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Course: US history > Unit 1
Lesson 3: Old and new worlds collide- Motivation for European conquest of the New World
- Origins of European exploration in the Americas
- Christopher Columbus
- Consequences of Columbus's voyage on the Tainos and Europe
- Christopher Columbus and motivations for European conquest
- The Columbian Exchange
- The Columbian Exchange
- Environmental and health effects of European contact with the New World
- Lesson summary: The Columbian Exchange
- The impact of contact on the New World
- The Columbian Exchange, Spanish exploration, and conquest
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Consequences of Columbus's voyage on the Tainos and Europe
Christopher Columbus' voyage to the Caribbean in 1492 led to the discovery of the Tainos, an indigenous people known for their generosity and unique language. Despite initial peaceful interactions, Columbus' return voyages brought disease, forced labor, and violence, devastating the Tainos population. Meanwhile, Europe benefited greatly from the wealth brought back, sparking significant economic and societal changes.
Want to join the conversation?
- At8:46, they mention that 200 Tainos were left. What effect, if any, did the drastic decrease in the population have on the culture of the Tainos?(14 votes)
- It probably did. The Taino's religion was animism, focusing on the spirits of animals and creatures. Since they were enslaved and were treated harshly, they, no doubt, lost some hope when things became too rough. And as you may know, religion is a major component of what shapes a culture. If that becomes unsteady or goes down, the other pieces that make up a culture, such as traditions, may come crashing down with it also.(24 votes)
- Wasn't Columbus Italian, though? Why did he name land after Spanish people and saints, such as Saint Maria de Concepcion?(5 votes)
- Columbus was an Italian man, but he sailed for the Spanish Crown, which paid him for his "discoveries", not Italy.(24 votes)
- When columbus landed at the native american land how did they start talking and did they let columbus in the camp immediately(12 votes)
- I think that the natives used hand gestures to get their meaning across and/or there was a translator that the natives had that communicated with them.(3 votes)
- what motivated the Europeans to explore America(4 votes)
- Historians generally recognize three motives for European exploration and colonization in the New World: God, gold, and glory.(17 votes)
- At3:23he uses the Tianos lack of English to his ability to claim land?(11 votes)
- Why did the Spanish malnourish their slaves when they knew they were sick. Wouldn't it make sense to make sure their slaves were well enough to work, so feeding them to make them strong enough to recover from disease?(7 votes)
- I think but I am not positive but I believe it is because of the fact that they did not really think of the natives as equals or even people(5 votes)
- For8:06And not long after Columbus returned,8:08he put a quota for all people over the age of 148:17that they had to give him a certain amount of gold per month8:20or they would have their hands chopped off.
y would he decide the natives’ fate like that. Shouldn’t they be the ones chopping off the spanish’s hands if they didn’t listen?(5 votes)- Well, Columbus basically viewed all that land as land he had conquered for Spain. Therefore, as conqueror, he could do what he wanted with both it and its people.
The Spaniards were so much more technologically advanced than the natives that, as he said, opposition really wasn't a concerning issue.
It might have been cruel, but no one in that time would have considered it "illegal" (except possibly the natives).(7 votes)
- is it just me? or does one part of Spain look like a mermaid tail lol(8 votes)
- It's just you.(0 votes)
- why weren't the native a threat? Didn't they have spears and bow and arrows?(3 votes)
- The Spanish have superior weaponry ( like guns), and they have horses and dogs. The other reason why they were able to conquer so much of the Americas was that the Natives have no immunity to European diseases which killed them off, and left them ripe for conquest by the Spanish.(11 votes)
- is it possible that instead of proclaiming their possession of the land in Spanish they did it in Japanese or Chinese?(5 votes)
- Not very possible. Those who 'proclaimed' possession did it for legal purposes of the crown whose possession they were serving, so would have used the legal language of that crown. If it was in any language other than Spanish, it wouldn't have gone further than to have been done in Latin. Japanese or Chinese are just too far of a stretch.(5 votes)
Video transcript
- [Instructor] In the
last video we discussed Christopher Columbus'
attempt to find the funding to find a western route
around the world to China and the East, and how, although he didn't find that, in October of 1492, he
landed in the Caribbean where he met the indigenous
people living there, the Tainos. So who were the Tainos? So we know a little bit about them. They were one of the indigenous
peoples in the Caribbean. This is a woodcut that
depicts people in the region made a little bit later, so they may have looked
something like this. And they were adept at fishing. We know that they were
probably matrilineal, that is they traced their family lines through the women, not the men. We know that they were
very generous people. Columbus repeatedly describes how people would really give
you anything that you asked for We also know religiously
that they worshiped ancestor spirits called Zemis. And this is a statue of one of those ancestor spirits that we still have today. Another thing I think is
really cool about the Tainos is that we still use some of their words in everyday language that were borrowed by the Spanish and then came into English. So barbecue for example,
they called barbacoa. Hurricanes, they called huracan. Tobacco was one of their
words for the plant that will become so popular. Even the name of the island
itself, they called it Ayiti, which is still preserved
today in the nation of Haiti. So Columbus sailed around the Caribbean and then he made his way back to Europe. He left behind him 39 men whose ship had run aground
so they built a fort and when he arrived in Europe, he immediately wrote a letter
to the finance minister to Ferdinand and Isabella,
Louis de Saint Angel. So let's look a little bit
more closely at what he wrote. As I know you will be rejoiced
at the glorious success that our Lord has given me and my voyage, I write this to tell you how in 33 days I sailed to the Indies with the fleet that the
