Chapter 2

Question 0

The Columbus Exchange

Answer 0

After 1492, peoples from Europe, Africa, and North and South America became intertwined in elaborate webs of trade, colonization, religion, and war. These interchanges constantly challenged customary ways of thinking and acting. They also led to far- reaching environmental changes, as not only people but also plants, animals, and germs crossed the Atlantic in both directions

Question 1

October 12, 1492

Answer 1

Columbus landed ashore the island he named, San Salvador

Columbus’s meeting with the Tainos marked the first step in the formation of an Atlantic world

Question 2

What major changes were reshaping the African and European worlds in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries?

Answer 2

Western Europe’s transformation was thoroughgoing. Its population nearly doubled, wealth and power changed hands, and new modes of thought and spirituality challenged established systems.
Social, political, and religious upheaval accompanied an explosion of creativity and innovation

Question 3

Savannah

Answer 3

Rich grasslands where West African civilizations prospered

Before the beginning of Atlantic travel, the only link between sub Saharan Africa and the Mediterranean was a broad belt of grassland, or savannah,which separated the desert from the forests to the south.

Question 4

Gold

Answer 4

It became the standard for all European currencies, and demand for the precious metal soared. Thousands of newcomers flooded into the region later known as the Gold Coast, and new states emerged to claim their share of the gold trade

Question 5

Kongo

Answer 5

Near the Congo River in West Africa, it was the most powerful kingdom

Question 6

West African leaders

Answer 6

They wielded different amounts and kinds of political power.

Grassland emperors claimed semigodlike status, whereas rulers of smaller kingdoms depended on their ability to persuade, to conform to custom, and sometimes to redistribute wealth justly among their people.

Question 7

West African culture

Answer 7

Kinship groups knit societies together, and those who shared clan ties formed networks of mutual obligation.

Children were an essential part of the labor force, contributing to a family’s wealth by increasing its food production and the amount of land it cultivated. Men of means frequently married more than one wife in order to produce more children

Both men and women farmed

West African religions emphasized the importance of continuous revelations; consequently, there was no fixed dogma or hierarchy like those that characterized both Islam and Christianity. African religion also emphasized ancestor worship, venerating ancestors as spiritual guardians

West Africans used their ivory, cast iron, and wood sculptures in ceremonies reenacting creation myths and honoring spirits. Oral reciters transmitted these stories in dramatic public presentations with ritual masks, dance, and music

Question 8

Renaissance

Answer 8

“Rebirth” of classical Greek and Roman culture that swept Europe from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century

Intellectuals and poets believed that their age marked a return to the ideals of the ancient Greeks and Romans

The writings of Muslim, Eastern Orthodox, and Jewish scholars provided ancient texts in philosophy, science, medicine, geography, and other subjects. Scholars strove to reconcile Christian faith and ancient philosophy, to explore the mysteries of nature, to map the world, and to explain the motions of the heavens. Renaissance painters and sculptors created works based on close observations of nature and attention to perspective

Question 9

Land enclosure

Answer 9

English practice of fencing off what had been common grazing land; left many peasants impoverished

Question 10

joint- stock company

Answer 10

Forerunner of modern corporation; way to raise large sums of money by selling shares in an enterprise

Question 11

Protestant Reformation

Answer 11

Split of reformers from Roman Catholic church; triggered by Martin Luther in 1517

The papacy wielded great spiritual power. Fifteenth-and sixteenth-century popes claimed the authority to dispense extra blessings, or “indulgences,” to repentant sinners in return for “good works,” such as donating money to the church. Indulgences also promised time off from future punishment in purgatory. Given people’s anxieties over sin, indulgences were enormously popular. However, the sale of indulgences provoked charges of materialism and corruption.

In 1517 Martin Luther, a German friar, attacked the practice. When the papacy tried to silence him, Luther broadened his criticism to include the Mass, priests, and the pope. His revolt sparked the Protestant Reformation,which changed Christianity forever.

