US History Lecture 6 — Transcript

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1. 0:00Hello and welcome to today's lecture.
2. 0:03So, we left off last time discussing
3. 0:05Spanish colonization in North America.
4. 0:07We hadn't yet seen the arrival of other
5. 0:10European powers. Well, that's about to
6. 0:12change because in 1588,
7. 0:16Spain loses a major war in Europe. Now,
8. 0:19I won't give you all the background
9. 0:20details. You don't really need it for a
10. 0:22US history. This is just kind of to
11. 0:24signal the fact that 1588 is the end of
12. 0:27the Spanish and Portuguese monopoly over
13. 0:30the oceans. Up until up until this time,
14. 0:34you know, you had French and English
15. 0:36pirates occasionally stealing from
16. 0:38Spanish ships, but they could not
17. 0:40challenge Spain as a power to take over
18. 0:43colonies in North America. Well, that
19. 0:45changes after 1588.
20. 0:48So what we see happening is three other
21. 0:50European powers will make their presence
22. 0:52felt in North America particularly the
23. 0:55English, the French and the Dutch. Now
24. 0:59the Dutch are not going to play as big
25. 1:00of a role. I mean they do
26. 1:03create a settlement that will later
27. 1:05become one of the biggest cities in US
28. 1:07cuz what you know today as New York or
29. 1:09originally started out as New Amsterdam.
30. 1:13But they after a few years of presence
31. 1:15they will got kicked out by the English.
32. 1:17So mainly it's going to be the English
33. 1:19and the French as the new powers in
34. 1:21North America.
35. 1:23The places where they are going to go
36. 1:25for well geography dictates that the
37. 1:28most logical place would be the east
38. 1:29coast of North America and that's where
39. 1:33they will settle.
40. 1:35conditions in Europe at this time made
41. 1:38it so that
42. 1:41people were
43. 1:43quite interested in the idea of
44. 1:46relocating and starting over in the
45. 1:48Americas.
46. 1:49What had happened was that in the early
47. 1:521500s,
48. 1:54Martin Luther, which by the way, just to
49. 1:56clarify, Martin Luther, German guy from
50. 1:59the 1500s, Martin Luther King,
51. 2:01Africaname from the 1900s, not the same
52. 2:04person. And you have no idea how many
53. 2:05times I've seen people confused the two.
54. 2:08In any case, Martin Luther started the
55. 2:11Protestant Reformation, which basically,
56. 2:14you know, his criticism of the Catholic
57. 2:16Church over corruption became
58. 2:17progressively more radical until he
59. 2:20challenged the Catholic monopoly over
60. 2:24Christianity.
61. 2:26He received support by a lot of rulers
62. 2:30in Northern Europe who didn't like
63. 2:33having the pope meddling in their
64. 2:35affairs because without their support,
65. 2:37Martin Luther would have been burned at
66. 2:39the stake very quickly. But because he
67. 2:41had that political support, Europe
68. 2:44basically divide up in two opposing
69. 2:47camps. Catholics mostly in the south and
70. 2:51Protestants mostly in the north.
71. 2:54And this means that the 1500s, 1600s,
72. 2:57and to some degree even 1700s, they
73. 2:59become full of wars of religion in
74. 3:03Europe. Catholic and Protestants despite
75. 3:06sharing a whole lot of theology, they
76. 3:08share a lot of similar ideas, they will
77. 3:10murder each other for a long time in a
78. 3:14series of wars that will largely wreck
79. 3:17Europe. You know, things like the
80. 3:1930-year war, for example, in the 1600s
81. 3:22is 30 years of straight warfare that
82. 3:26will really badly affect European
83. 3:28society.
84. 3:30So, religious persecution become the
85. 3:33name of the game. You have if you're
86. 3:35Catholic in a Protestant country, you
87. 3:37can be persecuted. If you're Protestant
88. 3:39in a Catholic country, you can be
89. 3:41persecuted. And to add to spice it up
90. 3:44even if you're Protestant in a
91. 3:46Protestant country you could be
92. 3:47persecuted since the Protestant
93. 3:49movements were split among many
94. 3:52different groups who often didn't like
95. 3:54each other very much.
96. 3:57England will be one of those country
97. 4:00that switch abandon Catholicism and
98. 4:02become Protestant.
99. 4:04And uh however as because as I mentioned
100. 4:07not all Protestants were the same. There
101. 4:09were Protestants such as the Puritans
102. 4:11who considered the Anglican Church not
103. 4:15radical enough for their taste and
104. 4:17consider British society too sinful. So
105. 4:20they will be at odds with
106. 4:25their own society and they will be
107. 4:26looking for a way out and to get to the
108. 4:28Americas where they could be the
109. 4:30majority and starting their own thing.
110. 4:33In any case, long story short, we do see
111. 4:38a little bit of this uh a little bit of
112. 4:42this influence of the wars of religion,
113. 4:46even in the Americas, for that matter,
114. 4:47even before the British show up. There's
115. 4:50a very interesting story that in 1565,
116. 4:54long before you have British colonies
117. 4:56anywhere in North America,
118. 4:59in what's today Florida, there's a big
119. 5:02clash between the French and the
120. 5:04Spaniards at a place called the Fort
121. 5:06Caroline.
