UNIT+1-+IN+SEARCH+OF+GOLD

Objective - After this unit the learner should be able to:
Define the events that led to the Columbian Exchange

Overview:
Conditions in Europe 1492 - place information here High demand for goods becuase Europe population was growing but economy was slowing--


 * The Rise of Capitalism-** One aspect of the European Economic Revolution was the growth of ** capitalism **. Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership and the investment of resources, such as money, for profit. No longer were governments the sole owners of great wealth. Due to overseas colonization and trade, numerous merchants had obtained great wealth. These merchants continued to invest their money in trade and overseas exploration. Profits from these investments enabled merchants and traders to reinvest even more money in other enterprises. As a result, businesses across Europe grew and flourished. The increase in economic activity in Europe led to an overall increase in many nations’ money supply. This in turn brought on inflation, or the steady rise in the price of goods. Inflation occurs when people have more money to spend and thus demand more goods and services. Because the supply of goods is less than the demand for them, the goods become both scarce and more valuable. Prices then rise. At this time in Europe, the costs of many goods rose. Spain, for example, endured a crushing bout of inflation during the 1600s, as boatloads of gold and silver from the Americas greatly increased the nation’s money supply.


 * The Growth of Mercantilism**- During this time, the nations of Europe adopted a new economic policy known as **mercantilism.** The theory of mercantilism held that a country’s power depended mainly on its wealth. It was wealth, after all, that allowed nations to build strong navies and purchase vital goods. As a result, the goal of every nation became the attainment of as much wealth as possible. According to the theory of mercantilism, a nation could increase its wealth and power in two ways. First, it could obtain as much gold and silver as possible. Second, it could establish a **favorable balance of trade,** in which it sold more goods than it bought. A nation’s ultimate goal under mercantilism was to become self-sufficient, not dependent on other countries for goods. An English author of the time wrote about the new economic idea of mercantilism:

//Mercantilism went hand in hand with colonization, for colonies played a vital role in this new economic practice. Aside from providing silver and gold, colonies provided raw materials that could not be found in the home country, such as wood or furs. In addition to playing the role of supplier, the colonies under mercantilism also provided a market. The home country could sell its goods to their colonies.//


 * Changes in European Society**- The economic changes that swept through much of Europe during the age of American colonization also led to changes in European society. The Commercial Revolution spurred the growth of towns and the rise of the merchant class. Merchants—because they controlled great wealth—rose in status. The changes in European society, however, only went so far. While towns and cities grew in size, much of Europe’s population continued to live in rural areas. And although merchants and traders enjoyed a period of social mobility, a majority of Europeans remained poor. More than anything else, the Commercial Revolution increased the wealth of European nations.


 * __Conditions in America 1492 - place information here---__**

B y 1492 people had lived in the Western Hemisphere for tens of thousands of years. For much of this time it is believed that they experienced virtually no recorded, sustained contact with other parts of the world -- Europe, Africa, or Asia. M illions of people lived in an area some five times the size of Europe. In strikingly diverse habitats and climates they developed possibly the most varied and productive agriculture in the world. Their lifestyles and belief systems differed widely and they spoke hundreds of distinct languages. T hroughout the hemisphere, states and centers of high civilization had risen and fallen. The dynamic Mexica (Aztec) and Inca empires were still expanding at this time and internal migration and warfare were common. The peoples did not see themselves as part of an entity. Only later would this area be given a unifying name - America - and the people labeled "Indians" by Europe. W e have focused on five geographical areas of the region to represent the variety and complexity of peoples and cultures before 1492: the Caribbean, Middle America, the Andean region, the South Atlantic, and North America. In order to understand what came to be called America we are often dependent on European observations.

THE CARIBBEAN -- ISLAND SOCIETY
T he largest group of people living in the islands of the Caribbean were the Taínos. Their villages were governed by chieftains, or //caciques//, who enjoyed some distinctions of rank but received tribute in times of crisis only. Related families lived together in large houses built of poles, mats, and thatch. T he Taínos were known for their fine wood carving and hammocks woven from cotton. Not a particularly warlike people, they played ceremonial ball games, possibly as a substitute for warfare and as an outlet for competition between villages and chiefdoms. T he other major group living in the Caribbean were the more mobile and aggressive Caribs, who took to the sea in huge dugout canoes. By the late 15th century, the Caribs had expanded into the smaller islands of the eastern Caribbean from the mainland, displacing or intermingling with the Taínos.

[|Hammock] In Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, //La Historia general y natural de las Indias...// (Seville, 1535). [|Rare Book and Special Collections Division] O viedo came to America in 1514, where for over thirty years he compiled detailed ethnographic descriptions of the goods, products, peoples and customs of the Caribbean and Central America. He introduced Europe to a wide variety of previously unheard of New World "exotica" such as the pineapple, the canoe, the smoking of tobacco, and the hammock.

//The indians sleep in a bed they call an 'hamaca' which looks like a piece of cloth with both an open and tight weave, like a net ... made of cotton ... about 2.5 or 3 yards long, with many henequen twine strings at either end which can be hung at any height. They are good beds, and clean ... and since the weather is warm they require no covers at all ... and they are portable so a child can carry it over the arm.// T he hammock was perfected in the Caribbean and Brazil and was first introduced to Europeans during Columbus' first voyage of 1492.

