Need some help in a history paper!

1/12/16

Syllabus overview

Primary vs secondary sources

1/14/16

Ren. and Recon. In Red White and Black (Johnson 2-2; Brinkley Chapter 1)

Image: romantic view of Columbus setting foot in the new world

I. Intro Big Themes

II. The world ca. 15th century

III. Portuguese Beginnings

IV. Columbus the 1st Conquistador

America Discovery

Norse occupation of upper Canada during the middle ages

Basque fishermen fishing off of the New England and Upper Canada

Population estimates of 15-50 million of Native American descent in 1492

15th century = 1400s

Looking at the world during the 1400s, with broad brushstrokes laying out some of the rpe conditions for conquest in the hew world.

What were the goals and provisions of the Europeans that instigated them breaking from tradition and setting out to discover.

The real pioneers were the Portuguese, outside of brazil they do not have a large presence in the New World

Big Themes:

Conquest changed everything, most momentous single event that historians can think of. It changed the fortunes of the entire globe.

In the 15th century Europe was emerging from the middle ages, sometimes refered to as the dark ages and as prospering especially in maritime states, such as Genoa where Columbus was born. It was however a sideshow of the economic worlds wealth. Much of the worlds trading systems was being traded across land or hugging the coasts between Europe and the far east. Along the silk roads. Europe lay at the very end of these roads.

By being at the end of the roads Europe was on the periphery. This changed with the age of exploration.

Exploration completely changed the map of the world. What Europeans changed despite the map was to create an Atlantic system of trade and commerce, sometimes referred to as the Triangle Trade. Trade between Europe-Africa-New World (N. and S. America and the Caribbean)

The rise of the west was built on this Atlantic system. The fortunes of Europe over the next 500 years will be laid economically, politically, militarily, etc. in the colonial outposts in the New World.

Effects dramatic in other locations as well.

Africa will export slaves to work vast plantations, mining facilities, as well as other things that were done to produce wealth. The fortunes of Africans thus will be dramatically transformed.

No less dramatic to Native Americans 15-50 million indigenous inhabitants of N. and S. America. It has been estimated that a figure as high as 90% died within a century of Columbus’s ‘discovery.’

The first group that Europeans hope to enslave are N. Americans and some die from overwork, and labor.

Most die due to disease-smallpox, etc.

For peoples of Asia and Middle East will see their fortunes change in particular to that of Europe. Prior to the discoveries the east was the center of the knowledge, wealth and power, with the Middle East as Middle men in the trade routes also benefitting.

With the development of the trade routes these centers of power would diminish

Q: did they stop using the silk road? No, but trade diminished along the routes still trade going on along the silk road today,

The world Ca. 1400s Image: Michelangelo Sistine Chapel ceiling

What was it about the world that promoted discovery and adventure? What caused tehm to undertake the risky and expensive proposition to sail across the ocean and then to settle new lands?

Risky endeavors with no guarantee of success.

Europe is at this time at the height of the Renaissance

Responding to economic changes

Merchants who are beginning to pool money and resources-a period of great economic growth for Europe.

Period of art, and intellectual development

While much of Europe was a backwater-with peasants and the vestiges of feudal systems the maritime communities were bustling trade systems.

The propertied classes and intellectuals were becoming more interested in worldly pursuits (money) as to other worldly pursuits (religion) as was prevalent during the Middle Ages.

In addition to this…

Also in the 1400s in corresponding to the opening up of Europe there was a consolidation of power in Europe of powerful monarchies. Which for the first time during the 1400s are able to exert power over a larger tract of land that was previously possible. The Capetian family (French crown) claimed power over all of the area of France as opposed to smaller sections of land such as a duchy.

Political Authority that can command enough resources and power to create the capital to see the exploration and conquests through.

Coinciding with this was a growing was a sense of national rivalry within Europe. With several monarchies developing with aspirations of global conquest and success there was a national rivalry and national competition. Which nation state was going to be the dominating power of this?

What we are talking of, and it takes some time for the idea to be fleshed out is Mercantilism.

Mercantilism-the key to national power is control over as many of the worlds resources as possible, within the empire. The more one controls in relation to competitors the more powerful one is.

The British would use this theory extensively as we move forward.

These ideas would percolate even at the earliest times

Some modern economists reject mercantilism in its purest sense today, domination of worlds resources as a 0 sum game that is not really the case as productivity and resources exponentially increase productivity and resources. At the time 1400s, Mercantilism and 0 sum was the way that they thought.

