US: A Narrative
History Volume 1
Chapter 2 - Old Worlds, New Worlds [1400-1600]
Chapter
Overview
The story of
European exploration and discovery in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
starts with the international fishing community at Newfoundland, a group of
fisherfolk mariners and merchants who swarmed to fish the waters off the Grand
Banks and to swap supplies and gossip at St. John's. The tales traded by these
ordinary seamen and traders featured the exploits of "great men"--the
Portuguese explorers of the coast of Africa and their charting of a new route
to Asia; John Cabot and his effort to find a northwest passage to the Orient;
and, of course, Christopher Columbus and his discovery of America.The Meeting of Europe, Africa and America
That conquest of the high seas began with the successful voyages of the Portuguese into the Atlantic in the late 1300s, when they colonized the Canary Islands and, a few decades later, Madeira and the Azores. By the early 1400s, the Portuguese had established sugar plantations on the Atlantic islands worked by enslaved Africans. The Portuguese also initiated a trade with West Africa, introducing European influences to cultures that debated whether to resist or accommodate these foreigners seeking to purchase slaves. By the end of the century Portuguese explorers had rounded the tip of that continent and opened a direct commerce with India.
While the Portuguese, dominated the trade routes to Africa and Asia, the Spanish laid claim to the Americas, led by the discovery of an Italian mariner, Christopher Columbus.
The European Background of American Colonization
To understand why western European expansion extended overseas requires a closer investigation of advances in maritime technology and the economic and political evolution of early modern Europe. That evolution included the concentration of investment capital in the hands of merchants, financiers, and landlords, the population pressure exacerbated by a limited supply of land; and the centralization of political authority in nation states. All of these factors combined to make transatlantic expansionism both possible and desirable, a situation that impelled Europeans to cross the ocean frontier and support overseas settlement.
Spain's Empire in the New World
Spain took the lead in exploring and colonizing the Americas. Under Spain, conquistadors like Hernando Cortez and the Pizarro brothers supplanted the Aztecs and the Incas as the new overlords of the most densely populated regions of Central and South America. Divisions within Indian empires and the devastation of native populations by European diseases made these Spanish conquests easier.
Spanish monarchs soon replaced the conquistadors with an elaborate civil and ecclesiastical bureaucracy that asserted royal control over Spanish America. The empire that developed during the sixteenth century proved enormously profitable, especially after the discovery of silver. That wealth, in turn, pushed Europe more rapidly down a path it had already begun to follow toward more capitalistic forms of economic organization and more centralized structures of political authority.
The Reformation in Europe
During the period that Spain developed its American empire, the Protestant Reformation transformed Western Europe. Inspired by the teachings of Martin Luther and John Calvin, Protestant reformers criticized the worldliness and corruption of the Roman Catholic church, as well as its failure to respond to the spiritual needs of ordinary Christians. Protestant teachings addressed popular needs for religious reassurance by stressing that men and women were saved not by good works but through divine grace alone. Protestants also stressed the ability of each individual to read and understand the will of God as revealed in the bible.
England's Entry into the New World
Protestant attacks on Roman Catholicism won both zealous followers and determined opponents, triggering a series of bloody religious wars. The energies of young English men, barred by royal policy from poaching on Spain's preserve in the Americas, found an outlet in these religious conflicts, as well as in England's effort to conquer and colonize Ireland.
Many veterans of the Irish campaigns subsequently turned their attention to North America in the 1570s and 1580s. At that time, the threat Spain posed to English economic and military security encouraged Elizabeth I to challenge Spain more aggressively, both within Europe and across the Atlantic. English merchants and gentlemen, in search of new markets and new land, lent increasing support to colonization schemes as well. Martin Frobisher, Humphrey Gilbert, and Walter Raleigh all tried and failed to plant colonies in America. But their efforts, as well as the younger Richard Hakluyt's energetic promotion of English colonization, paved the way for renewed English expansionism in the seventeenth century.
Chapter Summary
·
During the late fifteenth century, Europeans
and Africans made their first contact with the Americas, where native cultures
were numerous and diverse.
·
During the fourteenth and early fifteenth
centuries, Western Europeans were on the fringes of an international economy
drawn together by Chinese goods such as spices, ceramics, and silks.
·
A combination of technological advances, the
rise of new trade networks and techniques, and increased political centralization
made Europe’s expansion overseas possible.
·
Led by Portugal, European expansion began
with a push southward along the West African coast, in pursuit of spices,
ivory, and gold. As sugar plantations were established in the islands of the
eastern Atlantic, a slave trade in Africans became a part of this expansive commerce.
·
Spain took the lead in exploring and
colonizing the Americas, consolidating a vast and profitable empire of its own
in the place of Aztec and Inca empires. Divisions within Indian empires and the
devastating effects of European diseases made Spanish conquest possible.
·
The conquistadors who led the Spanish
occupation were soon replaced by an elaborate, centralized royal bureaucracy,
which regulated most aspects of economic and social life. The discovery of
silver provided Spain with immense wealth, while leading to sharply increased mortality
among the native population.
·
Spanish conquistadors also explored much of
the present day southeastern and southwestern United States. They found no
empires, silver mines, or rich empires and were thwarted by the Indian peoples they
encountered.
·
The Protestant Reformation was inaugurated by
Martin Luther in 1517 and carried on by John Calvin, whose more activist
theology spread from his headquarters in Geneva outward to England, Scotland,
the Netherlands, and the Huguenots in France.
·
England, apprehensive of Spain’s power, did
not turn its attention to exploration and colonization until the 1570s and
1580s. By the time it did, European rivalries were heightened by splits arising
out of the Protestant Reformation.
·
England’s merchants and gentry lent support
to colonizing ventures, although early efforts, such as those at Roanoke,
failed.
Counterpoint:
The Changing Views of Columbus
Perhaps no historical figure has been as lavishly celebrated
and as roundly denounced as Christopher Columbus. In the years following the
American Revolution, he was elevated into a powerful symbol of American
nationalism, cast as an inspired renegade from the Old World of Europe whose
discovery of America set the stage for the emergence of political freedom in
the new United States. That chorus of praise continued well into the twentieth
century, as historians proclaimed him not only an apostle of liberty but also a
rugged individualist, an icon of American ingenuity and business enterprise.
During the latter half of the twentieth
century, however, there emerged a starkly different estimate of Columbus: the
man who led the way in despoiling the Americas and enslaving its native
peoples. Is it not Eurocentric, some scholars argue, to celebrate Columbus as
the "discoverer" of a world long inhabited by Native Americans?
Furthermore, research has now made clearer the demographic disaster that
followed upon Europeans' arrival in the Americas. Columbus launched a process
of invasion and occupation that, over the following century and a half, reduced
the native population by perhaps 90 percent through slavery, exploitation, war,
and the scourge of Eurasian diseases. In the opinion of one modern Indian
leader—a view echoed by some historians—"Columbus makes Hitler look like a
juvenile delinquent."
Other scholars insist that the only
fair way to judge historical figures is by measuring them against the standards
of their own times. Their verdict on Columbus is that he was a great mariner
but not a great man. As a brilliant navigator, he staked his life on his ideas
about the size of the world and boldly sailed west to reach Asia. But in other
respects, they argue, Columbus was a creature of his culture—a man typical of
early modern Europe's pragmatic and unscrupulous explorers and merchants.
Consumed by the desire to wring profits from his voyages, Columbus hoped to
find gold in the West Indies, and he dealt harshly with any island peoples who
refused to assist him in that pursuit. Some he sent to Spain as slaves; others
he distributed among his followers as laborers and concubines. Sadly, such
inhumane treatment was not singular but all too common among his fellow
mariners and traders.