MIDDLE ATLANTIC CULTURES
B efore 1492, modern-day Mexico, most of Central America, and the southwestern United States comprised an area now known as Meso or Middle America. Meso American peoples shared many elements of culture: pictographic and hieroglyphic forms of writing; monumental architecture; a diet primarily of corn, beans, squash and chiles; the weaving of cotton cloth; and extensive trade networks. While most people lived by working the land, many societies also included nobles and priests, warriors, craftsmen, and merchants. T he Mexica (Aztec) had formed a powerful state in the central valley of Mexico and conquered many neighboring states by the late 15th century. The bustling island capital, Tenochtitlan, with a population of perhaps 200,000, was located in the middle of Lake Texcoco. Groups like the Tarascans in the west and Zapotecs to the south, however, remained relatively independent. Even states that had been absorbed by the Mexica retained their rulers as well as their religion, language, and lands.

[|Mexican Calendar] In Mariano Fernández de Echeverria y Veytia, //Historia del orígen de las gentes que poblaron la America septentrional// [early 19th century manuscript facsimile] as Calendar wheel no. 7. Peter Force Collection, [|Manuscript Division] T his highly accurate calendar was developed by the people of Mexico prior to 1492. The //tonalpohualli//, or sacred calendar, ruled the life of each Mexica and was consulted on all important occasions. It was made up of 260 days, or 20 months of 13 days.

[|Professions of the Tarascan People, Mexico] Occupational Groups. Ink and wash drawing. In //Relacíon de las ceremonias y ritos y población y gobierno de los indios de la provincia de Mechoacán// compiled by Fray Jeronimo de Alcala (?). [19th century manuscript facsimile of the ca. 1540original]. Peter Force Collection, [|Manuscript Division] T he Tarascans inhabited Michoacán, an area west of Tenochtitlán (present-day Mexico City) and south of Guadalajara. This illustration depicts schematically various occupational groups existing before the coming of the Spanish. Groups of figures sit, each with an object or symbol such as a net, a loom, a bow and arrow, a writing instrument, feathers, etc., that identifies the occupation of a specific group. A couple of figures in the upper part of the illustration sit alone and are identified as being the //Cazonci// and //su gobernador// (their governor). T his well-illustrated manuscript from Mexico chronicles the history and customs of the Tarascan people before as well as during the Conquest in the area of Michoacán. Although written by a Franciscan friar, it is largely based on the accounts of informants among the Tarascan nobility and priests, thus essentially expressing an indigenous point of view. The text and numerous illustrations describe the government, customs, and elaborate society of the Tarascan people.

[|Oztoticpac, Mexico, ca. 1540] In //The Oztoticpac Lands Map//. [Mexico, ] ca. 1540. Manuscript on //amatl// paper. [|Geography and Map Division] T he Oztoticpac (Mexico) Lands Map is a central Mexican pictorial document with Spanish and Nahuatl writing showing litigation surrounding the Oztoticpac estate within the city of Texcoco, ca. 1540. Its glyph, a symbolic figure, corresponds to the name "above the caves" (//oztotl//,cave; //icpac//, above), a hill stylized in the shape of a woman. The document on pre-European //amatl// paper involves the land and property ownership of the ruler of Texcoco who was executed during the early days of the Spanish Conquest in the Central Valley of Mexico. The execution left in its wake litigation involving ownership of properties claimed by various sons of Nezahualpilli, the lords of Texcoco. M ost of the drawings on the map are plans of fields with indigenous measurements and place glyphs. Near the upper left is the plan of several houses within a precinct. On the upper right is a map showing about seventy-five plots of land. Additional fields are drawn at the lower right. Nahuatl and Spanish descriptions as well as three long Nahuatl texts include mention of Tollancingo, Oztoticpac, Tezcuco, Don Carlos, and Don Hernando. I n the lower left of the map are depictions of tree grafts showing European fruit tree branches grafted to indigenous tree trunks, uniquely displayed among all known Mexican Indian pictorial documents. Twenty trees, identified as pomegranates, quinces, apples, pears, etc., are shown. Also, as far as it is known, this is the earliest recorded lawsuit or conflict in horticultural literature anywhere in the world.

THE ANDES -- LIFE IN THE HIGHLANDS
O rganized states and advanced cultures had long flourished in the Andean mountain region. The semi-arid highlands were the center of the far-flung Inca empire, //Tahuantinsuyu//, that extended from today's Chile to Colombia. Cuzco, the capital, was located at 10,000 feet above sea level. I mpressive adaptations to this unique environment allowed civilizations to thrive at higher altitudes than anywhere else in the world. The Andean peoples had learned to freeze-dry foods by taking advantage of the daily extremes of temperature at high altitudes. They kept herds of llamas and alpacas in the //altiplano//, weaving textiles from the wool. Using irrigation and terracing, they developed varieties of potatoes at high altitudes; grew corn and coca at lower levels; and raised cotton in the lowlands. They were knowledgeable miners, fine metalworkers, and great builders. A rotating system of labor for public works that was traditional among Andean peoples was used to construct thousands of miles of roads. These roads greatly facilitated the movement of troops, peoples, and goods.

[|Sacsahuaman, Peru] Photoreproduction from original photograph. [|Prints and Photographs Division] T he huge fortifications surrounding the Incan capital of Cuzco, built to protect and to solidify Incan control, are outstanding examples of the advanced engineering techniques of Andean peoples. Stones of several tons in weight were precisely cut and placed in jigsaw-like fashion, without the aid of mortar, to form massive walls. These stone structures have withstood numerous earthquakes during the intervening centuries.

[|Ruins at Machu Picchu, Peru] Photoreproduction from original photograph. [|Prints and Photographs Division] T his magnificent center of Incan culture, high in the Andes, is testimony to the extraordinary construction capability of Andean peoples (i.e., intricate stone construction without the aid of mortar) before the arrival of the Spanish in the early 16th century.

