PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Old World Discovers the New World
Although we imagine a handful of Native Americans and Europeans cozying up to a Thanksgiving feast
it only bridges some of their differences
-in actuality, cultural overlap was minimal
Native Americans and their European counterparts
representatives of immensely different cultures
Just a Fantasy
labeling of Native Americans as one group and Europeans as another group suggests harmony within the separate cultures
Considered the beginning of America
country of diverse populations with strong views and a willingness to live or die for them
New World versus Old World
conflict between the indigenous people of the New World and the explorers and settlers of the Old World sprang due to...
-lack of information
-from misinformation
-stubborn tendency of the great nations of Europe to see the world through their own lenses
-included imagined, exaggerated rights of ownership
-designation of a new and an old world reveals a European bias
-New World was not new, and in comparison, the Old World was not old. The New World was only new to Europe
Anthropologists suggest
Native America populations significantly predated the settlement of Western Europe by Indo-European speakers
Europeans arrived in America
native populations numbered in the millions and belonged to hundreds of tribes
-individual traditions
-economies
-languages
-accomplishments
Mayans
have been likened to the ancient Greeks in their accomplishments
Pueblo Indian tribes had developed the skill of crop irrigation
Aztecs
easily conquered by Hernán Cortés, were fierce warriors with an unfriendly tradition of human sacrifice
classify all such people as the same culture would have been as misguided as to think of all Europeans as a single people
principle colonizing European nations
Spain, France, and England
-saw themselves as quite distinct
-separate languages, cultures, and goals
willingness to form alliances with each other mirrored the Native Americans' reluctance
did so, only as it suited the purposes of their separate nations
despite the individuality of different tribes...
-commonality of tradition among Native American people
-contrasted sharply with European culture
Native Americans were polytheistic
gods that individual tribes worshipped varied from tribe to tribe and reflected their concerns
Europeans worshipped a patriarchal, Judeo-Christian god
Native American legends thought of earth as mother and envisioned civilization as emerging from her womb
Coalescing with this belief, they celebrated fertility and harmony with the natural world
European theology
-suggested that God had granted man dominion over the creatures of the earth
-European man thought in terms of taming and ownership
UPCOMING...
- Read Christopher Columbus all Letters
- Bartolome de Las Casas
all Writings
- Alvar Nun͂ez Cabeza de Vaca
all writings
- First Encounters: Early European Accounts of Native America
- Complete question(s) before class
References
Lauter, P. (Ed.). (2006). The Heath anthology of American literature (5th ed., Vol. A): Colonial Period to 1800. Boston, MA: Houghton.
Weinstein, A., Rubel, D. (2002). The story of America: Freedom and crisis from settlement to superpower. New York, NY: DK Publishing,Inc.