Colonial and Revolutionary America

Alan Gallay

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781315509952
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Early American History
• Index: History

Colonial and Revolutionary America takes a regional approach to understanding the peoples and colonies of early America. It places early America into an Atlantic and comparative context, with emphasis on the impact of trade, warfare, migration, and the vast cultural exchange that took place among American Indians, Africans, and Europeans. Political, social, economic, and cultural history are interwoven to provide a holistic picture that connects local developments to the larger historical forces that shaped the lives of all.

P A R T	1
The Impact of European Colonization on Early America

1

The Regions and Peoples of North America

Mexico to the Arctic

Mesoamerica

The Southwest

The Great Basin and the Great Plains

The Far West

The Far North

The Eastern Woodlands and the Mississippians

The Eastern Woodlands

The Mississippians: Maize Culture

The Mississippians: Hierarchy and Warfare

The Mississippians: Instability and Continuity

INTRODUCTION

Although it remains unclear when humans first reached the American continents, and some indigenous Americans posit that they have always lived in the Americas, most scholars believe that the forbearers of American Indians crossed the Bering Land Bridge from Siberia at least 11,000 years ago, and possibly much earlier. Estimates vary widely as to the number of people inhabiting North America before European contact. Mexico, one of the most densely populated areas of the continent, is believed to have had from 20 to 40 million people. Calculating population in the area north of Mexico is even more difficult, with estimates generally ranging from 5 to 15 million, with most recent scholars tending to a figure towards the high end of the spectrum. North America’s population in the late 15th century was approximately half to four-fifths of Europe’s, and about four-fifths of South and Central America combined.

Diversity characterized the peoples of North America. Hundreds of languages were spoken on the continent. Social systems varied from the highly organized, stratified, and literate societies of Mexico, to the relatively egalitarian decentralized bands of people of northern Canada. In places like Mexico and the American South, powerful groups forced their neighbors to pay tribute to them; in other, less densely populated regions, such as New England, neighboring peoples often shared natural resources in a noncompetitive way. Some North Americans built urban environments that remained continuously occupied for hundreds of years, relying upon agriculture augmented by hunting and gathering. Others followed the plenty of the seasons and moved from place to place, annually returning to rich hunting grounds or estuaries, and trading surplus to neighbors.

Abundance of natural resources has characterized and shaped North American life for thousands of years. Rich fertile lands created a plethora of wild foods, and supported both crops and animals, while massive forests provided excellent wood for housing and fuel in large areas across the continent. Indigenous peoples made excellent use of their environment, whether harvesting ocean resources in Alaska that could be exchanged for needed items from inland peoples or adapting to the relatively inhospitable conditions of the arid Southwest by building canals that brought water to villages and created farmlands. In many regions, American Indians consciously preserved the abundance: rotating crop fields so as not to overuse the land, moving from one hunting preserve to the next to prevent depletion of game, and burning portions of the forest, particularly underbrush, to attract game, restore the land, and create pathways to new areas. It is little wonder that the spiritual life of so many American Indians celebrated the sun, animals, and other features of the environment.

Whereas most Europeans shared a Judeo-Christian religious culture (though Islam was strong in Eastern Europe and paganism survived both within and without Christianity), American Indians possessed no comparable shared theology, nor unified view of human origins. Yet many American Indians possessed similar spiritual attributes: worship of the sun, belief in a variety of spirits that inhabited sacred places, sacredness of animals, and importance of performing religious rituals. Perhaps the most significant difference between the religious life of American Indians and Europeans lay in the holistic nature of the former. American Indians thoroughly integrated every aspect of life into their religious worldview. Success in warfare and hunting, the nature of social organization and polity, the past and the future, were all manifestations of the spiritual world. Europeans possessed a similar outlook in the Middle Ages—that all aspects of man’s activities were subject to God’s domain—but by the 16th century, Europeans were rapidly compartmentalizing life, separating the sacred from the profane, and drawing sharp distinctions between the material and ethereal. The point could be overstated, for early modern Christians also understood natural disasters, disease, and military victory or defeat as God-ordained. But Europeans increasingly turned to mathematics and science to explain the physical properties of the universe, and blamed the shortcomings of man for the failures of society; American Indians understood that all things possessed spiritual power, that the universe was governed by spirits, and that their own successes and failures were reflections of their spirituality and success and ability to fulfill ceremonial rites. The spirit of a slain deer, for instance, had to be thanked for its sacrifice to clothe and feed the hunter’s family. Deceased humans had to be properly buried to insure rest for their spirits—failure to do so could lead to a natural disaster. Many American Indians built temples and had priests and shamans who mediated the spiritual world for the minions, much as priests did in the Catholic Church. American Indians’ reverence for sacred places was akin to medieval Europeans’ endowment of the shrines of saints with special properties. Europeans valued relics and charms as possessing special properties of luck and protection, much as American Indians did. The intense spirituality of American Indians (as with Europeans and Africans) was not incompatible with a pragmatic and practical lifestyle. Hunters, farmers, and warriors all had to master their crafts to survive and flourish. Religion provided a system of beliefs, a world view, that made the world understandable, and helped shape peoples’ concepts of what was valuable.

