European Conquests and American Identity

How the Colonization of the Americas by European Imperialists Continues to Shape the United States

American Identity as a Concept

American identity, like that of all nations, is a social construction that changes over time. Americans hold certain values to be dear – like democracy, capitalism, or freedom of conscience, for example. But even those high ideals can be compromised at times… How democratic is the Electoral College? What restrictions exist on capitalism? If we believe in freedom of conscience and freedom of expression, then why are dissenters during times of war ostracized?

The Concept of “Other” – An Important Concept in Colonization

Europeans have played a large role in constructing American identity, largely because they controlled the history written about colonialism. (Most Native Americans had no written language.) But how much do you or I have in common with 16th And 17th Century Europeans? Karen Kupperman, author of Indians and English: Facing Off in Early America advises: “It is important to realize that, just as the [Native] Americans and their culture is foreign to us, so the English are as well. It is a mistake to think that we can easily and directly understand the minds of English actors. Their purposes and meanings are alien and require imaginative reconstruction just as native American purposes and meanings do; and it is too easy to fall into the trap of thinking we know what they mean because their words appear to say something a modern person might say.”

NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES IN NORTH AMERICA

Major American Civilizations

The Mayans – Near the Yucatan Peninsula and in Central America

The Aztecs – Near present day Mexico City

Cahokia – Mississippian Culture, wiped out before European settlement

Anasazi – In the American Southwest

The Incans – Empire of the Andes Mountains in present day Peru

By the year 1607, when Jamestown was founded, all of these ancient American civilizations were either defunct or in rapid decline due to disease or societal collapse.

North American Tribes We focus on North American tribes because they are the people who inhabited the land which would become the United States – alongside French, English, Spanish, Dutch, and even Russian colonists. Each of these tribes will be important to future studies: The Iroquois The CherokeeThe Sioux Tribe The Nez PerceRemember, though, that all tribes were different, to a large extent due to the geographic environments that they inhabited. The Powhatan, for example, were unique.

The Iroquois Confederation – Eastern Woodlands TribesIroquois were not any one tribe, but a

confederation ruled by consensus building among tribal members.

Gender roles within the tribe dictated matrilineal bloodlines – and women were in charge of living arrangements, agriculture, and healing within the culture.

For English and French settlers – for whom gender roles dictated that men should be in charge of sowing seeds and raising crops – it appeared that men in the tribes were abusive to their women.

The Iroquois Confederation

Because the tribe lived between areas of English and Dutch settlement (New York colony) and the French colonies of Quebec, the Iroquois traded with both sides. The tribe forced European nations to compete for their trade and cooperation during times of conflict.

Southeastern Tribes - CherokeeMost of the Southeastern Tribes – like the Cherokee or Seminole tribe later, were never conquered by Spanish or French explorers. They lived in an isolated region without gold or silver. Missionaries sometimes visited, though, and epidemic diseases devastated the population – as it did all Native American tribes. Some tribes became accomplished traders. In many ways, the Cherokee were assimilated into American society.

Plains Indians – The Sioux TribeWe usually associate the Plains tribes with the nomadic, buffalo-pursuing tribes of the late 19th Century, although they were not always characterized by this way of life. By the 19th Century, Americans had forced Eastern tribes into the region, disease had taken a devastating toll, and both the horse and the gun had dramatically changed the culture of tribes like the Sioux or the Cheyenne. European culture changed Native Americans way of life.

PLAINS INDIANS In general, tribes lived in more permanent settlements, and traveled seasonally from camp to camp. Agriculture was practiced. While the tribes did rely on the buffalo, they were not constantly tracking the herd, as many envision they were.

Southwestern IndiansThe inhabitants of the desert Southwest seem to have had longstanding ties to the Aztecs in Mexico. The so-called Anasazi people – who had disappeared from the region prior to any European exploration of the region – were succeeded by smaller tribes like the Apache or the Navajo. The Apache were hunter-gathers, and more prone to assert themselves aggressively. The Navajo, on the other hand, were herders and engaged in irrigated agriculture, despite the unforgiving environment.

The Pacific NorthwestThe environment of the Pacific Northwest provided a forgiving climate and the satisfaction of basic needs. Since food was abundant, a unique social structure emerged which focused on task accomplishment – whether the task be related to the gathering of food, hunting, construction of shelter, or the limited agriculture which tribes like the Nez Perce or Kwakiutl practiced.

ENSLAVED PEOPLE –THE ROLE OF AFRICANS IN THE AMERICAS

The Portuguese Although most American accounts trace the history of African slavery in the English colonies back to a 1619 Dutch trade vessel which arrived in Jamestown, the origins of American slavery are more properly traced back to the Portuguese and the Spanish. The use of slave labor on sugar plantations off the coast of Africa goes back to the early 1500s. Sugar plantations began in the Madeira Islands, the Canary Islands, and the Verde Islands off the coast of Africa then.

The Spanish and SlaveryImmediately in need of labor, the Spanish enslaved Native Americans upon their arrival in the New World. It was the obligation of any conquistador to explain to the Native Americans that they were now subjects of the King of Spain; furthermore, they were obliged to Christianize the Native Americans. While the crown projected the best of intentions, the actions of the conquistadors were altogether different.

The Spanish and SlaveryThe Spanish were known for their extreme brutality – so much so that in the 1540s the Leyes Nuevas – “New Laws” were put forth by King Charles V in order to reinforce the original mission: the Americans would be subjects of the Crown; they would accept Christianity; they would be paid wages to work on the encomienda.

