Chp 1 What was the impact on the Indians, Europeans and Africans when each of their previously separate worlds collided with each other?  How were they all changed?
Clemmer  
 

The collision of the enterprising European civilization with the Africans and Indians caused a cultural rift which changed each sect forever. Europe, in the midst of great expansion throughout the world, had become the innovative leader of the world.

Leading nations, such as Spain, Portugal, and England now had crowns ambitiously seeking out wealth anywhere and everywhere. Technological advancements in sailing made long range voyages possible, opening up the door to new lands around the globe. Using the technology and the aspiration for wealth resulted in the discovery of new wealth in the New World and Africa.

            Prior to 1450, Africa was isolated from Europe due to the difficulty in finding routes around the continent of Africa. Overcoming these obstacles opened up the wealth’s of Africa to Europe. Beginning with the Portuguese, trading posts were set up throughout the continent for the trade of gold and people. Although they adopted the trade of slaves from the Arabs and fellow Africans, the mass transit of slaves and the esoteric and everlasting affect on the African civilization would shape the destiny of Europe and the New World. The Portuguese’s command over the routes around Africa forced Spanish explorers west out of sheer necessity. By not allowing the Spanish into the African domain, the slave trade prospered with the exploration of the New World. Spanish Conquistadores, setting out for god, glory, and most importantly gold, discovered land rich with raw materials worth an unimaginable fortune.

            Columbus’ arrival in 1492 was the beginning of the end for the native Indian culture in the New World. Though the introduction of new foods and horses was beneficial, but the diseases from Europe, not to mention the failure to be able to protect them from attack spelled doom for the Indians. Europeans didn’t want to assimilate in any shape or form with the Indians; they were either roadblocks or pawns in the journey toward prosperity. Cortez’s defeat of the Aztecs and Pizzaro’s victory over the Incas were symbolic of the behavior of Conquistadores. The unrelenting desire to preserve one’s wealth rather than another’s life is the attitude that provoked behavior resulting in the deaths of countless Indians and their ways of life. A hundred years after the arrival of Columbus, over ninety percent of the natives were gone.

            The harsh reality brought upon the African and Indian civilizations by the European juggernaut created a New World. Though each culture clashed with each, they were all instrumental in creating a sound economy. Europeans brought the capital, markets, and technology, and the Africans supplied the labor for cultivating the Native’s rich land. Europeans single handedly extinguished the culture of separate African tribes by grouping them together. A similar circumstance occurred with the Indians, as they were forced of their lands into a way of life they had never experienced before. Each of the three set on a new way of living in one way or another.

 
Fodor  
 
The Europeans, motivated by their want for wealth and power, entered into the Indian and African worlds.  They brought with them much pain and suffering for these two peoples.  Although they did hurt these peoples, they also introduce new ways of living to the cultures of the African and of the Americans.   
The process of slave trading was established in Africa long before Europeans came into this land.  Once the Europeans discovered the Americas, the English wanted the crops that could be grown there. This increased the need for slaves causing Africans to be torn away from their previous cultures and to lose their tribal identities.  One positive aspect of the European encounters with the Africans was the introduction of new types of food that would become very important in the lives of the African tribes. 
        The Indians in the Americas were relatively isolated from all outside peoples, causing their lives to be drastically changed.  In 1492, when Columbus accidentally discovered this new population, diseases were introduced to the Indians.  These diseases were previously foreign to the Indians, causing them to lack valuable antibodies to protect them.  These viruses, along with enslavement and armed hostility, caused around ninety percent of the Indian population to die in the century after Columbus's arrival.  Slaved Indians would attempt to gain revenge for the millions of Indians that died by putting blood with diseases in it into the bread of their masters.  This practice led to the introduction of syphilis to European society.  The Spanish conquistadors that came to South America longed to obtain some of the vast wealth of the Indian societies located there, one of which was the Aztec society.  The combination of foreign illnesses and the superior weapons of the Spanish caused many more Indians to be killed. 
        In the late 1500's and the early 1600's, other Spanish conquistadors moved north, attacking many of the Indian pueblos located throughout Mexico. In New Mexico and in California, many missions were built to attempt to Christianize the Indians living there.  Although the Spanish did harm the Indians in many ways, they also helped them.  They brought crops, animals, a language, laws, customs, and a religion that were all incorporated into the Mexican culture. 
        The European's encounters with Indians allowed them to be introduced to new types of foods, which were brought back to their homelands and became very important in European lives. 
        When the worlds of the Africans, Indians, and Europeans collided, the Europeans were not the only ones that truly prospered.  Even though the Indians lost most of their populations and the Africans were taken from their homelands as slaves, the two cultures did gain some benefits.  They were introduced to foods and other parts of the European cultures.  These pieces of the European culture were incorporated into the cultures of the Africans and Indians.  The Europeans obtained wealth from the land, power, and new foods that became incorporated into their own cultures.  Best of al, the Europeans obtained parts of the Americas.
Ortiz  
 