MEXICO TO THE ARCTIC

The diversity of peoples in North America largely stemmed from the ecological diversity of the vast continent. In Mexico and Central America, rich agricultural and mineral resources led to huge populations, and subsequent highly organized and stratified societies, such as the Maya and Aztec. In northern Mexico and the American Southwest, shortages of water led to the construction of elaborate aqueduct systems and much less densely populated areas. On the other hand, to the west and north, the Pacific Coast from California to British Columbia provided an abundance of food in temperate climates to support denser populations with little agricultural production. Directly above the Southwest, in the Great Basin, harsh climates and reliance on the buffalo for food and clothing led to small mobile societies that moved with the seasons. Much further north, Arctic peoples adjusted to the seasonal wealth and scarcity of animal populations by creating long trade networks to help fulfill their material needs. In all these areas, we witness adaptation to climate and environment, particularly in technological innovations for housing, hunting, food gathering, transportation, and warfare. Those American Indians who lived in the most inhospitable climates tended to be the ones who had little to no contact with Europeans for the longest period of time, as in the Arctic and Great Basin—the Europeans would have to adopt Indian technologies or create new ones to inhabit these areas.

Mesoamerica

Located in Guatemala and southern Mexico, the Maya had great impact upon their neighbors to both the north and the south. The “Classic” Maya period extended from approximately the mid-3rd century A.D. to the 10th century, and included the subjection of many peoples, as well as the construction of numerous palaces, pyramids, and other buildings. The Maya displayed expert stone craftsmanship, sumptuous artistic displays and pageants, and greatly stressed their own history and sacred knowledge of texts. Renowned for their mathematical and astronomical knowledge, the Maya created a highly complex society that emphasized the importance of lineage, religion, trade, warfare, and alliance to the maintenance and expansion of their society.

The successor peoples to the Maya adapted and incorporated numerous aspects of Mayan civilization, from blood sacrifice to the sophisticated social organization of vast numbers of people. The decline of the Classic period saw the movement of the Maya and other peoples into and out of the region, and to new environments within Mesoamerica. One of the groups that rose to prominence were the Toltecs, who developed warrior cults, then, like the Maya, disbursed to different areas and extended their influence in a variety of ways, though many remained in central Mexico. Toltec power declined by the early 13th century as new peoples migrated to central Mexico. One of these groups was the Mixtecs, a society of highly developed decorative artists who worked in many media, including jade, gold, and crystal. As with many Mesoamerican peoples before them, the Mixtecs placed great importance upon their lineage and history, music, learning, and spirituality.

In the 13th century, another important group of people entered central Mexico, known as the Mexica, and later as the Aztecs. The Aztecs recorded in books detailed histories of their society and lineages, the purpose of which was to justify their right to rule and expound upon the meaning of their destiny. The Aztecs dominated much of Mexico from 1428 to 1521. At first they allied with other peoples in central Mexico, then they emerged as the dominant force, demanding tribute from their neighbors. Claiming ancestry from the Toltecs, the Aztecs emphasized their military prowess. They were less innovators of culture than appropriators, successfully adapting from their predecessors and neighbors to suit their needs. Marriage was the key institution for securing alliance with neighboring peoples, strengthening relations between families, and for the formation, maintenance, and extension of calpulli, the main social organization within Aztec society.