Only a few of their contemporaries
possessed the greatness to transcend the prejudices of their age by insisting
that the quest for wealth could not justify violating human rights. Columbus,
for all his other gifts, was not among them.
The first two links below offer
opposing arguments in the contemporary debate about how we should perceive
Christopher Columbus. The third document is a letter from Columbus to his
Spanish patrons. Is there any evidence in
this document to support either side of this controversy? What evidence, if
any, contradicts each position? How would you characterize the man who wrote
this document? What evidence led you to this conclusion?
KEY TERMS, PEOPLE, PLACES, CONCEPTS
John Cabot:
John Cabot was
an Italian navigator
and explorer whose 1497
discovery of parts
of North America under
the commission of Henry
VII of England
is commonly held
to have been the
first European encounter
with the mainland of
North America since
the Norse Vikings visits to Vinland in the eleventh century. The official position of the Canadian and
United Kingdom governments is that he landed on the island of Newfoundland. Page 20
Demographics:
Demographics are factors relating to the characteristics of populations. Demography
is the study of populations, looking at such aspects as size, growth, density,
and age distribution. Page 20
Christopher Columbus: (Cristoforo Colombo)
Christopher Columbus
was an explorer, navigator, and colonizer, born in the Republic of Genoa, in
what is today northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of
Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European
awareness of the American continents. Those voyages and his efforts to establish
permanent settlements on the island of Hispaniola, initiated the process of
Spanish colonization, which foreshadowed the general European colonization of
what became known as the 'New World'. Pages 20, 24-26
Sir Humphrey Gilbert:
Sir Humphrey Gilbert
of Devon in England was a half-brother (through his mother) of Sir Walter
Raleigh. Adventurer, explorer, member of
parliament, and soldier,
he served during the
reign of Queen
Elizabeth and was a
pioneer of English
colonization in North America and the Plantations of Ireland.
Gilbert was the fifth son born to Otho Gilbert of Compton and Greenway,
Galmpton, Devon, by his marriage to Katherine Champernowne. Pages 20, 33-34
Prince Henry the Navigator:
Henry the Navigator
was an infante (junior prince) of
the Kingdom of
Portugal and an important
figure in the
early days of the
Portuguese Empire. He
was responsible for the
early development of
European exploration and maritime
trade with other continents.
Henry was
the third child
of King John
I of Portugal, the founder of the
Aviz dynasty, and of Philippa of
Lancaster, John of
Gaunt's daughter. Pages 22-23
Black Death:
The Black
Death was one
of the most devastating pandemics
in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and
1350. It is widely thought to have been an outbreak of plague caused
by the bacterium
Yersinia pestis, an argument
supported by recent forensic research, although this view
has been challenged by a
number of scholars.
Thought to have started in China, it travelled along the Silk Road and
had reached the Crimea by 1346.
From there, probably
carried by Oriental rat
fleas residing on
the black rats that
were regular passengers
on merchant ships, it
spread throughout the
Mediterranean and Europe.
The Black
Death is estimated
to have killed 30%
- 60% of
Europe's population, reducing the
world's population from
an estimated 450 million
to between 350
and 375 million
in 1400. This has been seen as having created a series of religious,
social and economic upheavals, which had profound effects on the course of
European history. Page 21
Zheng He:
Zheng He formerly
Romanized as Cheng
Ho and also known
as Ma Sanbao
and Hajji Mahmud Shamsuddin,
was a Muslim
Hui- Chinese mariner, explorer,
diplomat and fleet admiral, who
commanded voyages to Southeast Asia, South Asia,
the Middle East, Somalia
and the Swahili
coast, collectively referred to as the
'Voyages of Zheng
He' from 1405 to 1433. Zheng, born
as Ma He; was
the second son of a Muslim family which also had four daughters,
from Kunyang, present
day Jinning, just south
of Kunming near
the southwest corner of Lake Dian in Yunnan. He was
the great, great, great grandson
of Sayyid Ajjal Shams
al-Din Omar, a
Persian who served in the administration of the
Mongolian Empire and
was appointed governor of
Yunnan during the
early Yuan Dynasty. Page 21
Caravel:
The Portuguese
developed the caravel, a lighter,
more maneuverable ship that could sail better against contrary winds and in
rough seas. More seaworthy than the lumbering galleys of the Middle Ages, caravels
combined longer, narrower hulls—a shape built for speed—with triangular lateen sails,
which allowed for more flexible steering. The caravel allowed the Portuguese to
regularly do what few Europeans had ever done, sail down Africa’s west coast and
return home. Other advances, including a sturdier version of the Islamic world’s
astrolabe, enabled Portugal’s vessels to calculate their position at sea with unprecedented
accuracy.
Page 22
Sugar plantations:
The sugar cane plant was the main crop
produced on the numerous plantations throughout the Caribbean through the 18th,
19th and 20th centuries, as almost every island was covered with sugar
plantations and mills for refining the cane for its sweet properties. The main
source of labor until the abolition of slavery was African slaves. These
plantations produced 80 to 90 percent of the sugar consumed in Western Europe. By
the late 1400s sugar plantations were booming on the Atlantic islands, staffed
by West African slaves. Page 24
Bartolomeu Dias:
Bartolomeu Dias, a
nobleman of the Portuguese royal household, he was a Portuguese explorer. He
sailed around the southernmost tip
of Africa in
1488, the first European known to have done so.
Bartolomeu Dias was a
Knight of the
royal court, superintendent of the royal warehouses, and sailing-master of
the man-of-war, São Cristóvão (Saint Christopher). Page 24
Vasco da Gama:
Vasco da
Gama 1st Count
of Vidigueira, was a Portuguese
explorer, one of the
most successful in the
Age of Discovery and
the commander of the
first ships to sail
directly from Europe to India. He is one of the most famous and
celebrated explorers from the Discovery Ages, being the first European to reach
India through sea. This discovery was very impactful and paved the way for the
Portuguese to establish a long lasting colonial empire in Asia. Page 24
Reconquista:
The term
Reconquista was popularized
by contemporary Mexican writers
Carlos Fuentes and Elena
Poniatowska to describe the
increased demographic and
cultural presence of Mexicans
in the Southwestern United States. It was originally a
jocular analogy to the
Spanish Reconquista of Moorish Iberia, as the areas of
greatest Mexican immigration
and cultural diffusion are
conterminous with northern New
Spain and former
Mexican territories. A current usage
of 'Reconquista' was advanced by Chicano activists of the
1970s to describe plans for
the creation of
a mythical Aztec homeland called
Aztlán. Page 24
Tainos:
The Taíno were an
Arawak people who were one of the major indigenous peoples of the Caribbean. At
the time of European contact in the late 15th century, they were the principal
inhabitants of most of Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola (presently Haiti and the
Dominican Republic), and Puerto Rico in the Greater Antilles, the northern
Lesser Antilles, and the Bahamas, where they were known as the Lucayans. They
spoke the Taíno language, one of the Arawakan languages. The Spaniards, who
first arrived in the Bahamas, Cuba, and Hispaniola in 1492, and later in Puerto
Rico, did not bring women in the first expeditions. They took Taíno women for
their common-law wives, resulting in mestizo children. Sexual violence in Haiti
with the Taíno women by the Spanish was also common. Scholars suggest there was
substantial mestizaje (racial and cultural mixing) in Cuba, as well, and
several Indian pueblos survived into the 19th century. The Taíno became extinct
as a culture following settlement by Spanish colonists, primarily due to
infectious diseases to which they had no immunity. The first recorded smallpox
outbreak in Hispaniola occurred in December 1518 or January 1519. The 1518
smallpox epidemic killed 90% of the natives who had not already perished.