SOUTH ATLANTIC PEOPLES
T he coastal areas of eastern South America and the interior of the Amazon basin were home to several million people at the end of the 15th century. This enormous area, bordering the Andes mountains on the west and the Atlantic Ocean on the east, extends from present-day Argentina to the Guianas. S ocio-political structures were usually not highly developed in this area. The Tupí-speaking groups lived in villages in which related families resided together in large houses. They practiced slash-and-burn agriculture, and hunted and fished using blow guns and poison-tipped arrows. Manioc, a tuber, was their staple crop. They engaged in warfare and some groups practiced ritual cannibalism. Tupí groups eventually overcame the Tapuyas, mobile hunters and gatherers.

=NORTH AMERICA -- DIVERSE SOCIETIES= I n the 16th century, North America -- occupied today by Canada and most of the United States -- was home to hundreds of groups speaking a striking variety of languages and dialects. They lived in diverse settings, from the Algonquian of the eastern woodlands, to the Caddo and Wichita of the grassy Midwestern plains, and the Taos of the arid southwest. S ome North American tribes, like the Iroquois, were organized into large political confederations. Extensive trade networks - sometimes operating over long distances - allowed for the exchange of products such as animal skins, copper, shells, pigments, pottery, and foodstuffs. Housing styles varied from covered wood to multilevel dwellings constructed of stone and mud, and transportable shelters made of poles and animal hides. Many tribes played games such as lacrosse and stickball. Religion was an integral part of daily life, tying them to the land, to other living things, and to the spirits that animated their world and provided order to social relations.

[|Secotan Village Showing Space Utilization] In Theodor de Bry, //Americae pars decima// Openheim, 1619, as Indian village of Secotan. [|Rare Book and Special Collections Division] T he people of Secotan lived in permanent villages near today's North Carolina Outer Banks. Like the northern Algonquians, they farmed collectively in the growing season and dispersed into family units to hunt during the colder months. T he engraving, based on a drawing made by John White in the 1580s, shows careful management and use of the land. Crops include tobacco and pumpkins, corn in three stages of growth, and sunflowers, while domesticated deer graze in the adjoining woods. The buildings include family units and storehouses for the surplus corn. T he Secotan traded with other groups like the powerful Mandoag of the Piedmont area of North Carolina, who acted as middlemen in the copper trade

[]

= Native American Genocide Still Haunts United States =

**//By Leah Trabich Cold Spring Harbor High School New York, USA//** In the past, the main thrust of the Holocaust/Genocide Project's magazine, //An End To Intolerance,// has been the genocides that occurred in history and outside of the United States. Still, what we mustn't forget is that mass killing of Native Americans occurred in our own country. As a result, bigotry and racial discrimination still exist. "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue". . . and made the first contact with the "Indians." For Native Americans, the world after 1492 would never be the same. This date marked the beginning of the long road of persecution and genocide of Native Americans, our indigenous people. Genocide was an important cause of the decline for many tribes. "By conservative estimates, the population of the United states prior to European contact was greater than 12 million. Four centuries later, the count was reduced by 95% to 237 thousand. In 1493, when Columbus returned to the Hispaniola, he quickly implemented policies of slavery and mass extermination of the Taino population of the Caribbean. Within three years, five million were dead. Las Casas, the primary historian of the Columbian era, writes of many accounts of the horrors that the Spanish colonists inflicted upon the indigenous population: hanging them en mass, hacking their children into pieces to be used as dog feed, and other horrid cruelties. The works of Las Casas are often omitted from popular American history books and courses because Columbus is considered a hero by many, even today. Mass killing did not cease, however, after Columbus departed. Expansion of the European colonies led to similar genocides. "Indian Removal" policy was put into action to clear the land for white settlers. Methods for the removal included slaughter of villages by the military and also biological warfare. High death rates resulted from forced marches to relocate the Indians. The Removal Act of 1830 set into motion a series of events which led to the "Trail of Tears" in 1838, a forced march of the Cherokees, resulting in the destruction of most of the Cherokee population." The concentration of American Indians in small geographic areas, and the scattering of them from their homelands, caused increased death, primarily because of associated military actions, disease, starvation, extremely harsh conditions during the moves, and the resulting destruction of ways of life. During American expansion into the western frontier, one primary effort to destroy the Indian way of life was the attempts of the U.S. government to make farmers and cattle ranchers of the Indians. In addition, one of the most substantial methods was the premeditated destructions of flora and fauna which the American Indians used for food and a variety of other purposes. We now also know that the Indians were intentionally exposed to smallpox by Europeans. The discovery of gold in California, early in 1848, prompted American migration and expansion into the west. The greed of Americans for money and land was rejuvenated with the Homestead Act of 1862. In California and Texas there was blatant genocide of Indians by non-Indians during certain historic periods. In California, the decrease from about a quarter of a million to less than 20,000 is primarily due to the cruelties and wholesale massacres perpetrated by the miners and early settlers. Indian education began with forts erected by Jesuits, in which indigenous youths were incarcerated, indoctrinated with non-indigenous Christian values, and forced into manual labor. These children were forcibly removed from their parents by soldiers and many times never saw their families until later in their adulthood. This was after their value systems and knowledge had been supplanted with colonial thinking. One of the foundations of the U.S. imperialist strategy was to replace traditional leadership of the various indigenous nations with indoctrinated "graduates" of white "schools," in order to expedite compliance with U.S. goals and expansion. Probably one of the most ruinous acts to the Indians was the disappearance of the buffalo. For the Indians who lived on the Plains, life depended on the buffalo. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, there were an estimated forty million buffalo, but between 1830 and 1888 there was a rapid, systematic extermination culminating in the sudden slaughter of the only two remaining Plain herds. By around 1895, the formerly vast buffalo populations were practically extinct. The slaughter occurred because of the economic value of buffalo hides to Americans and because the animals were in the way of the rapidly westward expanding population. The end result was widescale starvation and the social and cultural disintegration of many Plains tribes. Genocide entered international law for the first time in 1948; the international community took notice when Europeans (Jews, Poles, and other victims of Nazi Germany) faced cultural extinction. The "Holocaust" of World War II came to be the model of genocide. We, as the human race, must realize, however, that other genocides have occurred. Genocide against many particular groups is still widely happening today. The discrimination of the Native American population is only one example of this ruthless destruction. Credits: Sharon Johnston, //The Genocide of Native Americans: A Sociological View//, 1996.

