6.1 Towards Modernisation — Why this Theme Matters

In the previous section you read about feudalism, the Renaissance and the early encounters between Europeans and the peoples of Asia, Africa and the Americas. Two further developments transformed the modern world: the Industrial Revolution and a series of political revolutions that turned subjects into citizens, beginning with the American Revolution (1776–81) and the French Revolution (1789–94). Theme 6 tells the story of what European settlers did to the native peoples of America and Australia. The settlers' bourgeois mentality made them buy and sell everything, including land and water. But the natives, who appeared 'uncivilised' to European Americans, asked, "If you do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can one buy them?"

The natives did not feel any need to own land, fish or animals. They had no desire to commodify^? them; if things needed to be exchanged, they could simply be gifted. The natives and the Europeans clearly represented competing notions of civilisation. The former did not allow the European deluge to wipe out their cultures, although the US and Canadian governments of the mid-twentieth century wanted natives to 'join the mainstream' and the Australian authorities of the same period attempted to ignore their traditions.

6.2 European Imperialism — A New Wave of Colonies

The American empires of Spain and Portugal (described in Theme 8 of the textbook) did not expand much after the seventeenth century. From that time other countries — France, Holland and England — began to extend their trading activities and to establish colonies^? in America, Africa and Asia. Ireland was virtually a colony of England, since the landowners there were mostly English settlers.

From the eighteenth century, while the prospect of profit drove people to set up colonies, the nature of control varied. In South Asia, trading companies like the East India Company made themselves into political powers, defeated local rulers and annexed their territories. They retained the older administrative system, collected taxes from landowners, built railways for trade, opened mines and laid out plantations. In Africa, Europeans long traded only on the coast (except in South Africa); only in the late nineteenth century did they push into the interior, and then European powers reached an agreement to divide up Africa as colonies among themselves.

The word 'settler' is used for the Dutch in South Africa, the British in Ireland, New Zealand and Australia, and the Europeans in America. The official language in these colonies was English — except in Canada, where French is also an official language.

6.3 The First European Voyages — Columbus and the New World

The story begins in 1492. Sponsored by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, the Genoese sailor Christopher Columbus (c. 1451–1506) crossed the Atlantic in three small ships — the Santa María, the Pinta, and the Niña. Columbus believed that he had reached the Indies by sailing west; in fact he had landed on islands of the Caribbean. Because of his mistake the people he encountered were called 'Indians' for centuries afterwards. Columbus made three more voyages between 1493 and 1504, exploring the islands of Hispaniola (modern Haiti and Dominican Republic), Cuba, Jamaica, and the coasts of Central and South America.

In 1507 the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller published a map naming the new continent America after the Florentine traveller Amerigo Vespucci, who had argued that this was an entirely new landmass and not part of Asia. By 1519, the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan had begun the first voyage round the world.

6.4 The Spanish Conquest — Mexico, Peru, and the Encomienda

Within a generation of Columbus, Spanish soldier-adventurers known as conquistadors had toppled two of the largest indigenous states the Americas had ever seen.

6.5 North America — A Continent of Native Peoples

The continent of North America extends from the Arctic Circle to the Tropic of Cancer, from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean. West of the chain of the Rocky Mountains is the desert of Arizona and Nevada; further west are the Sierra Nevada mountains; to the east lie the Great Plains, the Great Lakes, the valleys of the Mississippi and the Ohio, and the Appalachian Mountains. Forty per cent of Canada is covered with forests. Oil, gas and mineral resources occur in many areas, which explains the many big industries in the USA and Canada.

Mining, industry and extensive agriculture have all been developed only in the last 200 years — by immigrants from Europe, Africa and China. But people had been living in North America for thousands of years before Europeans learnt of its existence.

The Native Peoples and their Way of Life

The earliest inhabitants of North America came from Asia over 30,000 years ago across a land-bridge at the Bering Straits; during the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago they moved further south. The oldest artefact found in America — an arrow-point — is 11,000 years old. The population began to grow about 5,000 years ago when the climate became more stable.