Question 12

John Calvin

Answer 12

Early Protestant theologian who believed in “predestination” - in which an omnipotent God “predestined” most sinful humans to hell, saving only a few to exemplify his grace.

Question 13

The Reformation also split Europe geographically

Answer 13

Many northern and western European areas, including England, most of the German states, the Netherlands, and parts of France, became predominantly Protestant

Most southern European states—Portugal, Spain, and Italy—and most of France remained Roman Catholic.

Question 14

The Reformation of England 1533-1625

Answer 14

England’s Reformation began when King Henry VIII tried to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

England saw the rise of Puritanism

Question 15

Puritans

Answer 15

English followers of Calvin, dissenters from established Church of England

A militant Calvinist minority, they demanded wholesale “purification” of the Church of England from “popish abuses.”

As Calvinists, they affirmed salvation by predestination, denied Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, and believed that a learned sermon was the heart of true worship. They wished to free each congregation from outside interference and encouraged lay members to participate in parish affairs

Question 16

What was the Atlantic world, and how did it emerge?

Answer 16

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, monarchs and merchants organized imperial ventures to Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Europeans proclaimed that their mission was to introduce Christianity and “civilizations” to the “savages” and “pagans” in alien lands—and to increase their own fortunes and power. Both the transatlantic slave trade and the colonization of the Americas grew out of this new imperialism, and the cascading exchanges that resulted created a new Atlantic world.

Question 17

Prince Henry “the Navigator”

Answer 17

Member of Portuguese royal family who encouraged exploration of Africa and searched for routes to Asia

Question 18

New Slavery

Answer 18

Harsh form of slavery based on racism; arose as a result of Portuguese slave trade with Africa

Became a demographic catastrophe for West Africa and its peoples. Before the Atlantic slave trade ended in the nineteenth century, nearly 12 million Africans would be shipped across the sea

Plantations produced sugar for European markets. Enslaved Africans became property rather than persons of low status, consigned to endless, exhausting, mindless labor. By 1600 the “new slavery” had become a brutal link in an expanding commerce that ultimately would encompass all major Western nations

Question 19

Columbus reaching America

Answer 19

Religious fervor led Columbus to dream of carrying Christianity around the globe, but he also hungered for wealth and glory.

Columbus’s three small ships made landfall within a month off the North American coast at a small island that he named San Salvador.

Word of Columbus’s discovery created the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) which was an agreement in which Portugal and Spain divided between them all future discoveries in the non-Christian world

Question 20

John Cabot

Answer 20

Italian explorer who established English claims to the New World

England’s Henry VII (ruled 1485–1509) ignored the Treaty of Tordesillas and sent John Cabotwestward across the northern Atlantic in 1497

Cabot claimed Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and the Grand Banks fisheries for England, but he vanished at sea on a second voyage. Eighty years would pass before England capitalized on Cabot’s voyage

Question 21

Ferdinand Magellan

Answer 21

In 1519 the Portuguese mariner began a voyage around the world

One of his five ships and fifteen emaciated sailors returned to Spain in 1522, the first people to have sailed around the world

Question 22

Columbus the Conquistador

Answer 22

Columbus was America’s first slave trader and the first Spanish conquistador, or conqueror. On Hispaniola he enslaved native people and created encomiendas, grants for both land and the labor of the Indians who lived on it. He also ignited the New World’s first gold rush

Question 23

The Indians during this time

Answer 23

Indians were forced to hunt for gold and to supply the Spanish with food.

As disease, overwork, and malnutrition killed thousands of Indians, Portuguese slave traders supplied shiploads of Africans to replace them.

Native Americans lacked resistance to European and African infections, especially the deadly, highly communicable smallpox.