[]

=Population history of American indigenous peoples=

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The population figures for the [|New World] prior to the 1492 voyage of [|Christopher Columbus] are unknown. Estimates based on archaeological data and written records from European settlers range from as low as 8 million to as many as 112 million indigenous "[|Native Americans]". Contact with the New World led to the [|European colonization of the Americas], in which millions of emigrants from the "[|Old World]" eventually settled in the New. The population of Old World peoples in the Americas grew steadily, while the number of the indigenous people plummeted. Old World diseases such as [|smallpox], [|influenza], [|bubonic plague] and pneumonic plagues devastated the previously isolated Native Americans. Conflict and outright warfare with European newcomers and other American tribes reduced populations and disrupted traditional society. The extent and causes of the decline have long been a subject of academic debate. hide] * [|1] [|Population overview]
 * [[image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0e/LA2-NSRW-1-0085.jpg/180px-LA2-NSRW-1-0085.jpg width="180" height="272" link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LA2-NSRW-1-0085.jpg"]][[image:http://en.wikipedia.org/skins-1.5/common/images/magnify-clip.png width="15" height="11" link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LA2-NSRW-1-0085.jpg"]]Natives of North America. ||
 * [[image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/94/LA2-NSRW-1-0086.jpg/180px-LA2-NSRW-1-0086.jpg width="180" height="271" link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LA2-NSRW-1-0086.jpg"]][[image:http://en.wikipedia.org/skins-1.5/common/images/magnify-clip.png width="15" height="11" link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LA2-NSRW-1-0086.jpg"]]Natives of South America. ||
 * ==Contents==
 * [|2] [|Pre-Columbian Americas]
 * [|3] [|Depopulation from disease]
 * [|3.1] [|Why were the diseases so deadly?]
 * [|3.2] [|Deliberate infection?]
 * [|3.3] [|1763 Smallpox outbreak at Fort Pitt]
 * [|3.4] [|Vaccination]
 * [|4] [|Other causes of depopulation]
 * [|4.1] [|War and violence]
 * [|4.2] [|Exploitation]
 * [|4.3] [|Massacres]
 * [|4.4] [|Displacement and disruption]
 * [|5] [|Genocide debate]
 * [|6] [|See also]
 * [|7] [|Notes]
 * [|8] [|References]
 * [|8.1] [|Books]
 * [|8.2] [|Online sources]
 * [|9] [|Further reading]
 * [|10] [|External links] ||

[[|edit]] Population overview
Given the fragmentary nature of the evidence, even semi-accurate [|pre-Columbian] population figures are impossible to obtain. Estimates are made by extrapolations from small bits of data. In 1976, geographer William Denevan used the existing estimates to derive a "consensus count" of about 54 million people. Nonetheless, more recent estimates still range widely.[|[1]] Using an estimate of approximately 50 million people in 1492 (including 25 million in the [|Aztec Empire] and 12 million in the [|Inca Empire]), the lowest estimates give a death toll due from disease of an astonishing 80% by the end of the 16th century (8 million people in 1650).[|[2]] Latin America would only recover its 15th century population early in the 20th century; it numbered 17 million in 1800, 30 million in 1850, 61 million in 1900, 105 million in 1930, 218 million in 1960, 361 million in 1980, and 563 million in 2005.[|[2]] In the last three decades of the 16th century, the population of present-day Mexico dropped to about one million people in 1600.[|[2]] The [|Maya] population is today estimated at 6 million, which is about the same as at the end of the 15th century, according to some estimates.[|[2]] In what is now [|Brazil], the indigenous population declined from a pre-Columbian high of an estimated 4 million to some 300,000. Historian [|David Henige] has argued that many population figures are the result of arbitrary formulas selectively applied to numbers from unreliable historical sources. He believes this is a weakness unrecognized by several contributors to the field, and insists there is not sufficient evidence to produce population numbers that have any real meaning. He characterizes the modern trend of high estimates as "[|pseudo-scientific] number-crunching." Henige does not advocate a low population estimate, but argues that the scanty and unreliable nature of the evidence renders broad estimates inevitably suspect, saying "high counters" (as he calls them) have been particularly flagrant in their misuse of sources.[|[3]] Many population studies acknowledge the inherent difficulties in producing reliable statistics, given the scarcity of hard data. The population debate has often had [|ideological] underpinnings.[|[4]] Low estimates were sometimes reflective of European notions of cultural and racial superiority. Francis Jennings argues, "Scholarly wisdom long held that Indians were so inferior in mind and works that they could not possibly have created or sustained large populations."[|[5]] On the other hand, some have argued that contemporary estimates of a high pre-Columbian indigenous population are rooted in a bias against [|Western civilization] and/or [|Christianity]. Robert Royal writes that "estimates of pre-Columbian population figures have become heavily politicized with some scholars, who are particularly critical of Europe, often favoring wildly higher figures."[|[6]] Civilizations rose and fell, and indigenous peoples migrated long before Europeans arrived on the scene. The indigenous population in 1492 was not necessarily at a high point and may actually have been in decline in some areas. [|Fernand Braudel] has pointed out a problem the [|Amerindian] faced which was not a factor on other continents: "The Indian population ... suffered from a demographic weakness, particularly because of the absence of any substitute animal milk. Mothers had to nurse their children until they were three or four years old. This long period of breast-feeding severely reduced female fertility and made any demographic revival precarious."[|[7]] Indigenous populations in most areas of the Americas reached a low point by the early 20th century. In most cases, populations have since begun to climb.[|[8]] In the United States, for instance, the numbers may already have recovered to pre-Columbian levels or even exceeded them.[|[9]]

