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.