1400s Europe was rising but still on the periphery, and as they sought to new ways to make money they turned to the far East to resources.

Cloves, Peppers, Vanilla, etc.

It is difficult to understand the importance of spices to those in the 1400s.

Could pay taxes with spices

Could get gold for spices

Could make rancid meat edible

Silk also important and valuable

With the rise of elite merchant classes and monarchs silk was preferable to the course wool that Europeans were wearing and had available to them. Silk was also preferable as Silk denoted power and status by wearing it. It functioned as a class distinction and status symbol.

Chinese porcelain-member of the merchants, wealthy or aristocracy as a sign of wealth. Courts used porcelain to display wealth and opulence to impress others.

In short, China and Japan were imagined as places of vast wealth with vast reserves of gold with sources of vast learning and technology.

Chinese first to invent paper-more and more important with invention of printing press and the circulation of ideas

Gunpowder-first to use technology militarily as crude cannons will quickly adopted by western societies

First to develop the compass for navigation.

The story of the world from 1500 onward will be a different world would be a different story if the powers of Asia decided to bring their goods and technology to Europe, they did not and remained passive.

Exception:

De Gama, Columbus and Zheng He: (useful explanations but not covered from class)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjEGncridoQ

Chang Ho – monk turned mariner who would get 60 ships and travel westward towards Africa establishing diplomatic ties and trade wares and return to China with items.

Image: Giraffe on Chinese parchment which was returned

Shortly after Chang Ho Ming Emperors stopped this activity partially because of the threats of Mongols, partly because they did not feel they needed a strong navy, and partly because they felt that everything they needed was at hand in China to maintain their hegemony.

The Muslims were a different story however.

All the trade routes over land and sea lay in Muslim hands

Encompasses not just Middle East but southern Russia, turkey, as far east as northern India and beyond into Indonesia, as far west as northern Africa. All areas dominated by Muslims.

Especially galling to Europeans that the Muslims controlled portions of the trade routes. Trade underwent multiple exchanges with large mark ups before it passed to European hands.

1453 striking event takes place-Sacking of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks.

Constantine was the seat of the old eastern holy roman empire (Byzantium)

Sacking of the city sent shockwaves across Europe as it was an entrepôt for the dissemination of goods throughout Europe. The Muslims had long been an economic threat, and religious threat, they were now a military threat.

The Portuguese:

In the 1450s the known world was the Mediterranean, Northern Africa, the North Sea

The Portuguese were really the first to push out of this understanding.

The first to push out was Prince Henry known as the Navigator because of his emphasis on building a strong navy and merchant marine in Portugal. Christian inspired by a mythic tale of a strong Christian empire (Prestor John) of the held Muslim regions somewhere south of Egypt. Felt if they could navigate down western Africa and find some sort of route to this empire that they could unite and have the Muslims surrounded on two sides by Christians.

Some truth to Prestor John-there was a Christian movement that went down to the headwaters of the Nile River. Nubian people to this day practice Christianity, but not a giant empire.

Continued over the remainder of the 1400s as explorers pushed down the coasts of Africa

Portuguese merchants expand trading entrepôts along the way. (Canary Islands, Madera Islands, etc) Trade for ivory, and other commodities.

Some of this money invested by Prince Henry in a Maritime School

Pioneers in oceanic technology such as Quadrant-open ocean travel; Caravel, etc,

Ultimate goal of Portuguese was to circumvent Muslim empire

1498 Vasco De Gama rounds the cape of good hope and sailed up into the Indian ocean. Would return later and sack a city with a larger fleet and from that point onwards would direct their attention eastward to avoid Muslims

Spanish and Columbus Image: early woodcarving of Columbus

Born in Genoa, the son of a modest weaver

Became a sea captain and moved around the Mediterranean. Reached his glass ceiling in class and wealth due to his modest upbringing.

Despite this he had a vision to sail westward and establish a trade route. Ambitious, but lacked capital to do this. He needed money and investors

For about a decade he tries to get backing to make his voyage

Most educated Europeans knew that the earth was round at this point and not flat. They felt that the passage was much longer and more difficult to navigate.

Columbus pitched that he estimated the voyage to be a mere 4000 miles (in actuality its around 12000) repeatedly dismissed

Approaches the Spanish in 1491 a second or third time. The Spanish had just completed the Reconquista-had finished driving all of the Moors off of the Iberian peninsula. The monarchs are proud of this achievement. Are to some degree making a claim as leaders of Christian world, and looking to the Portuguese they feel that if there is a competitor for this title it is the Portuguese who have explored extensively; therefor they decide to roll the dice and fund Columbus’s expedition.