Question 24

Hernán Cortés

Answer 24

Spanish conqueror of Aztec empire

In 1519 Hernán Cortésled a small band of Spaniards to the Mexican coast. Destroying his boats and enlisting Indian allies, he marched inland to conquer Mexico

Upon reaching the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán the Spanish were stunned by its size and wealth. The Spanish raided the imperial palace and treasury, melting down all the gold they could find. But the Aztecs regrouped and recaptured the city. Then an epidemic of smallpox, which the Aztecs and other Indians were ill equipped to resist, plus reinforcements from Cuba, enabled Cortés to defeat the Aztecs.

By 1521 the Spanish had begun to build Mexico City on the ruins of Tenochtitlán. Within twenty years, Central America lay at the Spaniards’ feet. Thus was New Spain born.

Question 25

Columbian Exchange

Answer 25

Exchange of people, plants, animals, and disease within the Atlantic world as a result of European voyages

Question 26

How did European exploration, conquest, and colonization of North America begin?

Answer 26

Except for a Spanish fort at St. Augustine, Florida, all sixteenth century attempts at colonizing North America failed. Only the ravaging of the Indians by disease, declining Spanish power, and rising French, Dutch, and English power finally made colonization possible

In 1607–1608 the English and French established permanent colonies. By 1614 the Dutch had followed. Within a generation, North America’s modern history took shape as each colony developed an economic orientation and its own approach to Native Americans

Question 27

Spain’s Northern Frontier

Answer 27

The Spanish built their New World empire by subduing the Aztecs, Inca, and other Indian states.

Earliest came Juan Ponce de León, the conqueror of Puerto Rico

For decades after failures, Spain’s principal interest in the lands north of Mexico lay in establishing a few strategic bases in Florida to keep out intruders.

In 1565 Spain planted the first successful European settlement on mainland North America, the fortress of St. Augustine.

In 1598 Juan de Oñate led five hundred Spaniards into the upper Rio Grande Valley, where he proclaimed the royal colony of New Mexico

When Acoma Indians refused his demands for provisions in December 1598, Oñate ordered massive retaliation. In January, Spanish troops captured the pueblo, killing more than eight hundred inhabitants. Oñate then forced surviving men to have one foot cut off and sent them, along with women and children, to become servants

In 1606 the Spanish replaced Oñate because of his excessive brutality. By 1630 Franciscan missionaries had established more than fifty pueblo missions stretching along the Rio Grande and had converted about 20,000 Indians to Christianity

Question 28

England and the Atlantic World, 1558-1603

Answer 28

England had two objectives in the Western Hemisphere in the 1570s.
The first was to find a northwest passage to Asia, preferably one lined with gold.
The second, as Sir Francis Drake said, was to “singe the king of Spain’s beard” by raiding Spanish fleets and cities.
The search for a northwest passage proved fruitless, but the English did stage spectacularly successful and profitable privateering raids against the Spanish. The most breathtaking enterprise of the era was Drake’s voyage around the world in 1577–1580 in quest of sites for colonies

Roanoke - Site of the first English attempt at New World colonization by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1587; it was a failure

England’s victory over the Spanish Armada in 1588 preserved English independence and confirmed its status as a major Atlantic power.

Question 29

Failure and Success in Virginia, 1603-1625

Answer 29

Two events opened the way for English colonization: peace with Spain and the emergence of the joint-stock company

In the peace between England and Spain, concluded in 1604 by Elizabeth’s successor, James I (ruled 1603–1625), the Spanish not only agreed to peace but also renounced their claims to Virginia, leaving England a free hand.
At the same time, the development of joint-stock companies, which could amass money through sales of stock, created a way for potential colonizers to raise large sums of money with limited risk for the individual investor

Virginia Company of Plymouth-Received charter to establish colonies from Chesapeake Bay northward

Virginia Company of London - Received charter to establish colonies from Chesapeake Bay southward; founded Jamestown

Jamestown - First successful English colony, established in 1607

John Smith - Soldier of fortune who “saved” Jamestown by establishing order and maintaining good relations with Indians

An influx of new recruits and the imposition of military rule, however, enabled Virginia to win the First Anglo- Powhatan War (1610–1614) and, by 1611, to expand west to modern Richmond

John Rolfe - Englishman who brought tobacco to Jamestown, thus ensuring its economic survival. He also married Pocahontas

In 1619 the Virginia Company ended military rule and provided for an elected assembly, the House of Burgesses - First elected representative legislature in New World, in Virginia; first met in 1619

Question 30

New England Begins, 1614–1625

Answer 30

After Virginia, the next permanent English settlements appeared in New England.