Reliance of African Slave Labor Native American slaves – whether they were taken by English, French, Spanish, Dutch, or Portuguese colonists – were unreliable as a source of labor. They simple ran off, rejoining their own tribes adopting others. Enslaved Africans, on the other hand, were less likely to run away, since the landscape was hostile and intimidating and their captors held a decisive advantage in terms of violent physical force.

Slave Trade in the Atlantic World

Enslaved LaborThe capture and sale of enslaved Africans had begun long before Portuguese traders began to exploit the market in the 15th Century – Arab traders had purchased African slaves for centuries. Slavery existed in ancient China, in India, in Greece, and in Rome. The Portuguese, however, began to use African Slaves on sugar plantations of the coast of Africa, exploiting slave labor in the cutting and processing of sugar cane, and literally working enslaved people – and their children – to death. The model easily spread to the Caribbean and mainland Americas in a slightly amended form.

Race-based, Hereditary SlaveryWhile slavery had existed for many thousands of years, the concept of slavery was changing dramatically during the first two centuries of the conquest of the Americas. Previously, slavery had been a condition of warfare – political philosophers always compare slavery to a ‘state of war.’ It was punishment for a crime or the misfortunate result of losing in battle. In the Americans, however, slavery would become a race-based, hereditary system. This did not happen right away – for generations, the children of enslaved people were born and lived as free men. But by the 17th Century, strict laws were being put into place to make slavery a condition of one’s birth, particularly among the English.

THE EUROPEANS

Spanish ConquestsWhile the Spanish had a huge advantage in the rush to claim land in the New World, and accordingly, were able to accumulate enormous wealth, they were not in a position to defend their lands from European rivals for very long. Indeed the Spanish never made huge inroads into regions of North America in terms of population. They did, however, exploit the resources and labor of the new continents, while – unbeknownst to them – they spread deadly pathogens around the New World, unleashing a biological genocide.

Spanish PossessionsWhile the Spanish could claim enormous influence in the New World, their ability to control the geography of the region was tenuous, at best. Were it not for the chaos and devastation of pandemic disease, few of their colonial claims would have held. Inflation from the massive infusion of Spanish gold and silver acquisitions led to long term economic consequences in Europe that undermined the Spanish in terms of European and world domination.

• Aztec Empire /Mexico• New Mexico • Florida• Greater Antilles• Lesser Antilles• Incan Empire/Peru• Chile• North Coast of South

America• Pacific Islands – the

Philippines

New World French Possessions

French PossessionsOf the European colonial rulers, the French created the most diverse empire. With sugar plantations the islands of the Caribbean, a sparsely populated empire of trade centered around Quebec, and their domination of Louisiana, the French were scattered across the New World. The creole cultures which developed in their regions were uniquely suited to the geography and cultures inhabited by their colonists. While disease and military conquest played a major role in their settlement of the New World, the French were less possessive of the land, and more willing to accept syncretism, or the adaptation of the Catholic faith to Native American traditional religion.

Quebec

Louisiana

Settlements in the Great Lakes Regions

Caribbean Sugar Islands

Dutch Possessions

The Dutch – New AmsterdamMore than any other empire, the Dutch were committed to trade. The nation was late to the colonization game, and made few inroads onto the mainland of North America, but New Amsterdam was uniquely suitable to the development of commerce. The Hudson River Valley – from Albany to it’s delta at Manhattan, was a skeletal version of the economic powerhouse which is New York City today. It was also a diverse region, and – at least until the governorship of Peter Stuyvesant – one that was tolerant of other cultures. Many of the characteristics of the Dutch settlement appear to define the region even today. The Dutch also held a number of Caribbean islands like Curacao.

New Amsterdam

Islands of the Caribbean

Asia, Indonesia

Russians?The concept of Russian America merits at least a mention. The cultural influence of the Russians was limited, although their settlements, principally committed to the fur trade, were far ranging along the West Coast – from Alaska to coastal California.

English PossessionsDue to constant rivalries with the Dutch, Spanish, and French, the boundaries of England’s Colonial Empire in America changed dramatically over time. In the end, though, more or less all of the territory to the east of the Mississippi River, from Canada to Florida, would fall under British authority by the year 1763.

The English EmpireIf other nations were committed to exploiting the natural resources of the Americas or trading with Native Americans, the English soon abandoned these notions in their colonies to focus on agriculture: sugar, tobacco, and other crops proved more lucrative. The English emphasis on the acquisition of land and property rights inevitably led to conflict with Native American tribes.

Newfoundland, Maritime Provinces

Roanoke Island Jamestown Plymouth

Plantations Bahamas and other

Caribbean Islands Rapid Expansion

over time

WHICH CULTURES HAVE HAD THE GREATEST INFLUENCE ON AMERICAN SOCIETY?Consider all of the following cultural groups which met in New World. Which groups seem to have had the greatest influence on contemporary culture? In groups of five, rank the seven (7) most important groups in terms of their influence on American Society. You must leave out five (5) groups. Be prepared to explain you answers.

• Eastern Woodlands Tribes (Iroquois)• Southeastern Tribes (Creek Confederation)• Southwestern Tribes (New Mexico)• Pacific Northwestern Tribes (Nez Perce, Kwakiutl)• South American Civilizations (Aztec, Incans)• French Colonists (Louisiana, Quebec)• Dutch Colonists (New Amsterdam)• Enslaved Africans (Throughout the Americas)• Spanish Conquistadors (Southwest, Mexico, Florida)• English Colonists (Jamestown, Plymouth)• Russian Traders (Alaska, Pacific Northwest)• Portuguese Traders (Brazil, development of Sugar Plantations)