Service to God was expressed in many ways, including blood sacrifice. Long lines of victims, often warriors taken in battle, were marched up the pyramids to their ritualized deaths. At other times, blood sacrifice involved few victims, who met their deaths after sumptuous and elaborate ceremonies of food, music, and dance. If ritualized killings were a spectacle in 16th-century Europe, which were, to a large extent, meant to display the power of the state and the just rewards due to its victims, in Mexico the innocent victims had committed no crime, no insults to the state or priesthood. The so-honored victims died to appease deities—death was to maintain the living.

The killings were part of the sinews of America’s greatest city, Tenochtitlan—today’s Mexico City. Tenochtitlan floated on a large lake, its sections elaborately linked by causeways. Almost three times more populous than Seville, the largest city in Spain, it was indeed one of the most spectacular cities in the world. Tenochtitlan’s population of 200,000 inhabited a planned city whose beauty and cleanliness were unparalleled. Canals and footpaths, regularly maintained and swept clear of obstructions, linked this city of temples, gardens, and courtyards. A great aqueduct system brought in water, but the city’s needs grew so great that boatmen made water deliveries to houses. The elite lived in stone houses, while the common people inhabited mud dwellings. In the center city stood the great pyramids and other stately buildings, and the market that daily attracted 50,000 to 60,000 people. Most of the city’s food had to be brought in from outside. Maize was the staff of life, as through much of the Americas. Although the denizens of Tenochtitlan could not produce enough food to feed themselves, they obtained what they needed through trade and tribute. The city’s laborers engaged in a great variety of crafts, from weaving to sandal-making, and to more specialized crafts producing jewelry and other adornments.

The Southwest

To the north of the Aztecs and their tributary neighbors lay the Southwest culture area. It extended from the modern-day Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora north to the southern reaches of Utah and Colorado. Ecologically, this region is mostly desert with some mountain ranges, its inhabitants living from a combination of sedentary agriculture and hunting and gathering. Archaeologists recognize three distinct culture areas of the Southwest. Anasazi, mostly in northern Arizona and New Mexico; Mogollon, in central Arizona and central and southern New Mexico; and Hohokan, in southern Arizona and northern Mexico. Within each area, more than one ethnic group likely resided, but each area was distinguished by its architecture, ceramics, cosmology, and lifestyle.

Southwest peoples created special places to conduct religious ceremonies. In Anasazi and Mogollon, they built Great Kivas, which were large structures containing a multiplicity of subterranean rooms. Hohokan religious ceremonies took place at oval-shaped ball courts, which were replaced by platform mounds around 1150. The ball courts and platform mounds, it is believed, also served as places where ceremonies were conducted to facilitate exchanges between peoples. Throughout North America, American Indians established an array of ceremonies for diplomatic and trade purposes—this is one of the important links between the pre-European contact and post-European contact periods.

Throughout the Southwest, masonry pithouses were the basic housing structure, particularly from A.D. 900 to 1300, but other more substantial structures, particularly pueblos, were built containing hundreds of rooms. Settlement size varied greatly. Before A.D. 900, Anasazi settlements rarely were above 40 households and 200 people, but some reached 2,000 to 5,000 people by 1150. Estimates for Hohokan settlements range from a few hundred individuals to upwards of 7,000. The largest Mogollon pueblos had over 300 rooms, with deceased inhabitants buried underneath the floors, sometimes numbering over 1,000.

Except among the Hohokan, towns were sedentary but not permanent, as people moved to follow game and other available food supplies and then returned to their towns. The Hohokan built an extensive canal system, however, which enabled them to remain in one place year-round. These were the most labor-intensive structures constructed in the Southwest and more complex than the canals built in Mexico. The movement of water to and within the Southwest remains key to the maintenance of present-day life in the region.

The cosmology of Southwest peoples possessed many similarities, even if religious ceremonies varied from one area to the next. Some of the similarities were also shared with the peoples of Mexico. The most commonly shared belief held the existence of a multitiered universe. Other connections between the regions include the association of particular colors with geographic directions, creation theories, mythological stories of spider women and warrior twins, and the practice of the fire ceremony. One important difference with Mexico was the lack of blood sacrifice in the Southwest, though a few archaeologists believe it c...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• About the Author
• Preface
• Part 1 The Impact of European Colonization on Early America
• Part 2 Evolution and Adaptation of Early American Societies and Peoples, 1670–1730
• 3 Colonies, Empires, and Peoples in a Transfomative Age, 1730–1783
• Index