When Columbus came across the Americas, four continents were changed forever. The Indians of North and South America lost most of their population; Europeans got a source of raw materials, new foods and people to convert; and African slave trade sharply rose.

            The Native Americans lost ninety-percent of their population when they came in contact with the Spanish. Most of the losses were caused by diseases like smallpox, yellow fever and malaria. The Spanish didn’t do this on purpose when they first came, an unfortunate serendipity of sorts, as it did provide for less of a struggle when they conquered the area. Indians also died fighting for or against the Spanish invasion and resisting Catholicism. Native Americans were treated badly, but Spaniards married them and incorporated some of the indigenous culture into their own. The two groups also created a new race of people, the mestizos, which bridged the gap between Latin America’s Indian and European races.  

            Before the Americas were discovered, the demand for African slaves mainly came from the Portuguese, whom had set up colonies with plantations along Africa’s eastern coast. Although forty thousand were taken from their homes in the last half of the fifteenth century, this was nothing compared to the scale in which they would be kidnapped after the Americas were found. European pioneers discovered that the West Indies had the perfect climate for growing sugar and the perfect laborers were Africans. Millions were forced to migrate and work the cane fields and sugar mills of the New World. The abundance of food that came from the Americas stimulated an African population boom and, in an indifferent way, counteracted the losses inflicted by slave trade.

            Europeans benefited the most from the discovery of these new continents. They got a source of raw materials and additional food. There was plenty of soil and materials for any person to live off of in the New World. There were also foods and plants that were new to the Europeans such as maize, potatoes, beans, tomatoes and tobacco. They also became rich from owning sugar plantations during the “sugar revolution” when sugar was in very high demand. Their labor came from conquered and enslaved Indians, and from reluctant Africans. The forced migration was resented and many slaves attempted escape, but most failed. Indians were forced to convert to Catholicism by the Spaniards. Those that resisted were brutally tortured and died a slow and painful death. Their methods were even considered extreme at a time when people were still “drawn and quartered.” Although some things were atrocious, Spaniards and the indigenous people did create a new race and the conquistadores have attained a kind of immortality through their lasting legacy. This was the first mass integration of races to form a new one.

            Each party gained something, and each lost something else. The Native Americans got the language they celebrate today, the Africans got a population boom due to the foodstuffs from the Americas, and Europeans got more land to conquer and explore.

 
Ponder  
   
Proto  
 

The arrival of the Europeans to the new world and the Europeans in Africa cast both positive and negative affects.  The cultures of these three extremely different cultures collided and formed much of what exists today.  There were both positive and negative aspects of the migrating populations.

            The new world of the sub-Saharan Africa was opened up to the Europeans.  The voyage to sub-Saharan Africa was nearly impossible before the Portuguese found a way to creep down the West African coast in the middle of the fifteenth century.  The Portuguese set up trading posts along the shore of Africa to purchase gold as well as slaves.  The Arab slave traders and Africans themselves traded slaves for centuries before the Europeans arrived.  Prices rose and the escape rate of slaves went down dramatically.  Slave traders separated people from the same tribes and mixed the unlike people together to upset the organized resistance.  The Portuguese set of their own slave trade system.  They created a system so that slaves could be shipped to Portugal to work the sugar plantations.  The plantation economy that was created during this time shaped the destiny of the new world.  The Portuguese still pushed father south to search for a water route to Asia.  Bartholomeu Dias rounded the southernmost top of Africa in 1488.  A decade later Vasco de Gama reached India and returned home with a cargo of spices and precious gems.  Meanwhile, Spain was being united.  This took place in the fifteenth century.  This came to be from the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.  Exploiting their sudden strength, the Spanish were eager to strip the Portuguese of the wealth of the Indies.  To the east and south, Portugal controlled the African coast and also controlled the gateway to the African water route to India.  Because of this, Spain looked west.

