Chapter 1:



American History

Chapter 1 p.2-32

The Collision of Cultures

1492

Chapter Summary

Before European explorers arrived in the Americas, Native Americans had developed their own forms of social organizations that differed from one another in their levels of achievement. Europeans, concerned first with exploiting the New World and its peoples, regarded the natives as savages and set out to destroy their societies and replace them with a variation of European culture. The biological disaster brought on by smallpox and other diseases made it easier for the Europeans to conquer the tribes and civilizations, and to impose on the Native Americans a number of different colonial systems. To help make up for the Native Americans’ labor lost through wars and epidemics, Europeans brought in African slaves, who added to the cultural diversity of America. Conflicts in the Old World spilled over into the new as different nations got into the race for colonies, and the many connections between events in the Americas and the rest of the world became apparent. By the end of the sixteenth century, the age of discovery was all but over, and the great era of colonization, especially English colonization, was about to begin.

Chapter One Main Themes

➢ The colonization of the Americas represented a collision of European and Native American cultures that had been developing along completely different lines for thousands of years.

➢ A variety of ambitions and impulses moved individuals and nations to colonize the New World, including long-standing demographic and economic changes, religious tensions wrought by the Protestant Reformation and international rivalries among the European powers.

➢ The collision of cultures in North America yielded many biological and cultural exchanges that remade both the Old and New Worlds.

➢ The varied motives of the colonizers and their experiences prior to immigrating worked to shape their attitudes toward Native American cultures and helped determine the sociopolitical arrangements in the new colonies.

➢ Other than in New Mexico and what would become the American Southwest, North American native peoples were relatively unaffected by European colonization until the arrival of the English, French, and Dutch in the seventeenth century.

Analytical Journal

Each of the terms below contributes to a comprehensive understanding of the events that shaped English colonization in North America. As you take notes from your readings, define these terms in your journal, and demonstrate why each person, event, concept, or issue is important to a thorough understanding of this chapter.

Archaic period Black Death Cahokia

Christopher Columbus Clovis people Conquistadores

Coureurs de bois Encomienda Henry Hudson

Jamestown Matrilineal Mercantilism

Meso-Americans Mestizos Protestant Reformation

Puritans Roanoke Samuel de Champlain

Seigneuries Separatists Sir Humphrey Gilbert

Sir Walter Raleigh Tenochtitlán Small Pox

Algonquian woodland indians iroquois

colombian exchange african slave trade

Defining the chapter terms in your journals will help you better understand:

• The history of the Native Americans before the arrival of Europeans.

• What North America was like at the time of Christopher Columbus?

• The ways in which the peoples of Europe and North America affected each other when their societies came in contact in the late fifteenth century.

• The changes taking place in Western Europe that resulted in widespread interest in colonization.

• The colonial policies of each European nation involved in North America, and the effect each had on the future of the Americas.

• The reasons for the rivalry between Spain and England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the impact of that rivalry on international affairs.

• The African cultures from which black slaves were taken and the early development of slavery.

• The role of religion in European efforts to colonize the New World.

Long Essay Questions

1. This chapter is entitled “The Collision of Cultures.” According to some historians, cultures actually collided more than met during the era of European contact and expansion. Assess the validity of this alternative perspective.

Possible thesis statement: When Europeans first landed in the Americas, they met another well-developed and distinct group of people who had culturally distinct economic, political, and religious practices. While the conflicting cultures were found to be compatible in some regions, the cultural differences frequently led to a collision of cultures.

Discuss

• European social, political, economic, and religious cultures

• Collision rather than a meeting

Possible conclusion: Within decades after the European, Native American, and African people began living together in North America, the original meeting of cultures had become more of a collision.

2. How were the commercial incentives of Spanish, French, Dutch, and English colonists similar and/or different?

Possible thesis statement: Most of the colonists who landed in the Americas were motivated by commercial incentives.

Discuss

• Early French, Spanish, English, and Dutch explorations

• A growing commercial class in Europe

• Spanish explorers, conquistadors, and colonists (God, Glory, Gold)

• The Catholic Church

• The Dutch searched for an inroad to the interior to create fur trade routes and relationships with the native peoples.

• The enclosure movement and English merchants looking for new markets

Possible conclusion: Commercial incentives brought the vast majority of Europeans to the Americas. The commerce they sought differed according to the commercial needs of each European nation.

Long Essay Tips

Long Essays and Short Answer Questions (SAQ’s) dating from this era can focus on relations between Indians and Europeans. Note the major characteristics of various Native American and European cultures and how they interact with one another. Know the general characteristics of the major civilizations, especially the Native Americans of North America, and French and Spanish societies in America.

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