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Unit 1: Native Americans When Columbus arrived he was looking for an easier way to arrive to India. When he landed in America, he believed that he was in Asia, so he called the people Indians. The English continued to use this name for some time until they began to call them redskills. But the proper name name today is native.
However, they were not actually native. They had come from Asia in previous centuries during the last Ice Age because Bering Strait was covered with ice so that it acted as a Land Bridge between the two continents.
According to scientifics there were three great migrations from Asia to America. The first one took place from 38,000 to 1800BC. They came from Northern Asia, concretely from Siberia, they crossed the bridge to Alaska and established in the east and south of America. The second migration occur from 10000 to 4000BC. People from southern Asia travelled by sea to America. But we can find some elements in common with New Zealand and Polynesia inhabitants so they must have had the same origin. Finally, the third migration took place between 8000 and 3000BC and they came from the north of Asia and settled on the north of America.
They might have occured because people needed food and clothing and so as to there were buffalo migrations to America, they decided to follow them.
America was organised in tribes which followed very different ways of life. The most important ones were Apache, Cheyenne, Shawnee, Cherokee and Shochone. Each one settle on a different area. Some of them were nomads, others lived in the same area all their life. Some were hunters, others farmers and some were peaceful whereas others were warlike. They spoke over 300 separate languages but they came from the same origin, so they could made themselves understood.
Some tribes disappeared when white people arrived because of the diseases they brought. Native people had an oral culture, when the oldest member of a tribe died the youngest wanted to speak English so the tribal language lost. They had things in common but there were also differences such as the kind of home. The most typical ones were wigwam, tepees, iglous and plankhouse and we can see if they were technologicaly advanced or not and if they were nomads by means of their homes.
The 5 most important tribes are:
Pueblo Pueblo lived in the southwest, basically in Arizona and New America. They were the best organised farming people and were organised in villages. They built their houses with adobe bricks on the side and tops of cliffs for safety.
They made clothings and blankets from cotton which grew in the surrounding deserts. For food, they grew crops of maize and beans. For footwear they wore boot-shaped leather mocassins to protect their feet from cactus and snakes.
They design an irrigation system and they collected underground water or water from the rain in big holes and took it to their fields.
Apache They were the neighbours of Pueblo people. They wandered the desert hunting deers and gathering wild plants, nuts and roots. They were fierce and warlike. When they didn't have enough food, they attacked Pueblo people and took their food. Apache homes were Wigwam. They needed a home that was easy to build and to abandon.
The fact that they were warriors did not influence their spiritual beliefs, they were connected with nature, they believed in the importance of listening to nature, to the rain, they were respectful with the water, the sun and the moon.
Iroquois The Iroquois lived in the northeast, near the forest in areas with lots of rivers, so they were very good making canoes. They were also very good farmers, they grew 12 different types of maize, beans and squash. They lived in longhouses which could be the home of up to 20 families. They were not nomads but they were warlike like the Apache.
Dakota The Dakota which means allies were known as Sioux (enemies) by the rest of native tribes. They lived in Tepee (teepee or tipi), so they were nomads. They followed the buffalo, when the buffalo moved, the Sioux moved, so they needed a home that was easy to build and to take somewhere else. They would take buffalo skins for teepees, for clothings, for boots...so that everything of the buffalo was used. They made jewellery from different animals parts. Parfleches were lightweight leather bags which was used to make easy transportation but it had to be resistant.
Haida The Haida lived in the northwest coast near Canada. They lived near the forest, they gathered nuts and berries from the forests and they ate a lot of salmon. Food was easily available for the Haida people so they had time for other activities. Haida people lived in Plankhouses, large houses built of wooden planks, and they organised some rituals. The most famous was the Potlatch which was a very popular ceremony on the Pacific coast. Potlatch means gift giving. During this ceremony the chief of a family would give presents away to show how wealthy he was. The person receiving the presents had to give back even more and if he cannot return the present, his family would be disgraced.
UNIT 2: EUROPEAN SETTLEMENTS IN NORTH AMERICA
The first european who reached America was the genovean Christopher Columbus. There are several legends about who arrived first, a chinese monk, an Irish monk but they are stones that have been told for ages.
tomato, potatoes and tobacco which native Americans smoke and europeans wanted to prove these new hobby. John Rolfe dicovered a milder way of smoking tobacco than the way of native americans.
Viginia tobacco was so popular that it became one of the most popular exportation to England. People from England continued migrating to the new continent and in 1619 a dutch boat arrived to Virginia with 20 Africans on board. They were sold as slaves to Virginia settlers
In the year 1620 a group of English Puritans arrived to America looking for religious freedom. During the 17 th^ century we have Puritans that are not happy in England, so went to Holland but they had no freedom and went to America.
Of all this puritans arriving in the New World the first ship was Mayflower. After it we will have many more ships. They established a colony in Massachussets called Plymouth. When this first pilgrims established Plymouth there were 100 puritans, six months later half the puritans had died.
When natives saw Puritans were dying, they gave help, they taught how to grew corns and gave food. In november 1601, Puritans organised a meal to give thanks to god for surviving and it was the origin of thanksgiving day but it was established as a national holiday in 1921 with president Rousseau in a document on which it was told that every fourth thursday of November was thanksgiving day
Apart from this English colonies in America, in 1626 the Dutch established a colony called New Amsterdam. Shortly afterwards, in 1664 New Amsterdam was took by the English and named New York
In 1630 a new group of Puritans established a new colony in Boston. One of the leader was John Winthrop who wrote a sermon full of biblical references where he told how the puritans created new communities that are rule by puritans ideology, and he told of creating a community in “a city upon a hill” and it has been repeated for centuries.
The idea was that this community would be an example to others, it would be the perfect community that must be imitated by the rest of communities.
In older puritans settlements in Northamerica religion and policy was united. Roger Williams was a puritan minister in a settlement called Salem and he expressed his idea that religion and policy should be separated. Many politics were disagreed with him so they tried to arrest him but he managed to escape. And many puritans of Massachussets created a new colony called Rhode Island and then North and South Caroline
There were a gentlement called William Penn who in 1681 established a colony called Pennsylvania and he created “the Society of Friends”, most commonly known as “Quakers”.
The Quakers are pacifists, they never tale part in any war and thay didn't swear. They were more friendly than the puritans so other countries migrates to their settlements because they knew that they would be accepted. In 1733, the English established the last colony in North America, Georgia
The 13 original colonies on the coast can be divided in different groups depending on their characteristics. The people living in the new England area were mainly farmers and artisans, they depended on the sea and on trading with England and the Indies.
The colony south New England, New York and Pennsylvania were also small farmers and artisans and merchants. People in the middler colonies were more tolerants. (dutch, German and Swedish)
In southern colonists, we have big plantations of tobacco and cotton, most of the work in the plantation was made by Idack slaves. Slavery in nothern and middle colonies were rare and unusual. The territory that separated the English colonies with the French was called the frontier and it would change during the 18th^ and 19th^ centuries.
