U.S. History: Chapter 1

OBJECTIVES: Chapter 1

o We will examine the early history of Native American Indigenous cultures.

o We will examine how the conditions in Europe such as the Papacy having supreme power impacted expansion of European powers to other places.

o We will examine the impact of European exploration of the “New World” impacted both territories in a profound way.

• (Dan 7:25) And he shall speak

great words against the most

High, and shall wear out the

saints of the most High, and

think to change times and laws:

and they shall be given into his

hand until a time and times and

the dividing of time.

Origins of Native Americans

• Speculation of the Native American origins for decades was a belief that they came from Asia possibly Mongolian tribes that traveled through a sort of an ice bridge over the Bering Strait into what is now Alaska.

Origins of Native Americans

• Alaskan

Eskimo

Friends.

• The most elaborate and

advanced Native

American populations

were located in now in

Central and South

America.

• The Incas in what is modern day Peru created the largest empire in the Americas that stretched for 2,000 miles of western South America.

• It was an empire created as much by persuasion as by force.

• The empire sustained itself by innovative administrative systems and by the creation of a large network of paved roads.

• Another was the Mayans who were in parts of Central America and Mexico who developed:

• A written language,

• Numerical system and accurate calendar,

• An advanced agricultural system,

• And important trade routes into other areas of the continents.

• The Aztecs based mainly in Mexico created the most sophisticated city in the Americas at that time with the population of 100,000 by 1500

• with connected water supplies through aqueducts and

• a large and impressive public school buildings, schools

• an organized military

• a medical system

• and slaves of conquered tribes.

Common Features Native Americans

o Most American Indians did

not have centralized nations

like Europe.

o Instead political power was

spread among many local

chiefs with limited authority.

North American Indians • The Civilizations in the North

were focused more in subsisting in hunting, gathering, fishing, or some combination of the three.

• Some tribes like in the Great Plains farmed corn and other grains.

• There was enormous diversity of the economic, social and political structures among the North American Indians.

• Some tribes like in the Great Plains farmed corn and other grains.

• Crops planted by the Native Americans that would be ultimately introduced to the rest of the world included corn, beans, squash, pumpkins.

• Europeans were almost entirely unaware of the existence of the Americas before the fifteenth century.

• Early explorers like Leif Erikson in the 11th Century had glimpses of the New World arriving in places what is now Canada.

European Society During the Middle Ages

• In Europe from 538 A.D to

1798, the Papacy (The head

of the Roman Catholic

Church), held supreme power

in influencing politics, culture,

and normal day of life in

Europe.

• “After the fall of Rome, no single

state or government united the

people who lived on the European

continent. Instead, the Catholic

Church became the most powerful

institution of the medieval period.

Kings, queens and other leaders

derived much of their power from

their alliances with and protection

of the Church.” History.com

• “(In 800 CE, for example, Pope Leo III named the Frankish king Charlemagne the “Emperor of the Romans”–the first since that empire’s fall more than 300 years before. Over time, Charlemagne’s realm became the Holy Roman Empire, one of several political entities in Europe whose interests tended to align with those of the Church.)”

• Ordinary people across Europe had to “tithe” 10 percent of their earnings each year to the Church; at the same time, the Church was mostly exempt from taxation. These policies helped it to amass a great deal of money and power. http://www.history.com/topics/middle-ages

In 538 A.D. The Emperor Justinian gives the Roman Bishop head of all the churches.

• Additional Sources: See Great Controversy pages 54-55

What did Justinian do? • Justinian states: “We want all

Christians to accept the faith that the Holy Catholic church maintains so that we as we know the one God and Lord also have one such faith.” J.P. Migne, Patrologie Graeca, 86, I 993 D.

• The core principles of the

Papacy was control.

• It sought control over the

masses.

• The Papacy and the priests

have ultimate say and that the

Pope is infallible.

Era of Absolute Control

• Absolute Monarchy

• Only a few controlled all the

wealth.

• Only the church can interpret

the Bible and what is

permissible in everyday life.

• Europe in the Middle Ages

was not adventurous.