illustrious King and Queen, our Sovereigns, gave me, where I discovered a great many islands, inhabited by numberless people, and of all I have taken
possession for their Highnesses by proclamation and display of the Royal Standard without opposition. To the first island I gave
the name of San Salvador, in commemoration of his divine majesty. The second I named the island
of Santa Maria de Concepcion, the third, Fernandina,
the fourth, Isabella, the fifth, Juana, and I found it so extensive that I thought it might be the mainland, the province of Cathay. This is really interesting
because you can tell a lot about what Columbus is thinking here. First he says that he's taken
possession of these islands by proclamation and display
of the royal standard without opposition. And I love this image of Columbus, he's reading in Spanish the proclamation, I claim this land in the name of Spain, and he's not opposed because the Tainos have no idea what he's saying. We can also see his
religious motivations here as he names the first islands after San Salvador, the savior, Jesus, Santa Maria de Concepcion,
the Virgin Mary, and that he's trying to win some points with Ferdinand and Isabella
by naming islands after them. We can also see here that Columbus thinks that he's found China, he says. He thought it might be the mainland, the province of Cathay, and Cathay is an old word meaning China. So let's read on, he says, I began fortifications there which should be completed by this time, and I have left in it
men enough to hold it, with arms, artillery, and
provisions for more than a year, and a boat with a master seaman skilled in the arts
necessary to make others. I am so friendly with
the king of that country that he was proud to call me his brother and hold me as such, Even should he change his
mind and wish to quarrel, neither he nor his subjects
know what arms are, nor wear clothes, as I have said. They're the most timid people in the world so that only the men remaining there could destroy the whole region. So he's kind of saying that we're getting along with the natives, but if we don't, they're not a threat. And he finishes by saying, to speak, in conclusion,
only of what has been done during this hurried voyage, their Highnesses will
see that I can give them as much gold as they desire, if they will give me a little assistance, spices, cotton, as much
as their Highnesses may command to be shipped, and as many slaves as the choose
to send for, all heathens. So Columbus is finishing by saying, well this exploratory voyage has shown that we can get a lot out
of colonizing this area. We can get gold, spices, cottons, slaves, and so if you'll give
me a little assistance, that is, give me more resources
to continue my mission, Spain will get very wealthy
indeed from this new land. And that is exactly what
Ferdinand and Isabella do. So they send him on a
second voyage in 1493. And this time they send him
with 1200 men and 17 ships, and they bring with them livestock, horses, cattle, pigs,
and sugar cane plants so they can turn this into a plantation. So they really intend
to use this settlement as not only a place to
try out growing crops and also mining for gold, they also see it as kind
of a jumping off place that they can use for further
exploration in this area. Because the Portuguese were so dominant in this early phase of colonialism, the Spanish are nervous
that the Portuguese are going to try to make inroads into their new acquisitions in the west. So with the help of the pope, they negotiate what's called
the Treaty of Tordesillas, dividing the world between them. So east of this line here, this will be Portugal's area of the world. And west of this line will be Spain's. Remember that Portugal had
lots of interests in Africa which they thought were much
more valuable at this time. But it was later discovered
that part of South America fell on Portugal's side of the line, and you'll recognize that
as being today, Brazil, which became a Portuguese colony and even today speaks Portuguese. Now of course, they didn't
ask anybody else's permission to divide the world between them. They didn't ask the native
people of the Americas, they didn't ask anybody else in Europe, but it's important to understand that Spain thought of this area
as their sovereign territory and from this point forward, Spain will continue to send
what are called conquistadors, conquerors, to this region, Mexico and Florida, and South America, and from all of this they
will become very wealthy as a nation. So I just wanna finish by contrasting how Columbus' voyage affected the
native people of the Caribbean with how it affected Europe. So Columbus was not very
nice to the natives, in fact. He originally attempted to
enslave the native people, and send them back to Europe for sale to continue to underwrite his ventures. But they were susceptible
to European diseases and quickly died. So he had to take another tack and that was by forcing the native people to labor for the Spanish, particularly to mine gold. And not long after Columbus returned, he put a quota for all
people over the age of 14 that they had to give him a
certain amount of gold per month or they would have
their hands chopped off. And this is an engraving of what the Spanish were
imagined to have been like in the New World. You can say that they're
feeding children to dogs here. They were not quite as bad as this, but they were still pretty bad. Historians estimate that there were about one to three million Tainos
living in the Caribbean when the Spanish arrived. By 100 years later, there were 200 left. Not 200 thousand, 200. And mostly this was due to disease, and we'll talk more in the next video about why native people
seemed to be so susceptible to European diseases, but it was also due to
overwork and poor treatment. They were forced to mine when they should have been growing crops and many of them were
murdered by the Spanish for one reason or another. So for the people of the Caribbean, Columbus' arrival was
really a catastrophe. In Europe however, the New
World made Spain very rich. And the gold and silver being brought in from the New World to Spain may actually have increased prices in the one hundred years
following Columbus' voyage by 500 to 600% due to inflation thanks to gold from the New World. Some historians even think that the influx of all this new wealth led to the creation of
the modern banking system to deal with it and could even have been
the forbearer of capitalism. So Columbus' voyage really opened up a whole new world, not just to the people in the Americas, but also to the people in Europe. He started a process,
the Columbian exchange, and we'll talk more about
that in the next video.