Columbus does not find a route to Asia but lands in the New World

Postpone doc 2-2 to Tuesday.

1/19/16

Film excerpt on Columbus and Document review 2-2

Columbus would make 4 voyages overall. Second voyage would land on Dom. Rep./Haiti and it would be named Hispanola. Columbus is made first governor.

The people go by various names (Teino)

Some religious conversion

Primarily looking for gold-some there but not much

Turns to demanding natives to go find it. Gives a thimble sized container to natives and demands that they go find that amount of gold or he will cut off a hand.

Brutal rule as a governor

Men eventually mutiny, and Columbus is taken back to Spain by Spanish Crown and removed from governorship.

Film: 1519-1521

Encomende-the Spanish system of forced labor: the colonial government each Spaniard a group of Indians who were to be put to work in the rivers searching for gold and converted to Christianity. They however did not convert tehm but just worked them heavily.

Church comes to Hispaniola and takes issue with the treatment of the natives. Goes back to Spain.

The Requirement-how to deal with the Indians can we enslave them, scheme to announce to every tribe that we are here and if you profess loyalty to us and the king but if you do not we can enslave you. May or may not have understood read in Spanish not natives tongue. To be read in Spanish to everyone. A way to maintain control over the natives and govern their control

Tenochtitlan- great city. Central to is power were the gods. Controlled by the Aztecs. Military conquest of other territories. Under their beliefs sacrificed people to maintain life, did this through military conquest.

Cortes landed in new world united with groups that were subjugated by the Aztecs

Night of sorrow - Cortez fled, Cortez fled, and then Cortez allies with other allies against the Aztecs…while this is occurring the Aztecs are devastated by smallpox…the relation for the natives was that if you attack the Spanish pestilence will fall upon you…thus the other groups who were the Aztec enemies rallied to Cortez.

Traditional explanation was rooted in superior tech and tactics…since then it has been overwritten by the role disease played in decimating the population, and the ability to gain allies through Aztec enemies who wished to throw off the yoke of Aztec oppression.

Columbian Exchange:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQPA5oNpfM4 (not from class but another good clip)

Once the old world arrives in the new world there is an exchange of goods, peoples, genes, etc. between the Americas, Europe, and Africa.

Exchange goods:

Corn, potatoes, yams, legumes-back to Europe argument that this partially is attributed to a population boom in Europe due to higher nutritional value achieved.

Horses

Tobacco

Firearms

Diseases smallpox etc. to new world and syphilis back to Europe and china

Religion to new world (Spanish America became a Christian (Roman Catholic) world.

Brinkley Chapter 2; Johnson Doc 3-1

The English case:

The English are behind the curve, at least behind the Spanish. Take them at least another century to launch the kinds of expeditions that the Spanish are launching.

Things are happening in the 16th century which pave the way for the English to get involved

Establishment of a powerful new central monarchy: Tudors (Henry VIII, Elizabeth are among them later)

Consolidating political authority – a necessary ingredient to establishing colonies

Still relatively poor in comparison to Spanish…English turn to a model known as the Joint Stock Company (JSC) in order to fund these expeditions.

JSC –such as East India Company…(basically a corporation) individuals got together and pooled resources (capital) and approach crown and then go off under crowns blessing sharing a portion of the wealth with the monarchy.

In Spanish example the Spanish crown is much more involved in the endeavors than in English case. Much more autonomy given to English JSCs

Emerges in the latter half of the 1500s: “sturdy beggars” an increase in poverty demographics in England. Essentially population is increasing and populations are migrating to cities and towns begins to grow. These cities by the ends of 1500s are experiencing all the problems of high poverty populations (crime, sickness) “sturdy beggars” coined to describe the individuals who are turning to crime due to an inability to sustain themselves by legitimate needs.

Richard Hakluyt – 1580s write a series of treatises (studies) about “sturdy beggars” His solution was to have English crown create a series of colonies abroad in which these people can be funneled. This will two fold solve the problem of creating colonies and providing a safety valve for overpopulation and unproductive demographics in England to go abroad and have a better life and create profits for the English crown. Hakluyt was an associate of Walter Raleigh who would found a joint stock company and attempt the first permanent settlement (Roanoke Island 1580s) ill-fated colony that disappeared. A trade ship returned in 1590 and barely a trace was left.