Warfare and harsh enslavement by the colonists had also caused many deaths. By
1548, the native population had declined to fewer than 500. Columbus mistakenly
labeled the Taino people "Indians," believing that, he had reached
the East Indies. Page 24
San Salvador:
San Salvador Island (known as Watlings
Island from the 1680s until 1925) is an island and district of the Bahamas. It
is widely believed that during Christopher Columbus' first expedition to the
New World, San Salvador Island was the first land he sighted and visited on 12
October 1492; he named it San Salvador after Christ the Savior. Columbus'
records indicate that the native Lucayan inhabitants of the territory, who
called their island Guanahani, were "sweet and gentle". On the
morning of October 12, the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria set anchor in a
shallow sapphire bay, and their crews knelt on the white coral beach. Columbus
christened the place San Salvador (Holy
Savior).
Page 24
Black Legend:
The Black Legend is a style of
historical writing or propaganda that demonizes the Spanish Empire, its people
and its culture. In the process of European colonization of the Americas that
lasted over three centuries, Spain was the only colonial power to pass laws for
the protection of Native Americans. As early as 1512, the Laws of Burgos
regulated the behavior of Europeans in the New World forbidding the ill-treatment
of indigenous people and limiting the power of encomenderos or landowners. In
1542 the New Laws expanded and corrected the previous body of laws in order to
improve their application. Although these laws were not always followed across
all American territories, they reflected the will of the Spanish colonial
government of the time to protect the rights of the native population. Despite
the existence of these laws, there was some debate within Spain herself about
the treatment and rights of indigenous peoples in the Americas. In 1552, the
Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas published the Brevísima relación de la
destrucción de las Indias (A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies),
an account of excesses committed by some officials of the Spanish Empire during
the colonization of New Spain, particularly in Hispaniola (today Haiti and the
Dominican Republic). A testimony of the time accuses Columbus of brutality
against the natives and forced labor that reduced their population from millions
to thousands in little over a decade. De las Casas, son of the merchant Pedro
de las Casas who accompanied Columbus on his second voyage, described Columbus'
treatment of the natives in his History of the Indies. The writings of Las
Casas have been a center piece in the tradition of Black Legend historiography. They were already used in Flemish
anti-Spanish propaganda during the Eighty Years' War. Today the degree to which
Las Casas' descriptions of the horrors of Spanish colonization represent a
truthful or wildly exaggerated picture is still debated among scholars.For example American historian Lewis
Hanke considered Las Casas' to have exaggerated the atrocities in his accounts
and thereby contributed to the Black Legend, whereas historian Benjamin Keen
who specialize in colonial labor practices found them to be likely to be fairly
accurate, and considered Hanke to be promoting an Spanish apologist "white
legend". This historical ill-treatment of American natives, common in many
European colonies in the Americas, was often used as propaganda in works of
competing European powers to create slander and animosity against the Spanish
Empire. The work of Las Casas was first cited in English with the 1583
publication The Spanish Colonie, or Brief Chronicle of the Actes and Gestes of
the Spaniards in the West Indies, at a time when England was preparing for war
against Spain in the Netherlands. The biased use of such works, including the
distortion or exaggeration of their contents, is part of the anti-Spanish historical
propaganda known as the Black Legend.
Page 25
Virgin soil epidemic:
Virgin soil epidemic is an epidemic in
which the populations at risk have had no previous contact with the diseases
that strike them and are therefore immunologically almost defenseless.
Page 26
Inca Empire:
The Inca Empire was
the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political and
military center of the empire was located in Cusco in modern-day Peru. The Inca
civilization arose from the highlands of Peru sometime in the early 13th
century, and the last Inca stronghold was conquered by the Spanish in 1572. Page 26
Hernan Cortes:
Hernan Cortes (1485
– December 2, 1547) was a Spanish Conquistador who led an expedition that
caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of mainland
Mexico under the rule of the King of Castile in the early 16th century. Cortés
was part of the generation of Spanish colonizers that began the first phase of
the Spanish colonization of the Americas.
Page 26
Francisco Pizarro:
Francisco Pizarro (c. 1471 or 1476 – 26 June 1541) was a
Spanish conquistador who conquered the Incan Empire. Page 26
Bartolome de las Casas:
Bartolome de las
Casas, was a man who spent several years in the Caribbean, participating in conquests
and profiting from native labor. Eventually Las Casas renounced his conduct and,
as a Dominican friar, became a tireless foe of Spanish cruelties toward
Indians. He railed against the “unjust, cruel, and tyrannical” war waged to
force the native peoples into “the hardest, harshest, and most heinous bondage
to which men or beasts might ever be bound into.”
Las Casas’s writings
translated throughout Europe and illustrated with gruesome drawings, helped
give rise to the “Black Legend” of Spanish atrocities in the Americas. Page 26
Moctezuma:
Moctezuma was the
ninth ruler of Tenochtitlan, reigning from 1502 to 1520. The first contact
between indigenous civilizations of Mesoamerica and Europeans took place during
his reign, and he was killed during the initial stages of the Spanish conquest
of Mexico, when Conquistador Hernán Cortés and his men fought to escape from
the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan. Page 26
Columbian Exchange:
The Columbian
Exchange, was a dramatically widespread
exchange of animals,
plants, culture, human populations
(including slaves), communicable
disease, and ideas between the American
and Afro-Eurasian Hemispheres following the
voyage to the
Americas by Christopher Columbus
in 1492.
The term was coined
in 1972 by Alfred W. Crosby, a historian at the University of Texas at Austin,
in his eponymous work of environmental history.
The contact between
the two areas circulated a wide variety
of new crops
and livestock which supported
increases in population in
both hemispheres. Explorers returned to Europe with maize,
potatoes, and tomatoes, which became very important crops in Eurasia by the
18th century. Page 27
Silver Mining:
Spain’s colonies
returned spectacular profits by the 1540s—the result of huge discoveries of
silver in both Mexico and Peru. Silver
mining developed into a large-scale capitalist enterprise requiring
substantial investment. European investors and Spanish immigrants who had profited
from cattle raising and sugar planting poured their capital into equipment and
supplies used to mine the silver deposits more efficiently: stamp mills, water-powered
crushing equipment, pumps, and mercury. Whole villages of Indians were pressed
into service in the mines, joining black slaves and free European workers employed
there. Page 28
Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca:
Alvar Nunez Cabeza
de Vaca was a Spanish explorer of the
New World, one
of four survivors of the Narváez
expedition. He is remembered
as a proto-anthropologist for
his detailed accounts of
the many tribes
of American Indians, first
published in 1542
as La Relación (The Report), and later known as Naufragios (Shipwrecks).
In early 1527, Cabeza de Vaca departed Spain as a part of a royal expedition to
occupy the mainland of North America. As
treasurer, he was one of the chief officers on the Narváez expedition. Within
several months of their
landing near Tampa
Bay, Florida on April 15,
1528, he and
three other men would
be the only
survivors of the expedition party of 600 men. Page 29
Juan Ponce de León:
Juan Ponce de León (1474
– July 1521) was a Spanish explorer and conquistador. He conquered Puerto Rico.
He became the first Governor of Puerto Rico by appointment of the Spanish
crown. He led the first European expedition to Florida, which he named in 1513.
