Blog #4 Explorer or Murderer?

Answer the  question Explorer or Murderer, identify the country of origin use at least 1 primary source (document, image, map, or video).

Juan Ponce de Leon

Juan Ponce de Leon

            Juan Ponce de Leon was a Spanish conquistador, born in 1474, is well known for discovering and naming Florida for Spain. De Leon was born in the present day Spanish province of Valladolid specifically in the village of Santervas de Campos, and was born into a rich noble family. In 1508, de Leon was given permission to carry out his first expedition with 50 men by Ferdinand II; he left Hispaniola and created the first settlement in Puerto Rico through a fortified house and storehouse. De Leon returned to Hispaniola but in 1509 returned with his children and wife; while enforcing the encomienda system in Puerto Rico on the backs of Tainos. Ponce de Leon ceased a Taino rebellion in 1511 with a small force of troops that were armed. By 1511 word spread in Spain that Hispaniola had more undiscovered land to claim; so, Ponce de Leon took this opportunity and was hired by the King and Queen to find these new lands. On April 2, 1513 Ponce de Leon and his crew sited land and named it La Florida, after the Eastern season. In May 1513 Native Americans approached with the initial intentions of trading, but quickly became hostile, escalating in 8 captive Indians. On June 4^th a similar event happened whereas the skirmish culminated in the sinking in a fourth of the Indian attackers. Ponce de Leon’s fleet disbanded by October 19, when de Leon returned to Puerto Rico and the rest of his crew returning to Spain.  In 1521 along with 200 men de Leon returned to Florida but were attacked by the Calusa (Indians) and de Leon's thigh was pierced by a poisoned arrow and died soon afterwords in Havana, Cuba. 

Map of De Leon's route

Blog # 3

Pick an Indigenous group and write about their lifestyles, using primary sources (pictures, text, or videos).

THE CHEROKEE

            The United Sates has become a melting pot of different ethnicities, and has become home to a variety of cultures and customs; but, how often do we become aware of the history behind the peoples of each unique culture? The Cherokee are only but one group of Native Americans whose numbers have dwindled since the era of colonization. The Cherokee refer to themselves as Tsalagi which means “principal people”; the Cherokee are linguistically part of the Iroquoian language system. They had contact with the European traders during the 1700’s. Cherokee society was divided into two different classes; the “white” class led by the elders of the tribe and the “red” class lead by the younger men of the tribe, which was eradicated in the 18^th century. These elders represented seven different clans within the Cherokee Nation, the role as a white man was priestly and hereditary. The white class, consisting of elders, were basically medicine men who held religious activities; such as, healing, purification and prayer. IN contrast the “red” organization’s primary duty was war and was composed of young men within the tribe. However, war was considered polluted; meaning that members of the “red” organization had to be purified by the “white” organization in order to reintegrate into their communities. The Cherokee, like a copious amount of Indian tribes, were governed in a matrilineal system; where power and authority is passed down through the female side of the family. Most elite men, before the 1800’s, practiced polygamy; a marriage with more than 1 partner. Unlike European society women were allowed to divorce freely and once married, women lived around their families homes. During the 1800’s white settlers referred to the Cherokees as “one of the five civilized Nations”, due to the fact that the Cherokee assimilated into cultural and technological aspects of European society. Article 8 in the 1817 Treaty with Cherokees stated that Cherokees could become legal citizens, marking themselves as the first non-white European group to become legal citizens. Similarly to other groups including the Muscogee, Seminoles, Chickasaw and the Choctaw, were pushed out of their ancestral lands with the passing of the Indian Removal Act. This law caused the forced move of these five tribes during the 1830’s which became known as the Trail of Tears; suffering from disease and starvation.

Trail of Tear Map

Blog #2 The Planting of English America

Blog #2 The Planting of English America

Learning Objectives

·         1. State the factors that led England to begin colonization

·          2. Describe the development of the Jamestown colony from its disastrous beginnings to its later prosperity

·         3. Describe the cultural and social change that Indian communities underwent in response to English colonization

                      In 1588 the Spanish Armada lost to British forces, paving a New path for Britain into the New World, but the New world brought about new opportunities and conflicts. Spain’s defeat meant British success in the Americas; regardless, the ecosystem was not the same and was home to Indians.

Britain utilized its rivalry with Spain in order to colonize the New World with ease, after years of tension. In spite of Spain controlling Central and South America of the New World there was a copious amount of land left within North America, the Spanish had Santa Fe, the French Quebec, and the British Jamestown. Tension between Spain and England only heightened when Pirate Francis Drake, who stole Spanish ships for gold, was knighted on his ship by Elizabeth I. Seeking revenge, the Spanish sent an Armada to attack Britain but were defeated in 1588, allowing British crossing through the Atlantic Ocean. As the British swarmed into the Americas; held  a positive effect on the country of Britain; the government was strengthened, religious unity, the Golden age of literature, and a sense of nationalism created, in  1604 Spain and Britain signed a peace treaty. The enclosure policy menat less jobs for labors; whereas, primogeniture only allowed first born sons to inherit all of their father’s land leaving younger sons in poverty pushing laborers and younger sons into North America.

            Despite Jamestown being the first settlement by the British in the North America, colonists managed to overcome its conflict with the land. Jamestown was founded in 1606 when King James I chartered the Virginia company to make a settlement in the New world, the Virginia company guaranteed settlers the same rights as Englishmen in Britain. Of the hundred English settlers only sixty survived; however, the swampy site honed poor drinking water and mosquitos that caused malaria and yellow fever, there were no women, and men looked for gold instead of properly establishing themselves. John Smith took control of the town and created the “no work, no food” policy enforcing discipline and authority amongst the colonists. Colonists began raiding Indian food supplies erupting in war: the First Anglo-Powhatan War ending with John Rolfe, a Jamestown colonist, marrying Pocahontas. Together Rolfe and Pocahontas created a different flavor of tobacco; sweet tobacco, which became Jamestown’s cash crop and was highly sought after by Europeans.