[[|edit]] Pre-Columbian Americas
Main article: [|Models of migration to the New World] [|Anthropologists] and [|population geneticists] agree that the bulk of indigenous American ancestry can be traced to [|Ice Age] migrations from [|Asia] via the [|Bering land bridge]. The possibility of [|migration] by watercraft along coastal routes or ice sheets is viewed as a possible viable complement to this model.[//[|citation needed]//]

[[|edit]] Depopulation from disease
See also: [|History of smallpox#Epidemics in the Americas] Nearly all scholars now believe that widespread [|epidemic disease], to which the natives had no prior exposure or resistance, was the overwhelming cause of the massive population decline of the Native Americans.[|[10]] They reject both of the earliest European immigrants' explanations for the population decline of the American natives. The first explanation was the brutal practices of the [|Spanish] [|conquistadores], as recorded by the Spanish themselves. The most notable account was that of the [|Dominican] [|friar] [|Bartolomé de las Casas], whose writings vividly depict Spanish atrocities committed in particular against the [|Taínos]. Historians have noted there simply were not enough Spanish to have caused such a large population decline (though this does not exonerate many Spanish incomers from having committed grossly inhumane acts against the native peoples). The second European explanation was a perceived divine approval, in which [|God] removed the natives as part of His "divine plan" to make way for a new [|Christian] civilization. Many Native Americas viewed their troubles in terms of religious or supernatural causes within their own belief systems. Soon after [|Europeans] and [|Africans] began to arrive in the New World, bringing with them the infectious diseases of Europe and Africa, observers noted immense numbers of indigenous Americans began to die from these diseases. One reason this death toll was overlooked (or downplayed) is that once introduced the diseases raced ahead of European immigration in many areas. Disease killed off a sizable portion of the populations before European observations (and thus written records) were made. After the epidemics had already killed massive numbers of natives, many newer European immigrants assumed that there had always been relatively few indigenous peoples. The scope of the epidemics over the years was tremendous, killing millions of people—possibly in excess of 90% of the population in the hardest hit areas—and creating one of "the greatest human catastrophe in history, far exceeding even the disaster of the [|Black Death] of medieval Europe"[|[11]], which had killed up to one-third of the people in [|Europe] and [|Asia] between 1347 and 1351. The Black Death occurred to a European population which also had not been exposed and had little or no resistance to a new disease. One of the most devastating diseases was [|smallpox], but other deadly diseases included [|typhus], [|measles], [|influenza], [|bubonic plague], [|cholera], [|malaria], [|tuberculosis], [|mumps], [|yellow fever], and [|pertussis] (whooping cough), which were chronic in Eurasia. The indigenous Americas also had a number of endemic diseases, such as [|tuberculosis] and perhaps including [|an unusually virulent] type of [|syphilis], which soon became rampant when brought back to the Old World. (This transfer of disease between the Old and New Worlds was part of the phenomenon known as the "[|Columbian Exchange]"). The diseases brought to the New World proved to be exceptionally deadly to the Native Americans. The epidemics had very different effects in different regions of the Americas. The most vulnerable groups were those with a relatively small population and few built-up immunities. Many island-based groups were annihilated. The [|Caribs] and [|Arawaks] of the [|Caribbean] nearly ceased to exist, as did the [|Beothuks] of [|Newfoundland]. While disease ranged swiftly through the densely populated empires of [|Mesoamerica], the more scattered populations of North America saw a slower spread.