He is associated with the legend of the Fountain of Youth, reputed to be in
Florida. Page 29
Pánfilo de
Narváez:
Pánfilo de Narváez
(1470–1528) was a Spanish conquistador and soldier in the Americas. Born in
Spain, he first embarked to Jamaica in 1510 as a soldier. He participated in
the conquest of Cuba and led an expedition to Camagüey escorting Bartolomé de
las Casas. Las Casas described him as exceedingly cruel towards the natives. He
is most remembered as the leader of two failed expeditions: In 1520 he was sent
to Mexico by the Governor of Cuba Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, with the
objective of stopping the invasion by Hernán Cortés which had not been
authorized by the Governor. Even though his 900 men outmanned those of Cortés 3
to 1, Narváez was outmaneuvered and taken prisoner. After a couple of years in
captivity in Mexico he returned to Spain where the King Carlos V named him
adelantado with authority to explore and colonize Florida. In 1527 Narváez
embarked for Florida with five ships and 600 men, among them Alvar Nuñez Cabeza
de Vaca who later described the expedition in his Naufrágios. A storm south of
Cuba wrecked several of the ships; the rest of the expedition continued on to Florida,
where the men were eventually stranded among hostile natives. The survivors
worked their way along the US gulf coast trying to get to the province of
Pánuco. During a storm Narváez and a small group of men were carried out to sea
on a raft and were not seen again. Only four men survived the Narváez
expedition. Page 29
Esteban:
Esteban (c. 1500–1539), born in
Morocco, was the first known person born in Africa to have arrived in the
present-day continental United States. Enslaved as a youth by the Portuguese,
he was sold to a Spanish nobleman and taken in 1527 on the Spanish Narváez
expedition. He was one of four survivors among the 600 men who started, and
traveled for eight years with Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Andrés Dorantes de
Carranza, and Alonso del Castillo Maldonado across northern New Spain
(present-day U.S. Southwest and northern Mexico), before they reached Spanish
forces in Mexico City in 1536. Later he served as the main guide for a return
expedition to the Southwest, where he was killed in the Zuni city of Hawikuh in
1539. Page 29
Hernando De Soto:
Hernando De Soto
(c.1496/1497–1542) was a Spanish explorer and conquistador who led the first
European expedition deep into the territory of the modern-day United States,
and the first documented to have crossed the Mississippi River. A vast
undertaking, de Soto's North American expedition ranged throughout the
southeastern United States searching for gold, silver and a passage to China.
De Soto died in 1542 on the banks of the Mississippi River in what is now
Arkansas or Louisiana. De Soto sailed to the New World with the first Governor
of Panama, Pedrarias Dávila. Brave leadership, unwavering loyalty, and clever
schemes for the extortion of native villages for their captured chiefs became
De Soto's hallmark during the Conquest of Central America. He gained fame as an
excellent horseman, fighter, and tactician, but was notorious for his
brutality. Page 29
Francisco Vázquez de Coronado:
Francisco Vázquez de
Coronado (1510 – 22 September 1554) was a Spanish conquistador and explorer,
who led a great expedition from Mexico to present-day Kansas through parts of
southwestern United States between 1540 and 1542. Coronado had hoped to reach
the mythical Seven Cities of Gold. His expedition discovered the Grand Canyon
and the Colorado River. His name is often Anglicized as Vasquez de Coronado. Page 29
Jacques Cartier:
Jacques Cartier
(December 31, 1491 – September 1, 1557) was a French explorer of Breton origin
who claimed what is now Canada for France. Jacques Cartier was the first
European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the shores of the
Saint Lawrence River, which he named "The Country of Canadas", after
the Iroquois names for the two big settlements he saw at Stadacona (Quebec City)
and at Hochelaga (Montreal Island). Page 30
Martin Luther
Martin Luther was a
German monk, Catholic priest, professor of theology and seminal figure of the
16th-century movement in Christianity known later as the Protestant Reformation.
He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could
be purchased with monetary values. He taught that salvation and subsequently
eternity in heaven is not earned by good deeds but is received only as a free
gift of God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ as redeemer from sin and
subsequently eternity in Hell. Pages 30-31
John Calvin:
John Calvin
was an influential
French theologian and pastor
during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal
figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called
Calvinism. Originally trained as
a humanist lawyer,
he broke from the
Roman Catholic Church
around 1530. After religious
tensions provoked a
violent uprising against Protestants
in France, Calvin fled to Basel, Switzerland, where he
published the first edition
of his seminal
work The Institutes of the
Christian Religion in 1536. Page 31
Doctrine of Calling:
Throughout his life
and teaching, John Calvin made it clear that the use of our talents is not
restricted to the church or pious duties. Instead, the call to use our creative
gifts and faculties encompasses the whole of creation. Calvin’s doctrine of calling emphasizes the
utility, activity, and purposeful nature of God’s work in the world. His
approach to vocational calling included a strong belief in the personal
pervasiveness of God’s sovereignty, which meant, as John Piper explains,
that God’s sovereign purposes govern
the simplest occupation. He attends to everyone’s work. Calvin believed that
God not only cares about everyday work but also the manners in which that work
is done. Alister McGrath, in his essay Calvin and the Christian Calling,
suggests that for Calvin, work was thus seen as an activity by which Christians
could deepen their faith, leading it on to new qualities of commitment to
God…to do anything, and do it well, was the fundamental hallmark of Christian
faith. Diligence and dedication in one’s everyday life are, Calvin thought, a
proper response to God. For Calvin, it is entirely possible to maintain
integrity of faith while injecting a Christian presence in the world. Calvin’s
message to us, then, is to do our work and do it well, knowing we are serving
the common good and God’s greater purposes for his kingdom. Calvin’s
contribution to the doctrine of calling help us hear the call to work in the
world; another one of his major contributions, the doctrine of common grace,
helps us understand how to work in the world.
Page 31
Protestant Reformation:
The Protestant
Reformation, often referred to simply as the Reformation, was the schism within
Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other early
Protestant Reformers. Although there had been significant attempts to reform
the Roman Catholic Church before Luther—notably those of John Wycliffe and Jan
Hus—the date most usually given for the start of the Reformation is 1517, when
Luther published The Ninety-Five Theses. Luther started by criticizing the
relatively recent practice of selling indulgences started by the Roman Catholic
Church, partially to fund the construction of the St. Peter's Basilica; he
attacked the indulgence system, insisting that the pope had no authority over
purgatory and that the doctrine of the merits of the saints had no foundation
in the gospel. The debate widened until it touched on many of the doctrines and
devotional Catholic practices. The Reformation is generally considered to have
concluded in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia that ended the Thirty Years' War
and a wider conflict known as the European wars of religion. Page 31
Huguenots:
The Huguenots
were members of the
Protestant Reformed Church
of France during the
16th and 17th
centuries. French Protestants were
inspired by the
writings of John Calvin
in the 1530s,
and they were called Huguenots by the 1560s. By the
end of the 17th century,
roughly 200,000 Huguenots had
fled France during
a series of
religious persecutions.
Pages 31-32
Elect:
Elect in
theology, refers to those of the faithful chosen, or “elected” by God for
eternal salvation. Page 31
Jean Ribault:
Jean Ribault
(1520 – October 12, 1565) was a French naval officer, navigator, and a
colonizer of what would become the southeastern United States. He was a major
figure in the French attempts to colonize Florida. A Huguenot and officer under
Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, Ribault led an expedition to the New World in 1562
that founded the outpost of Charles fort on Parris Island in present-day South
Carolina. Two years later, he took over command of the French colony of Fort
Caroline in what is now Jacksonville, Florida. He and many of his followers
were killed by Spanish soldiers near St. Augustine 1565. Page 32
English Reformation:
The English
Reformation was the
series of events in
16th-century England by
which the Church of
England broke away
from the authority of the Pope
and the Roman Catholic Church. These
events were, in
part, associated with the wider process of the European Protestant
Reformation, a religious
and political movement which
affected the practice
of Christianity across most of Europe during this period. Many
factors contributed to the
process: the decline of feudalism and the rise of nationalism,
the rise of
the common law, the
invention of the
printing press and increased
circulation of the
Bible, the transmission of
new knowledge and
ideas among scholars and
the upper and
middle classes. Page 32
Henry VIII:
Henry VIII (28 June
1491 – 28 January 1547) was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death.
