Be present Eric Foner Historian and Public Intellectual If you would know history know the historian first The Foner Preface Focus American History and Freedom Central Theme the changing contours of American Freedom ID: 501066
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Slide1Slide2
Please switch off or put to sleep all of your electronic mobile devices.
Be present.Slide3
Eric Foner – Historian and Public Intellectual
If you would know history, know the historian first.Slide4
The Foner Preface
Focus
: American History and Freedom
Central Theme
: the changing contours of American Freedom.
History
: What the present chooses to remember about the past. Slide5
Foner’s
Central Thesis/Point
Freedom is not a fixed, timeless category with a single unchanging definition.
…the history of the U.S. is, in part, a story of debates, disagreements, and struggles over freedom.Slide6
Foner’s Questions
or, the Three Dimensions of Freedom
What have been the various meanings of freedom embraced by Americans?
What were and are the social conditions that make freedom possible?
What were and are the boundaries of freedom that determine who is entitled to enjoy freedom and who is not?Slide7
Other U.S History Surveys
On the Right:
Paul Johnson
, A History of the American People
(1999)
On the Left:
Howard Zinn
, A People’s History of the United StatesSlide8
Question are Good.
Always.Slide9
Geography is Destiny:
Welcome to the WorldSlide10
US Geography Basics
The U.S. is the third
largest country in the world
.
It is half
the size of Russia
.
It is one third the
size of Africa
.
…and half
the size of South America
.
It is 2
½ times the size of
Western Europe
.Slide11
Major Regions of
the
U.S.Slide12
Topography of the USSlide13
The Contour of the USSlide14
Native Americans
When we think of Native American peoples in North America, what instantly comes to mind?Slide15
Chapter 1: Give Me Liberty
Slavery and Imperial RivalriesSlide16
Perspective Matters
in History Slide17
Eurasia
Beringia
AmericaSlide18
Origins of the Native PeoplesSlide19
Location of Various Indian Tribes
in North AmericaSlide20
Why?
Historians know almost nothing about the Native Peoples
.Slide21
There are Artifacts and PaintingsSlide22
Artifacts = EvidenceSlide23
John White, 1585-86 – “Indians Fishing”
Powhatan IndiansSlide24
In place of facts, Americans often created myths about what America was like before Columbus.
Myth #1 : When Europeans came to America, it was wild and untamed – a ‘virgin’ country. There were no cities, roads, or trade in the Americas.
Myth #2: No one owned anything in the Americas: it was there to be taken, no charge.
Myth 3: The “Indians” were savages.
Myth 4: The “Indians” were innocent children, free of sin.
“Noble
Savages
.” Children require guardians….
Myth 5: The “Indians”
lacked civilization, religion, the arts. (that is, they were savages or primitives)Slide25
Facts About Native Americans in the U.S: 2010
4.5 million
As of July 1, 2013, the estimated
population of American
. They make up 1.5 percent of the total population.
689,120
The American in
California
as of July 1, 2013, the highest total of any state. California is followed by Oklahoma (393,500) and Arizona (335,381).
146,500
The number of American in Los Angeles County, Calif., as of July 1, 2013. Los Angeles led all of the nation’s counties in the number of people of this racial category.
25.3%
The 2013 poverty rate of people who reported they were American Indians.. Slide26
The Achievements of the Native Peoples
Mesa Verde, Colorado
The Pequot in Massachusetts
A Mayan Complex in Southern MexicoSlide27
Sustainability as
an AchievementSlide28
The Europeans and Indians shared a common humanity – lest we forget.
Similarities
Religion
Agriculture
Importance of Trade
One god rules all
Patriarchy
Differences
Private Property
Trade
Material possessions
God is a jealous God: intolerance
Missionary workSlide29
Differing Definitions of Liberty
European definitions of liberty
Native Americans’ definitions of libertySlide30Slide31
Part Two: Chapter 1 – Imperial Rivalries
The Age of European Expansion: 1440-1800Slide32
Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
32
The World Known to Europe, 1492Slide33
Columbus and 1492
Colonial America – the so-called “New World” settled by European in the Western hemisphere – mirrored the conflicts, cultures, and aims of European nations. It had to.
Starting in the 1440s with Portugal, and then Spain, France, and the Dutch, Europeans imported key institutions of European culture.
Like what?Slide34
Why did Europe finally expand beyond its borders after 1492?Slide35
Why European Expansion in 1492?
Greed
God
GlorySlide36
Is Wanting More Bad?
Is Greed is Good
Greed
or the
desire
for more – more resources, more food, more fuel, more luxuries – fueled European expansion.
The resources in question were spices, silks, and porcelains, all luxury goods that gave a large return.
But there was a
distribution
problem
.
What was it?Slide37
Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
37
Map 1.4: Trade Routes with the East Slide38
Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
38
Principle Voyages of DiscoverySlide39
What They Came With:
(Conceptual Capital)
Capitalism
= commercial expansion = Columbian exchange
Science and technology – materialism – nature as object
Religious conflicts
: Protestants v. Catholics; Protestants v. Protestants.
The notion of
private property
; that land can be owned.