Despite this failure all the ingredients were in place in England to launch further endeavors of the same nature with large profits to be had upon success.

1/21/16 First Quiz will be Thursday

I. Jamestown

II. Edmund Sandys and John Rolfe

III. New World Slavery Madro P

Jamestown on a map

Slide with self-identified professions of occupations of individuals from first ship in Jamestown

144 on original ship 39 died at sea, another 45 died in first few months

29 gentlemen 1 preacher 4 carpenters 12 laborers

1 surgeon 1 blacksmith 1 tailor 1 barber

2 bricklayer 2 mason 1 drummer 4 boys

12 unidentified

Second ship

28 gentlemen 21 laborers 2 jewelers 2 refiners

2 goldsmiths 1 perfumer 1 apothecary 1 tailor

1 blacksmith

Gentlemen largest demographic…what is a gentlemen?

Varying ranks of aristocracy (titled and untitled), landed families who are wealthy. Typically second sons and greater due to primogeniture (first born son inherits the bulk of the landed estate and property) which was a way of fortifying and perpetuating elite class and wealth. Gentlemen made money by renting property and commanding the labor of others. They expected that others would naturally work for them and follow their commands.

If gentlemen didn’t expect to work who was going to labor?

Indians-however most of the native Americans decimated by earlier disease and in point of fact it is almost impossible to enslave a people on their home ground.

Goldsmiths, refiners, etc?

Basing their campaign on prior Spanish model they believed that rich mineral resources were present and that was the goal.

Tailors, perfumers, etc.

Support of finery for the gentlemen

Lack of women

Goes towards expectations…probably intended to come make or create wealth and leave. Did not see the necessity to bring families.

Is religion important?

Only ONE preacher. This is not the primary motivation for settlers in Jamestown.

Certainly not a group that is well comprised to survive and thrive in the new world. Why starvation is a prominent element of the first 15 years of Jamestown. Estimated that something like 4/5 settlers die due to lack of resources. Even after 50 years of establishment survival rate in the area was only about 2/10 individuals or 20%

Image of Jamestown (artist rendering mid 1620s)

Document 3-1 on page 37

Series of letters from Richard Freethorne

indentured servant-indentured servants typically “indentured” or signed a contract of service for a term of time that varied 4-5 or 7 years, committing to work for person for that time to pay for passage to the new world.

Poor

What is life like for indentured servants?

Lack of food (more food at home in a day that in a week there), poor water (dysentery was a killer), work hard and long hours, trouble with rogues (Native Americans)

Powhattans-for a time Jamestown had good relations with the native americans, an alliance was formed with John Rolfe and chiefs daughter Pocahontas. Then when Powhattan died Opechancanough takes over and has a very different relationship with the English. Repeated attacks on the English attempts to exterminate their presence and the settlers feel free to attack back. Opechancanough defeated in 1622.

Opechancanough image

Why is freethorne writing in the first place?

Redeem me from this bondage …he wants to go home. Wants someone to go pay the contract issuer so that he could go home.

Bondage refers to slavery In what way can we compare indentured servants to slaves?

Can be bought and sold as long as under contractual obligations

Master is supposed to supply all necessities

Couldn’t run away extension in service if you did

Could be whipped, branded, etc.

Couldn’t marry or have children

If you were to survive the indenture were entitled to freedom dues

Some sort of property tools land etc.

So the master had an incentive to work the individual to death so that he would not have to give back these dues.

Not a lifetime condition, offspring would not inherit their parents status like slaves…although the parent would usually incur additional service for the child.

______________________________________

John Rolfe-

Famous wife of Pocahontas, although much more important to area than this early alliance. Began experimenting with Tobacco and begins to send the first few hogsheads (huge barrel) of tobacco back to England. By 1617 20,000 pounds are being sent back to England. By 1620 crown (monarchy/king) enacts a law that bans tobaccos growth in England giving Virginia a monopoly on crop. Production grows exponentially.

Edmund Sandys-

1618 comes in as new governor. Reorganizes colony in way it works. Encourages women to come over. Institutes Headright System which operated in tandem with tobacco and indentured servitude.

Headright System-granting of title to land. For every person that an individual brought over to the new world (indentured servants, family, etc) received rights to land.

Institutes early form of government-convenes the first local assembly in the 1630s for heads of households with land can vote for individuals to give them a voice. Not a democracy, wealthy propertied men were only ones allowed to partake was a privilege of status and wealth that invested the propertied population in Virginia

Jamestown by mid17th century vast fortunes are being made in the area and expanding in property inward up the riverine systems.