He was Lord, and later assumed the Kingship, of Ireland, and continued the
nominal claim by English monarchs to the Kingdom of France. Henry was the
second monarch of the Tudor dynasty, succeeding his father, Henry VII. Besides
his six marriages, Henry VIII is known for his role in the separation of the
Church of England from the pope and the Roman Catholic Church. His struggles
with Rome led to the separation of the Church of England from papal authority,
the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and his own establishment as the Supreme
Head of the Church of England. Yet he remained a believer in core Catholic
theological teachings, even after his excommunication from the Roman Catholic
Church.[1] Henry oversaw the legal union of England and Wales with the Laws in
Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. He is also well known for a long personal rivalry
with both Francis I of France and the Habsburg monarch Emperor Charles V of the
Holy Roman Empire (King Charles I of Spain), his contemporaries with whom he
frequently warred. Page 32
Elizabeth I:
Elizabeth I (7
September 1533 – 24 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17
November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana or
Good Queen Bess, the childless Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the
Tudor dynasty. Elizabeth, as the daughter of Henry VIII, was born into the
royal succession; however, her mother, Anne Boleyn, was executed two and a half
years after Elizabeth's birth, and Anne's marriage to Henry VIII was annulled.
Elizabeth was hence declared illegitimate. Her half-brother, Edward VI, ruled
as king until his death in 1553. He bequeathed the crown to Lady Jane Grey,
cutting his two half-sisters, Elizabeth and the Roman Catholic Mary, out of the
succession, in spite of statute law to the contrary. However, Edward's will was
set aside and Mary became queen, deposing Lady Jane Grey. During Mary's reign,
Elizabeth was imprisoned for nearly a year on suspicion of supporting
Protestant rebels. In 1558, Elizabeth succeeded her half-sister to the throne,
and she set out to rule by good counsel.
She depended heavily on a group of trusted advisers, led by William
Cecil, Baron Burghley. One of her first actions as queen was the establishment
of an English Protestant church, of which she became the Supreme Governor.
This Elizabethan
Religious Settlement later evolved into today's Church of England. It was
expected that Elizabeth would marry and produce an heir to continue the Tudor
line. She never did, despite numerous courtships. As she grew older, Elizabeth
became famous for her virginity. A cult grew up around her that was celebrated
in the portraits, pageants, and literature of the day. Page 32
Fort Caroline:
Fort Caroline was
the first French colony in the present-day United States, located on the banks
of the St. Johns River in what is now Jacksonville, Florida. It was established
under the leadership of René Goulaine de Laudonnière on June 22, 1564 as a new
territorial claim in French Florida and a safe haven for Huguenots.
The French
settlement came into conflict with the Spanish, who established St. Augustine
in September 1565, and Fort Caroline was sacked by Spanish troops under Pedro
Menéndez de Avilés on September 20. The Spanish continued to occupy the site as
San Mateo until 1569.
Page 32
Charter:
A charter is document issued by a sovereign ruler, legislature, or other
authority creating a public or private corporation. Page
33
Richard Hakluyt:
Richard Hakluyt was
an English writer. He is principally
remembered for his
efforts in promoting and
supporting the settlement
of North America by
the English through
his works, notably Divers
Voyages Touching the Discoveries of
America (1582) and
The Principal Navigations, Voiages,
Traffiques and Discoveries of
the English Nation
(1589- 1600). Educated at Westminster
School and Christ Church, Oxford,
between 1583 and
1588 Hakluyt was chaplain
and secretary to Sir
Edward Stafford, English
ambassador at the French court. Page 33
Wingina:
Wingina -
later called Pemisapan
- was the first
North American Indian
leader to be confronted
by English settlers
in the New World.
He was wereoance
(principal chief, king) of
the Secotan (Roanoke)
Indians in present day
North Carolina during
Sir Walter Raleigh's two
expeditions (1585, 1586)
and was murdered by the English. Prior
to the first
English settlement on Roanoke
Island, Philip Amadas
and Arthur Barlowe explored the
area (April 27, 1584) on behalf of Raleigh,
who had received
an English charter to
establish a colony
a month earlier. During their expedition, Barlowe took
detailed notes relating to conflicts and rivalries between different groups of
Native Americans. Page 33
Virginia:
Virginia officially the Commonwealth
of Virginia, is a U.S. state located in the South Atlantic region of the United
States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" due to its status as
a former dominion of the English Crown, and "Mother of Presidents"
due to the most U.S. presidents having been born there. The first people are
estimated to have arrived in Virginia over 12,000 years ago. By 5,000 years ago
more permanent settlements emerged, and farming began by 900 AD. By 1500, the
Algonquian peoples had founded towns such as Werowocomoco in the Tidewater
region, which they referred to as Tsenacommacah. The other major language
groups in the area were the Siouan to the west, and the Iroquoians, who
included the Nottoway and Meherrin, to the north and south. After 1570, the
Algonquians consolidated under Chief Powhatan in response to threats from these
other groups on their trade network. Powhatan controlled more than 30 smaller
tribes and over 150 settlements, who shared a common Virginia Algonquian
language. In 1607, the native Tidewater population was between 13,000 and
14,000. Several European expeditions, including a group of Spanish Jesuits,
explored the Chesapeake Bay during the 16th century. In 1583, Queen Elizabeth I
of England granted Walter Raleigh a charter to plant a colony north of Spanish
Florida. In 1584, Raleigh sent an expedition to the Atlantic coast of North
America. The name "Virginia" may have been suggested then by Raleigh
or Elizabeth, perhaps noting her status as the "Virgin Queen," and
may also be related to a native phrase, "Wingandacoa," or name,
"Wingina." Initially the name applied to the entire coastal region
from South Carolina to Maine, plus the island of Bermuda.
The London Company was incorporated as
a joint stock company by the proprietary Charter of 1606, which granted land
rights to this area. The Company financed the first permanent English
settlement in the "New World", Jamestown. Named for King James I, it
was founded in May 1607 by Christopher Newport. In 1619, colonists took greater
control with an elected legislature called the House of Burgesses. With the
bankruptcy of the London Company in 1624, the settlement was taken into royal
authority as an English crown colony. Page 34
Roanoke:
The Roanoke, tribe were a Carolina
Algonquian-speaking people whose territory comprised present-day Dare County,
Roanoke Island and part of the mainland at the time of English exploration and
colonization. They were one of the numerous Carolina Algonquian tribes, which
may have numbered 5,000-10,000 people in total in eastern North Carolina at the
time of English encounter. The last known chief of the Roanoke was Wanchese,
who traveled to England with colonists in 1584. The smaller Croatan people may
have been a branch of the Roanoke or a separate tribe allied with it. Page 34
Croatan: (croatoan)
The Croatan were a small Native
American group living in the coastal areas of what is now North Carolina. They
may have been a branch of the larger Roanoke people or allied with them. It is
known that the coming of Europeans upset tribal relationships; some tribes
advocated cooperation, some resistance. Those tribes who had contact came to
gain power through their control of European trade goods. Whatever military
might the English held over the Carolina Algonquians, the Indians could
nevertheless wage a much more decisive war of food. All the Indians had to do
was lose contact with the English, and the English would have been completely
helpless. Despite the varying relationships among tribes, the Roanoke and
Croatan were believed to have been on good terms with English settlers of the
Roanoke Colony. Wanchese, the last leader of the Roanoke, accompanied the
English on a trip to England.