            The colonization of the New World by British settlers created a negative effect for Chesapeake Indians, who initially desired to be allies with the settlers. Indians believed that humans co-existed with nature, while the majority of the Old World, believed that according to the book of Genesis; god had given land to humans to be used. 17^th century Jamestown colonists, raided local Indian food supplies, engendering the First Anglo-Powhatan War. During the war chief Powhatan kidnapped Smith and held a mock execution where Smith was saved by Powhatan’s daughter as a sign of a friendly alliance, the first Anglo-Powahatan war was ended in 1614 when colonist John Rolfe married Pocahontas. But when the Jamestown sweet tobacco industry grew, so did the amount of tobacco began to take burden on the land as the soil was destroyed, and in 1622 the Indians led a series of attacks which resulted in the deaths of 347 settlers. In 1644 the Second Anglo-Powhatan War took place and culminated in 1646 with the Chesapeake Indians banished from their ancestral lands.

            After the defeat of the Spanish Armada the British rode on the rays of discovery, while their colonization in the New World allowed the sun to rise behind Britain at the expense of Indians who were banished from their homes.

Blog 1: New World Beginnings

 Blog 1: New World Beginnings

Learning Objectives

• 3. Explain developments in Europe and Africa that led to Columbus’s voyage to America
• 4. Explain the changes and conflicts that occurred when the diverse worlds of Europe, Africa, and the Americas collided after 1492
• 5. Describe the Spanish conquest of Mexico and South America and identify the major features of the Spanish colonization and expansion in North America

            New Technology and heightened interest in exploration led to the discovery of the Americas in 1492; meanwhile, its colonization by Spain in the 1500’s led to the collision of three different cultures, Europe, Spain, and Africa, within the Americas.

            Advancements in navigation left explorers starved for exploring the New World, while looking for new materials and trade routes. Columbus wanted to reach the Orient, or the Eastern part of the world, in order to locate and retrieve exotic spices from parts of Asia. He planned to sail west and pass around the African route which was owned and monopolized by Portugal. However, Bartalomeu Dias returned to Portugal with news of his successful rounding of the southern tip of meaning that an eastern sea route to Asia apparently at hand.  Once Columbus’s expedition caused his landfall in the Caribbean, the Bahamas, and there he claims the new world for Spain. The New world had different resources than the Old World, the new world provided raw materials; gold, silver and lumber.

            The collision of three different countries; Europe, Africa, and the Americas, brought a new social class, new diseases, and a new system: the encomienda system.  All three countries had distinct climates, natural resources and ecosystems also meaning that each country’s population had different immune systems; thus, when explorers, Columbus, conquistadores, Hernan Cortes and Pizarro, set foot on New World soil they were unaware of the diseases that their crews could have contracted in their home countries.  After 1492, diseases like smallpox, malaria, yellow fever, and even syphilis  originated in the Old World and quickly infected the inhabitants of the New world; approximately ninety percent of all pre-Columbus Indians died. After 1521, and the event of La Noche Triste, the events of La Noche Triste, where the Cortes led his men into the Aztec Capitol of Tenochtitlan and executed a violent takeover, won mostly accredited to the fact that the Spanish brought in foreign diseases which the Aztecs had no immunity against. Spain systematically conquered and took control of the New world, the Spanish who originally accompanied Conquistadores settled down in the Americas as they married Indians and created families. This new generation of children were not known as European or Indian, but were known as Mestizos; a person of mixed Native American and European ancestry, who had less rights in the Casta system compared to Creoles (persons born in the new world to two European parents) or Pennisulares (European born persons) but more rights than Indios (persons of African descent). With the Spanish control of the Americas, they enforced the encomienda system; promoted on ideas of work and religion while Indians were commended to Spanish land lords; in actuality, Indians were made enslaved on sugar plantations while the system was guised as “missionary work”.

            The Spanish control over the Americas evokde many changes but also brought forth the Black Legend, interest in sailing, and Presidios. The Black Legend, was propaganda  promoting the idea that the Spanish only committed atrocities for amusement,  also known as La Leyenda Negra was created by rival European countries such as England and the Netherlands as a form of Anti Spanish propaganda, during the height of Spain in order to disgrace the Spanish; exaggerating murders, disease, and slavery. Opposite to the Black Legend, the White Legend was created as a Pro-Spanish counter to the Black Legend, in which the Spanish Conquest is highly exaggerated to portray the Spaniards where the Spanish Colonization was “well-mannered” and ideal. The success of the Conquistadores led to an increased interest in sailing and exploring, new conquistadores and explorers rode the tides; da Gama, Cabbot, Balboa, Ponce de Leon, Cortes Magellan, and Pizarro all claimed new land for their home countries. The Spanish, desiring to maintain their control over the Americas , created forts all along America also known as Presidios in order to stop rival explorers; John Cabot, Giovanni de Verrnzo, and Jacques Cartier or any other rival country,  from claiming parts of America.

            The discovery of the Americas brought substantial change to Europe, Spain and Africa, as all three were forced to adapt.  New lifestyles included religious conversions, agriculture trades, and even slavery; these three countries were undoubtedly connected not only through their discoveries but through their lifestyles.