• Scientific discovery was

stifled.

• Commerce and innovation

was almost non-existent

• The exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God's government; He desires only the service of love; and love cannot be commanded; it cannot be won by force or authority. Only by love is love awakened. To know God is to love Him.... {Desire of Ages: 22.1}

• It was during the Middle Ages that Europe suffered the Black Plague or Bubonic Plague that began in Constantinople in 1347 that decimated Europe killing more than a third of the people of the continent.

• But a century and a half later, the population rebounded.

• With the growth gave rise to land values a reawakening of commerce.

• As trade increased, and as advances in navigation and ship building made long-distance sea travel more feasible,

• Interest in developed new markets, finding new products, and opening new trade routes rapidly increased.

• These Monarchs were ambitious to make their nations grow in prosperity.

• In the fourteenth century Marco Polo and other adventurers returned from Asia with exotic goods such as spices, fabrics, and dyes and the desire to reach trade with the Far East.

Pull Factors To The New World

• Marco Polo

brought back

noodles and

pasta that we

enjoy today.

• Ultimately the Muslims

dominated these trade

routes.

• So a desire to find

new trade routes were

a premium.

• Portugal became the premium maritime power in the fifteenth century

• led by Prince Henry the Navigator.

• Instead of Asia, he desired to explore the Western Coast of Africa to establish a Christian Empire

• to help with the wars against the Muslim Moors of North Africa.

• He also hoped to find gold.

• Henry’s mariners went far south as Cape Verde on Africa’s West Coast.

• Six years after Henry’s death, Bartholomew Dias rounded the Southern tip of Africa

• and in 1497-1498 Vasco da Gama proceeded all the way around the cape to India.

Christopher Columbus

• He was born and reared in

Genoa, Italy.

• Obtained most of his early

sea fearing experience in

the service of the

Portuguese.

Christopher Columbus

• Among navigators there was common thought that the route to Asia might be to go west.

• Columbus hope was based on several misconceptions.

• He believed that the world was smaller than it actually is.

• He also believed that the Asian continent extended farther eastward than it actually does.

• He assumed that the Atlantic was narrow enough to be crossed on a relatively brief voyage.

• It did not occur to him that the Americas was in his way.

• Columbus did not win the

support of Portugal to sponsor

him so he turned to Spain who

was ambitious to reach Asia.

• The Spanish monarchs

Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain

approved of his proposal and

set sail in 1492.

• Arriving in what is now the Bahamas and Cuba and when encountering the natives he believed that they were Indians from the East Indies.

• Although he did not see the vast riches he thought he would encounter, he strongly believed that he was close to Asia till he died.

Christopher Columbus

• Columbus was also a very religious

man who wanted to claim territory

for the Papacy to expand their

religious influence.

• He believed that he was divinely

appointed to discover a new earth

to advance the coming of the

millennium.

Pull Factors to the New World

Other Spanish Explorers

• Ferdinand Magellan a Portuguese in the employ of the Spanish found the strait now that bears his name in the southern end of South America

• and went to the ocean that he christened the Pacific because it seemed so calm.

• He then proceeded to the Philippines where he was killed in a conflict with natives but his expedition went on to circumnavigate the globe.

• In 1518, Hernando Cortes led

a small military expedition of

about 600 men into Mexico.

• Cortes and his men defeated

the Aztec Empire.

• Cortes and his men

introduced the Aztec to small

pox that decimated the Aztec

population.

• “God saw fit to

send the Indians

Small Pox.” One

of Cortes

followers.

• Their purpose to gain riches and

to spread Catholicism to the

region.

• Cortes had a reputation as the

most brutal of the Spanish

Conquistadors.

• and would subjugate and in

some areas almost exterminate

the native populations through a

combination of warfare and

disease.

Spanish America: • The first Spaniards arrived in the New

World, the conquistadores had only been interested in only one thing, getting rich.

• For 300 years beginning in the 16th century, the mines in Spanish America yielded more than ten times as much gold and silver as the rest of the world’s mines together.

• The riches made Spain the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth for a time.