The Lost Colony - Governor John White
returned to Roanoke in 1590 to find the words "croatoan" carved on a
tree. It is possible that some of the survivors of the Lost Colony of Roanoke
may have joined the Croatan. Governor White finally reached Roanoke Island on
August 18, 1590, three years after he had last seen them in Virginia, but he
found his colony had been long deserted. The buildings had collapsed and
"the houses [were] taken down". The few clues about the colonists’ whereabouts
included the letters "CRO" carved into a tree, and the word
"CROATOAN" carved on a post of the fort. Croatoan was the name of a nearby island
(likely modern-day Hatteras Island) and a local tribe of Native Americans.
Roanoke Island was not originally the planned location for the colony and the
idea of moving elsewhere had been discussed. Before the Governor's departure,
he and the colonists had agreed that a message would be carved into a tree if
they had moved and would include an image of a Maltese cross if the decision
was made by force. White found no such cross and was hopeful that his family
was still alive. The Croatan, like other Carolina Algonquians, suffered from
epidemics of infectious disease, such as smallpox in 1598. These greatly reduced
the tribe's numbers and left them subject to colonial pressure. They are
believed to have become extinct as a tribe by the early seventeenth century. Page 35
Spanish Armada:
The Spanish Armada was a Spanish fleet
of 130 ships that sailed from A Coruña in August 1588, under the command of the
Duke of Medina Sidonia with the purpose of escorting an army from Flanders to
invade England. The strategic aim was to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I of England
and the Tudor establishment of Protestantism in England, with the expectation
that this would put a stop to English interference in the Spanish Netherlands
and to the harm caused to Spanish interests by English and Dutch privateering.
The Armada chose not to attack the
English fleet at Plymouth, then failed to establish a temporary anchorage in
the Solent, after one Spanish ship had been captured by Francis Drake in the
English Channel, and finally dropped anchor off Calais. While awaiting
communications from the Duke of Parma's army the Armada was scattered by an
English fireship attack. In the ensuing Battle of Gravelines the Spanish fleet
was damaged and forced to abandon its rendezvous with Parma's army, who were
blockaded in harbor by Dutch flyboats. The Armada managed to regroup and,
driven by southwest winds, withdrew north, with the English fleet harrying it
up the east coast of England. The commander ordered a return to Spain, but the
Armada was disrupted during severe storms in the North Atlantic and a large
portion of the vessels were wrecked on the coasts of Scotland and Ireland. Of
the initial 130 ships over a third failed to return. As Martin and Parker
explain, "Philip II attempted to invade England, but his plans miscarried,
partly because of his own mismanagement, and partly because the defensive
efforts of the English and their Dutch allies prevailed." The expedition
was the largest engagement of the undeclared Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604). The
following year, England organized a similar large-scale campaign against Spain,
the Drake-Norris Expedition, also known as the "Counter-Armada of
1589", which was also unsuccessful. Page 35
Review
Multiple
Choice Questions
1.
The chapter introduction
tells the story of West Country seafarers to make the point that:
A) Out
of the maritime expertise of a small group of Portuguese came the crucial
knowledge and experience that would make possible the Age of Discovery.
B) Ordinary folk no less than conquistadors
and crowned heads were enthralled by the possibilities of new worlds opened to
Europeans.
C) Fishing and trading were ultimately more
important to the European conquest of the Americas than gold and silver.
D) While the Spanish were first to discover
the Americas, the English quickly followed suit, establishing a dominant
presence in North America during the 1500s.
2.
Prince Henry the Navigator's primary motivation for mapping the west coast of
Africa was:
A)
politics.
B)
economics.
C) religion.
D)
adventure.
4.
The first land Columbus reached in North America was located in present-day:
A) Bahamas
B)
Cuba
C)
Mexico
D)
Florida
5.
All of the following are reasons the Chinese did not engage in colonization and
expansion EXCEPT:
A)
the threat of attack from the neighboring Mongols
B)
a plentiful supply of food and land
C) a lack of navigational skill
D)
a large quantity of locally produced luxury goods
6.
By the mid-1500s (half a century after Columbus' discovery), all of the
following were true EXCEPT:
A)
The Spanish empire stretched from Mexico south to present Argentina and Chile.
B) The English had established a
permanent colony in North America.
C)
The Portuguese were sailing directly to China around the south tip of Africa.
D)
An international fishing community congregated annually off the Newfoundland
coast.
7.
The Spanish conquistadors hoped to gain which of the following in the Americas?
A)
religious freedom
B)
the opportunity to convert the natives
C) freedom from the Spanish
monarchy
D) all of the
above
8.
What accounted most lastingly for the early and rapid success of the
conquistadors?
A)
the military technology of the Spanish
B) the infectious diseases
brought by the Spanish
C) the rigid political centralization of the
Aztecs, which meant that to capture the emperor was to conquer the empire
D) the bloody religious system of the Aztecs,
which meant that the Spanish stress on Christian virtue won converts among
Indian peasants
9.
After a century of Spanish rule, the Indian population of the Caribbean had
changed from 20 million to:
A) 2 million
B)
10 million
C)
19 million
D)
30 million
10.
Martin Luther argued that salvation resulted from:
A)
religious faith.
B)
good works.
C)
observing the sacraments.
D) a gift from God.
11.
John Calvin preached all of the following doctrines EXCEPT:
A) the free conscience and
choice of the individual.
B)
the calling of the Christian believer to productive work in the world.
C)
the calling of the Christian church to actively reshape the world.
D)
the divine choosing of God's saints for salvation.
12.
In establishing colonies in the New World, the English drew upon their own
experiences subduing and colonizing:
A)
the Cape region at the southern tip of Africa.
B)
islands off the West African coast.
C) Ireland.
D)
Iceland and Greenland.
13.
English interest in overseas exploration was increased by:
A)
the Spanish sacking of the city of Antwerp.
B)
a surplus of younger sons among the English gentry.
C)
the Spanish desire to restore England to Catholicism.
D) all of the above.
14.
As a direct challenge to Spanish power, England's thrust into North America
involved all of the following elements EXCEPT:
A)
English nationalism.
B)
English Protestantism.
C) English political
instability.
D)
English economic enterprise.
15.
In 1600, England's settlements in the Americas included:
A)
Roanoke.
B)
Jamestown.
C)
Newfoundland.
D) none of the above.
16. By the 1550s, English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish fishermen could
be found fishing, trading, and relating sailing stories annually in:
A) New York City.
B) Roanoke Island.
C)
Newfoundland.
D) San Francisco Bay.
17. In the 1400s, Prince Henry the Navigator sponsored
voyages and trained shipmasters, hoping to bring new wealth and glory for:
A) England.
B)
Portugal.
C) Spain.
D) Holland.
18. Which of the following is TRUE about Christopher
Columbus?
A) Unlike most educated Europeans of his day, he
believed the earth was round.
B) Monarchs of several countries made
competitive bids to win the right to sponsor his first voyage.
C) He named the "New World" after his
brother-in-law, Amerigo Vespucci.
D)
Despite four voyages across the Atlantic, he failed to achieve his original
objective.
19. Bartolome de las Casas was best known for:
A)
speaking out against the Spanish exploitation of the natives.
B) leading the Spanish conquest of the Incas in
present-day Peru.
C) devising the encomienda system.
D) initiating the Protestant Reformation in heavily
Catholic Spain.
20. Martin Luther believed that:
A) indulgences provided a democratic way to open
salvation to all.
B) only the so-called "elect" were
predestined to go to heaven.
C) the pope should have granted Henry VIII a marriage
annulment.
D)
every Christian had the power claimed by Catholic priests.
