- 1450-1660 Iroquois League
- 1680s Wabanaki Confederacy
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Iroquois League or Confederacy[edit | edit source]
- preceded European presence in North America
- originally located south of the Great Lakes
- empowered by and expanded via European fur trade and weapons
Spanish colonization in North America[edit | edit source]
PERIOD / TIMELINE
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Major Events, Concepts & Themes
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Notes & connections: details of issues, concepts, themes & events
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- 1540 Spanish entry to “Pueblo” territories (southwest: NM, AZ)
- 1565 First North Amer. east coast colony (St. Augustine, FL)
- 1598 Spanish invasion of Pueblo lands
- 1680 Pueblo Revolt
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- labor / land for conquistadors
- = abusive of Native Americans
- De Las Casas: Spanish priest wrote about cruelties v. Indians
- Sepulveda: Spanish humanist philosopher justified enslavement of Indians
- Spanish reforms for better treatment of Indians
- Rebellion by Indians over maltreatment; led to New Laws reforms
- deal for slave trade between Spanish and & nations (“assent")
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BIG IDEAS
- Spanish extraction & agriculture: need for labor
- Spanish goal to convert natives to Christianity
- Spanish abuses & reforms after native revolts & priestly criticism
- Development of slave trade
DETAILS
- Encomienda, 1490s-1542
- from Spanish encomendar “to entrust”
- land & labor grant to Spanish conquerors
- encomendero = holder of the land/labor grant
- were slave-labor mines or plantations for non-Christians
- Used across Spanish empire, in Morocco, Philippines, Americas
- Rewarded conquistadores w/ encomiendas, so incentive to conquer
- Designed to convert natives
- Abolished 1542, ended slave labor but made natives Spanish subjects
- Replaced by “repartimiento” system (“reparto” for “distribution” of workers) which regulated forced labor, technically no longer slavery, had some pay but not always, still forced, required native communities to contribute workers as a form of as tribute to Spanish king
- Bartolomé de las Casas
- Dominican priest/friar:
- In 1542: wrote about Spanish abuses in “A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies”
- Used accounts of Antonio de Montesinos who had denounced cruelty in 1511 sermon
- >> led to “Black Legend” = series of anti-Spanish/ anti-Catholic propaganda, used as political weapons to denounce Spain, full of exaggerations and lies
- Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, 1489-1574
- Spanish humanist philosopher, proponent of Spanish conquest of Indians
- Was a court advisor to Spanish King
- Wrote “On Just Causes for War Against the Indians” (1544)
- Justified slavery of Indians based on Aristotelian (Aristotle) logic as inferior to Spaniards
- Saw natives as pre-civilization, no rights, no property, no laws
- Opposed Las Casas who wanted better treatment of Indians
- Source: https://www.college.columbia.edu/core/content/juan-gin%C3%A9s-de-sep%C3%BAlveda
- New Laws/Laws of 1542
- Preceded by Laws of Burgos of 1512, which were supposed to protect Natives, but were ignored
- Issued by Spanish King (also Holy Roman Emperor Charles V)
- Reforms, following Pueblo Revolt
- Ended encomienda system
- Outlawed hereditary rule of encomiendas
- Revolt by encomederos leaders, killed Spanish Viceroy of Peru who enforced the New Laws
- Set more direct rule by Spanish king
- enforced prior policies and forced the issue of ending encomienda system
- Pueblo Revolt (1680)
- Pueblo was Spanish term for Indian settlements in modern NM and AZ
- Prior Spanish treatment of native Indians “Acoma Massacre,” retaliation for a small revolt; Spanish cut off a foot of all men over 25
- Into 1600s, Spanish control, outlawed Indian religious practices, forced conversion to Christianity, required tribute via corn and textiles
- 1670s: drought, reduced agricultural output, attacks by Apaches, destabilization; Spanish clamped down, tried to contain discontent; persecuted Indian medicine men, including Papé, who was released after Pueblo objections
- 1680, Papé (also Popay) led revolt, killed 400 Spanish, pushed out Spanish
- Protest over resentment over Spanish policies, enforced Christianity, forced labor, cattle management, mining
- Papé led campaign to remove Spanish/Christian influence
- 1692 Spanish put down revolt (100s killed), but led to end of forced labor and religion
- Asiento, 1500s-1700s
- = “Asiento de Negros”
- Asiento = “contract”
- = agreement between Britain and Spain to set agreements for slave trade between Africa and Spanish colonies in Americas
- was source or revenue for Spanish crown
- Spain used the asiento to give or take back rights to slave trade to its colonies
- Spanish social heirarchy
- peninsulares = born in Spain, held highest positions
- criolles = born in New World of Spanish parents
- Mestizos = mixed Spanish and Native American parentage
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French North American colonization[edit | edit source]
PERIOD / TIMELINE
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Major Events, Concepts & Themes
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Notes & connections: details of issues, concepts, themes & events
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- 1534 Jacques Cartier expedition explores to Newfoundland and St. Lawrence River
- 1541 Cap-Rouge: first French settlement at modern day Quebec City (fails)
- 1608 Samuel de Champlain explores Great Lakes and establishes Quebec
- 1701 Detroit settlement by Antoine de la Moth Cadillac
- 1718 New Orleans established
- 1763 Treaty of Paris ends Seven Years War / French- Indian War; France cedes all territories east of the Mississippi River to Britain
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BIG IDEAS
- early French settlements along North American East coast fail
- later settlements endure, but populations remain low