Christianity
(the soul, redemption, an afterlife, missionizing, sin, etc.)
Eurocentrism
: the idea of European superiority in culture, politics, religion.Slide40
Strategies for Getting the Goods
Each nation had its own strategy for tapping into the distant spice and silk trade in the Far East.
Portugal
: run around Africa and land at India, then sail on to Spice Islands. Set up military and trading posts and make alliances with the native population. Don’t mess with them.
Spain
: reach the Spice islands by crossing the Atlantic (see Columbus); one problem = the New World; hence, settlement. Moving in and taking over.
France
: aim for luxury goods and gold by crossing the Atlantic to the Northern part of North America and struggle with Spain for strategic colonies. No settlement needed: trading posts. Alliances with Indians essential.
The Netherlands
: ditto the French. The goal: the creation of a
commercial empire
based on the pelts, fur, and skin of animals. Good relations with the Native Peoples is essential. Slide41
First Contact
Theodor de
Bry
, 1594
Columbus Meeting
NativesSlide42
Columbus: 1492-1506Slide43
Cortez, Pizarro, and the Conquest of the Aztecs and Incas. 1519-
1540Slide44
Spanish Colonization / Imperialism
The Years of Spanish Colonization in the New World: 1492 to 1763
Spain offers a case study of key themes that apply to all of the European colonizing powers.
Suchthemes
as:
Relations with the Native Peoples
Global trade
Imperial Rivalries (Grand Armada, Drake, loss of slave trade, loss of Florida, Philippines, Cuba, etc.)
Religion and Its Spread as a Justification for ColonizationSlide45
The Columbian Exchange –
The spread of animals, plants, and disease from the old world to the new.Slide46
“The cultural
modification
of
an individual, group, or people by adapting to or borrowing traits from another culture; also : a merging of cultures as a result of prolonged
contact.”
The Colombian Exchange:
ACCULTURATIONSlide47
Spanish Colonization / Imperialism
The Years of Spanish Colonization in the New World: 1492 to 1763
Spain offers a case study of key themes that apply to all of the European colonizing powers. Such as:
Relations with the native peoples
Political control of the colonies (command and control)
Labor, Resources, and exploiting both.Slide48
Governing the Spanish Empire
in the New World
Cathedral in Mexico CitySlide49
The Spanish Empire: about 1550Slide50
The
Encomienda
, or
Exploiting the Cheap Native Labor
Spaniards settled the New World in part to exploit the cheap native laborers by using them in Spanish mines and on Spanish haciendas or large landed estates.
Under the
Encomienda
– a work arrangement the Spanish imposed on the native peoples – several things happened:
The natives were considered attached or a part of a Spanish settlers land grant. More land = more laborers.
In return for this labor, the Spanish settler was expected to feed, clothe, and Christianize his workers. To
hispanicize
them.
The
Encomienda
didn’t work well.Slide51
Consequences:
Las
Casas
and the Destruction of the IndiesSlide52
A Quotation from Las
Casas
“"The reason the Christians [Spanish] have murdered on such a vast scale and killed anyone and everyone in their way is purely and simply greed. . . .
Their insatiable greed and overweening ambition know no bounds….
The Spaniards have shown not the slightest consideration for these people, treating them (and I speak from first-hand experience, having been there from the outset) not as brute animals - indeed, I would to God they had done and had shown them the consideration they afford their animals - so much as piles of dung in the middle of the road. They have had as little concern for their souls as for their bodies...”Slide53
Colonization and Empire Building were too profitable to be left to Spain
The French – 1608
The Dutch – 1609
The English -- 1607Slide54
French and Dutch Empires in the New WorldSlide55
Jean de
Brebeuf
, French Jesuit
Samuel Champlain, 1608 and the Company of New France
Imperial Rivalries: France v. Spain in the New World.
France and the Jesuits – a Catholic Missionary Order.
Jean de
Brebeuf
(1593-1649) and the
Hurons
in 1625. “
Echon
” – Healing Tree.
Brébeuf’s
martyrdom at 55.Slide56
The DutchSlide57
New Amsterdam (aka Manhattan)Slide58
Trade Fueled the Rise of New Netherland
Pieter
Schaghen
, a Dutch representative of the Dutch West India Company, wrote this document, date Nov. 5, 1626, to the shareholders of the Company.
The
Schaghenbrief
was the foundation of the Dutch Commercial Empire in the New World.
7, 246 beaver skins, 178 ½ otter skins, 48 mink skins, 36 lynx skins, 33 minks, 34 muskrat skins and oak timbers and
nutwood
.
In the letter, he noted the Company had “purchased the island of
Manhattes
” – for 60 guilders.Slide59
Key Points for Chapter 1
The Native Peoples probably came to the New World as early as 60,000 years ago using
Beringia
, the land bridge connecting Eurasia and North America.
Most of these peoples in North America were hunters and gatherers with extensive trade networks.
The coming together of Native Peoples and Europeans led to the Columbian Exchange, to commercial globalization, to the decimation of 90% of the native population in the New World.
Each European nation -- seeking god, glory, and profit – exported to the New World not simply themselves and their technology, but their religions and cultures and prejudices.Slide60