1.1 Converging Cultures
Early Native Americans
- First Americans were nomadic tribesman between 15,000 and 30,000 years ago.
- These Native Americans eventually learned how to plant and raise crops.
- This shift led to building permanent villages and new building methods resulting into villages.
- As more villages formed and became more complex, civilizations emerged.
- Earliest American civilization arose between 1500 B.C. and 1200 B.C. among the Olmec people in southern Mexico.
- The Maya and Aztec developed later on in central America building monumental temples and pyramids.
- Around 300 A.D. the Hohokambegan farming in present day Arizona along with the Anaszi people.
- In the northeastern region of America, other peoples were developing diverse cultures building geometric buildings
Early European Explorers
•Leif Ericson visited north eastern Canada 1000 A.D.
•Irish Monks sailed across the North Sea
•Japanese fisherman sailed along Alaska and as far south as Santa Barbara.
•Other myth and legends of other cultures discovering the Americas.
•Europe was seekingAsian spices, perfumes, silks, and jewels.
•Portugal, Spain, France, and England hoped to find a sailing route to Asia which bypassed merchants/traders from Italy and Middle East.
•Portugusee took the lead in the late 1400s with new navigational tools and newly designed ships.
Spain
•Spain funds an expedition by Christopher Columbus (Italian).
•August 1492, sets off with this three ships (Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria) and lands on present day San Salvador Island.
•His discovery resulted in the surge of European explorers to seek riches in the America and eventual settlements in North America.
•Treaty of Tordesillas– Granting Spain the right to the newly discovered land planting the seeds for a Spanish Empire.
•HernanCortesdefeated the Aztec in Mexico in 1521
•Francisco Pizarroconquered the Inca in Peru 1532.
•Juan Ponce de Leon claimed Florida
•Francisco Vasquez de Cornadoexplored the Southwest
•Henandode Soto traveled through the Southeast
•Spain now controlled the land stretching from the Florida peninsula to California and down into South America, a vast empire throughout the Americas.
•Spain did the following:
•Farmed the land
•Established mines
•Established cattle ranches
•Spread Catholicism
France
•France would send Samuel de Champlain, founding the outpost of Quebec.
•Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette sailed down the Mississippi claiming the region along the river calling it Louisiana.
•France saw the fur trade in the North as the best way to make a profit while in the South (Louisiana) became the center of French sugar, rice, and tobacco centers.
•This New France would be populated by furtraders and Jesuit missionaries in the North, and in the South, the French began importing African slaves to labor the crops.
England
•The English would also establish a foothold by claiming a settlement in Virginia called Jamestown.
•Jamestown was a joint-stock company, private investors to support a larger project, saw the colonies as a source of raw materials and a valuable market for English goods.
•Native Americans from the Powhatan Confederacy helped this colony through dire times and eventually Jamestown was producing tobacco.
•Within a few years, Jamestown was growing and by 1619, settlers formed an assembly creating their own laws. (the House of Burgesses)
Plymouth Colony
•Being persecuted by King James, a group of Puritans wanted to separate themselves from the Anglican Church and warship freely.
•Referred to as Separatists, they hoped to accomplish this in America.
•1620 a small group of Separatist headed for Virginia on the Mayflower but ended up on the coast of Cape Cod.
•They landed in a territory without a English government so they drew up a plan for self-government called the Mayflower Compact.
•Pilgrims befriended the local Wampanoag people creating a friendship….first Thanksgiving
The Thirteen Colonies
New England Colonies (Massachusetts)
- Massachusetts first had the Pilgrims but then another group of Puritans arrived in Massachusetts bay with a charter for a new colony.
- These Puritans founded several cities including Boston.
- Government and religion were intertwined! Government collected taxes to support the church and leaders set strict rules for proper behavior.
- England was suffering a depression in the wool industry which also influenced Puritans to sail to Mass.
- Then years later another group of Puritans would arrive to Mass to establish their own ideas of government
New England Colonies (Rhode Island)
•Rhode Island was another colony which had religious beginnings.
•Forced out by Mass. Puritans, Roger Williams settled the town of Providence.
•Williams disagreed with several Puritan beliefs as well as the authority of the king to claim Native American lands.
•In Providence, the government had no authority in religious matters and different beliefs were tolerated.
•Anne Huthinsonwas also exiled from Mass. And settled near Providence joining Providence to create the colony of Rhode Island.
•Religious freedom, with total separation of church and state was central to this colony.
New England Colonies (Connecticut)
•In 1636 Reverend Thomas Hooker moved his congregation from Mass. to the Connecticut River valley.
•Reasons for founding Connecticut:
•1. Hooker disagreed with the Mass. political system that allowed only church members to vote
• 2. groupneeded more land for their cattle.
•Adopted America’s first written constitution: the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut.
•All adult men who vote and hold office.
New England Colonies (New Hampshire)
•Those who left Massachusetts and did not head for Rhode Island or Connecticut, headed north to find religious and economic freedom.
•Religious dissenters, fisherman, fur traders went north and formed the royal colony of New Hampshire
New England Colonies
•Puritans valued religious devotion, hard work and obedience to rules regulating daily life.
•The three vital components of daily life:
•(1) church, (2) school, and (3) the marketplace.
•Town meetings were held in the churches where all citizens could be present and be heard on issues.
• Landowners would vote on laws and elect officials
•Unlike England, peasants were part of the system and as a whole, New England was managing its own affairs and their right to self-government.
•Throughout New England, subsistence farming was practiced due to the poor soil.
•Fishing and whaling was the key to New England’s prosperity in which goods were sold through the Atlantic
•Lumber industry also thrived allowing shipbuilding to flourish. By the 1770s, 1/3 British ships was American made.
•Ties with the England was fairly calm until 1670s when colonial governments demanded that Native Americans follow English laws and customs.
•King Philip’s War– Very few natives were left in New England.
Middle Colonies (Pennsylvania & Delaware)
•1681 King Charles granted William Penn to start a colony south of New York.
•Penn referred this location as the “holy experiment” where settlers had both religious freedom and participation in the government.
•As a Quaker, he wanted to help persuade his fellow Quakers to leave England and help settle the colony.
•In Pennsylvania, all religions were free to practice their faiths without any political or religious authority overseeing them.
•In order to gain access to the ocean, Penn purchased a small strip of land which would eventually separate from Pennsylvania forming the colony of Delaware.
Middle Colonies (New York and New Jersey)
•While England sent their efforts towards New England and Virginia, the Dutch claimed the land south of Connecticut.
•1609 Henry Hudson discovered the Hudson River Valley in New York and called this region New Netherland.
•Dutch established New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island.
•Dutch policies encouraged immigration making New Netherland a rival to England in North America.
•In response, Charles II of England seized New Netherland from the Dutch and granted the land to the Duke of York renaming the settlement New York.
•The rest of the land granted to the Duke became the colony of New Jersey which offered land grants, religious freedom, and the right to have a legislative assembly
•The middle colonies had fertile land and long growing seasons.
•Grew a variety of crops but wheat would become the regions main cash crop.
•With wheat demand at aall timehigh in Europe, the Middle Colonies flourished and with revenue constantly arriving, wheat farmers invested in other industries and factories creating additional profits including exporting flour.
Southern Colonies
Notes for homework