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.