History Unlimited Bookshop: The Americas, European Conquest and Settlement

Bookshop — Americas

Bookshop Intro Prehistory Ancient World Rome & Byzantium Dark Age Britain Medieval & Crusades Wales England Ireland Scotland
British Empire Europe Americas 20th Century Religion & Myth Civilisation & Exploration Index Use Ctrl + Home to Return to Top

South of the Border

In 1494, two years after Christopher Columbus’s momentous landfall in the West Indies, Spain and Portugal signed the Treaty of Tordesillas, which divided the New World between them. Portugal pursued its colonial interests in Brazil, to the east of the dividing line. Spain began expansion westwards from the Caribbean Islands and Mesoamerica. The Treaty was at best an optimistic document, although endorsed by the papacy. Under the Tudors, Protestant Englishmen disregarded Iberian claims, questioning their legality on the basis of John Cabot’s 1497 arrival in either Novia Scotia or Newfoundland. France, too, asserted territorial claims, so that the northern regions of the continent fell under the sway of non-Iberian European powers. After the defeat of the Great Armada in 1588 Spain no longer had the sea power to defend a theoretical monopoly and Spanish imperial ambition was restricted to the south.

Of all the incursions into the New World the Spanish was perhaps the most brutal; but it was also the most honest. The conquistadors sought the precious metals that, for a century or so, made Spain the greatest power in Europe. In the words of Hernan Cortez to the Aztec ruler Montezuma: ‘I and my companions suffer from a disease of the heart that can be cured only with gold.’ They were accompanied by Dominican friars who were frequently more concerned with the capture of souls for the Kingdom to come than with the well-being of the bodies that housed them.

As Spanish invaders moved onto the mainland they found a sophisticated civilisation, based on a slave economy and human sacrifice to savage gods. Aztec Mexico fell to the Spaniards through superstition, through alliances forged between the tiny company of conquistadors and oppressed local tribes and, perhaps most importantly in the longer term, through the devastation caused by European diseases to which the peoples of the Americas had no natural resistance. The Spaniards also stumbled across the remnants of more ancient civilisations, reclaimed by the jungle, that fired the imagination and the drive to conquest with rumours of fabulously rich lost cities.

The Olmecs / Richard Diehl

The mother culture of Mesoamerica. The Olmecs remained an enigma for many years following the discovery of their impressive artefacts and colossal carvings. But archaeology has revealed data that presents a reasonably complete picture of this ancient society and its influence on the later civilisations of Mexico.

—————————————————————————————————————-

Lost City of the Incas / Hiram Bingham

Exploration, adventure and archaeology are mixed in this tale of the early 20th century discovery of the perfectly preserved ruins of Machu Picchu. Bingham struggled through uncharted territory in Peru in search of the legendary city of Vilcabamba. Instead he stumbled upon the capital of Manco Inca, the last Inca ruler.

—————————————————————————————————————-

The Conquest of Mexico / William H Prescott
The classic 19th Century account of Cortez’s invasion of the Aztec Empire, based in great part on the writings of Bernal Diaz and other contemporary sources. A rash adventure, motivated by greed, that succeeded against all probability.

—————————————————————————————————————-

Manifest Destiny

In the 16th Century European rivalries were carried across the Atlantic with Spain, France and England vying for position. Spain, extending its conquests in the south, was harassed by the English navy and English privateers through a series of declared and undeclared wars. French exploration in Canada created trading networks with local tribes. Here and there English settlements were attempted, but withered on the vine until the beginning of the 17th Century when the first permanent colony was established in Virginia, with tobacco as the spur. Religious schisms were a factor in the early settlement of the eastern seaboard between the tobacco growing colonies of the south and the forests of Canada in the north. But although history has totemised the 1620 voyage of the Mayflower as an escape from religious persecution in the home country, less than a quarter of the passengers were Puritans — the larger waves of settlement were to follow. And although the state and the established Anglican church discriminated against the Puritans as a dissenting sect, their unpopularity was equally due to their aggressive self-righteousness and their potential as disturbers of the peace. The New World gave licence to practise religious chauvinism; libertarian ideas of religious freedom were not on the agenda. The Salem Witch Trials came a mere 70 years after the Mayflower’s landfall and heralded a theme that was to run through American history.

British and later European migrations created an enclave of colonisation on the east coast. Friction with Native Americans escalated with the increase in alien populations, with the proselytising efforts of religious groups and with the decimation of tribal communities by European disease. The Europeans’ antipathy towards their immediate neighbours saw a step change with the French and Indian War (the Seven Years War) when France enlisted the support of the natives; colonial victory in the War of Independence marked an end to British restrictions on expansion to the west; the Louisiana and Florida purchases, and the Mexican War of 1846-1848, secured huge tracts of land in California, Texas and across the whole of the South West; and the Civil War completed the consolidation of a land-hungry monolith that regarded the whole continent as a God-given birthright.

For more than three hundred years the civilisation of the Old World challenged the ancient societies of North America: hunter gatherers, settled agriculturalists or the raiders on the margins that preyed indiscriminately on whoever was within reach. Where the white man was greeted with friendship the clash of cultures and the pressure of population movements meant that harmony was short lived. With the notable exceptions of a few sympathetic whites who were fascinated by Indian ways or who committed themselves to their welfare, the confrontation was characterised by cupidity, genocide, intrigue, institutionalised corruption and broken treaties: ‘The white man made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one; they promised to take our land, and they took it.’ (Red Cloud, Chief of the Oglala Teton Sioux).

The Earth Shall Weep / James Wilson
Sifts through written history, archaeology and oral tradition to arrive at a history of Native Americans down to the present day.

—————————————————————————————————————-

A History of the Indians of the United States / Angie Debo
Another comprehensive history, impressive in its scope but requiring attention on the part of the reader.

—————————————————————————————————————-

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee / Dee Brown
Powerful and influential, if somewhat romanticised, ‘Indian History of the American West’. A chronicle of genocide that inspired a revision of Hollywood’s perspective on Manifest Destiny and, incidentally, prompted comparisons with the Vietnam war. Little Big Man and Soldier Blue, both released in 1970, marked the step change and are available from our Film Store.

—————————————————————————————————————-

Commanches / T R Fehrenbach
Transformed from a people struggling for survival by their discovery of ‘their great engine of predatory conquest’, the archetypal horse Indians were masters of the Plains until their head-on collision with Western Civilisation.

—————————————————————————————————————-

The Westerners / Dee Brown
Slight and easily read essays on the fulfillment of ‘Manifest Destiny’.