The year 1942 changed the world.  The Europeans and Native Americans alike would be forever changed because of this one simple year.  The arrival of the Europeans changed how both the Native Americans and the Europeans themselves lived.  The settlers from Europe brought many new things with them.  Apples, plums and peaches were among the many fruits and vegetables that accompanied the Europeans on their endeavor.  This advanced the Native American culture agriculturally.  However, the Europeans brought much more than produce to the new world.  Livestock was also transported to the new world.  Cattle, swine and horses accompanied the Europeans in their quest for a better life.  Horses revolutionized life in the new world and the tribes of the Apaches, Sioux and Blackfoot.  Small pox, yellow fever and malaria joined the Europeans on their adventure to the new frontier.  Although these strains of bacteria were nearly harmless to the Europeans, they killed off the Native Americans in gigantic numbers.  Since they lacked the necessary antibodies to fight off such viruses, the Indians perished quickly after the Europeans arrived.  In an ironic sort of retaliation, the sexually transmitted disease of syphilis infected many Europeans.  In the century after Columbus made his epic arrival, about 90 percent of the Native American disease and forms of violence destroyed population.

 
Schepman  
 

Early America: A Cultural Melting Pot

America is composed of myriad cultures, religions, and creeds.  The French writer, Hector St. John de Crevecoeur addressed these issues in his essay entitled What is an American?  Crevecoeur used the extended metaphor of the melting pot to convey the idea that Americans are so thoroughly mixed together; one is unable to discern between the ingredients of which the American culture is composed.  Three of these cultures that primarily helped to shape American culture as it is known today were the Indians, Europeans, and African-Americans, and how they interacted with each other.  These cultures fused together and helped to form one true American culture. 

The Indians were the indigenous peoples of America.  They dictated their own culture, traditions, and essential way of life.  Their existence as a people was uninterrupted until Christopher Columbus and his men crossed the Atlantic and discovered America in 1492.  The Natives were quite unaccustomed to seeing people from different countries.  When the Europeans settled in North America, the Indians’ lives were changed forever.  The Native American culture was drastically changed upon the European’s arrival.  The Natives and Europeans interacted and formed a new bond.   The Indians helped the Europeans endure the long winter by teaching them how to grow crops; most notably corn.  This enabled the Europeans to survive the long winters, and helped them to be established as a people. 

The English Europeans initially came to The New World in search of a new land where they were free from religious persecution.  They desired to purify the Church of England, and to absolve it from any Catholic qualities.  As a larger amount of Europeans began to immigrate to the New World, they brought with them a colonial philosophy.  The Europeans believed that they had the right to claim the land they occupied for the King.  These cultural ideals translated into their treatment of the Native peoples.  Europeans thus sought to claim North American land for themselves, although it did not necessarily belong to them.  Thus, the European culture began to dominate the Indian culture, and the Indians thus began to assimilate to the European ways.  This assimilation sparked the beginning of cultural dominance among Europeans in America.

The African slaves were taken against their will to places around the world, particularly North America.  They were thrust into a world which they did not know; an exotic place filled with domineering “white men.”  Africans were sold from their families, beaten, and often starved in a very harsh new world.  The Africans, too, assimilated to the forced European lifestyle, essentially to survive.  Many of the Africans adopted the language, religion, and slave lifestyle, and thus lost many aspects of their strong African roots. Thus, the Africans became one more stitch in the multi-colored American fabric. 

The age of cultural “collision” caused an entirely new culture to be born.  The dominant Europeans brought their colonial ideals with them, from Europe, which caused their expansion, and dominance over the Indians.  They then brought Africans and used them as slaves to help them cultivate and harvest their lands.  America truly was becoming a Melting Pot, just as Crevecoeur suggests.