The Beginnings of Our Global

Age: Europe and the Americas

Conquest in the Americas

• 1492 Columbus

meets the Taino in

the West Indies

• He claims their land

for Spain; takes

several back to Spain

• Conquistadors

• Guns, horses,

disease Columbus Meets the Taino

Cortes Conquers Mexico

• 1519 Cortes lands on coast of Mexico

• Marches on Tenochtitlan

• La Malinche helps him make alliances

• Moctezuma and Quetzalcoatl; guns, horses, smallpox

• 1521 Tenochtitlan falls

La Noche Triste

Pizarro Takes Peru

• Pizarro arrives in Peru in 1532

• Atahualpa had just won the throne

• He’s captured and held for ransom; Pizarro kills him any way

• Again, superior weapons and disease doom the Inca

Pizarro Executes Atahualpa

Effects of the Conquistadors

• A few hundred conquer

millions; guns, horses,

disease

• Europeans take gold,

silver; finance new

empire; changes pattern

of global encounters;

everything connected by

sea routes

• Native Americans? Died;

lost faith in their gods;

suffered under a new

social order

Europeans in North America

Spanish Rule in the Americas

• Mid 1500s Spain’s empire stretches California to South America

• Council of the Indies; Viceroys

• Missionaries

• Controls trade

• Encomiendas

• Father de la Casas

Colonial Society and Culture

• Some blending of

cultures in building,

art, farming methods,

religion

• Layered society

• Towns and cities

• Emphasize education;

build universities;

women go to

convents

Portuguese in Brazil

• Treaty of Tordesillas; Portugal claims Brazil

• Tupian Indians wiped out by disease

• 1530s land grants to settlers; plantations, churches, towns

• No instant wealth; brazilwood, cattle, agriculture

Slaves in a Brazilian Sugar Mill

Building New France

• Early 1502 France fishing ships off Newfoundland

• 100 years later occupy half of North America

• 1534 Cartier follows St. Lawrence; New France/Canada

• Jesuits follow Cartier’s Journey up the St. Lawrence

Furs, Trapping, Fishing

• France’s empire, forts

missions, trading

posts extends from

Quebec to the Great

Lakes down the

Mississippi to the Gulf

• Population grows

slowly and remains

small; colonies aren’t

very successful Jacques Cartier takes

possession of Canada for

France, 1534

The Thirteen Colonies

• 1607 Jamestown, VA

• 1620 Pilgrims land at Plymouth, MA

• 1600-1700s 13 colonies; profit; religious freedom; gifts to loyal subjects

• Timber, fishing, grain, cash crops; plantation economy

Jamestown 1650s

Governing the Colonies

• English monarchs controlled their colonies

• Royal governors; Parliament;

• Compared to French and Spanish colonies, British had some self-government;

• Expected legal and political rights

Royal Governor’s

Mansion NJ

Struggle for Power

• 1600s Spain, France, England, the Netherlands

• Late 1600s only England and France

• 1700s they clash in Europe, Africa, Asia, and North America

• 1754 French and Indian War

• 1763 Treaty of Paris

The Atlantic Slave Trade

• Triangular trade

• Europe to Africa

• The Middle Passage to the Americas

• Industries like shipbuilding, tobacco, sugar did well

• Port cities grew

• Merchants got wealthy

The Middle Passage

• Captured or sold to slavers; usually African middle men

• Marched to the shore

• Held in pens or castles

• Packed into holds for the Middle Passage

• Those that lived faced auction in the Americas

Slave Castle Elmina, Ghana

Impact of the Slave Trade on Africa

• Wealth to merchants and traders

• Labor to make colonies profitable

• African states and societies torn apart

• Individual lives cut short

• 11 million Africans taken; 2 million dead

The Middle Passage

Effects of Global Contact

• The Columbian

Exchange

• Global population

explosion; migrations

• Inflation, capitalism,

mercantilism

• Increasing national

wealth

• Towns, middle class

do well, nobles and

hired help don’t

Columbian Exchange Squash Avocado Peppers Sweet Potatoes

Turkey Pumpkin Tobacco Quinine

Cocoa Pineapple Cassava POTATO

Peanut TOMATO Vanilla MAIZE

Syphilis

Olive COFFEE BEAN Banana Rice

Onion Turnip Honeybee Barley

Grape Peach SUGAR

CANE

Oats

Citrus Fruits Pear Wheat HORSE

Cattle Sheep Pigs Smallpox

Flu Typhus Measles Malaria

Diptheria Whooping

Cough

Trinkets

Liquor

GUNS