Mapping European Conquest of the Americas

The Geo-Political World Today About 200 Nations with About 7 Billion People

Larger Civilizations in 1500

Ancient “Silk Road”

Age of Exploration 1400s-1600s A desire for a sea route to Asia to make more profit from trading A surge in intellectual curiosity Improvements in cartography Improvements in navigational tools Improvements in ships and sails

Larger Civilizations in 1500

Cortez 1519

Larger Civilizations in 1500

South American Native Cultures Prior to European Conquest

North American Native Cultures Prior to European Conquest

Tenochtitlan Model Aztec Capital

Temple at Tenochtitlan

Cultural Sophistication Aztec Writing Aztec Calendar

Europeans Arrive in the Americas 1492

European Conquest of the Americas around 1776

How did Europeans Think About “La Conquista” Mural Conquest How did Europeans Think About “La Conquista” Mural Conquest? By Diego Rivera

Let’s analyze some historical primary source documents Bull Romanus Pontifex (1455) Bull Inter Caetera (1493) Requerimiento (1513) The Doctrine of Discovery Modern Application at UN (2012)

US Supreme Court 1825 Johnson v. M'Intosh “On the discovery of this immense continent, the great nations of Europe ... as they were all in pursuit of nearly the same object, it was necessary, in order to avoid conflicting settlements, and consequent war with each other, to establish a principle which all should acknowledge as the law by which the right of acquisition, which they all asserted, should be regulated as between themselves. This principle was that discovery gave title to the government by whose subjects, or by whose authority, it was made, against all other European governments, which title might be consummated by possession. ... The history of America, from its discovery to the present day, proves, we think, the universal recognition of these principles.” Justice John Marshall

US Supreme Court 2005 City of Sherrill v US Supreme Court 2005 City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York “Under the ‘doctrine of discovery…’fee title [ownership] to the lands occupied by Indians when the colonists arrived became vested in the sovereign—first the discovering European nation and later the original states and the United States.”

Bull Inter Caetera Pope, Spain, and Portugal Divide Latin America

Assignment on 8-31