These peoples lived in bands, in villages along river valleys. They ate fish and meat, and cultivated vegetables and maize. They went on long journeys in search of meat, especially the bison, the wild buffalo of the grasslands (this became easier from the seventeenth century when the natives started riding horses bought from Spanish settlers). But they only killed as many animals as they needed for food.

They did not attempt extensive agriculture and, since they did not produce a surplus, they did not develop kingdoms and empires as in Central and South America. There were occasional quarrels between tribes over territory, but by and large control of land was not an issue. They were content with the food and shelter they got from the land without feeling any need to own it. An important feature of their tradition was making formal alliances and friendships, and exchanging gifts — goods were obtained not by buying them but as gifts.

Numerous languages were spoken in North America (none written down). They believed that time moved in cycles, and each tribe had accounts about its origins and earlier history that were passed on orally. They were skilled craftspeople and wove beautiful textiles. They could 'read' the land — climates, landscapes — the way literate people read written texts. Wampum belts, made of coloured shells sewn together, were exchanged by native tribes after a treaty was agreed to.

6.6 Encounters with Europeans — Trade, Furs, Beavers

In the seventeenth century the European traders who reached the north coast of North America after a difficult two-month voyage were relieved to find the native peoples friendly and welcoming. Unlike the Spanish in South America, who had been overcome by the abundance of gold, these adventurers came to trade in fish and furs, in which they got the willing help of the natives, who were expert hunters.

Further south, along the Mississippi river, the French found that natives held regular gatherings to exchange handicrafts unique to a tribe and food items not available in other regions. In exchange for local products the Europeans gave the natives blankets, iron vessels, guns (which were a useful supplement to bows and arrows for killing animals) and alcohol. This last item the natives had not known earlier; they became addicted to it, which suited the Europeans because it enabled them to dictate terms of trade. (The Europeans, in turn, picked up an addiction to tobacco from the natives.)

Mutual Perceptions — 'Noble Savage' or 'Wild Beasts'?

In the eighteenth century, western Europeans defined 'civilised' people in terms of literacy, an organised religion and urbanism. To them, the natives of America appeared 'uncivilised'. To some, like the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, such people were to be admired, as they were 'untouched by the corruptions of civilisation'. A popular term was 'the noble savage'. The English poet William Wordsworth, who had never met a native American, described them as living "amid wilds / Where fancy hath small liberty to grace / The affections, to exalt them or refine" — meaning that people living close to nature had only limited powers of imagination and emotion.

Another writer, Washington Irving, who had actually met native peoples, described them quite differently. He wrote that the Indians "are quite different from those described in poetry. Taciturn they are, it is true, when in company with white men, whose goodwill they distrust and whose language they do not understand. But the white man is equally taciturn under like circumstances. When the Indians are among themselves, they are great mimics, and entertain themselves excessively at the expense of the whites… The white men are prone to treat the poor Indians as little better than animals."

It is striking that Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the USA and a contemporary of Wordsworth, spoke of the natives in words that would today provoke a public outcry: "This unfortunate race which we have been taking so much pains to civilise… have justified extermination."

6.7 Settlers Begin to Cross the Atlantic — and the Forests Fall

Following the first Europeans, who were traders, came those who wanted to 'settle' in America. From the seventeenth century, groups of Europeans being persecuted for their religion (Protestants in Catholic countries, Catholics in Protestant ones) left Europe and crossed to America to begin new lives. As long as land seemed empty, this was not a problem. But gradually the Europeans pushed inland, near native villages, used iron tools to cut down forests and laid out farms.

Natives and Europeans saw different things when they looked at forests. Natives identified tracks invisible to the Europeans; Europeans imagined the forests cut down and replaced by cornfields. Jefferson's 'dream' was a country populated by Europeans with small farms. The natives, who grew crops only for their own needs, not for sale and profit, and thought it wrong to 'own' the land, could not understand this. In Jefferson's view, this made them 'uncivilised'.