Turn to Slavery and the institution of slavery

At first the main source of labor was indentured servants as late as the 1670s blacks comprise less than 5% of the population of the Chesapeake area.

The first slaves come over in 1619 some were either treated as or later freed as they later appear on census data as free blacks

Old world origins of north American slaves 1690-1807

General trends most came from the west coast of Africa. Smaller but still significant that comes from south central Africa.

In fact of all the 10-12 million that come over, over 90% will not wind up in North America, most wind up in the Caribbean on sugar plantations. Sugar was the most important and profitable cash crop in the new world. It was also a crop that had a very high mortality rate.

How do Europeans get the slaves? Following the Portuguese the Dutch and English will establish trading outposts on the coast of Africa and make it plain to them that the single most important thing that they can do for trade is provide slaves. So the tribes would then go into the interior and capture slaves through warfare and march them to the coast to slave forts.

Slavery in Africa was different than New World Slavery: African slavery was largely used to replenish tribal losses in warfare and “slaves” could eventually under the right circumstances become full members of the tribe.

New World Slavery

Plantation slavery

Race based

Once purchased and taken to the coast they were tightly packed onto slave ships and taken to the new world. Known as the Middle Passage.

Mortality rates 15-20% on average.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnV_MTFEGIY Atlantic Slave Trade (not class material but very useful)

Atlantic trade patterns

1/26/16 for Thurs doc 4-1

Profitability of the slave trade not limited to the sugar and tobacco plantation owners many if not the entire colonial population profited in one manner or another

John Handcock for example was one of the weathiest if not the weathiest colonists at thet iem of ther evolution who made large amounts of money off of slave trade

Brown family from Rhode Island also

Creates jobs for individuals artisians and mechanics needed to create materials for the trades support and the trade

Slavery on the ground in colonial Chesapeake:

Plantation system and racial dynamic of slavery

Relationship between slavery and racism has been a topic of analysis for historians over the ages

Examine the transition point where the labor force shifts to primarily slave labor 1670s in comparison to the initial 20 some slaves who arrived and had questionable status

Anthony Johnson-colonial Virginia-free black

Today most historians would agree that both slavery and racism were mutually involved in the development of both.

One of the earliest historians to develop this was Winthrop Jordon in White Over Black

The English had been in contact with western Africa since roughly the 1550s, the Portuguese from roughly the 1450s

Englishmen had opportunities to form opinions about Africans long before they entered into the salve trade. The initial contact between the English and the Africans did not take place in the context that would prejudge them as slaves.

What sort of opinions do these English have and form about these Africans?

Jordon proposes a couple of key points:

First Impressions: Earliest accounts of ship captains and others coming in contact with the Africans is that commented immediately on skin color seizing on a term black.

This is highly significant…it is an exaggerated term Africans are dark skinned but not “black”, which is laden with meaning for 16th and 17th century. The old English dictionary lists several meanings for black none of which are positive. Significant even further when compared with the term white which Europeans begin to identify themselves with around this point and has the opposite meaning.

Defective religion they were not Christians: more importantly there weren’t any significant efforts to proselytize or convert the Africans to Christianity. Efforts only really began in the mid 18th and into the 19th century. This is in contrast to other contacts such as Native Americans who were attempted to be converted from the start.

From the start even before the slave trade English had set apart the Africans as radically different \.

While this is going on other factors help facilitate the change to slavery

A reduction in indentured servants coming to the colonies and a failure to meet labor needs and a preexisting slave trade that the English simply tapped into to meet these needs.

Images 15th century vs 19th century humanization vs animalization

By the 18th and 19th centuries slavery is fueling the racism

Doc review Nathaniel Bacon-and Bacon’s Rebellion 1676

Bacon forced to take land on the interior due to the better coastal lands already having been acquired before his arrival

Conflict with the natives on the frontier over land

Calls for governor Berkley to do something, enacting a new policy treating the Native Americans with hostility

The governor refuses

Bacon and his followers then march on the capital and for a time capture it

How does Bacon describe governor bottom of 55 thrue 56

Let us compare these things together and see what sponges have suched up the public treasure…

Describes Berkley as a parasite a grandee (the wealthy class) who has been profiting off of the poorer class including a few blacks and slaves

Bacon’s following is made up almost exclusively of tenant farmers, indentured servants, a few slaves, etc. (poorer classes)