“What is it like to be discovered?”

 Tens of thousands of years before Columbus, the Americas had been settled.  Called “native Americans” but predate “America”  Population at time of Conquest is contested:  Range 12 million - >100 million  implications of population extremes  Amount/extent of genocide  Extent of resource use  Food production systems

Very few primary texts remain  Codices  Pinturas  Writings of Bartolomé de las Casas

Codices  Recorded on long strips of bark or plant fiber  Written in text by pre-Columbian professional scribes working for various deities  Maya codices (Named for cities where they ended up)  Dresden codex  Madrid codex  Paris codex Michael Coe: “Our knowledge of ancient Maya thought must represent only a tiny fraction of the whole picture, for of the thousands of books in which the full extent of their learning and ritual was recorded, only four have survived to modern times (as though all that posterity knew of ourselves were to be based upon three prayer books and Pilgrim's Progress).Pilgrim's Progress  Aztec codices

Maya region  1800 B.C. – 1500 AD  Written language  Art  Architecture  Calendar  Astronomy  One of the most densely populated and culturally sophisticated societies of its time

 Many, many of these books in Yucatan at time of Spanish conquest  16 th Century  Virtually all destroyed upon orders of Bishop Diego de Landa  "We found a large number of books in these characters and, as they contained nothing in which were not to be seen as superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction."

Aztecs (12 th Century until Spanish invasion)  Allied but ethnically different city states  Seven tribes  Controlled valley of Mexico and much of central America  Triple Alliance, dominated most of Mexico (1430 – 1521) :  Mextica of Tenochtitlan  Acolhua of Texcoco  Tepaneca of Tlacopan

 Many Aztec codices  Some recorded before Spanish arrived; some during colonial times

pinturas  López de Velazco was the Spanish geographer in the Americas, assigned to describe and map the Spanish territories in the Americas.  Worked for the Council of the Indies  Resulting products: Description and Demarcation of the West Indies and Geographical Accounts of the Indies  Gave a questionnaire of 50 questions in Instruction and Memorandum  Given to all villages and centers  Question #10 asked for a pintura (map) of the place

Bartolomé de las Casas  A wealthy Spaniard  Went to Cuba in 1502 and 1506 as soldier with slaves; participated in overthrow of Cuban native peoples  Changed his stance  Was ordained in New World in 1512 and preached against the genocide in the Americas  Many writings about Columbus and his voyages and behavior of Spanish and Indians  Eye-witness accounts of Spanish cruelty toward Indians

“The Europeans did not ‘discover’ a utopian paradise of socially harmonious organizations”.  40,000 years  two probable migratory routes  Asia: Bering Strait  Polynesia: trade with Southern American groups  Diverse societies with diverse characteristics, languages, cultures, specializations, degrees of organization  5000 distinct Indian groups in South America