21. As something of a model for later colonization across
the Atlantic, Queen Elizabeth sponsored efforts by English Protestants to
settle and subdue predominantly Catholic:
A) Holland.
B)
Ireland.
C) Scotland.
D) Sweden.
22. Sir Humphrey Gilbert:
A) succeeded in establishing the first permanent
English settlement in North America.
B)
failed in his attempt to establish the first permanent English settlement in
North America.
C) was jailed by King James I.
D) led the Puritan movement in England.
`23. The "Lost Colony" of Roanoke Island was
located off the coast of:
A) Newfoundland.
B) Cape Cod.
C)
Present-day North Carolina.
D) Present-day Florida.
24. At the time of the
Spanish conquest, the economies of most of the Native Americans in South and
Central America and Mexico were based on:
A) hunting and
gathering.
B) herding.
C) fishing and
gathering.
D) agriculture.
FILL IN THE BLANK
Fill in the blanks with the correct term from the word list.
Fill in the blanks with the correct term from the word list.
Word List
|
A) Henry the Navigator
|
B) Zheng He
|
C) Huguenots
|
D) Columbian Exchange
|
|
E) Black Death
|
F) Martin Luther
|
G) John Calvin
|
H) Demographics
|
|
I) Reconquista
|
J) Richard Hakluyt
|
K) Sir Humphrey Gilbert
|
L) Eskimos
|
|
M) Charter
|
N) Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca
|
O) John Cabot
|
P) Bartolomeu Dias
|
|
Q) Vasco da Gama
|
R) Wingina
|
S) Virgin soil
epidemic
|
T) English Reformation
|
|
U) Elect
|
|
|
|
1. _____________________
was the first North
American Indian leader
to be confronted by
English settlers in
the New World. He
was wereoance (principal
chief, king) of the
Secotan (Roanoke) Indians
in present day North
Carolina during Sir
Walter Raleigh's two expeditions
(1585, 1586) and was murdered by the English.
2. ____________________ was a
German monk, Catholic priest, professor of theology and seminal figure of the
16th-century movement in Christianity known later as the Protestant Reformation.
3. ___________________are factors relating to the
characteristics of populations.
4. A ___________ is document issued by a sovereign ruler,
legislature, or other authority creating a public or private corporation.
5. __________________was an English writer. He is principally remembered
for his efforts
in promoting and supporting
the settlement of North
America by the
English through his works,
notably Divers Voyages
Touching the Discoveries of
America (1582) and
The Principal Navigations, Voiages,
Traffiques and Discoveries of the English
Nation (1589- 1600).
6. _______________________was an infante (junior prince) of
the Kingdom of
Portugal and an important
figure in the
early days of the
Portuguese Empire. He
was responsible for the
early development of
European exploration and maritime
trade with other continents.
7. _________________was an Italian navigator
and explorer whose 1497
discovery of parts
of North America under
the commission of Henry
VII of England
is commonly held
to have been the
first European encounter
with the mainland of
North America since
the Norse Vikings visits to Vinland in the eleventh century. The official position of the Canadian and
United Kingdom governments is that he landed on the island of Newfoundland.
8. The ________________________, was a dramatically widespread exchange
of animals, plants, culture, human
populations (including slaves), communicable disease, and ideas
between the American and Afro-Eurasian
Hemispheres following the voyage
to the Americas
by Christopher Columbus in 1492.
9. The _____________________________was the
series of events in
16th-century England by
which the Church of
England broke away
from the authority of the Pope
and the Roman Catholic Church. These
events were, in
part, associated with the wider process of the European
Protestant Reformation, a religious
and political movement which
affected the practice
of Christianity across most of Europe during this period.
10. ___________________________of Devon in England was a
half-brother (through his mother) of Sir Walter Raleigh. Adventurer,
explorer, member of parliament,
and soldier, he
served during the reign
of Queen Elizabeth
and was a pioneer
of English colonization
in North America and the
Plantations of Ireland.
11. The ________________
were members of the
Protestant Reformed Church
of France during the
16th and 17th
centuries. By the end of the
17th century, roughly
200,000 had fled France
during a series
of religious persecutions.
12. The _________________is
estimated to have
killed 30% - 60%
of Europe's population,
reducing the world's population
from an estimated 450
million to between
350 and 375
million in 1400.
13. _______________________was an influential French theologian and
pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the
development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as
a humanist lawyer,
he broke from the
Roman Catholic Church
around 1530.
14. ____________________formerly
Romanized as Cheng
Ho and also known
as Ma Sanbao
and Hajji Mahmud Shamsuddin,
was a Muslim
Hui- Chinese mariner, explorer,
diplomat and fleet admiral, who
commanded voyages to Southeast Asia, South Asia,
the Middle East, Somalia
and the Swahili
coast, collectively referred to
as the 'Voyages
of Zheng He' from 1405 to 1433.
15. ______________________________ is an epidemic in which
the populations at risk have had no previous contact with the diseases that
strike them and are therefore immunologically almost defenseless.
16. The term ______________________was popularized
by contemporary Mexican writers
Carlos Fuentes and Elena
Poniatowska to describe the
increased demographic and
cultural presence of Mexicans
in the Southwestern United States.
17. _________________are
indigenous peoples who
have traditionally inhabited the
circumpolar region from eastern
Siberia, across Alaska
(United States), Canada, and
Greenland.
18. ______________________________________was a Spanish explorer of
the New World,
one of four survivors of the Narváez
expedition. He is remembered
as a proto-anthropologist for
his detailed accounts of
the many tribes
of American Indians, first
published in 1542
as La Relación (The Report), and later known as Naufragios (Shipwrecks).
19. ___________________________, a nobleman of the Portuguese royal
household, he was a Portuguese explorer.
He sailed around
the southernmost tip of
Africa in 1488,
the first European known to have
done so.
20. _______________________________ is one of the most famous and
celebrated explorers from the Discovery Ages, being the first European to reach
India through sea. This discovery was very impactful and paved the way for the
Portuguese to establish a long lasting colonial empire in Asia.
21. _____________in
theology refers to those of the faithful chosen, or “elected” by God for
eternal salvation.
Answers:
1- R) Wingina
2- F) Martin Luther
3- H) Demographics
4- M) Charter
5- J) Richard
Hakluyt
6- A) Henry the Navigator
7- O) John Cabot
8- D) Columbian Exchange
9- T) English Reformation
10- K) Sir Humphrey
Gilbert
11- C) Huguenots
12- E) Black
Death
13- G) John
Calvin
14- B) Zheng He
15- S) Virgin soil epidemic
16- I) Reconquista
17- L) Eskimos
18- N) Alvar Nunez
Cabeza de Vaca
19- P) Bartolomeu
Dias
20- Q) Vasco da Gama
21- U) Elect
Practice Test
1. The Indian empire that dominated
modern Mexico at the time of the Spanish conquest was the:
A.
Maya.
B.
Inca.
C.
Aztec.
D.
Chaco.
E.
Olmec.
2. The first nation to fund
exploratory journeys beyond the boundaries of Europe was:
A.
Portugal.
B.
Germany.
C.
England.
D.
France.
E.
Venice.
3. What momentous event, which
occurred throughout Europe, distracted England from pursuing empire in the
1500s?
A.
the Reformation
B.
the Revolution
C.
the Renaissance
D.
the Reconnaissance
4. On what island, off the coast
of what is now South Carolina, did Jean Ribault and 150 Huguenots established a
simple village?
A.
Hilton Head
B.
Tybee
C.
Parris
D.
Daufuskie
5. Which Spanish explorer led
the first official expedition to the North American mainland?
A.
Pánfilo de Narváez
B.