122. 5:08What happened there is that a group of
123. 5:11French Protestant
124. 5:13had uh established some friendly
125. 5:15relations with local tribes and that
126. 5:17created a colony where French
127. 5:19Protestants could immigrate and live
128. 5:21there.
129. 5:23The Spaniards didn't particularly
130. 5:25appreciate having the French take over
131. 5:28land close to their own possessions and
132. 5:32definitely didn't appreciate the fact
133. 5:33that these particularly French were
134. 5:35Protestants whereas the Spaniards were
135. 5:37Catholic. So in 16 in 1565 they attack
136. 5:42this French colony and basically wiped
137. 5:45it off the face of the earth killing a
138. 5:47whole bunch of people. land. So this is
139. 5:48an example of religious wars within
140. 5:52what's today United States before the
141. 5:55British even show up.
142. 5:58So that's interesting in itself. Now
143. 6:02let's look at the the way in which the
144. 6:05French and the English will establish
145. 6:07contact with native societies because
146. 6:09it's very different from one another.
147. 6:12The goal of French colonization will be
148. 6:15very different from the Spaniards and
149. 6:17the British.
150. 6:19The French don't show up to take land
151. 6:22and establish colonies. I mean they will
152. 6:24do it in minimal part but their main
153. 6:27goal will be to make money with the for
154. 6:30trade. Now what exactly was the for
155. 6:32trade? Well, in Europe, there was a lot
156. 6:34of demand for the force of animals,
157. 6:38except that there weren't enough
158. 6:39forbearing animals in Europe due to
159. 6:41environmental destruction. So, they will
160. 6:44look for these animals in North America
161. 6:46where they are very abandoned.
162. 6:49And through hunting them and taking the
163. 6:52force back to Europe, you could sell
164. 6:53them for a very handsome profit. So, the
165. 6:57French mainly come as traders.
166. 7:00They
167. 7:01primarily is young single men who show
168. 7:04up and they have to create friendly
169. 7:08contacts with native tribes since they
170. 7:10are the ones who know the land. They are
171. 7:13the ones who are the hunters. They are
172. 7:16so they want to establish this contact
173. 7:18and inevitably that means that their
174. 7:20relationships with native tribe will be
175. 7:22much friendlier than either the
176. 7:24Spaniards or the British.
177. 7:28In many cases,
178. 7:30the French will be willing to learn the
179. 7:32native languages since they need it to
180. 7:35establish good contacts with them. They
181. 7:37will live among natives. In many cases,
182. 7:39they will marry native women. And again,
183. 7:42unlike the mixing of Spaniards and the
184. 7:45natives, which was largely forced, the
185. 7:48mixing between French and natives is
186. 7:50done by choice. It's something that they
187. 7:53want as opposed to something that they
188. 7:55have to do. So the creation of the matei
189. 7:58war, it's kind of a French word for
190. 8:00mixed blood. It's basically the same as
191. 8:03mystiso in Spanish is something that
192. 8:06happened willingly between uh French
193. 8:09fathers and Indian mothers wanting to
194. 8:12marry and establish these connections
195. 8:14and so on. So
196. 8:18overall the for trade the interaction
197. 8:20between French and the natives is much
198. 8:23friendlier than the interaction between
199. 8:25just about any European group of
200. 8:27natives.
201. 8:29The world that is created by the French
202. 8:32and natives is
203. 8:35is a context in which their cultures get
204. 8:39mixed. there will be French influences,
205. 8:41there will be native influence, there
206. 8:43will be it's not built on domination,
207. 8:46it's built on trade and exchange.
208. 8:49So now having said that, that doesn't
209. 8:51mean that French native contacts were
210. 8:53always peaceful.
211. 8:55Of course, if the French are allied with
212. 8:57one tribe and that particular tribe is
213. 9:00rival with another tribe, well, the
214. 9:02French then will be bitter enemies of
215. 9:04this tribe number two. And so to these
216. 9:07guys, they are not going to be friends.
217. 9:10Also there are cases when uh there are a
218. 9:14few exceptions. For example, in
219. 9:16Louisiana, you know, whereas the bulk of
220. 9:18French for trade was happening in the
221. 9:20Great Lakes of what's today Canada and
222. 9:22northern United States,
223. 9:25there's also a little bit of French
224. 9:27presence in uh what's modern day
225. 9:30Louisiana.
226. 9:32Now, the French who came to Louisiana
227. 9:33did not come for the for trade because
228. 9:36there wasn't much there. They came to
229. 9:38Louisiana much in the same way the
230. 9:41British will come to take over land and
231. 9:43establish colonies.
232. 9:45In this case, because they did not need
233. 9:48native friendship, the French in
234. 9:51Louisiana, they will be following the
235. 9:54British blueprints, which is get into
236. 9:56fights with local tribes, try to wipe
237. 9:58them out, take over their land. So there
238. 10:01will be this genocidal war that the
239. 10:03French w um wage against the Nachez in
240. 10:07Louisiana in the 1700s and pretty much
241. 10:10wipe them out. But again, that's the
242. 10:12exception to the rule. Most French
243. 10:15native contacts were fairly friendly.