When Christopher Columbus “discovered” North America, the continent had been the home of Indian peoples for thousands and maybe even tens of thousands of years. Although population estimates vary, by 1492 as many as 18 million people were living north of present-day Mexico. Still, what Columbus and the early European explorers who followed him saw was not a settled continent but a new world rich with resources to exploit. Among these resources were the Indians themselves. While some Europeans imagined the Indians’ primary worth as potential slave labor, others quickly recognized their enormous value as sources of information on how to survive in an unfamiliar land.
Inspired by Columbus’s voyages, England financed the explorations of John Cabot in 1497, while France sent Giovanni da Verrazano in 1524 and Jacques Cartier in 1534 to stake out claims in the so-called New World. But in the 16 th century, Spain launched the most extensive expeditions in North America. Conquistadores made inroads into the West Indies, Mesoamerica, and the American Southeast and Southwest. The brutality of these invaders was typified by Hernan Cortes’s conquest of the Aztec Empire. In 1521, with the help of the
Aztec’s Indian enemies, he and his men looted and destroyed the Aztec’s capital of Tenochtitlan, enslaved its people, and forced them to mine precious metals that would make their conquerors rich.
The lure of gold also led to the 1539 expedition headed by Hernando de Soto, whom the Spanish Crown granted the right to conquer and colonize lands north of Cuba. For two years, his 600 men terrorized Indians, pillaging their villages and taking captives to use as slaves, throughout what is now the southeastern United States. In 1541, during Francisco Vasquez de Coronado’s search for the fabled gold-filled Seven Cities of Cibola, Spaniards similarly abused the Indians of the Southwest and western Plains. To their relief, Coronado’s failure to find the riches he hoped for dissuaded other Spaniards from following in his path for nearly 40 years.
Reports of the conquistadores’ mistreatment of Indians sparked a debate among Spanish intellectuals on the Indians’ humanity. The consensus held that Indians were in fact human beings. This determination placed on the Spanish Crown a responsibility not only to rein in the conquistadores’ violent tendencies but also to save the souls of the heathen Indians they sought to conquer. Thus along with warfare and
1492 to 1606
Chaos the Spaniards brought the Indians they encountered Christianity. Although missionary priests often declared impressive numbers of converts, the Indians who were said to have embraced Christianity more likely did not understand foreign rituals such as baptism or went along with them only to placate the invaders, all the while continuing to observe their own religious traditions.
Much more welcome than Christianity were the goods non-Indians brought with them from Europe. Items manufactured from metal were particularly treasured. Aside from their novelty, these objects were much more durable than those Indians made themselves from clay or stone. In the Southwest, Indians also almost immediately integrated into their culture the strange, new animals introduced to them by the Spanish. Sheep and hogs were important new food sources, but most influential was the horse. The horse allowed a rider to travel long distances in a far shorter period than Indians previously could have imagined. The animal’s introduction would change the lives of Indians throughout the continent, but its greatest effect would be felt on the Great Plains. The horse would redefine Indian cultures in the region by turning settled farmers and gatherers into mounted hunters whose days were spent following the great buffalo herds.
Yet overwhelmingly the most important and tragic consequence of early contact was the spread of epidemic disease. Everyday European diseases such as smallpox, measles, and influenza had previously been unknown in the Americas; therefore, the native population had no natural immunities to them. When exposed to these germs for the first time, Indian villages were devastated as illness decimated their populations. In addition to the diseases themselves, survivors were often faced with famine as the epidemics disrupted their ability to replenish their food supplies. Among some Indian groups as many as 90 percent died within years of exposure to foreign germs.
The horrors of epidemic disease perhaps played the greatest role in determining the future of Indian peoples. Non-Indian germs spread to many Indian groups even before they first encountered whites. By the time of first contact, their populations and societies therefore had already suffered the impact of epidemics. Had Indians not been so weakened by disease, they perhaps would have been better able and more inclined to drive away non-Indian invaders by force. Instead, though initially low in numbers, non-Indians were able to use their biological advantage and their superior weaponry to compel Indians to accept their presence, whether welcome or not.
World History
