The eventual decimation of the native population was largely due to disease. Mistaken expectations held by both Europeans and Native Americans in these first encounters led to outbreaks of violence and abuse. However, the these Native Americans were subsistence farmers and fishers, not producers of valuable exports and commodities. Over the course of his subsequent three voyages to the Caribbean, Columbus established Spanish towns and continued to trade with natives. Echoing the Europeans’ opinions of them, the natives viewed many practices and habits of the European newcomers as little less than savage. Certainly, natives adopted specific European goods they deemed most useful, such as metal tools, weapons, and cloth, but it was a selective process and they did not readily adopt much technology. In general, they found the Europeans to be dirty and unkempt and did not care for their food. Contrary to popular belief, Native Americans did not believe the Europeans were gods. Although documentation is mostly lacking, a few reports do exist. In the end, he took six natives back to Spain as proof of his success.įor their part, the native populations surely were equally intrigued by the Europeans. The image includes the nakedness of the Native Americans that shocked Columbus.Ĭolumbus also reported that various Caribbean islands held cannibals, people with tails, and women warriors known as Amazons – descriptions all derived from preconceived notions and tales circulating in Europe at the time. This 1495 woodcut is from “Lettera delle isole novamente trovata” by Giuliano Dati, an Italian translation of the letter Columbus sent to the Spanish court after his first voyage. The native populations’ lack of understanding of European weaponry, their nearly naked appearance, and their lack of what Europeans would term civilization led Columbus to report that they “would make fine servants” and that “with fifty men we could subjugate them all.” The Europeans had brought trinkets such as glass beads and small brass bells. According to his own account, the inhabitants, whom he believed were natives of the East Indies, or Indians, brought the Europeans a variety of goods to trade, including parrots, cotton, and spears. Upon arriving in the Caribbean in 1492, sighting Bahamian islands, and eventually landing in Hispaniola (today Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he believed he had found the islands just southeast of Asia, or the East Indies. His flagship, the Santa Maria, was only 58 feet long.Ĭolumbus came to the Americas quite by accident in his search for a route west from Europe to Asia. Following the Vikings, the most important contact between Europeans and the Native Americans in North America was begun by Christopher Columbus, working for Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain.Ĭolumbus sailed in three caravels such as these. All brought with them the expectation of finding trade goods and their preconceived notions of strange humans and barbaric societies, often influenced by fictitious travel accounts circulating in Europe at the time. Iberians – the people of Spain and Portugal – dominated most of these efforts, although the English, French, and Dutch also played a role. However, beginning in the fifteenth century, merchant capitalism, the emergence of navigation tools and improved ship designs, and the desire for a sea route westward to the valuable goods in Asia drove Europeans once again into the Atlantic. Regardless, it appears the Vikings did not have any lasting impact on Native American societies, and the Americas had little impact on Europeans. The reason the Vikings eventually abandoned their Newfoundland settlement is the subject of much scholarly debate. Norse legends, or sagas, recount a relationship between Vikings and Native Americans defined by violence and frequent attacks. The first documented European contact with the Americas occurred in North America, when the Vikings established a settlement in Newfoundland on the east coast of Canada around 1000 A.D. The first contact between the vastly different cultures of the Europeans and Native Americans represented a rare moment in recorded history, producing impressions that are difficult to alter, even today. Twelve thousand years ago, rising sea levels submerged the land bridge connecting the Americas and Asia thus, the Americas developed in isolation from Europe. It can be followed by examination of the Cortes’ Account of Tenochtitlan, 1522 and Watercolors of Algonquian Peoples in North Carolina, 1585 Primary Sources, and the Montezuma and Cortés Decision Point. This narrative should be assigned to students at the beginning of their study of chapter 1.
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