1. Chapter 1
New World Beginnings

2. Planetary Perspectives

3. The Beginnings
6,000 years ago recorded history of the western world began
500 years ago the American Continent was discovered
America started from scratch on a vast and virgin continent, a rare opportunity for a great social and political experiment

4. The Shaping of North America

5. Formation of America
Pangea broke apart to become Eurasia, Africa, Australia, Antarctica, and the Americas some 225 million years ago
Appalachians million years old Rockies - between 135 and 25 million
The Great Ice age - 2 million years ago
Lake Boneville - Utah, Nevada, and Idaho

6. The First Discoverers of America

7. The Bering Straight
Low sea levels uncovered land bridge between Eurasia and North America
First inhabitants, probably following migrating herds of game, ventured across for some 250 centuries
Ice Age ended 10,000 years ago, covering the straight

8. Original Americans Spread Out
As the ice melted, new valleys were opened, and the people moved Southward and Eastward
They eventually reached the Southern tip of South America, 15,000 miles from Siberia
Around 72 million inhabitants when Columbus arrived in 1492

9. Culture
Countless tribes, over 2000 languages, diverse religions, cultures, and ways of life.
Incas in Peru, Mayans in Central America, and Aztecs in Mexico shaped sophisticated civilizations.
Advanced agricultural practices based on maize; fed large populations.
Elaborate cities and far-flung commerce
Astronomical observations
Aztecs used human sacrifices

10. The Earliest Americans

11. Agriculture and corn
Corn growing accounted for size and sophistication of Native American civilizations.
As corn cultivation spread, it slowly transformed nomadic tribes into agricultural villages.
Pueblos built intricate irrigation systems.
Three-sister farming, using beans, cornstalks, and stalks, produced highest population densities.

12. Societal Organizations
Iroquois Confederacy was most effective in political and organizational skills.
Sustained a robust military alliance.
Most lived in small, scattered, and impermanent settlements.
Women tended crops while men hunted, fished, gathered fuel, and cleared fields for planting.
Gave substantial authority to women.
Many developed matrilinear cultures.

13. Attitudes Native Americans did not manipulate nature aggressively.
Revered the physical world and endowed nature with spiritual properties.
Only about 4 million Native Americans lived in North America in 1492.

14. Indirect Discoverers of the New World

15. The trail to discovery
Norse seafarers from Scandinavia had landed in or near New Foundland in 1000 A.D.
Called it Vinland.
Forced to leave without support of a strong nation state.
Restless Europeans sought contact with a wider world, whether for conquest or trade.

16. Christian Crusaders
Crusaders acquired a taste for the exotic delights of Asia while trying to wrestle the Holy Land from Muslim control.
Europe now cried for less expensive silk, drugs, perfumes, colorful draperies, spices, and especially sugar.
Luxuries came across the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, and the Red Sea or over Asia or the Arabian Peninsula.
Muslim middlemen exacted heavy tolls en route.

17. Europeans Enter Africa

18. Europeans growing desire
Marco Polo ignited European desires for a cheaper route to the the East with his tales of a 20 year sojourn in China.
Portuguese mariners developed the caravel, allowing Europeans to sail along the West coast of Africa.
Set up trading posts along the shore for gold and slaves.
Arab traders deliberately separated tribes, fostering the extinction of cultures and tribal identities.

19. The Portuguese and slavery
Portuguese adopted Arab slave practices.
Built a systematic traffic in slaves to work the sugar plantations on coastal islands.
Slave trading became a big business.
40,000 Africans sent to the Atlantic sugar islands.
The modern plantation system finds its origins within the Portuguese in Africa

20. The Portuguese Press on
Bartholomeu Dias rounded the tip of the “Dark Continent” in 1488.
Vasco da Gama reached India in 1498.
Meanwhile, Spain became united in the late 15th century.
Resulted from the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, and from the expulsion of the Muslim Moors.
Spaniards eager to outstrip their Portuguese rivals in the Indies
Couldn’t go South, so looked West.

21. Columbus Comes upon a New World

22. Christopher Columbus
Printing press and mariner’s compass helped make knowledge and exploration more appealing.
October 12, 1492
Successful failure
Indian misnomer

23. When Worlds Collide

24. Contrasting Ecosystems
Tobacco, maize, beans, tomatoes, and potatoes revolutionized the international economy and the European diet.
European brought new crops (sugar cane) and animals, transforming the Native American way of life.
Also brought disease such as smallpox, yellow fever, and malaria, killing 90% of the Native American population within one century.

25. The Spanish Conquistadores

26. New World Prizes
Gold and silver from Indian civilizations attracted Europeans.
The Treaty of Tordesillas (1494)
Spain received most, but Portugal got Brazil.
Spain became the dominant exploring and colonizing power in the 16th century.

27. The Conquistadores
In the service of God, as well as for gold and glory, they came to the Caribbean islands and to the mainland.
Vasco Nunez Balboa
Discovered the Pacific Ocean.
Ferdinand Magellan
Headed first circumnavigation of the globe, around the Southern tip of South America.

28. Other Conquistadores Juan Ponce de Leon explored Florida
Francisco Coronado wandered through Arizona and New Mexico, even to Kansas.
Discovered the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River and huge buffalo herds.
Hernando de Soto discovered the Mississippi River.
Francisco Pizarro crushed the Incas in Peru.

29. Effects of Exploration
Gold and silver changed world economy, and perhaps gave birth to capitalism.
Stimulated commerce and manufacturing.
Laid foundations of modern commercial banking.
Encomienda allowed the government to “commend,” or give, Indians to certain colonists in return for the promise to try to Christianize them—slavery.

30. The Conquest of Mexico

31. Hernàn Cortès
Malinche, a female Indian slave, picked up by Cortes as an interpreter
He gathered 20,000 Indian allies and marched on Tenochtilan for gold.
Mistaken for the god Quetzalcoatl, he was allowed to approach the city unopposed.

32. The Fall of the Aztecs
Welcomed at first, Cortes thirsted for gold and power.
Noche Triste - the Aztecs attacked the Spaniards.
August 13, Tenochtilan fell.
The Spanish built over the old capital and used their new crops, animals, language, and laws.
Aztecs died of disease more than of conquest.