Ponce de León
C.
Alvar Nú–ez Cabeza de Vaca
D.
Francisco Vázquez de Coronado
6. Changes in European society
that galvanized the expansion of European peoples and cultures after 1450
included all the following EXCEPT:
A.
technological advances in seafaring and
weaponry.
B.
a deflationary spiral that dried up sources of capital.
C.
political centralization.
D.
religious strife.
7. The members of the Church of
England who claimed that the church had not given up Rome's offensive beliefs
and practices were the:
A.
Baptists.
B.
Presbyterians.
C.
Methodists.
D.
Puritans.
E.
Episcopalians.
8. Columbus mistakenly labeled
the Taino people "Indians," believing that:
A.
the natives of the Americas originally came from
India rather than Siberia.
B.
he had reached the East Indies.
C.
he had reached the West Indies.
D.
he had reached India.
9. Through a combination of
daring, brutality, and greed, the conquistadors:
A.
made possible the creation of a Spanish empire in America.
B.
brought capitalism to Mexico.
C.
founded St. Augustine.
D.
introduced African slavery into America.
10. With the Indians' conversion
to Catholicism:
A.
native religions died out.
B. most natives continued to
practice their own religions.
C.
rebellions against whites ceased.
D.
Spain was able to control all southwestern
tribes.
11. Ultimately more important to
Europe than the gold and silver found in the New World was the:
A.
importation of new crops that could feed larger numbers of people.
B.
discovery of new forms of religious worship.
C.
Indian labor force.
D.
architectural knowledge gained from the Aztecs.
12. The African slave trade
began:
A.
in the fifteenth century, soon after the Spanish
conquest.
B.
as early as the eighth century.
C.
with the English settlement of Virginia.
D.
when the sugar industry moved to the Caribbean.
13. In the sixteenth century the
market for slaves grew dramatically as a result of:
A.
the rising European demand for sugar cane.
B.
the need for labor in the tobacco fields.
C.
a desire to Christianize Africans.
D.
the English entry into the slave market.
14. Which of the following was
not an English incentive for colonization?
A.
To escape religious strife at home.
B.
To bring the Christian religion to the Indians.
C.
To escape the economic transformation of the
countryside.
D.
To find new markets for English products.
15. As a result of their
experiences in Ireland, the English believed that:
A.
all they needed to do was subdue the natives and
rule them.
B.
they must retain a rigid separation from the native population.
C.
they could not build a complete society of their
own.
D.
they should intermarry with the Native
Americans.
16. The first permanent English
settlement was:
A.
Massachusetts Bay.
B.
Jamestown, Virginia.
C.
Plymouth, Massachusetts.
D.
St. Augustine, Florida.
17. The man to whom Queen
Elizabeth granted the land on which the "lost colony" was planted
was:
A.
John White.
B.
Walter Raleigh.
C.
Humphrey Gilbert.
D.
James Cobb.
18. The English Reformation
began with a political dispute between king and pope not with a religious
dispute over matters of theology.
True
False
18. The early Spanish settlers
were successful at establishing plantations, but not at finding gold or silver.
True
False
20. The doctrine that God "elected"
some people to be saved and condemned others to damnation was preached by
Martin Luther.
True
False
21. The horse, oranges, and
bananas were three New World products introduced to Europe.
True
False
22. Portuguese exploration of
the late fifteenth century concentrated on finding a route to the Orient by
sailing around Africa.
True
False
Fill
In the Blanks.
23. John Calvin introduced the
doctrine of ________.
Predestination
24. The only clue to the fate of
the Roanoke colony was the cryptic inscription "________" carved on a
post.
Croatoan
25. Those Puritans who could
give evidence of grace and were admitted to full church membership were called
"________."
"the
saints" or "the elect"
26. While most accounts begin
with Spanish penetration of the Caribbean and Central America, this chapter
begins with the second pathway across the North Atlantic, followed by seafarers
from England, France, and Portugal to the ________ off the island of
Newfoundland.
Grand Banks
27. On his first voyage,
Columbus first set anchor on an island he christened ________.
San Salvador (Holy
Savior)
28. The transfer of flora and
fauna of the Americas on the one hand and those of Eurasia and Africa on the
other is known to historians as the ________.
Columbian Exchange
29. French Calvinists were
referred to as ________.
Huguenots
30. The nation of ________ led
the way in exploring beyond Europe's known waters using the caravel, a lighter,
more maneuverable ship.
Portugal
31. Cabot was never heard from
again after setting sail in 1498 on a search for a ________ to Asia.
Northwest Passage
32. By 1520, the Spanish
plantations in the West Indies were being worked by ________ imported from
Africa.
slaves
33. Hernán Cortés was the
conquistador who conquered the great empire of the ________.
Aztecs
34. King ________ of Spain sent
a fleet to invade England near the end of the sixteenth century.
Philip II
35. A precedent for subsequent
English colonization in the New World occurred closer to home with a program to
colonize ________ in order to control that threatening place.
Ireland
36. Which of the following early
Spanish explorers was made a slave by Indians, later escaped, and made an
extraordinary trek across Texas and northern Mexico?
A. Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
B.
Francisco Vázquez de Coronado
C.
Hernán de Soto
D.
Pánfilo de Narváez
37. As of the sixteenth century,
Europeans had generally built up a greater immunity to smallpox than had the
Native Americans.
True
False
38. The men largely responsible
for Spain's conquest of the New World were known as:
A.
"Sea Dogs."
B.
comerciante.
C.
coureurs de bois.
D. los conquistadores.
E.
condottiere.
39. Puritans were the first
English colonizers.
True
False
40. After having spent several
years conquering and profiting from the natives, this Spaniard became a
Dominican Friar and spoke out against their exploitation.
A.
Juan Ponce de León
B. Bartolomé de las Casas
C.
Fransicso Vázquez de Coronado
D.
Hernán de Soto
41. The slave trade within
Africa did not become prominent until the Europeans began to demand slave labor
for the New World.
True
False
42. When Europeans arrived in
North America, native tribes were generally able to unite in opposition to
white encroachments on their land.
True
False
43. Christopher Columbus called
the native people he encountered on his voyages "Indians" because
A. he believed they came from the
East Indies in the Pacific.
B.
it is what the natives called themselves.
C.
he mispronounced their actual name.
D.
Norse seamen had first used the term.
E.
he wanted to hide his discovery from rival
explorers.
44. The first permanent Spanish
settlement in what is now the United States was
New Orleans.
A. St. Augustine.
B.
Santa Fe.
C.
St. Louis.
D.
San Francisco.
45. On his first voyage to the
New World, Columbus realized that he had not reached Japan or China.
True
False
46. In the sixteenth century,
the market for slaves grew dramatically as a result of:
A. the rising European demand for
sugar cane.
B.
the need for labor in the tobacco fields.
C.
a desire to Christianize Africans.
D.
the English entry into the slave market.
E.
the need for labor in the rice plantations of
South Carolina.
47. The colony of Virginia was
named in honor of:
A.
Virginia Dare.
B.
Walter Raleigh.
C.
Humphrey Gilbert.
D. Elizabeth I.
E.
Queen Mary.
48. The first and perhaps most
profound result of the meeting of native and European cultures was the:
A.
exchange of plants and animals.
B.
European adoption of native customs.
C.
native adoption of European ways of waging war.
D.
intermarriage of Europeans and natives.
E. importation of European
diseases.
49. The Portuguese explored West
Africa searching for ________.
A.
slaves
B.
gold
C.
ivory
D.
malaguetta pepper
E. All of the above
50. Cortés might not have been
able to defeat the Aztecs had it not been for an epidemic of smallpox that
decimated the native population.
True
False