Along the coast, a terrible epidemic in 1616–1618 had devastated the Indian population by about 90 percent.

In 1620 the Virginia Company of London granted a patent for a settlement to a group of English merchants, who dispatched eighteen families (102 people) in a small ship, the Mayflower. The colonists promised to send back lumber, furs, and fish for seven years, after which they would own the tract.

In November 1620 the Mayflower landed at Plymouth,outside the bounds of Virginia. Because they had no legal right to be there, the leaders insisted that adult males in the group sign the Mayflower Compactbefore they landed. By this document they constituted themselves a “civil body politic”—a civil government—under James I’s sovereignty and established Plymouth Plantation.

Plymouth - Colony established by Pilgrims in Massachusetts

Mayflower Compact - Agreement signed by Pilgrims to govern themselves

Plymouth’s relations with the Indians soon worsened. Learning of the Virginia massacre of 1622, the Pilgrims militarized their colony and threatened their Indian “allies” with their monopoly of firepower. Within a decade, Plymouth had attracted several hundred colonists and had become economically self-sufficient.

Plymouth colony had three lasting influences.

1. It constituted an outpost of Puritans dissenting from the Church of England
2. Proved that a self-governing society could exist in New England
3. Foreshadowed the aggressive methods that would give Europeans mastery over the Indians

Question 31

A “New Netherland” on the Hudson, 1609–1625

Answer 31

In 1609 Henry Hudson sailed up the broad, deep river that today bears his name, and in the next year Dutch ships sailed up the Hudson to trade with Indians.
In 1614 they began their New Netherland colony by establishing Fort Nassau at the site of modern Albany, New York, and in 1625 planted another fort on an island at the mouth of the Hudson.
Within two years, Peter Minuit, director-general of the colony, bought the island from local Indians, named it Manhattan, and began a settlement christened New Amsterdam.
Furs, particularly beaver pelts, became the New Netherlanders’ chief economic staple. The Mohawks, as well as the other nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, became the Dutch colonists’ chief suppliers of furs and soon found themselves embroiled in competition with the French-supported Hurons.

Question 32

New Amsterdam

Answer 32

Dutch colony that would become New York

Question 33

What major changes were reshaping the African and European worlds in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries?

Answer 33

The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were times of tumultuous change in both West Africa and Europe. In the West African savannah, powerful kingdoms such as Mali gave way to more fragmented political structures. In Europe, the Renaissance, the Reformation, a population boom, and the emergence of the market economy created new tensions as well as new opportunities. In England, the Reformation led to the rise of Puritanism, which found itself in a tense relationship with the monarchy

Question 34

What was the Atlantic world, and how did it emerge?

Answer 34

The Atlantic world began to open as Portuguese explorers traveled along the African coast; one sad result of this was the brutal “new slavery,” based primar-ily on race. Spanish explorers such as Columbus, Balboa, and Magellan opened the way for the creation of an empire that would encompass both the Aztecs and the Inca in the Americas. Plants, animals, drugs, and diseases crossed the Atlantic in both directions in the “Columbian exchange.”

Question 35

How did European exploration, conquest, and colonization of North America begin?

Answer 35

The Spanish explored large parts of North America, conquered the Pueblo Indians of the Southwest, and incorporated them into their empire. Although France attempted to plant agricultural colonies, its primary success lay in establishing the fur trade with the Indians of the interior. After failure at Roanoke, Englishmen successfully planted colonies at Jamestown in Virginia and at Plymouth in Massachusetts. The Dutch established New Amsterdam.