. 1585), BY JOHN WHITE John White created this illustration of life among the Eastern Woodland Indians in coastal North Carolina. It shows the diversified agriculture practiced by the natives: squash, tobacco, and three varieties of corn. The hunters shown in nearby woods suggest another element of the native economy. At bottom right, Indians perform a religious ritual, which White described as “strange gestures and songs.” (The British Museum) Hunting and Gathering 6 CHAPTER ONE included the Eskimo (or Inuit) of the Arctic Circle, who fished and hunted seals; the big-game hunters of the northern forests, who led nomadic lives based on the pursuit of moose and caribou; the tribes of the Pacific North- west, whose principal occupation was salmon fishing and who created sub- stantial permanent settlements along the coast; and a group of tribes spread through relatively arid regions of the Far West, who developed successful communities based on fishing, hunting small game, and gathering edible plants. Other societies in North America were agricultural. Among the most developed were those in the Southwest. The people of that arid region NATCHEZ CHOCTAW CHICKASAW CHEROKEE TUSCARORA PAMLICO APALACHEE CALUSA ARAWAK TIMUCUA YAMASEE CREEK SHAWNEE MOSOPELEA LENNI LENAPE SUSQUEHANNOCK NARRAGANSETT IROQUOIS PEQUOT ABENAKI PENOBSCOT ALGONQUIN HURON NEUTRAL ERIE POTAWATOMI KICKAPOO ILLINOIS KASKASKIA SAUK FOX IOWA PAWNEE KIOWA APACHEAN APACHEAN APACHEAN SHOSHONE SHOSHONE GOSHUTEMAIDU COSTANO CHUMASH CHEMEHUEVI SERRANO CAHUILLA DIEGUEÑO LUISEÑO POMO MODOC KLAMATH CAYUSE NEZ PERCÉ WALLA WALLAUMATILLA TILLAMOOK CHINOOK PUYALLUP COLVILLE SALISH SKAGIT KWAKIUTLS TSHIMSHIAN BLACKFEET MANDAN HIDATSA TLINGIT MAKAH NOOTKIN SHUSWAP KOOTENAY NORTHERN PAIUTE SOUTHERN PAIUTE FLATHEAD CROW PUEBLO ZUÑI PIMA HOPI UTE ARAPAHO SIOUX SIOUX WINNEBAGO MENOMINEE OTTAWA CHIPPEWA CHIPPEWA CHEYENNE CREE MONTAGNAIS INUIT INUIT ASSINIBOINE MICMAC MOHEGAN WAMPANOAG CADDO JANO CONCHO LAGUNERO COAHUILTEC KARANKAWA YAQUI AZTECAZTEC EMPIREEMPIRE WICHITA CALIFORNIA SOUTHWEST CARIBBEAN EASTERN WOODLAND PRAIRIE SUBARCTIC ARCTIC NORTHEAST MEXICO GREAT BASIN GREAT PLAINS PLATEAU NORTHWEST COAST Agriculture Hunting Hunting and gathering Fishing Main Subsistance Mode ATLANTIC OCEAN PACIFIC OCEAN HOW THE EARLY NORTH AMERICANS LIVED This map shows the various ways in which the native tribes of North America supported themselves before the arrival of European civiliza- tion. Like most precommercial peoples, the Native Americans survived largely on the resources available in their immediate surroundings. Note, for example, the reliance on the products of the sea of the tribes along the northern coastlines of the continent, and the way in which tribes in relatively inhospitable climates in the North—where agriculture was difficult—relied on hunting large game. Most Native Americans were farmers. • What different kinds of farming would have emerged in the very different climates of the agricultural regions shown on this map? The Collision of Cultures 7 built large irrigation systems, and they constructed towns of stone and adobe. In the Great Plains region, too, most tribes were engaged in sed- entary farming (corn and other grains) and lived in large permanent settlements. The eastern third of what is now the United States—much of it cov- ered with forests and inhabited by the Woodland Indians—had the great- est food resources of any area of the continent. Most of the many tribes of the region engaged in farming, hunting, gathering, and fishing simul- taneously. In the South there were permanent settlements and large trad- ing networks based on the corn and other grains grown in the rich lands of the Mississippi River valley. Cahokia, a trading center located near present-day St. Louis, had a population of 40,000 at its peak in a.d. 1200. The agricultural societies of the Northeast were more mobile. Farm- ing techniques there were designed to exploit the land quickly rather than to develop permanent settlements. Many of the tribes living east of the Mississippi River were linked together loosely by common linguistic roots. The largest of these language groups consisted of the Algonquian tribes, which lived along the Atlantic seaboard from Canada to Virginia; the Iroquois Confederacy, which was centered in what is now upstate New York; and the Muskogean tribes, which consisted of the tribes in the southernmost regions of the eastern seaboard. Religion was usually closely linked with the natural world on which the tribes depended. Native Americans worshiped many gods, whom they associated variously with crops, game, forests, rivers, and other elements of nature. All tribes assigned women the jobs of caring for children, preparing meals, and gathering certain foods. But the allocation of other tasks varied from one society to another. Some tribal groups reserved farm- ing tasks almost entirely for men. Among other groups, women tended the fields, while men engaged in hunting, warfare, or clearing land. Because women and children were often left alone for extended periods while men were away hunting or fighting, women in some tribes controlled the social and economic organization of the settlements. EUROPE LOOKS WESTWARD