[[|edit]] Why were the diseases so deadly?
A disease ([|viral] or [|bacterial]) that kills its victims before they can spread it to others tends to flare up and then die out, like a fire running out of fuel. A more resilient disease would establish an [|equilibrium]; if its victims lived beyond [|infection], the disease would spread further. The [|evolutionary] process selects against quick lethality, with the most immediately fatal diseases being the most short-lived. A similar evolutionary pressure acts upon the victim populations, as those lacking genetic resistance to common diseases die and do not leave descendants, whereas those who are resistant procreate and pass resistant genes to their offspring. For example, in the fifty years following Columbus' voyage to the Americas, an unusually strong strain of [|syphilis] killed a high proportion of infected Europeans within a few months; over time, however, the disease has become much less virulent. Thus both diseases and populations tend to evolve towards an equilibrium in which the common diseases are non-symptomatic, mild, or manageably chronic. When a population that has been relatively isolated is exposed to new diseases, it has no resistance to the new diseases (the population is "biologically naïve"); this body of people succumbs at a much higher rate, resulting in what is known as a "virgin soil" epidemic. Before the European arrival, the Americas had been isolated from both the [|Eurasian]-[|African] landmass. The peoples of the Old World had had thousands of years for their populations to accommodate to their common diseases. The fact that all members of an immunologically naive population are exposed to a new disease simultaneously increases the fatalities. Populations where the disease is endemic have generations of individuals with acquired immunity or hardiness. In populations where a disease is endemic, most adults are exposed to the disease at a young age. Thus resistant to reinfection, they are able to care for individuals who catch the disease for the first time, such as the next generation of children. With proper care, many of these "[|childhood diseases]" are often survivable. In a naïve population, all age groups are affected at once, leaving few or no healthy caregivers to nurse the sick. With no resistant individuals healthy enough to tend to the ill, a disease may have higher fatalities than otherwise. The natives of the Americas suffered the introduction of several new diseases at once, so that a person who successfully resisted one disease might die from another. Multiple simultaneous infections (e.g., smallpox and typhus at the same time) or in close succession (e.g., smallpox in an individual who was still weak from a recent bout of typhus) are more deadly than just the sum of the individual diseases. In this scenario, death rates can also be elevated by combinations of new and familiar diseases: smallpox in combination with American strains of syphilis or [|yaws], for example. Other contributing factors:
 * Native American medical treatments such as [|sweat baths] and cold water immersion (practiced in some areas) weakened some patients and probably increased mortality rates.[|[12]]
 * Europeans brought many diseases with them because they (and Asians) had many more domesticated animals than the Native Americans. [|Domestication] usually means close and frequent contact between animals and people, which is an opportunity for diseases of domestic animals to mutate and migrate into the human population.[//[|citation needed]//]
 * The [|Eurasian] landmass extends many thousands of miles along an east–west axis. Climate zones also extend for thousands of miles, which facilitated the spread of agriculture, domestication of animals, and the diseases associated with domestication. The Americas extend mainly north and south, which, according to the environmental determinist theory popularized by [|Jared Diamond] in //[|Guns, Germs, and Steel]//, meant that it was much harder for cultivated plant species, domesticated animals, and diseases to migrate.
 * Mexican [|epidemiologist] [|Rodolfo Acuña-Soto] argues that mortality due to imported diseases was compounded, or even dwarfed, by mortality due to a [|hemorrhagic fever] native to the Americas. The Aztecs called it //[|cocoliztli]//. Acuña-Soto's conclusions are based in part on the 50 volumes written by [|Francisco Hernandez], physician to [|Philip II of Spain]. He interviewed survivors of the 1576 epidemic and autopsied many victims, then recorded his findings and observations. He found that the fever was endemic during drought years, a series of which had coincided with the early Spanish invasion of Central America.[|[13]] Acuña-Soto noticed that previous historians using the same reference works that he used had chosen which accounts to base their results on, so that epidemic illnesses coinciding with the Spanish invasion could, by selectively using resources, look like accounts of European-caused smallpox rather than the Aztec-recognized cocoliztli. The disease the Aztecs described, however, when read in full described a hemorrhagic fever that had nothing in common with smallpox. Such fevers are viral, spread by rodents and bodily fluid contacts between infected people. Using evidence from 24 epidemics, Acuña-Soto concluded that the Spanish did not bring the epidemic to the Aztecs, but arrived during its onset and intensification. Acuña-Soto's theory is controversial and not widely accepted as of 2007[|[update]].

[[|edit]] Deliberate infection?
One of the most contentious issues relating to disease depopulation in the Americas concerns the degree to which Europeans deliberately infected indigenous peoples with diseases such as smallpox. Cook asserts that there is no evidence that the Spanish attempted to infect the American natives.[|[14]] The cattle introduced by the Spanish polluted the water reserves which Native Americans dug in the fields to accumulate rain water. In response, the [|Franciscans] and [|Dominicans] created public fountains and aqueducts to guarantee access to [|drinking water].[|[2]] But when the Franciscans lost their privileges in 1572, many of these fountains were not guarded any more. Deliberate well poisoning may have happened.[|[2]] Although no proof of such poisoning has been found, some historians believe the decrease of the population correlates with the end of religious orders' control of the water.[|[2]]

[[|edit]] 1763 Smallpox outbreak at Fort Pitt
Main article: [|Siege of Fort Pitt] In one disputed incident, [|British] soldiers in North America were said to have discussed intentionally infecting native people as part of a war effort. During [|Pontiac's Rebellion] in 1763, a number of [|Native Americans] launched a widespread war against British soldiers and settlers to drive the British out of the [|Great Lakes region]. In what is now western [|Pennsylvania], Native Americans (primarily [|Delawares]) laid [|siege] to [|Fort Pitt] on [|June 22], [|1763]. Surrounded and isolated, [|William Trent], the commander of Fort Pitt gave representatives of the besieging Delawares two blankets and a handkerchief from the Pittsburgh smallpox hospital, "out of our regard to them", when the two Delaware men came to talk to him.[|[15]] Letters exist between two other British officers, [|Jeffrey Amherst] and [|Henry Bouquet], that explicitly advocate the idea of using smallpox-infested blankets to kill Indians.[|[15]] Historians disagree as to whether Trent acted with the intent expressed by Bouquet and Amherst. Whatever Trent's intent, a number of recent scholars consider doubtful the evidence connecting his gift of blankets to the smallpox outbreak. These scholars believe that the disease was most likely spread by native warriors returning from attacks on infected white settlements.[|[16]] In other words, while some officers expressed the desire to use biological warfare, smallpox was so widespread and so easy to catch that there were other opportunities for Native Americans to be infected. Others attribute the smallpox outbreak to the common Indian practice of digging up recent European graves to retrieve the clothes of those buried, some of whom had died from smallpox.