- settlements include in modern Canada, Florida Coast and Gulf of Mexico (modern Alabama and Louisiana)
- lack of migration from France = low populations
- French North American primary objective = fur trade
- less competition with Native Americans over land and land use
- "couriers du bois" = French sent to explore, learn from and trade with native tribes
- frequent inter-marriages between French men and Native American women
- Beaver Wars
- French and Algonquin allies against Iroquois League
- Iroquois armed by the Dutch and English
- Iroquois largely successful in controlling Ohio valley by 1670
- over control of fur trade
DETAILS
- New France regions
- Acadia on the Atlantic coast
- Canada along the Saint Lawrence River and up to the Great Lakes
- Louisiana from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, along the Mississippi River
- as of 1689 there were only 14,000 French in New France
- however, they were
- politically unified
- disproportionate number of adult males with military backgrounds
- had strong relationships Native American allies and developed effective military techniques with them
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Dutch North American colonization[edit | edit source]
PERIOD / TIMELINE
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Major Events, Concepts & Themes
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Notes & connections: details of issues, concepts, themes & events
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- 1602 Dutch East India Company formed to explore North American to find passage to Asia
- 1610 Henry Hudson makes claims for Netherlands
- 1623 New Netherland founded, with settlements in modern Delaware and New Jersey
- 1626 Dutch East India Company purchases Manhattan Island from Lenape tribe; New Amsterdam established (modern NYC)
- 1664 British seize New Amsterdam and rename it New York
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BIG IDEAS
- Dutch explorations and settlements in North American were focused on 1) finding passageway to Asia; and 2) trade with Native Americans and the Caribbean
DETAILS
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Slavery origins in Americas[edit | edit source]
PERIOD / TIMELINE
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Major Events, Concepts & Themes
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Notes & connections: details of issues, concepts, themes & events
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- "triangular trade "
- Spanish, Dutch, and French slave trade
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BIG IDEAS
DETAILS
- West-African slave trade dates back to the ancient world and up to the Age of Discovery was dominated by Islamic trans-Sahara traders.
- North and West-African slavery existed in the Iberian peninsula (Spain and Portugal) since the Roman period
- Portuguese traders established the first slave trade to the Atlantic Islands, especially to the Canary Islands (Atlantic) and Cape Verde (Africa) and upon which they created the most profitable sugar production in the world for a time
- With their discovery and colonization of Brazil, Portuguese slave trade extended to the Americas in 1526.
- With growth of Spanish colonization and development of extraction economies, especially of sugar and its by-products, molasses and rum, Spanish, Dutch, French and English merchants engaged in the transatlantic African slave trade.
- Spanish enslavement of indigenous Americans were insufficient to provide sufficient labor, due primarily to the diseases introduced by the Spanish that devastated Native American populations, especially in the Caribbean
- Many (and not all) African coastal kingdoms sold slaves to the Europeans, who generally did not venture inland to secure the slaves, which the African coastal powers provided for them.
- Intra-African slave trade was ethnic-based and a higher percentage of slaves died along inland slave routes than on transatlantic shipments (80% mortality rate by some estimates)
- Middle Passage refers to the transatlantic shipment of slaves
- Middle Passage mortality rate is estimated at 12.5% or 2.2 million people
- estimated 15.3 million people were sent to the Americas as slaves
- estimated 33% of slaves died during the first year at Caribbean destinations, called “seasoning camps,” with perhaps 5 million having died there across the slaving period.
- estimated 5% of African slaves brought to Americas went to North American colonies
- Olaudah Equiano wrote a memoir of experiences as slave (published 1789)
click EXPAND for more on Olaudah Equiano and his memoirs:
- he was from an inland village which was connected to slave trade, both as merchants and victims
- he was kidnapped in West Africa and sold to European slavers, shipped to America
- memoir offers account of his childhood in Africa, the horrors of the Middle Passage, shipment from Barbados to Virginia where he was sold to a British Naval officer in Virginia
- subsequent enslavement was in the Caribbean
- purchased his freedom from his final slave owner, Robert King, a Philadelphia Quaker who conducted trade in the Caribbean
- Equiano conducted business with King who taught him literacy and business and allowed him to buy his freedom
- in 1766, Equiano moved to England as a freedman, since in Georgia he was almost kidnapped on the docks where he was unloading a shipment and sent back to slavery
- became involved in various ventures including an Arctic expedition to find the "Northeast Passage" to India (via Norway and Russia, as opposed to the Northwest Passage which marked attempts to cross from the Atlantic to the Pacific north of Canada)
- from the introduction of his memoir:
To the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and
the Commons of the Parliament
of Great Britain.
My Lords and Gentlemen,
Permit me, with the greatest deference and respect, to lay at your feet the following genuine Narrative; the chief design of which is to excite in your august assemblies a sense of compassion for the miseries which the Slave-Trade has entailed on my unfortunate countrymen.
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