• After the first wave of conquest, many came in hopes of creating a profitable agricultural economy.

• Another important force for colonization was the Catholic Church.

• Ferdinand and Isabella in establishing Spain’s claim to most of the Americas from Mexico on South, obeyed the Papal mandate that the new territories only religion should be Catholic.

• In time, the Spanish explorers in the New World stopped thinking of America simply as an obstacle to search for a route to the East.

• They saw it as a possible source of wealth and claimed the whole New World

• Except for a piece of it that was reserved by Papal decree for the Portuguese (Brazil).

• By the Seventeenth century,

Missions were established in

Spanish colonies to convert

natives into Catholics.

• A military garrison connected

to the mission to protect the

colony and presidios

(military bases) grew nearby

for additional protection.

• The missionary impulse became one of the most important motives for European emigration to America.

• Priests or Friars accompanied almost all colonizing ventures.

• Through the zealous work, the gospel of the Papacy ultimately extended throughout South and Central America.

• In 1565, St, Augustine, Florida was the first permanent European settlement of what is now the U.S.

• It was the administrative center for Franciscan missionaries.

• The Spanish would later expand to the American Southwest.

• Spanish missionaries were successful in converting Pueblo Indians to Christianity.

• But the Pueblos revolted when the missionaries launched efforts to stop tribal rituals that were incompatible with their faith.

• It almost destroyed the Spanish colony in the region.

• The Spanish sought to maintain a presence in the area by baptizing Indian children and enforcing the observance of Catholic ritual.

Biological and Cultural Exchanges: • The first and profound result of this

exchange was the importation of European diseases to the New World.

• Millions died because of the exposure to Chicken Pox, influenza, measles, chicken pox, mumps, small pox.

• Europeans may have partial immunity but the Natives were wiped out in the millions.

Biological and Cultural Exchanges: • For example where Columbus

established his short lived

colony in what is now

Dominican Republic, a

population of one million

declined to about 500.

• Natives died in large number because of the conquistador policy of subjugation and extermination.

• The conquistadors were brutal.

• It was a reflection of ruthlessness with which Europeans waged war in all parts of the world.

• They saw natives as “savages” and uncivilized and not fully human.

• Europeans introduced crops such as sugar and bananas, domestic livestock (cattle, pigs, and sheep).

• and most significantly the Horse that changed native society greatly.

• America introduced Europeans to corn, squash, pumpkins, beans, sweet potatoes.

• European missionaries through both persuasion and coercion spread Catholicism through most areas of the Spanish Empire.

• But native Christians created a hybrid of faiths that were while essentially Christian, nevertheless less distinctively American.

• Language became intermixed.

• Many of the Natives began to learn Spanish and Portuguese but the process created a range of dialects.

• The impact today is most of the Americas today speak Spanish and the majority of nations of high Catholic populations.

• Because there were not many

women from Europe coming over

to America, many of the Spanish

intermarried with the natives.

• The Natives were the principal

source of forced labor but

ultimately could not fill their labor

needs, and

• in 1502, European settlers began

to import slaves from Africa.

• In the Sixteenth Century, sugar caused the demand for slavery to grow.

• Sugar was highly labor intensive and the need for workers.

• Warring African tribes sought to capture slaves from rival kingdoms in exchange for European goods.

• Many were shipped to the Caribbean.

• European slavery was brutal as opposed to slavery in Africa where slaves held certain legal rights and their children were free.

• The Portuguese and Spanish first

controlled the slave trade, and then the

Dutch and ultimately the British which

lead to African slaves arriving in North

America by 1700.

• The prevailing theme of the early

exploration and colonization of the

Americas was one of force and coercion

that the Papacy practiced in Europe.

• Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen. Matthew 28:19-20

• And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give. Matthew 10:7-8.

• Mar_10:19 Thou knowest the

commandments, Do not

commit adultery, Do not kill, Do

not steal, Do not bear false

witness, Defraud not, Honour

thy father and mother.

• Rom_13:10 Love worketh no ill

to his neighbour: therefore love

is the fulfilling of the law.