[[|edit]] Vaccination
After Edward Jenner's 1796 confirmation of the efficacy of [|smallpox vaccination], the inoculation technique became more well known. Smallpox became less deadly in the United States (and elsewhere). Many colonists and natives became vaccinated. Although in some cases officials tried to inoculate natives, the disease often was carried beyond containment attempts. At other times, trade demands broke quarantines. In other cases, some natives refused inoculation because of suspicion of European Americans. In 1831 government officials inoculated the [|Yankton Sioux] at Sioux Agency. The Santee Sioux refused inoculation and many died.[|[4]]

[[|edit]] War and violence
Main articles: [|Spanish conquest of the Americas], [|Indian Wars], [|Arauco War], and [|conquest of the Desert] While [|epidemic disease] was by far the leading cause of the population decline of the American indigenous peoples after 1492[//[|citation needed]//], there were other contributing factors, all of them related to European contact and colonization. One of these factors was [|warfare]. According to demographer Russell Thornton, although many lives were lost in wars over the centuries, and war sometimes contributed to the near extinction of certain tribes, warfare and death by other violent means was a comparatively minor cause of overall native population decline.[|[17]] There is some disagreement among scholars about how widespread warfare was in pre-Columbian America, but there is general agreement that war became deadlier after the arrival of the Europeans and their firearms. Europeans had [|gunpowder] and swords, which made killing easier and war more deadly. Europeans proved consistently successful in achieving domination in warfare with Native Americans for a variety of reasons. One reason was the staying power of the Europeans, who could call on a far ranging supply network, and could sustain a conflict over several years including the winters if necessary. Almost no Indian tribes had the stored resources to conduct a war for more than a few months. The massive death toll from disease played a major role in the European conquest, but equally decisive was the European approach to war, which was less ritualistic and more focused on achieving decisive victory. European colonization also contributed to a number of wars between Native Americans, who fought over which of them should have first access to the new weapon.[|[18]] Empires such as the [|Inca]'s depended on a highly centralized administration for the distribution of resources. Disruption caused by the war and the colonization hampered the traditional economy, and possibly led to shortages of food and materials.

[[|edit]] Exploitation
Main article: [|Indian slavery (European enslavement of Native Americans)] Exploitation has also been cited by a few[//[|citation needed]//] as a cause of native American depopulation. The Spanish employed the pre-Columbian draft system called the [|mita].[|[19]] The Spanish conquistadors replaced the ruling Aztecs and Incas and divided the conquered lands among themselves ruling as the new [|feudal] lords, treating their subjects as something between slaves and [|serfs]. Serfs stayed to work the land; slaves were exported to the mines, where large numbers of them died. Some Spaniards objected to this [|encomienda] system, notably [|Bartolomé de Las Casas], who insisted that the Indians were humans with souls and rights. Largely due to his efforts, the [|New Laws] were promulgated in Spain in 1542 to protect the natives, but the abuses in the Americas were never entirely or permanently abolished. The infamous [|Bandeirantes] from [|Sao Paulo], adventurers mostly of mixed Portuguese and native ancestry, penetrated steadily westward in their search for Indian [|slaves]. Serfdom existed as such in parts of Latin America well into the 19th century, past independence.[//[|citation needed]//]

[[|edit]] Massacres
Main article: [|Indian Massacres] [|Las Casas] and other dissenting Spaniards from the colonial period gave vivid descriptions of the atrocities inflicted upon the natives. This has helped to create an image of the Spanish conquistadores as cruel in the extreme. However, since Las Casas's writings were polemical (argumentative) works, intended to provoke moral outrage in order to facilitate reform, most scholars[//[|citation needed]//] speculate that his depictions were exaggerated. No mainstream scholar dismisses the idea that atrocities were widespread, but some now believe that mass killings were not a significant factor in overall native depopulation. It may be argued that the Spanish rulers in the Americas had economic reasons to be unhappy at the high mortality rate of the indigenous population, since nearly all of them wanted the natives as laborers to help support the Spanish economy. However, in many areas settlers and even governments did engage in what have been called "democides," usually against [|nomadic] Indian tribes who were seen solely as hindrances to land use by European settlers. (For further discussion of democide, see the following section.) Notable democides include: Determining how many people died in these massacres overall is difficult. In the book //The Wild Frontier: Atrocities during the American-Indian War from Jamestown Colony to Wounded Knee//, amateur historian William M. Osborn sought to tally every recorded [|atrocity] in the area that would eventually become the continental [|United States], from early contact (1511) to the closing of the frontier (1890), and determined that 9,156 people died from atrocities perpetrated by Native Americans, and 7,193 people died from atrocities perpetrated by Europeans or their descendants. Osborn defines an atrocity as the murder, torture, or mutilation of civilians, the wounded, and prisoners. Both numbers are far too low to account for the presumed large population loss. The most reliable figures are derived from collated records of strictly military engagements, such as the research by Gregory Michno which reveals 21,586 dead, wounded, and captured civilians and soldiers for the period of 1850–90 alone.[|[24]] Other figures are derived from extrapolations of rather cursory and unrelated government accounts such as that by Russell Thornton, who calculated that some 45,000 Indians and 19,000 white Americans were killed. This later rough estimate includes women and children on both sides, since [|noncombatants] were often killed by both sides in frontier [|massacres].[|[25]]
 * The [|Tainos] in the [|Antilles] (Some believe 80% of the population disappeared in thirty years).[|[2]]
 * The [|Pequot War] in early New England.
 * In the mid-19th century, post-independence leader [|Juan Manuel de Rosas] engaged in what he himself presented as a war of extermination (the "[|Conquest of the Desert]") against the natives of the Argentinian interior, leaving over 1,300 indigenous dead.[|[20]][|[21]]
 * While some [|California] tribes were settled on reservations, others were hunted down and massacred by 19th century American settlers. It is estimated that some 4,500 Native Californians suffered violent deaths between 1849 and 1870.[|[22]][|[23]]

[[|edit]] Displacement and disruption
Even more consequential than warfare or mistreatment on indigenous populations was the geographic displacement of native Indian tribes. The increased European population due to immigration and high birth rates of Native European settlers put pressure on native tribes to relocate and alter their traditional ways of life. The introduction of new forms of intensive agriculture by Europeans let them grow enough food in a given area to support many more people than the native hunting and gathering societies could. Displacement of native peoples living their traditional lifestyles often resulted in decreased birth rates and often higher death rates which steadily lowered their populations for some time. In the United States, for example, the relocations of Native Americans resulting from the policies of [|Indian removal] and the [|reservation] system created a disruption which resulted in fewer births and a short term population decline. The populations of many Native American peoples were reduced by the common practice of intermarrying with Europeans.[|[26]] Although many Indian cultures that once thrived are extinct today, their descendants exist today in some of the bloodlines of the current inhabitants of the Americas.

[[|edit]] Genocide debate
Further information: [|Genocide in the Americas] A controversial question relating to the population history of American indigenous peoples is whether or not the natives of the Americas were the victims of [|genocide]. After the [|Nazi]-perpetrated [|Holocaust] during [|World War II], genocide was defined (in part) as a crime "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such." Historian [|David Stannard] is of the opinion that the indigenous peoples of America (including [|Hawaii])[|[27]] were the victims of a "Euro-American genocidal war."[|[28]] While conceding that the majority of the indigenous peoples fell victim to the ravages of European disease, he estimates that almost 100 million died in what he calls the //American Holocaust//.[|[29]] Stannard's perspective has been joined by [|Kirkpatrick Sale], [|Ben Kiernan], [|Lenore A. Stiffarm], and [|Phil Lane, Jr.], among others; the perspective has been further refined by [|Ward Churchill], who has said "it was precisely malice, not nature, that did the deed."[|[28]] Stannard's claim of 100 million deaths has been challenged because he does not cite any demographic evidence to support this number, and because he makes no distinction between death from violence and death from disease. [|Noble David Cook], Latin Americanist and history professor at [|Florida International University], considers books such as Stannard's – a number of which were released around the year 1992 to coincide with the 500th anniversary of the Columbus voyage to America – to be an unproductive return to [|Black Legend]-type explanations for [|depopulation]. In response to Stannard's figure, [|political scientist] [|R. J. Rummel] has instead estimated that over the centuries of European colonization about 2 million to 15 million American indigenous people were the victims of what he calls //[|democide].// "Even if these figures are remotely true," writes Rummel, "then this still make this subjugation of the Americas one of the bloodier, centuries long, democides in world history."[|[30]] Some historians argue that genocide, a crime of intent, was not the intent of European colonization while in America. Historian [|Stafford Poole] wrote: "There are other terms to describe what happened in the Western Hemisphere, but genocide is not one of them. It is a good [|propaganda] term in an age where slogans and shouting have replaced reflection and learning, but to use it in this context is to cheapen both the word itself and the appalling experiences of the Jews and [|Armenians], to mention but two of the major victims of this century."[|[31]] However, a number of historians, though not viewing the history of European colonization as one continuous long act of genocide, do cite specific wars and campaigns which were arguably genocidal in intent and effect. Usually included among these are the [|Pequot War] (1637) and campaigns waged against tribes in [|California] starting in the 1850s.[|[32]]

__**Europe**-__ Chris Columbus and his plan to get gold--[] Columbus's initial 1492 voyage came at a critical time of growing national [|imperialism] and [|economic competition] between developing nation states seeking wealth from the establishment of [|trade routes] and [|colonies]. In this [|sociopolitical] climate, Columbus's far-fetched scheme won the attention of [|Isabella I of Castile]. Severely underestimating the [|circumference] of the [|Earth], he estimated that a westward route from [|Iberia] to [|the Indies] would be shorter than the overland [|trade route] through [|Arabia]. If true, this would allow Spain entry into the lucrative [|spice trade] — heretofore commanded by the [|Arabs] and [|Italians]. Following his plotted course, he instead landed within the [|Bahamas Archipelago] at a locale he named //San Salvador//. Mistaking the [|North-American] island for the [|East-Asian] mainland, he referred to its inhabitants as "Indios". One of the primary goals of the expedition was to locate and recover riches from the Orient. When Columbus landed on San Salvador, he immediately began to seek out the gems and metals which the king and queen expected him to bring back to Spain. What he found, though not in large quantities, were small pieces of golden jewelry which the native people wore. He repeatedly asked them where they found the gold and demanded that they take him to the places they mentioned. On each island he visited, Columbus made finding gold a priority.

[]

Exchange was result of expeditions from Europe to Americas in search of gold What did they discover? (land, people, new culture and ** food ** )-The Western World, Indians. What impact did the Europeans have on the Native Americans? What were the positives and what were the negatives?..


 * Activity:**

1. MAKING INFERENCES

Why were colonies considered so important to the nations of Europe? THINK ABOUT:

• the philosophy of mercantilism • the notion of a favorable balance of trade

Provide some of your reasons with several examples.

2. ANALYZING THEMES Economics- Do you think the economic changes in Europe during the era of American colonization qualify as a revolution? Why or why not? THINK ABOUT • the legacy of the new business and trade practices • how the economic changes affected European society as a whole

Explain Why, or Why Not, you believe the economic changes in Europe during the era of American colonization qualify as a revolution.